Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 132, 24 July 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, JULY 24, 1863.

We never recollect meeting with a more able document emanating from the Colonial Office than the Duke of Newcastle’s despatch to Sir George Grey, and with which we make no doubt but that most of our readers are familiar by this time, as it has done duty in several of our New Zealand papers. That despatch bears upon the face of it the result of the most careful consideration of the question of our relations with the Maories, and of the most effectual way of governing, and at the same time protecting, them ; but it is evident that while the able Duke gives the subject his most earnest thought, and expresses his opinions upon it in a remarkably clear and statesmanlike manner, he can but ill repress a smile at the numberless manifestations which he meets with, in the course of his investigations, of the weakness and indecision which mark the doings of our Responsible Ministries, and through them, as the chosen representatives and reflex of the people, the unsettled state of the minds of their constituency. We first demand, as a right, the whole, and nothing but the whole of the management of Native affairs, and then, having got it, we resent, as a direct attack uj>on and infringement of our liberties, being obliged to have anything to do with that intricate branch of New Zealand politics. Nor are we satisfied with a querulous repudiation of an act of our own making, and the attainment of an object of our own seeking, but we must endeavour to make it apparent that the fact of that object being conceded to us implies, on the part of the Imperial Government, an attempt to force ujjoii us the control of that particular branch of this Colony’s affairs which is the peculiar, in fact the only, one over which Her Majesty’s Government has any power or right to exercise any control whatever. Again, when the question is raised as to who is to pay the expenses of managing the Natives, we at once determined that ive are by no means the responsible parties ; while at the same time it is admitted, with remarkable complacency, that if any benefit is to be derived from that expenditure, -we, the colonists, are eminently the most deserving objects upon which that golden shower should descend. Thus, amidst all these contradictions, and paltry desire to shift the responsibility and the expense of the settlement of a most vitally important question, in which we, and we alone, are directly interested, upon the shoulders of those who, however willing to bear a fair proportion of the load, cannot in any way be fairly called upon to carry the whole, at the same time it is but too plain that anything like a fixed or determined line of policy or action in this matter is as much beyond the capacity as it is beyond the power of our Responsible Legislature.

Here, then, we find that since our representative institutions tend rather to complicate and to bewilder, than to unravel or simplify, our relations with the Maories, it is manifestly not only just, but positively necessary that some more decisive or competent authority should step in and relieve us of a burden which is beyond our powers to bear. Under these circumstances, the Duke naturally asks—“ What do you intend to do ? I, as representative in this matter of the British tax-payer, must insist upon your coming to some definite conclusion, and that speedily, or else X shall be obliged to come to some definite conclusion for you ; the present state of matters cannot longer be tolerated.” Nothing can be fairer or more just than this proposition, and nothing can he more detrimental to the interests of this colony than that we should be obliged (as the consequence of our folly) to accept the alternative which that proposition implies, viz., an entire abandonment of all control over the Natives and all interference with those people.

It is argued by some, and with justice, that the administration of Native matters should be retained in the hands of the Colonial Parliament, and that having accepted that responsibility we should also be prepared to accept with it the pecuniary obligations which it entails. With this view we entirely concur; and in this view it would seem that Her Majesty’s Government are willing to concur also. That the noble Duke is anxious to treat with impartial justice the question of the Government of the Maories we can fairly gather from the patient and unflinching perseverance with which he has gone into the question, but that it is quite hopeless to suppose that he can be altogether acquainted with the peculiar and delicate circumstances and conditions which surround that question is equally apparent. Therefore, so long as that branch of our affairs remains in his hands, hampered as he must of necessity be by the absence of the requisite information from which to form a fair judgment of the points at issue, nothing tangibly satisfactory can come of it. It has been urged, in reference to the complaint on the part of the Home Government, that the Dritish tax-payer is already most grievously taxed for the purpose of meeting the enormous expenditure of the Avar preparations necessitated by the present aspect of affairs both in Europe and in America, and in which England has an immediate and tremendous interest at stake, and that it is carrying those exactions beyond the point of toleration Avhen those heavilyburdened British people are required to contribute towards the maintainance of a considerable body of troops in a remote and insignificent dependency of the empire, is partial, and while it recognises the rights of the British subject within the British Isles and within the boundaries of our larger and more profitable colonies and dependencies to protection from their enemies, they (the Home Government) ignore in toto the rights of the colonists of Nbav Zealand to any share in that protection as between themselves and the aborigines. Here, again, we join issue with His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, aud in doing so we conceive that we therein keep in view the interests of this colony, Avithout reference to or prejudice of Avhat interest the British tax-payer may have in our affairs. According to the A T ieAv which has always been taken of the relations existing betAveen the Colonists and the Natives of this Island, and Avhich view implies in theory, if not in practice, an undisputed recognition of the same constituted authority, the same code of laws —human, divine, civil and criminal, equally by both races, it is apparent at a glance that any outbreak or disturbance of the peace between us and the Natives 'can only be properly looked upon as coming within the meaning of the “Biot Act.” If this view be correct, and we see no reason at present why it should not, then it folloAvs as a matter of course that, since the entire control over our oavu affairs is unhesitatingly secured to us by the Constitution Act, Ave are hound under that Act, and in the full enjoyment of its privileges, to support and maintain the peace whenever a breach of it is threatened by either Maories or Europeans, and have no right to expect special assistance in that behalf from the mother country. On the other hand, if the troops and warships which are now stationed here were to be removed from us, it by no means follows that because they are not here they must be somewhere else. Probably they might, but just as probably they might not. At all events, whether they be removed to some other station or disbanded altogether, the question of the expense is at once brought home to England, and the Colonists are, by the withdraAval of those troops and ships, at least free from the imputation of being too cowardly to fight their oavu battles, and too mean to assist in paying those Avho undertake that disagreeable office foi; us.