THE HAWKE’S BAY TIMES. NAPIER, MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 1863

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 84, 26 January 1863, Page 2

THE HAWKE’S BAY TIMES. NAPIER, MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 1863

That the policy of Sir George Grey is a policy giving evidence of the utmost weakness and indecision is too evident to escape the observation of any, save those persons who are such believers in its ultimate success that they consider the signs which to us indicate an absence of any fixed purpose, as signs of the most profound wisdom and forethought. No doubt but that the advent of a regiment of sappers and engineers, armed with electric telegraphs and other scientific appliances of modern warfare ; and accompanied by a supplementary addition of the latest improvements in gunnery, is an event to be looked upon as one likely to result in something decisive. But when we remember that we are, after all, rapidly drifting back to a line of action foreign to the original design of our present Governor, but entirely after the mind and example of his predecessor Colonel Browne, then it becomes a subject of wonder that since Colonel Browne adopted this energetic course, and was unable to answer it, and had in fact got more than half-way towards the accomplishment of it, when he was untimely cut off by his recall, that Sir G. Grey did not start from the point at which Governor Browne left off, and having carried out that scheme to a successful issue, then have brought to bear upon

the sufficiently impressible native mind that peaceful battery of diplomatism with which he is famished. The result would doubtless have proved different to what it is; but as mattex’s stand at present, the natives are in a state of insurrectionary independence, and defy, both his attempts at conciliation, and his threats of coercion. How much loss, in every particular sense of the word, to this devoted Colony might not have been avoided by reducing the Maories to a timely submission ! How many deep and rankling wounds would have been spared the honor and prosperity of this country, and of us, its civilized inhabitants, if firmness united to forbearance had'marked the career of Sir G. Grey, it is difficult, nay, it is impossible, readily to sum up or to express. It speaks little for the forecast of Sir Geo. Grey when, after undergoing the most astonishing humiliation, and having brought his new country and his countryman to a state the most contemptable that they could reach, he is obliged to go hack to the place from which he started, and to have recourse, to save the colony from extinction, to those very means, the use of which he has so long delayed, and so' strenuously opposed. To those people who have become acquainted with the natives in the ordinary intercourse of daily life, they present so few, if any, characteristics which can excite admiration, sympathy, or esteem, that it is most profoundly provoking to find that they appear in a light so entirely different when gazed upon by the admiring eye of Sir G. Grey or Bishop Selwyn. To us the Maori appears to he a very knowing fellow, and one who can with the greatest ease adapt himself to whatever circumstances may turn up, and carefully avoids showing his dark side, if by so doing he would be less likely to startle the prejudices of one who may possibly have in store for him a latent reversionary interest in something worth having. In shoi’t, we consider him to be a highly accomplished man of the world, looking after all its substantialities as things to be sought after, and appropriated, but rejecting with scorn all those little nick-nacks of mere conventionalism which cannot be turned to profitable account. It must, therefore, be evident to all thinking men conversant with the subject that the compliant manner in which our dear brother the Maori adapts himself to circumstances might be turned to good advantage by providing a condition of things for him, and making him adapt himself to that whether he liked it or not. Herein lies the diffei’ence between fighting Browne and coaxing Grey. Browne was for kneading these natives into some sort of impressible condition, and having done so, stamp them with the stamp of law and order, and turn them out a tolerably respectable people, as people go. But not so Grey, good easy man, he is for coaxing and cajoling them into a condition suitable for his pui’pose. To this discreet arrangement, however, these stiff-necked people are deaf; they will not listen to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely, hut present to him a hard and most unworkable surface, whereon our industrious Sir George works away notwithstanding, until he has exhausted himself with his vain efforts, and is obliged to turn discomforted to that very plan which his much-abused predecessor was not allowed to carry out. We entirely differ with Sir George Grey when, in his attack upon the colonial press, he atti’ihutes to that oi’gan of public opinion the failure of ail his well-laid schemes, for in point of fact it appears to us that Sir George shews by that, and the petulant tone of the whole complaint, that he is disappointed in his hopes of finding good support iu a broken reed, and is glad to lay hold of any excuse, however trivial, to fix the cause of his failure upon the shoulders of any one or anything that is big enough to bear it. It is far from our intention to undervalue or to speak lightly of Sir George Grey; we respect him as a most estimable man, acting

under the strongest persuasion that he is doing right before God and before men ; and although possibly he may have had worldly glimmerings of coronets and such like pomps and vanities, devices of Satan, to dim his vision, we most willingly give him his mede of good intention. But having gone so far, there we stop. We judge of a tree by its fruits, and not by its leaves ; and if report speaks correctly, a certain place, which shall be nameless in this discreet journal, is paved with good intentions, but we never heard whether it was rendered by that fact a more endurable residence or not. Stave off the evil day as long as you please, that day must inevitably come. As sure as the end of time approaches, so surely does the reckoning between us and these Natives now stand before us ; and the longer we postpone it—the longer we look at it from a distance, the greater will be the difficulty of effecting a settlement. Now is the time—now is the day of salvation ; and if we do not gird up our loins and march to the battle like men, and the sons of men, the day will be past, and the night will be upon us wherein no man can either fight or work. The battle is for the strong, and the race is for the swift; then let those who are imbecile and weak seek elsewhere for that shelter and protection which their weakness needs, and leave those who are ready and willing to meet the stirring times, which loom like shadows on the wall, to their fate.