Untitled

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 135, 14 August 1863, Page 2

The difficulties which beset the steps of those distinguished and able men whose duties lie amongst the chaotic masses which compose the affairs of nations are very great, —greater no doubt than we the outsiders can readily conceive. My Lord Duke and the Hon, Mr. Quits, each in bis particular diplomatic beat or sphere, has to contend against real and imaginary obstacles of the most astonishing number and dimensions, and upon the getting over of which obstructive matters hang interests of tremendous magnitude,—probably an European or American war. But, great as are the tribulations and sore the vexations in store for those who go forth on diplomatic missions to settle the affairs of contending and opposing peoples in civilised countries, they have yet some determined rules or first principles by which to be guided, and by and from which to form plans and settle a definite course of action.

Not so that man upon whom the lot i s cast to act the part of uegociator amongst the Natives of savage Islands. He, bewildered mortal, finds himself atloat or probably rapidly sinking in miry waters, the depth of which it is impossible to define. To him, on his wild mission to a wild people, is denied the support of all those courtly usages and old established rules which act as a kind of barrier between the matter in hand and the thousand and one other matters which might possibly find their way into the question under discussion, and which barrier has grown up out of the dust of countless generations of noble statesmen. Yet, upon the doings of the less favored ambassador to the less favored people depend, notwithstanding the disparity between the savages of a remote Island and the refined peoples of a large continent, great and important interests after their kind.

It is the good fortune of those who merely look at the rich harvest gleaming golden in the bright rays of the summer sun, to know that the grain which droops and waves in rich luxuriance before the gentle breeze will, some day or other, in all probability be turned into good bread, and that multitudes of people will wax fat and happy upon that nourishing sustenance. Little think those gazers on the ripening crop how many days and months of anxious care and toil the thrifty husbandman will have to go through before that grain which now rustles there before bis admiring eyes will enter as bread into the mouths of the multitude who “ sow not, neither do they reap.” Thus it is with those who, looking merely at one stage of the proceedings of some political husbandmen, fancy that bright and promising as that is, all the other stages will be like that, and that the ripening and reaping of the grain is all which is necessary to secure the head.

When the late Chief Laud Purchase Commissioner to all appearance concluded the purchase of the Waitara block from those Natives who wore considered to be the rightful owners thereof, it was understood that nothing remained but to enjoy in peace the result of that profound Maori diplomatist’s labours; but somehow or other, notwithstanding that all was now apparently perfect and entire to the eye of the superficial observer, there yet remained much to be done before the laud could be fairly looked upon as indisputably ours ; and that much to be done turned out to be more than the other doings put together. Before the harvest could be gathered, the reaper required a sickle, which useful article he had quite overlooked.

The fact is, that Mr. McLean, in his laborious and difficult task of diplomatising the Maories in the matter of the Waitara block, forgot that, regardless of all his previous and patient doings, there yet remained one thing wanting to complete the beauty and success of the scheme ; in short, the arch required a key-stone, and this could only be supplied by one man, who stood in this case

Tin his relation to the laud in question much in the same way as the sickle stands in relation to the reaper and the grain, or the keystone to the yet unfinished arch.

We here find that, while it is possible enough to get the majority of a given number of Natives to agree to sell or give a piece of land, there yet remains in all cases, if not the remote probability of there being somehow or other a link wanting to perfect the chain, and wanting that link the chain is useless. The mana, a positive and not negative veto held by Wm. King, was the link wanted in the Waitara case ; it was not forthcoming, and in the endeavor to force that captious chief into an acquieseuce in the transaction, we have precipitated ourselves and the- greater part of the Maori people into a bloody and disastrous war.

It is an old, as matters have turned out, a sad, sad story, that of Waitara, but it is not the less a true and interesting tale, for all that it has been x-epeated again and again. It will have to be gone into again yet, before the rights and the wrongs of the question of who is to hear the expense of the melancholy consequences which have resulted from it will be set at rest That upon Mr. M’Lean rests the onus, and upon him, and him alone, rests the responsibility of the present criti cal state of affairs no man can doubt; but while we say this and feel it too, we do so because it is but just and fair that the saddle, however galling, should he placed on the right horse, and not from any desire to cast a stone at a fallen, and as regards the Government of the Maories, a degraded man, one who might say with Wolsey :

Nay, then, farewell! I have touched the highest point of my greatness, And from that full meridian of my glory, I haste now to my setting.

When we, the colonists, looking at the present disastrous state of our relations with the Maories which exists now, in spite of 25 years of coaxing and bribery, endeavor to thi'ow the blame and the responsibility of that state of affairs upon the Home Government, or upon the representative of the Home Government acting in this colony, we seem to forget, that while undeniably the war was began under the auspices and direction of Governor Browne, the then representative of the Queen, the causes which led to that war, are directly to be attributed not to Colonel Browne, as representative of and, by consequence, of the British tax-payer, but to Mr. M’Lean, the representative of the Colony, and the chosen vessel of the colonists. Therefore, much as we admire our worthy and respected correspondent, “ A Settler’s” able letter, upon the Duke’jof Newcastle’s despatch, we can by no means agree with him in thinking that because the war was begun under the special and particular countenance of the Queen’s Government, that we, the colonists, are not therefore in any way or at all events only in a very small degree responsible for the consequences of that act of Colonel Browne. The war had its origin in the decision given by Mr. M’Lean in the validity or non validity of the purchase of a certain piece of land, and upon that decision, which was given against the Maories and for the settlers of Taranaki hangs the cause of the present war. Sir George Grey has set aside Mr. M’Leau’s decision, and has determined, after mature and careful deliberation of the question, that he (M’Lean) was altogether wrong, regardless of the extraordinary knowledge which Mr. M’Lean is supposed to possess of the habits, customs, and ways of thinking and of acting practised by the Maories, and regardless also of his well-known perfect knowledge of their language and of their particular system of tenure of land. On the other hand Governor Browne was bound to carry out and to defend the decision of the only authority which was supposed to exist in those days, as touching the question of native land sales, bound in more senses than one: —bound as the head of the Colonial Government, to enforce respect to the acts of that Government, and bound as the representative of the Home Government, to enforce with such power and might as he possessed a respect for the laws of that great nation whose deputy he was. ’While, on the other hand, since Grey has determined that the act of Mr. M’Lean was a wrong act, and that the action taken in support of it by Colonel Browne was equally wrong ; therefore if the cause of the war is laid on Browne and M’Lean it must be borne in mind that they represented the Colony, and if Grey

and Bell repudiate the acts of their predecessors in office, and which acts unquestionably led to the present war, they also represent the colony, and that by consequence the colony is, on all hands, and looking at the matter from any point of view, not only obliged to bear the consequence of the antagonistic and contradictory state of things, hut is also bound and obliged to pay for it.