A REVEREND CANON ON NEW ZEALAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 37, 13 March 1862, Page 6 (Supplement)

A REVEREND CANON ON NEW ZEALAND.

i lie 10110 mug extract taken front the Manx Sun ot Aov. 2, with which we have been highly favored is part of a speech delivered by the Bov. Canon Slowed, of Manchester, before a meeting of the Houglas Branch of the|fslc of Man Auxiliary to the Church Missionary Society : ou must not suppose that New Zealand has altogether disappointed our missionary hopes. M c used to point to it as a “living epistle known re ad of all men.” We now hear it said that tJiey are turning rebels against theßritish Government and this, people exclaim, is after all We have been told by the missionaries. But in their accounts of this rebellion many persons seem to have drawn their conclusions more from imagination than anything else, and have colored their statement to such an extent that come persons at home have actually believed it and supposed that New Zealand had disapointed all our expectations But don’t you believe, New Zealand is the brightest gem in the diadem of the Church Missionary Society ZSeiv Zealand is still a beautiful specimen of the work of Christ in these latter days, for geuerally speaking it is not the Christians that have struggled against the British power. Christianity nasindeed done its work well in that country,—it hassoltened the horrors of warevenincaunibalNew Zealand and there is now manifested in that tmliappy struggle a certain degree of fair play and absence of treachery, bloodshed, and murder, that would put some deeds of the British arras to the blush and show us that we can learn something from the uncivilized aborgines of New Zealand in these respects. But who, X would ask, has caused this war ? Who has brought this trouble upon New Zealand? Was it not the grasping unfair, and oppressive emigrants ? How did the civilized settlers treat the natives, ? Why in the way that hunters treat wild animals—they hewed them up and cut them down to make way for the boasted ch ilization. Alas ! alas ! that British civilization should so lar forget itself as to allow the aborigines to be cut down and treated like dogs. It is to. be deplored however that the dark pages of colonization will little bear to be inspected. It should bo remembered that Now Zealand is not a conquered country aud v, c have no right to tread it down with the heel of oppression as it it had been won by 111 3 sword. On the contrary, it was won by the sword of the Spirit—lt was Christianity that brought New Zealand under the sceptre of England’s Queen and Christian England ought to see that the natives have fair play. The emigrants—in many cases the ofiscouring aud vagabonds of our own country—ougat not to be allowed to take advantage of tho ignorance ot the natives aud oppress them as they have done, to a great extent pillaging their lands from them and tueu when the natives turn round to dcleud themselves they arc cried out against as rebels and savages and we are called upon to cut them dov.m Cm! that wo had more Christian rulers like fair Herbert Edwardes to plead theeause of Christianity aud the natives. Oh ! let England never be their robber but their protector and benefactor, aud lob her show the power of Christianity hy her love ot justice. (Loud aud continued applause.) I beseech you then do not take up hard or hasty opinions against the poor aborigines when you hear that they are restless. E or my part I believe that: the fable of the hunter and the lion wouid well bear upon the state of the people wo have oppressed. The hunter brought tho lion to show him engraven upon a stone a picture of a lion nith a man 3 foot upon its neck, Tho lion after gazing on it replied “Ah! but we lions are not engravers or wo would show you ten men with! a lion upon their necks for one man you cquld sliow us with his foot upon the lion’s nock.” Laughter.) If tins lion,were an engraver, if New Zealand had its writers, its poets, its pleaders, audits eloquent orators they could tell a tale against the white man of oppression and wrong that would put us to shame. I speak warmly, but I speak it as the advocate of the poor oppressed aborigines, and I am satisfied it is a wholesome truth to tell it.” (Applause.)

Tliis needs but little comment. It tells its own tale. The perversion of truth in passing from mouth to mouth, or from pen to pen, depends on the proportion of the disturbing forces of passion and prejudice to the original love of truth in the minds ol the narrators. It is as much reducible to law as the perturbations of the heavenly bodies. Here, thou, we have the truth of facts changed into absolute untruth, in two stops ; the first being the original statements of representatives of the Church Missionary Society in the colony ; and the second their reproduction, with his own additions and improvements, by Canon Stowell in England. V, bat must be the intensity of the disturbing forces, or sadly weak the desire for truth which could produce such a result ? Who cannot draw from it a lesson of caution in the expression of opinion and the statement of fact, where ho is conscious that his feelings are deeply engaged ?

We arc far from being so presumptuous as to set ourselves up in judgment over these men who have so cruelly maligned us. We sincerely hope that it is all done “ with the very best intentions.” Wo cannot, indeed, help suspecting that the joy of (he Pharisee in the comparison of his own virtues with vices of a fallen brother, has had something to do witii the darkness of the picture which the reverend canon has painted ; and desire of applause, the wish to produce an elfect, has led him to exaggerate [to a sympathising audience ; but we gladly admit that many worthier influences have combined to produce i,thc result. It is not for poor weak man to judge his fellow man ; still less should the accused set himself up as the impartial judge of his accuse!’. Let us not profess to weigh the motives of our adversaries, for such wo must call those who abuse- ns so grossly, but

let us bring tbeir statements to the light of day, confront them with facts, and call on those who have the reality and the picture before them, and from whoso sketches the picture has been drawn to tell the British nation whether it be really a correct portraiture of that which.it professes to represent. What, wc ask, will the Bishop of New'. Zealand think of tao cpecch of (bis charitable canon ? Will he endorse such statements by letting them pass unchallenged, coming as they' do from a distinguished member of the Church of England ? Is it true that tiro emigrants arc, as a body, grasping, unfair, anil oppressive ? Boos the

legislation of the Geuerai. Assembly. on native matters show any symptoms whatever of any of these qualities ? Nothing but a public repudiation of such calumnious assertions can clear the chief representative of the Church of England in these islands from participating in a gross libel on the colonists of New Zealand. It is hopeless for us to plead our own cause in the circles where these tlungs are listened to with “ loud and continued applause. Wcare thejoffscouring and bonds of the nation ; what person who starts with this belief will credit what we say in our own behalf?