The exclaim loudly against our method of executing criminals first telling them they are to die then letting them lie for days and nights in prison, to think over what is to happen to them and then leading them slowly to the gallows, and keeping them waiting some time at the foot of it, before they are hanged. Theft, if persevered in, is sometimes visited with a severe blow from a stick or paddle across the head - the breach of a tapu, with the loss of property - cursing, with the same punishment - adultery, with death. They strongly reprobate the punishments adopted by the white people, as extremely cruel. The punishments of the New Zealanders are not commonly severe.
The missionary William Yate wrote in his Account of New Zealand (1835) that: Maori exposed to the British judicial system at Sydney or elsewhere sometimes condemned it as cruel and arbitrary. What I find interesting is that, at a time in the early nineteenth century when many British believed themselves responsible for bringing enlightenment and liberty to ‘primitive’ native peoples, many of the targets of their supposed benevolence were capable of powerful critiques of what was being offered them. My focus here is instead on some fascinating evidence regarding how Maori and Australian Aboriginal peoples viewed British notions of justice in the early contact period. Whether that is the case today is for others to say (Moana Jackson, for one, would argue that the New Zealand legal system is not value free). Although this emerged from a particular historical and legal context, being based on English common law, it is often seen as a neutral framework for dispensing justice. Different cultures and societies tend to view their own institutions and customs as natural, normal and value free.