The Larkin Case.

[Letter to the Editor ] A FRIEND lent me a recent number of your paper, and I read it with in terest, having been born in Fiji, where I lived, for a number of years, in vari ous parts. I congratulate you on pro ducing a paper which supplies news from all parts of the Pacific and which is presented in very readable form.

My main object, however, in writing this letter is to disagree with your criti cism of the sentence and remarks of Judge Wanliss, who punished Larkin, and to support the attitude of Mr. A.

J. Vogan in later letter to you. I write, not as a legal man, but as one having a close connection with part of the Pa cific and having a knowledge of several races in the Islands and of the problems to be found there.

It will be generally admitted by all such that insubordination, etc., on the part of natives must be dealt with firmly. I remember, for instance, one occasion when my father punched a Fijian on the jaw and knocked a tooth out, because the man, who was our cook, said “I won’t” (“Au bese”, in Fijian) in answer to my father’s request that the boy should do something in the house, something quite ordinary. Possibly, how ever, I myself might have acted some what differently.

It would appear, in Larkin’s case, that was something more serious than insubordination, though I find it impos sible to believe that the native boy at tacked and assaulted him for no reason at all. Even going so far as to assume that much in Larkin’s favour, however, it was and could be no justification for the deliberately planned and revolting cruelty, ending later in death, which was meted out to the boy. Larkin ob viously saw red and lost his head. He had to take the consequences.

In your issue of November, page 40, you describe Larkin as having admin istered “excessive punishment”, and as having “over-flogged” the boy. I agree with you as far as you go; but obviously you do not go far enough. Any fair minded person, reading the details of the punishment, as supplied in your last October issue, cannot honestly charac terise what occurred other than as I have done. To appreciate fully the pun

ishment which was inflicted one has only to visualise oneself going through what that unfortunate native boy had to suf fer. I fully endorse every word that the Judge, as reported, uttered.

You refer to other cases where the Judge in sentencing native murderers inflicted less severe punishment than in the case of Larkin. The answer to that is, first, no fair comparison can be made without full details of these other cases, and, secondly, a higher and more humane standard of conduct is expected from the educated and civilised white man.

I am, etc..

C. C. Chalmers,

Auckland, N.Z.

Barrister.