CORRESPONDENCE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 133, 31 July 1863, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Hawke's Hay Times.

Sm,—Referring to the leading article in your issue of Friday last, on the subject of the despatch recently received from the Duke of Iscwcastle, on colonial responsibility in native matters, permit a constant reader of your journal to offer a few remarks, tending, as ho believes, to shed a few rays ot light on this very dark and difficult question. It appears to me that the argument in the article referred to proceeds on the assumption that there is a reality or genuineness in the (so-called) concessions made by the Imperial Government to the Colony, or in ether words, that in givin" the responsibility of native Government to the Colonial Ministry, the control of these matters is fairly implied (as indeed it ought to be) ; while in fact it will prove, on a more close examination, that the concession granted is no boon, but rather a delusion and a mockery, for while the total cost and responsibility is exacted from the colony, the entire controlling power is as firmly as ever'held in the hands of the Imperial Government, by means of their acting agent the Governor of the Colony. That I am not making any vague or unfounded assertion, will bo quite apparent on our consulting the despatch itself, which I shall proceed to do and quote a sentence or two, which, it will be seen, fairly bears me out in the view I have taken •

“ Your constitutional position with regard to your advisers will, as desired by your late ministry, be the same in regard to native as to ordinary colonial affairs; that is to say, you will be generally bound to give effect to the policy which they recommend 'for your adoption, and for which, therefore, they will be responsible. I say generally, because there remain several contingencies in which it would be your duty to act upon your judgment in opposition to theirs. You would be bound to exercise the negative powers which you possess, by preventing any step which invaded Imperial rights, or was at variance with the pledges on the faith of which her Majesty’s Government acquired the sovereignly of New Zealand, or in any other way marked by evident injustice towards her Majesty’s subjects of the native race. - In the interests of the colonists themselves you might find yourself bound, under conceivable circumstances, to appeal from your Government to the General Assembly, and from the General Assembly to the constituencies, in case the policy recommended for your acceptance appeared to you clearly disastrous.” Nor is this all, for if we go a little way backward and examine the despatch conveying the Fox party’s desire to participate in the management of native matters to the Secretary of State, bearing date 30th November, 1861, (on which the noble duke lays so great stress), we shall discover that the Governor proposes to retain the power or control over native questions as effectually under the proposed, as under the old system, saying in effect that he can at all times find willing instruments to second his views whenever they may be opposed to those of an existing ministry. The sentence as given in the despatch is as follows : “ If any serious difference takes place between us on these subjects (native matters) I must, as in other cases, resort to other advisers, and appeal in fact to the General Assembly.” Thus the actual management of native affairs was to be in all such cases really in his own hands, while he would divide the responsibility for the results of Ms management with the Colonial Ministry, much after the style of the old nominee government, where the advice of the Council was adopted when it agreed with his own views, and not else, so that while the responsibility of that Council was sufficiently real, its power was but the shadow of a shade. To refer again to the despatches, we find in the first addressed to Sir George Grey under date sth June, 1861, the conditions on which alone any concession can be made to the Colonial Government thus distinctly laid down : “Whatever may be the future arrangements as to the purchase of native lands or administration of native affairs, or whatever the amount of force retained in the Colony, or whatever the source from which its cost shall be defrayed, it will le impossible for her Majesty’s Government to authorize the Government of New Zealand to emplog her Majesty's troops in suppressing native disturbances, unless he shall have been thoroughly conversant with and personally consenting to every measure of the local Government which in its operation may have unfortunately led to the necessity of so employing them. And this principle must govern all the arrangements which you may be able to make in concert with the local authorities on the subject of native affairs It would be impossible for any government in this country to supply Imperial troops ‘at Imperial charge in order to avert from the colonists the disastrous consequences of a policy which would have been pursued against their advice, and over which they could, under the actual constitution of the colony, exercise so little control.”

These extracts, speaking for themselves, show plainly that while the Home Government were willing to allow the responsibility of native (mis)government to fall on the heads of the Colonial ministry, they were only willing to allow them to have any share in; the management of these matters while their views happen to coincide with those of the Governor, Sir George Grey. I am tempted to pursue this subject by a reference to the columns of the leading journals of the colony published at the time of the receipt of “the celebrated Newcastle despatch,” twelve months ago, but I feel that the limited space at your disposal must preclude my doing so on this occasion : while I am perfectly aware that both yourself and the public well remember the almost universal impression made by that despatch on the mind of tho colony was, that the concessions granted by the Imperial Government were a mockery and delusion.

A candid reader of the various despatches from the Secretary of State to the Governor of New Zealand, cannot fail to observe throughout them all a sort of Canon Stowell feeling, very frequently, and quite distinctly enough expressed, that the colonists, as a body, arc strongly desirous of oppressing, robbing, and destroying tho, native race, and that they have been only held in check or restrained from this course by the strong hand of the Imperial Government, through what his Grace terms “ a system of Imperial trusteeship,” and for this system his Grace claims some credit as a cause of the unparallellcd advances made by the Maories in intelligence and civilization ! but those who have been able to observe the course of circumstances in these Islands during the past 18 or 20 years, are able to trace very different results as having flowed from that system —the condoning of the Wairau murders—the setting aside of an award made by a duly appointed Commissioner, and sanctioned by all that the majesty of a British Court of justice could lend to make it sacred—with a thousand other instances of misgovernment in days gone by —the whole course of petting, pampering, bribing, yielding policy we have witnessed from that time to this, and, indeed, still witness, especially in this, our own neighborhood, (more the shame) —all these are only a few of the ramifications of that system , which has at length brought about the war of races now impending—a system that has proved and will yet prove ns destructive to the native race, ns opposed to the progress of the colony, and which would never have existed if the power of guiding the policy of tho Governor had been en-

trusted to colonists of intelligence, experience, and ability, rather than’to members of a monomaniacal missionary party, blinded by their psewdo-philan-thropy for the native race, and their hatred of the colonist. Of that we may feel sure, though the conduct of certain parties lately in power, (to whose pernicious influence we mainly owe the late despatches of the noble duke), shows us how that for the sake of “ a little brief authority” some men will forego all the results of their past experience, and act in direct opposition to all their previously declared principles and convictions, even to the sacrifice (if need be) of the welfare of the whole colony, but in such a case as this, the power to remedy an evil so great rests in the hands of the people (through their representives), who can consign such to deserved infamy, while, under the “ system of Imperial trusteeship” so much lauded by his Grace, they could but gall and suffer without remedy. You will perceive from the considerations above noted, that I cannot agree with you in your estimate of the noble Duke’s despatch. To my mind it bears proofs of a total misconception “of the question of our relations with the native race,” and though it certainly may be called an able document, the ability displayed therein seems more like that of an advocate whose duty it is to place the one side only of a case in as good an aspect as possible, than what we in justice ought to expect from the Honorable the Secretary of State of her Majesty’s Imperial Government.* I am, Six’, Yours, &c., A SETTLER. Napier,'July 28, 1863.