Rules in purely Native Cases.

• 18. In cases between Maori and Maori there is still more room for departure from our English system. For here, in the first instance at least, our object is to get some law established and obeyed— the substance of law rather than any particular form of it. Here we should bear in mind that the old usages and ways of thinking of a people cannot be changed all at once, and that the laws of England, venerable, and useful as they are, are not part of the laws of nature. The fitness of a law depends largely on time and place and many circumstances. At different stages of our own history, our laws have varied greatly. The English Commissioners on Criminal Law say justly (7 Report, p. 92), "Penalties, being a positive institution, vary exceedingly indifferent nations, and even in the same country at different times, according to a great variety of circumstances and opinions. According to the Mosaic, and also according to the Roman law, the crime of theft was punishable by compelling a pecuniary compensation to the party injured; by the ancient law of England the crime of theft, where the thing stolen was above the value of 12d., was punished with death. At the present day the maximum of punishment is transportation for seven years." Even since the date of that report another important change has taken place.

  There is no reason then why the usage which has grown up in Maori districts of punishing theft and other criminal acts with a fine (over and above compensation, in cases where restitution is not possible) should not for the present be retained. The power of imprisonment should be reserved in aid of that usage, and not used instead of it.

  It ought to be remembered that our English system has been throughout its growth singularly indulgent and tolerant towards special and local customs. The progress towards uniformity of law and procedure has been very slow, and in England itself at this day there is nothing like a complete uniformity. If we are to determine what is English by reference to the history and practice of England, it may safely be said that nothing is less English than an attempt to force one system upon all persons at once, without regard to their different circumstances and degrees of preparation for it. By the Acts passed in 1848 for regulating the local affairs of Native districts, and for the administration of justice in Native districts, the Legislature of the colony has fully sanctioned the principle of modifying our own rules and usages so as to suit the peculiar circumstances of the Native people.