NEW ZEALAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 106, 13 April 1863, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND.

(From the Times, January 19.) The peculiar Constitution of the Colony of New Zealand has become a matter of not only local, but Imperial importance. We hare given the colony a bad Constitution, and we are, with some justice, called upon to make good such evils as can be traced to the faulty machinery which we ourselves have created. The Constitution of New Zealand has been framed on the assumption, to which in its abstract form it is very difficult to give assent, that government is such a good thing that it is impossible to have too much of it. In this small country, far smaller than it appears in the map, since the interior of the Northern Island is occupied by inaccessible mountains, —we have created a complete system of double government, Each province has its Governor and its Assembly, and there is besides another Government and two Chambers to exercise jurisdiction over the whole. As if this was not sufficient, we have created yet another Government besides all . these. The Governor in New Zealand is a constitutional King, whose duty it is to exercise the functions of a King of England, in the period immediately following the Devolution of 1688, during which the Royal veto had not yet fallen into disuse. Perhaps the most important part of the functions of the Governor consists in managing the warlike and turbulent race who inhabit these stormy islands. It is above all things the affairs of the settlers, whose lives and property must pay for any error that may be committed in the treatment of the natives, and yet, while absolutely overloading the people of New Zealand with a superfluity of governmental machinery, this, the most important subject of all is withdrawn from the local Parliament and vested entirely in the Governor. Thus the people have no voice in what may bo called the foreign policy of the State. The responsibility for a war with the natives is taken from them, and a subject which requires above all others local knowledge and experience is placed, without any responsible advice, in the hands of a Governor who must at any rate at the commencement of his career be profoundly ignorant of the native character. Of course, the effect of such an arrangement has been to deprive the Governor in case of war with the natives of much of the moral support which it is in the power of the colonists to give him, and to furnish them with a very convenient excuse for taking no share in a war about which they have not been consulted. We are glad to find that this evil is about to be put an end to, and that in the way which we always maintained was alone practicable. The papers on the subject of New Zealand presented to Parliament in August last contain a despatch from the Duke of Newcastle to Sir George Grey which is destined to exercise a very important influence on the future fate of that rising community. The management of native affairs, somewhat assisted by its cognate topic, the cost of New Zealand wars, ha's at length forced itself on the attention, not only of the Governor, but of the Executive Council, or responsible Ministry, of New Zealand. They have deliberated earnestly on the subject, and furnish the Secretary of State for the Colonies with five propositions for the better future regulation of these two questions. The first proposition is that the Governor shall henceforth deliberate on the conduct of native affairs with the advice of the responsible Ministry, and that the notion of setting up himself or any other power between the natives and the General Assembly, with a view to the more efficient protection of the Aborigines, shall be altogether abandoned. We are glad to see that the Secretary of State for the Colonies assents to this proposition, admitting candidly that the attempt to vest this power in the Governor alone has failed—ho might have added, could not possibly succeed. It has always been found that it is vain to withhold from a popular Assembly, freely elected, having the control of the public purse and the Ministry responsible to it, any power which it may wish to possess. The powers which it possesses already are so great and ample that they are sufficient to wrest from the most unwilling Executive anything that it may be disposed to withhold. To devise a form of government which makes it necessary for the Governor to obey the deliberately expressed will of the people, and then to attempt to withhold from the control of the people the most important subject of all, involves a gross practical absurdity, and can only end in the compulsory surrender of that which it would have been more graceful and more politic to give up at first, without needlessly creating a struggle in which the success of the popular side is certain and unquestionable. The result of this despatch is a solemn address to the Queen from the New Zealand House of Representatives of a nature totally unexampled in colonial history. Instead of accepting with gratitude the right conceded to them by the Colonial Minister, the New Zealand Assembly respectfully decline to undertake the task imposed upon them.

They recognize the difficulty of governing the two races by two agencies responsible to different aubut they cannot accept the power offered them if it is to be attended with any greater liability than at present for their own defence. They ignore the fact that the proposition came originally from their own responsible Ministers, and they quote the unsatisfactory condition of affairs in New Zealand at the present moment as a reason why the system under which that unsatisfactory state of affairs has arisen ought to be indefinitely continued. We have never seen a public document less convincing in its statement, or more entirely divested of the graces of modesty and selfrespect. The simple meaning is that the colonists have got a good thing, and intend to keep it. They alone of all the people of the earth have the privilege of making war at other peoples expense. The quarrels which arise with the natives are their quarrels, not ours. The expense of fighting out those quarrels they claim should be our expense, not theirs. Those on the spot, who have in their hands the power of war and peace, are to have no responsibility ; we, separated by the whole bulk of the globe, are to have the whole of it. Hitherto . the responsibility has been thought to be a salutary check on power. Henceforth, as far, at least, as New Zealand is concerned, those two things are to be studiously kept apart from each other. We have no wish that the colonists should be called upon to contribute to the expense of the Imperial force maintained in New Zealand, but we confess the very strongest desire that our forces should be materially reduced. The colony has now the management of native affairs. If war does not bring troops from England to carry it on and a large commissariat to keep up prices, the settlers will find some means to remain at peace, or, which is the next best thing, to defend themselves. There will be no peace so, long as war is attended with gain and immunity from military service. We have a right to demand on behalf of the heavily-taxed people of this country that this burden shall be removed from their shoulders, and we therefore rejoice to find that Sir George Grey, is his speech to the New Zealnd Parliament, announces that he has hitherto hod no occasion, and hopes to have none hereafter, to employ the military forces in any active field operations. Our policy in New Zealand towards tho natives is comprised in a single word —wait. Temporizing expedients, delays, dilatory negotiations, all manner of devices whieh are of little avail in ordinary cases, are of the greatest use when we have to deal with a race that is continually decreasing on behalf of a race that is continually increasing. It is easier to grow into the undistributed sovereignty of New Zealand than to conquer it.