Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 137, 28 August 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1863.

When ihe Duke of Newcastle, acting no doubt upon a suggestion derived from some one or other of Mr. J. E. Fitzgerald’s highly finished, but most dreamy, speeches, expresses it as his opinion that the progress made in the usages of civilization by the Natives of this Island during the last 25 years is very remarkable and very satisfactory, it appears to us that that noble statesman merely gives utterance to a vague and illdefined idea which has got into a corner of his mind, and in support of which it would be difficult for his Grace to find any practical or reliable truth. To us, looking hack through a long vista of past years spent in this country, carefully noting and observing the doings of the Natives, the progress made by that interesting but troublesome people in the walks of civilized life is by no means so apparent as we might be led to expect, seeing the prodigious sums of money, and the tremendous amount of mental labour which have been expended in endeavours to bring about that great object. It is not from an indefinite and very unsubstantial profession of the Christian faith, seasoned as that profession is by a keen appetite and appreciation of the good things of this life, nor is it from a mere imitative adoption of our manufactures, or our system of agriculture in a modified form, or in the use of our vessels, our carts, our ploughs, and other such ingenious contrivances for the economy of labour, as from a perceptible leaning towards, and acceptance of, those simple customs and those other small but important indications of an advanced and improved state of society, by which we should judge of the progress made by these Natives in the great high road of abstract civilization. When we consider the present miserably filthy condition of the villages or pahs, and of the houses which compose these villages, and when we look upon the squalid wretchedness and foul state in which the inhabitants of these villages live, it is impossible with even the most sanguine desire to look on the Maories and all their accessories and surroundings with the most favorable eye, to count these palpable —and but too palpable—signs as other than indications of a very depraved and low condition of the people. And these evidences afford the most painfully substantial proof that the Maories, however shrewd and naturally intelligent, are a people to whom the wants of life are confined within very narrow and unhealthy limits, and amongst whom the “carnal lusts of the flesh” are cultivated and encouraged into a very luxuriant growth. It would seem a very open question, whether the intercourse with a foreign, and, as we count ourselves, a highly refined and polished people, in any way tends to ameliorate or alter for the better the state of nature in which we find the inhabitants of these remote countries where we are pleased to establish a settlement. That before our more complicated and elaborate system of life, the institutions, the simple arts, the

general industry, and even that unhappy race itself with whom we come in intact rapidly dwindles away from the face of the earth is a notable and truthful enough fact. that during our sojourn amongst them we substitute for what we destroy a more healthy state of things, or a state of things which in any way ameliorates dr improves their condition, is veiy questionable and extremely doubtful. We do our best, that is certain, but that we fail in effecting any substantial good is certain also. There can be very little doubt but that when Captain Cook landed on this Island a hundred years ago, the natives whom he found here were, after their kind, and in accordance with the primitive state of society which obtained amongst them, a happy and contented people. They were industrious, they were, by comparison with their present condition, cleanly, and they were most undeniably brave. Without our manufactures, without our teaching, and without the assistance of our arts for lightening man’s mental and bodily labors, without the noxious influence of our strong and poisonous drinks, and without our, to them, unwholesome dietary, these IMaories found abundance of tilings to occupy their attention, their time, and their ingenuity in supplying the imperative wants of nature. The men from . c ‘ early morn to dewy eve” might have been seen occupied in the cultivation of -the soil iii hunting, in Ashing, or in lighting. The women were engaged in making' such simple articles of covering or of ornament for their own or the men’s bodies as the nature of the climate or of their own ideas of comfort, of decency, or of elegance dictated, and when not thus occupied, assisted their lords and masters in the - culture of the earth. The children grew up in a state of nudity, dirt, and happy indolence, and'a tone of content pervaded the whole community. True, their to us depraved appetites and horrible ideas of revenge led them to indulge in frightful cannibal orgies, most probably introduced and accompanied by the .application of. the most ingenious method of extorting excruciating agonies from the miserable victim of their vengeance whom the fortunes of war had given into their hands, and which the diabolical mind of a ferocious savage could by any exorcise of devilish ingenuity devise. And no doubt the appalling yells of agony extorted from the writhing, distorted, and hideously mutilated victim, under the hands of his executioners, was music to the ears of his conquerors. Whether these fiendish practices did or did not originate in some religious right or observance, or in some frightful political or social institution which obtained amongst them at some time in their history, does not materially affect the question as to whether the people, as a people, are the better or the worse for their intercourse with us, and by consequence of "that intercourse the entire revolution in their habits, manners, and institutions. Wickedness takes a great number of shapes, and is to be found flourishing in a very luxuriant state amongst ourselves, notwithstanding the safeguards against it with which we fancy we are surrounded. It is the firm conviction and eagerly expressed opinion of old Maories thatthe rapid decline and dissemination of their race is to be attributed entirely to the introduction of European tastes, habits, mode of living, to our religious observances, and to our political institutions. To these causes, and to these alone, does the Native of New Zealand lay all their troubles ; and, according to that view of the case, notwithstanding the many bloody and destructive wars which they waged amongst themselves, they were, before we came amongst them, healthy in body, contented in mind, and continued to increase and multiply, replenishing the earth. Their men were strong, robust, and brave ; their women were fair to the eye, and endowed with great fecundity ; and but for us and our new fangled notions and ideas they would have continued in a flourishing state even to this day.

There can be no doubt whatever to the unprejudiced mind that the Maories got along through life very well under their old system. True, before they got axes and tools, it took a couple of stout men a week or two to cut down a tree of moderate size, and many months, nay years, before they could reduce that tree, when down, into slabs, or into a canoe, or other useful purpose. But what then ? The laborer worked away with a will, and arrived in the fulness of time at the accomplishment of his object. To him the rising and the setting of innumerable suns was of no consequence ; to him the passage of moon after moon, of summer into winter, and of winter into summer again, was of no account. Time had no value in his eyes. A man was born, lived, and died, and no one took much heed of the particular day, or month, or year in which he first saw the light, or the number of other days, months, or years during which he sojourned on the earth. He came and passed away again, as hundreds of generations had come and passed away before him. He was quite contented with his lot, and although occasionally harassed by ill-defined but superstitious beliefs, he took life as he found it — for what it was worth, taking no thought for the morrow. All this is changed now ; the dark cloud of undefined but certain doom hangs like a funeral pail over the devoted race. The songs of love and war are hushed, the tale of “ strange ventures happ’d by land and sea” no longer lightens the weary hoursThe merry laugh, which comes but when the heart of the laugher is light, is hushed now, and there is the settled gloom of despair fast gathering upon the people. Hunger, nakedness, vice, and debauchery stalk through those fine lands, where once their fathers lived, fought, and died in plenty and content. To them “ ignorance was bliss.” All this ill accords with his Grace the Duke of Newcastle’s fine ideas as to the progress of the Maori people out of the darkness of barbarism and cannibalism into the glorious light and influence of our civilizing sun.