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The Governor: “If the Native chiefs do not know the contents of this treaty it is no fault of mine. I wish them fully to understand it. I have done all that I could do to make them understand the same, and I really don’t know how I shall be enabled to get them to do so. They have heard the treaty read by Mr. Williams.”
Mr. Colenso: “True, your Excellency; but the Natives are quite children in their ideas. It is no easy matter, I well know, to get them to understand—fully to comprehend a document of this kind; still, I think they ought to know somewhat of it to constitute its legality. I speak under correction, your Excellency. I have spoken to some chiefs concerning it, who had no idea whatever as to the purport of the treaty.”
Mr. Busby here said, “The best answer that could be given to that observation would be found in the speech made yesterday by the very chief about to sign, Hoani Heke, who said, ‘The Native mind could not comprehend these things: they must trust to the advice of their missionaries.’”
Mr. Colenso: “Yes; and that is the very thing to which I was going to allude. The missionaries should do so; but at the same time the missionaries should explain the thing in all its bearings to the Natives, so that it should be their own very act and deed. Then, in case of a reaction taking place, the Natives could not turn round on the missionary and say, ‘You advised me to sign that paper, but never told me what were the contents thereof.’”
The Governor: “I am in hopes that no such reaction will take place. I think that the people under your care will be peaceable enough: I’m sure you will endeavour to make them so. And as to those that are without, why we must endeavour to do the best we can with them.”
Mr. Colenso: “I thank your Excellency for the patient hearing you have given me. What I had to say arose from a conscientious feeling on the subject. Having said what I have I consider that I have discharged my duty.”
