THE GOVERNOR AND THE COLONIAL OFFICE.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2281, 29 August 1870, Page 2

THE GOVERNOR AND THE COLONIAL OFFICE.

The Wellington correspondent of tire Oamam Times has evidently been at great pains to obtain extracts from recent des* patches, which serve to show the manner in which the acts and sayings of Sir George Bowen are regarded by Earl Granville. He says ; In my last letter I referred t~> a Blue Book which has mysteriously vanished fr< m the table of the House, and I promised jou some extracts. The Book referred to is, “Further Papers relative to the affairs (f New Zealand (in continuation of papers presented Bth July, 1869), presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of H-r Majesty, Bth of April, 1809.” The first ex* tract I will give you is from a despatch from Earl Granville, K.G., to Governor Sir G. F, Bowen, G. C. M. G., ” and dated ‘ * Downirg street, 4th November, 1869.” It tells v.s very plainly that Sir George Ferguson Bowen, who thinks of himself perhaps moro highly than he ought to think, and wl o would like others to do the same, is not he’d in quite such high estimation in Downing street. Ido not wish to draw your attention to this matter from any uncharitable motive, but simply becauc I think that the 2>eople of New Zealand, to the majority of whom the Imperial Blue Books are known only in name, should be made acquainted with the estimation in which the Governor of [this Colony is held at Home. It is a matter of no slight importance, particularly at the present time, when the question of our relations with the Imperial Government is being mooted, that we should know somewhat of the influence, for good or the reverse, which his Excellency exercises at Home. We are asking ourselves what good our connection with Great Britain is to us—what benefit we derive from the large expenditure, annual and occasional, which we are bearing to keep his Excellency and suite as befits their position ; and what we might lose if wo decided to cut the painter and* suggest his Excellency’s dej arturc. In considering these questions, wc do not leokon upon his Excellency being a continued annoyance to the Imperial authorities, neither do we ini* agine that his despatches are the subject of ridicule and the cause of censure. But, such is the fact. In referring to a remark made by Sir G. F. Bowen upon a former despatch from Earl Granville, the Earl says : “If these questions were addressed to you, I think you should have pointed out that whatever blame was implied in my despatch was directed, not against your Mini'tors, but ayalnsl yourself, and that, as regarc’s yourself, the blame did not relate to the propriety of the measures adopted, on which I did not pronounce any opinion, but to your omission In report ami explain them." Again : —“ You are * informed,’ you say, ‘ that there appears to he a very general determination to resist the active interference of any Imperial authority in the internal government of New Zealand.’ Your knowledge of the policy of the Home Government, as explai icd in the numerous despatches addressed race itly to yourself and your predecessors would have justified you in assuring your informants that her Majesty’s Government have nob the intention of attempting any such interference, and in pointing out that nothing that I have ever written to you—certainly not that of requiring full information from her Majesty’s representative in respect to the Colony of which he administers the Government—can properly be taken as indicating such an intention.”

Another despatch, dated Downing street, 28th January, 1870, I will allude to to-day, and then dismiss the subject for the present. “I have received your despatch, &c., &c, , . . I feel some difficulty in answering this communication. Being not a confidential despatch, but one of a series which conveys the history of the Colony during a critical period, it is right that it should bo placed before Parliament and the country ; and it will present the unusual appearance of a somewhat rhetorical denunciation by her Majesty’s representative of what is now the avowed policy of her Majesty's Government, and of the conduct of the Admiralty in a matt-r of discipline, upon which it is their province to decide. Undesirable as it is that the correspondence between a Governor and the Government which he represents should assume the character which is thus forced upon it, I have no alternative but to notice your despatch more fully than I could have wished, ... I think also that you are

at liberty—or rather that it is your duty—to warn her Majesty’s Government of the state of public opinion in the Colony. . . . But I think that all this might have been done in a manner less open to observation. In the first place I understand you, in reporting the opinions of the Colonists in this matter, to convoy your own. I should have prcf-rrcd that you had done this directly, as it is important that there should be no confusion between the opinions which the Governor merely reports, and those which he adopts and recom needs. Next: Ido not think if oti dearly unde r*f and what has passed. Viewed as a matter of discipline, the question is one between the Lords of the Admiralty and the officer serving under them, and it wan hardly within your province to e.raminc the yround* of their Lordshiji'n deasiitn I think, therefore, that

your crhicism is mistaken. If it had been correct, I could hare ivMed it had been otherwise enpremd. Treating the matter as one of general policy, you observe that it was uselesi for Commodore Lambert to consult the Governor or military officers, because they could not tell him anything which he did not know already. But this again is to misapprehend the point of their Lordships’ observation. In the absence of such consultation, it was not for Commodore Lambert to treat

the question as one of general po’icy at all. If von or the military officer m command, had represented to him that from recent circumstances, not within the knowledge o her Majesty’s Government, or of General Chute, the removal of the troops would occassion great and immediate disaster to the Colony, it might have become his duty to take the responsibility of arresting their departure. Till he received such a representation his duties were, in this respect, those of a senior naval officer, having control over all the ships within his station, including troopships, and bound to provide for the removal of troops when decided upon, without any authority to consider whether that removal was wise or not. . . • £nch language, while it is calculated to embarass the Government which you serve, unleis they adopt your views, is by no means necessary to exhibit cither the grounds or the strength of your conviction on the matter upon which you arc called upon to advise.’