THE ENGLISH PRESS ON NEW ZEALAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 28, 9 January 1862, Page 3

THE ENGLISH PRESS ON NEW ZEALAND.

[From the Nelson Examiner, December 11.]

It his with some gratification that we perceive this month the altered tone oftheEngglish journals. They seem to have found out the mistake they had committed in supposing that we had finished one war and had begun another ; and, whilst they still express an extreme desire to have the question settled and the troops at liberty for other service, allowed the situation to be one of much difficulty. They allowed, also, that we are likely to be better informed on the subject than they are but think they have a counterbalancing advantage in viewing the question more dispassionately than we can do. We are rather disposed to doubt this ; . j all events, as regards the inhabitants of this, the Middle Island, and our English critics have also, after all, some influences at work among them which may tend to bias even their judgments. They, in common with all Europe, have a strong and abiding impression that the world is on the eve of changes ; and a bold ambitious man, dark, designing, and unscrupulous, head of the most warlike, powerful excitable people in the world is intent on mischief; and they look around them on all sides and see everywhere the elements of a fearful social conflagration which requires only the torch of the incendiary to burst into a flame. Italy, Austria, Denmark, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Syria, the American States, all have their own peculiar causes of disquiet

and dread : France, armed to tlie teeth, waits her opportunity, and bides her time, to make her profit of each or all ; and England, slow to believe in any reason for alarm, but fully awakened at last and alive to all the importance of the crisis, has buckled on her armour, and vigilantly watches every move of her great rival and ancient adversary. What wonder, then, if she should jealously, and even angrily look upon her treasure expended and her troops engaged at the other end of the world in a quarrel which she but half understands, and on the merits of which we are ourselves so utterly unable to agree; what wonder, although she were even more fully convinced of our just claims to her aid, if she should in playing the great game of politics, think it prudent to call in her outposts, and concentrate her power at home.

It is curious to trace the progress of this feeling in the Times ; for our affairs have now obtained more than a passing notice, and furnished the text for numerous disquisitions whose application extends far more widely than our own case. On August 28th war is deprecated in that journal on the broad ground that the native race here was fast dying out of itself ; and from no fault of ours. “No aboriginal race has ever had such fair play. They have never been enslaved or oppressed. They have been left in possession of their lands, their laws, their customs, their patriarchal organization into tribes. We have taken nothing from them. We have added much to what they had before.” Yet they are fast dying out ; and their decrease, “ as it is not caused by any ill treatment on our part, is not disgraceful to us.” Why then go to war, to do what is being done for us ? There is much difficulty, much danger, but neither advantage nor glory to be gained. The writer declines going into the causes of the w r ar. We had a treaty with the natives ; “ which they, of course, have violated in every way, conceivable and inconceivable.” Some take a more, some a less favourable view of their motives and he has “ no means of decidin ; with confidence on which side the truth lies ;” but he thinks it is scarcely possible that they elected a king merely to assist us in promoting self government among them. “ Had the Maoris wished for the government by European magistrates, they could long ago have had it.” If we abstained from all interference, it was “ not because we wished to perpetuate disorder, but because we wished to avoid collision.” We concur heartily in almost every word of this statement ; it is fair and just to us, and singularly clear and correct in its apprecation of our condition. But we have still the same contradiction apparent here that we before pointed out. We bring together the two sentences. “ There never was a case which so strongly recommended a temporising and dilatory policy,” and, “ the native king should have been at once put down, or at once acknowledged. We cannot think it was right to reserve such a question for four years,” &c.

Now Colonel Gore Browne did temporize ; that is, from motives of policy he put u with what he did not sanction, but tried to prevent; for he went into the Waikato country, had frequent interviews with old Potatau and other influential chiefs ; and although he failed in persuading them to give up their idea, it seemed likely to die out of itself. The Governor saw that it might become dangerous, and therefore he tried to stop it ; it was not so then, and therefore he did not resort to force ; and his conduct was entirely approved by the Home Government as ju icious and statesmanlike.

Two days after, we have another article, treating the subject as an injustice to the people of England—“ If England should not tax the colonies, on what plea of justice is it that the colonies should tax England.’ 3 The presence of seven thousand troops here (in New Zealand) is fraught with much injustice to the service, and much injury to the general interests of the Empire. The colony loses nothing. The commissariat expenditure improves its trade. Its population is recruited by discharged soldiers and retired officers ; and it has the advantage of being brought under the notice of the world in despatches and correspondence as the theatre of stirring events.” This last item, by the by, is a rather amusing instance of newspaper self-apprecation. It is “ effectually guaranteed against slaughter or taxation and so war is popular ; although doubly injurious; first “to the British Isles, unfairly drained of their resourcesand next “ to the colonies, which are thus deprived, in the earlier stages of their existence, of that responsibility for their own acts and decisions which can alone form the foundation of a manly type of national character,”

We have then a severe, but we cannot say an unjust, account of our complex and confused form of Government, “ absurd in theo-

ry, and impossible in practice ; power placed in one hand, nominal responsibility in another, and the obligation to make good all faults and mistakes, however costly and however glaring, in a third.” What we ourselves have feebly urged as the inevitable consequence of intermeddling in Maori affairs is here put forcibly and effectively. “ Power and responsibility must go together.” We would have declined both, and were reproached as weak and unworthy. We have both, now almost thrust upon us. " Let us give to the local Government of New Zealand the power of dealing with the natives, as we have already given it all other powers ; but let us accompany that gift with the distinct intimation that, as they have now the management of native affairs, they must undertake the settlement, by their own means, of all quarrels that may arise out of them, and by way of giving significance to this intimation, let us signalize the return of peace by the withdrawal of our troops from a position in which they ought never to have been placed.” We have among us men blind, rash, and self-sufficient enough, to undertake even this responsibility; and others ignorant enough of what constitutes true freedom and constitutional liberty to fancy themselves free when they can appoint their own tyrants, and give them unlimited power over their lives and fortunes; but if we are to be treated, in the language of the Times, as “ virtually independent republics,” instead of being regarded as, what in truth we are, a set of weak, isolated, and infant communities, whose self-elected rulers, if we are to believe our principal demagogue, have, in every instance but one, exceeded their powers and been unfaithful to their trust, New Zealand will be no longer a home for those whose warmest affections still ding to their mother country, and whose proudest boast it still is to be ranked among her sons. Men of peaceful habits, cultivated minds and independent means will avoid or fly from her shores, to be replaced by the men of the bowie-knife and rifle, and New Zealand, like the back states of North America, will have to pass through half a century of savage license and lawless anarchy ere she again emerges from the chaos and regains even her present position, repute and comparatively advanced civilization.