Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 1864.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 178, 10 June 1864, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 1864.

It is very refreshing, in the midst of the desolate wilderness of wars and rumors of wars by which we are surrounded, to find a charming oasis of comfort. The present Ministry are, if we may safely believe Mr. Fox, really bent upon carrying out their war policy upon sound and first principles, and which principles are ably explained in that gentleman’s memorandum addressed to the Aborigines Protection Society, a copy of which document wc published in our last week’s issue. That a Society of men should be formed for the purpose of protecting the Aborigines of our different Colonies, is, to a philanthropic mind, highly commendable; but it is unfortunate that that Society should hold such extremely fallacious and thoroughly chimerical views as to the nature of the protection which is required by these Aborigines. Mr. Fox, in the reply just mentioned to the petition to Sir G. Grey of the Society above-named, ably combats the deplorable ignorance and misplaced philanthropy

as regards the Maoris displayed by the gentlemen signing the petition, and endeavors (and, in fact, does, to all unprejudiced persons,) to remove from the minds of the petitioners, any feeling that we are the aggressors in the war now pending in this island.

It is not now of much consequence what Mr. Fox’s opinions or doings were] in times past, in relation to this war, nor shall w r e enter into an invidious comparison [between the determination expressed in the document before us, to prosecute the [war with vigor, and the preposterous overtures made hy~that gentleman to the natives during the short tenure of office w'hich fell to his lot before the actual outbreak ot hostilities in Waikato. It is by no means an uncommon thing for men of the present Ministry’s elastic properties to turn themselves (in a political sense) inside out a great many times. Had Mr Fox pursued to the end his late policy, i.e., peace, there can be no doubt he would have great difficulty in escaping, amongst other dangers, the horrible punishment of being made a member of the Peace Society, and of receiving, in addition to that terrible torture, further tribulation in the shape of a piece of plate, as a memento of the high odour in w'hich that august body held him. But, happily for New Zealand, and possibly for Mr. Fox, that gentleman remains pretty much about the same as usual—ready, upon the slightest provocation, to recant and be converted to any profitable doctrine going. Mr. Fox lays great stress upon what he calls a “ material guarantee,” and explains at some length, (and, considering the length of the explanation, with tolerable clearness,) to the Protection Society what were the ideas in relation to material guarantees entertained in old times by the Maories themselves, from which it would seem that the confiscation or appropriation of the lands of the conquered has ever been a timehonored custom amongst the Maories. To us it appears a matter of indifference whether the Maories did or did not in their own wars make the beaten side pay for the whistle by taking their lands, for it is clearly impossible under existing circumstances to stand upon trifles. That those troublesome Waikatos provoked us to attack them by attacking us is well known, and, as a natural consequence, the “ material” prosperity of the Island suffers considerably. Those restless bloodhounds should and must therefore be punished. The only punishment which they recognise, as matters turn out, is the only one which, if inflicted, could by any possibility be turned to account by ourselves, and that is the confiscation or forfeiture of their lands.

Had Sir George Grey confiscated old Heke’s lands as payment for the trouble and loss he occasioned us many years ago, there can be no doubt that that salutary example would have taken fast root in the Native mind, and we should have been spared the intolerable burden and humiliation of the present ruinous war. But, No ! that distinguished Governor Sir George Grey, with misplaced reliance upon the mere eftect produced by his superiority in arms and numbers, abandoned, at the conclusion of the war between us and that tough old chief, any claim to his lands as a compensation for the war ; and, as was predicted by persons conversant with Maori habits, old Heke, while lauding the Governor’s generosity, and thus tickling that weak individual’s vanity, secretly laughed in his sleeve at the extreme greenness of that philanthropic party. So much for differences of opinion. The Missionaries, on the one side, called Grey a noble philanthropist and many other hard names, while the Maories stigmatised him as a fool.. From that day to this Sir George Grey’s influence with the Maories rapidly declined. They never exercise chivalrous virtue amongst themselves, and they do not therefore understand that sort of thing in others. Therefore, from that weak concession of Grey’s to Heke, we may trace the present severe struggle and the consequences.

Mr. Fox’s able but rather lon'* discourse to which we now refer will, becomes circulated in England, remove a great deal of that misconception of the state of affairs in this Island, as regards the causes, and consequences of the present war, which seems to pervade the public mind iu that otherwise highly enlightened country.