THE HAWKE’S BAY TIMES. NAPIER, THURSDAY, OCT. 9, 1862.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 67, 9 October 1862, Page 2

THE HAWKE’S BAY TIMES. NAPIER, THURSDAY, OCT. 9, 1862.

His Excellency Sir George Grey, in the address delivered on the occasion of proroguing the General Assembly (and published in our last issue) took the opportunity to refer to the measures of the greatest importance that had been passed during the session, and we feel disposed to devote a little more of our space to the same object, regretting, at the same time, that we have not been able to give them all the attention they demanded during their progress. The importance of the legislation of the late Assembly can scarcely be over-rated, on account of the circumstances of difficulty in wuicn the afia rs of the Colony stood at the time of its opening, and the great and important principles involved in the measures passed by the Assembly as the best that they could devise to meet these difficulties. We will not now go into the ranch vexed question as to the origin of the difficulties alluded to—whether they are of so recent a date as the late mis-goverumeut of the Fox-c«?»-Hadfiekl party, or whether they date their rise from the early days of the colonization of the Island. In many respects both

views are doubtless true. The fault of the late Ministry probably consisted more in neglecting to check existing evils, than in introducing altogether new ones—in taking measures calculated to encourage their growth, rather than to eradicat e them—infostering disaffection and rebellion by impunity and often by actual reward, rather than staying these evils by vigorous and well-directed action for their suppression. For some time previous to the assembling of the Council the failure of the new scheme of native government to satisfy either the European race or the nominally loyal natives —still less to win over the disaffected —had become well known to the general public, notwithstanding the efforts made by the ministerial press and ministerial agents to hide the truth and make the contrary appear. Hence the session was opened by a Ministry that had wholly lost the confidence of the country, yet at the same time believing that they could retain their position in the Government, as the Colony stood pledged to carry out the line of mischievous policy they had begun, or to stand chargeable with a breach of faith towards the native race in ease of its reversal. Believing fat the same time) that no others than themselves would be willing to tcork in this direction, they had : o fears of loss of office, and did not hesitate to own it. As we have already made our readers aware, aftermuchof the valuable time of the Assembly had been wasted in fruitless discussion, the Fox ministry resigned in the confident expectation of being restored to power, with a considerable accession of strength—their disappointment, especially that of their leader, is also well known—and it was only after the establishment of the Domett Ministry, containing some of the least objectionable of the constituents of the other, that the business of the session may be said to have commenced. Uf the conduct of our two representatives during the session there can scarcely be two opinions. Mr. Ormond—late in his appearance there, and early away—his doings may be briefly summed up in the remark that he succeeded in preventing the resolution of our own Provincial Council regarding the raising of the price of unagricultnral land from becoming law, although it had passed the ordeal of the Governor in Council, and was already printed for circulation. Mr. Colenso, on the other hand, we have found almost uniformly at his post —among the very few who could find the courage to analyse and expose the glittering fallacies of rhetoric with which Mr. Fitz Gerald succeeded in deluding the House, and so far we cordially give him the credit that is his due, though we think he might have taken higher ground, and treated it with more of the severity it deserved —true, in the then feeling of the mesmerized members, rather a thankless task. His speech (it will be remembered) we published in an extra at the time. Again, on the great measure of the session—the ultimatum of the mis-govern-ment of the Colony—the natural result of permitting, on the part of various Governors during a long series of years Native Claims to triumph over British Bights, in direct antagonism to instructions received from home —the allowing of a right of property in the soil to vest in a savage race, who had never so much as seen, still less occupied, the greater portion of that which they claimed as their own —of permitting the positive orders from the Colonial Office, as well as the Ordinances of the Colony to be openly violated by illegal occupancy. On this, the great measure of the session, we find the opportunity not neglected of exposing tne course of evil practice that had led to its apparent necessity—apparent, for we by no means agree with him in his opinion of the absolute necessity of the measure, and, indeed, as it appears that as long ago as 1846, he held opinions antagonistic to the exercise of thepre-emptiveright of the Crown, we cannot wonder that his vote was given in favor of the bill. It was our intention to have alluded to several of the other important questions that

were brought forward and discussed in the House. The “story of Taranaki,” as feelingly given in the speech of Mr. Atkinson, and which we must reproduce for our readers in extenso on an early opportunity—the responsibility of the Colony in native matters, but we find that we have already exceeded the limited space at our disposal, and must defer these matters for the present.