NOT LAW, BUT A GOVERNOR.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 130, 10 July 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

NOT LAW, BUT A GOVERNOR.

(From the (Canterbury) Press, June 20.)

The more wc ponder over the abandonment of the Waitara, the more does the alarming folly of the step exaggerate itself in our view. Never was such an opportunity offered to any Government for teaching the great lesson whicli all people must learn, sooner or later, before they can rise from the slough of barbarism to to the higher life of civilization lies the love of justice and the respect for law: this is a lesson which must in some way or other be learned either by the peaceful instruction, of great teachers, to whom sometimes it pleases God to entrust the mission, or by the keen discipline of the sword. But tbe lesson we are now teaching the Natives is, that there is for them no law which can judge, but rather a Governor who can palaver—a much more God-like institution we would have them to think.

Towards the Waitara the eyes of all the Natives were attracted from north to south. The question had become as it were a sort of touchstone of law. On the one side the Natives fought for it, most nobly, most gallantly with all the courage of despair. They thought at all events that they were fighting for their own. They thought they were fighting for law. We too on our side thought the same; it had come at last to the question whe- ■ then there should be law in the colony or none. And that which stopped the war in a moment, which sent the w’arriors back to their ruined homes unconquered, was the one magical word—“ Waitara shall be adjudicated .” When Governor Browne gave up that, he gave up all for which the natives had ever fought. Here then, wo say, was a fighting occasion ready made to its hand, for the Government to inaugurate the introduction of law and justice where it had never kepn before. If the statutes were deficient, a brief Act would have established a high Court of judicature charged with the trial of this new national questiou, with an array of judges, of counsel, of witnesses; the illustration might have been presented to the eyes of the Natives of the solemn mode in which courts of law proceed with the trial of great causes. And it was a great cause —one which would have formed the foundation of the “ State trials ” of the colony—one which would have taught the natives more than there will ever be the opportunity to teach them again at one time.

All this great opportunity has been utterly thrown away. Wo have gone back from right to policy. Instead of trying the question boldly, we have put into the matters to be talked and nm-anga-ed about, to ferment in armed pahs, and fester into fresh revolt.

One lesson we still continue to teach the Natives—that for them there is no law —only a Governor. To them there is no voice from tho judg-

ment seat, proclaiming the righteousness of the law against evil doers, but only the Exeter Hall tones of a wily politician—“ am I not the father of you all?”

Do we think these Natives are idiots? They hear of troops coming from Tasmania, Melbourne, Sydney, Dunedin, and Sikhs with world wide fame for ferocity from the distant regions of the earth. They see military roads driven into the heart of the country, and then hear the meek voice of the man who is doing all this saying “ am I not your father?” If they could but speak English the answer would be on the tip of every Native tongue —“Walker.” Who does not perceive Grey’s policy—“ Give up the Waitara of course, it lies far from New Plymouth, northward ;it is isolated. It goes toward the land of the Waikatos —you will get very little more in that direction—better give it up. But unite the Tataraimaka to New Plymouth by taking the intermediate land, extend your settlement in that direction. There are only the Taranakis and Ngatiruanuis to be dealt with, who aro accused before God and man. We shall be able to take their country with little danger—better give up the Waitara and play the Southern card.”

Yes, it will succeed. We shall get the Southern country. New Zealand will be filled with troops ; the commissariat expenditure will be most refreshing, As for the natives, they will be “as still as a stone,” and the great Pro-consul will return to England, and

“Be made a captain of a seventy-three,” leaving behind him a race, silent, sullen, and mis' trustful; taught by sad experience that policy> not justice, is the key-stone of English rule, and that nothing can resist our power. And so when at home the fever of extravagant military expenditure is followed by the collapse of economy, and the troops are once more removed the last revolt will commence, and the whole of them will have to begin again from the beginning. This unmanly shrinking from doing justice at the Waitara is the greatest fault which has ever been committed in the history of the colony, and will we fear, be felt to the end of our history.