The Evening Star SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2820, 2 March 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1872.

The Maori prisoners, who for tlie past two years, or more, have been inmates of the gaol, we believe will be liberated in a few days. The mariner in which they have been disposed of forms a striking contrast, favorable to the measures of the present Government, when compared with the weakness of purpose and utter incompetence to deal with the Native question of those that preceded it. By no previous administration was rebellion by the Maoris treated as a crime. ■ They looked upon the Natives as foreign enemies, to be fought with and treated with as' if their chiefs ! were : foreign potentates. Excepting in proclamations, they did not appear to consider them subjects of the Queen. Backed by the English troops, might seemed to be considered right, and deeds were done tending to alienate the Natives from their allegiance, rather than to lead them gradually to understand and conform to our laws. Granted that the present Government have had the advantage of having witnessed the failure of all prior efforts to unite the Natives and the colonists under a common government, it detracts nothing from the wisdom of the measures they have adopted. Nor do we think it any drawback to the credit they deserve that the prisoners surrendered because of defeats by troops enrolled under Mr Stafford’s Government. If any man had a chance of successfully dealing with the Maoris, Mr Stafford had. He had the advantage cf ten thousand trained soldiers at his back, but he failed to see that an unnecessary and injudicious employment of force never reconciles men to submission to the law of the stronger. They may cease from active warfare, but only to nurture rebellion of the spirit. The very best measures are but gall and wormwood to men smarting from the consequences of defeat. With scarcely any interval the whole period of Mr Stafford’s administration was marked by rebellion. If crushed in one place it reared its gory head in another. No improvement could go on in the North. Flock owners never know when to consider their stock safe, men in towns talked of walling themselves in for safety, communication was interrupted, commerce languished, and throughout the Colony there was uneasiness and a spirit of anarchy. The North drew extravagantly upon the South, and the South grudgingly and sullenly honored their drafts. Mr Stafford had sufficient experience to have seen the utter uselessness of persistence in a policy that had yielded such unsatisfactory fruits. Ho had had prisoners on his hands, but be treated them us warriors, not as rebels. It may be objected that he had no option, as the laws would not permit him to deal with them as Uis successors have done ; but be, like them, had the opportunity of introducing a measure that would have given him the power. It was not the opportunity that was absent—it was the inability to perceive what was the true policy of the Government in regard to the Maoris. He could not understand that law should be instinctive as well as comp also "y ; that it should teach justice as well as subordination ; that it should reconcile men to government because it is good ; that it should com-

mend itself as a, benefit to those who do right, not merely as a terror to those who do wrong. His idea of dealing with native races seemed to be that they should feel their inferiority, not that they should be led to understand their equality with the colonists in the eye of the law. He depended for peace upon war, and proposed to rule by the tyranny of the sword. He used the sword, and his administration fell by the sword. Under bis rule prisoners were incumbrances and burdens. He herded them together in places which only required some little daring, combined with very little contrivance, to enable them to escape. The slightest knowledge of human nature would have led him to the conclusion that they would not allow the flimsy barriers between them and liberty to prevent their escape. The hulks at Wellington were intolerable to them, and proved insufficient for their detention : the Chatham Islands, with its feeble guard, proved the scene of successful conspiracy. It never appeared to enter into his mind that distance from their native fastnesses and utter inability to regain them should they get free -were essential conditions to retaining them in captivity. His notions were altogether ideas of the past. But that in future, men will form very different estimates of the barbarism of war from

those which have obtained in times gone by, the events of his'administration might-form fitting themes for exciting descriptions in historic plays and novels. To us, who are actors in the drama, the events are matters of fact, and in this plain common-sense dealing with the case it is, that the present administration have shown their practical wisdom. The Maori prisoners have paid the penalty of their rebellion. They have suffered punishment freed from any adventitious incidents tending to raise them into the position of heroes in the eyes of their countrymen. They have suffered as men who have been guilty of a crime against society : but they have been treated with such consideration, as not to exasperate them against the Government. We think now, that while any theatrical demonstration of approbation of their conduct should be avoided, their liberation should be marked by some little expression of kindness and good will towards them that every soreness may be removed from their minds, and wherever they go they may remember the friendly spirit of the people amongst whom they spent their captivity.