MR. STAFFORD'S ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume V, Issue 218, 25 January 1865, Page 3

MR. STAFFORD'S ADDRESS TO HIS CONSTITUENTS.

(Continued from our Monday's publication.) I confess when I consider what the Colonial Legislature undertook, and what is the result, including a debt much exceeding—comparatively wiih the respective populations—the national debt of Great Britain, and that too while a fourth of the male population of one half of the colony was taken from industrial pursuits to act as soldiers, I cannot but regard it with mingled astonishment and admiration. The Legislature acted thus boldly, and it will always be to me a matter of pride that it did so, in support of the Imperial policy. Its attitude then showed no hesitation or weakness. I wish as much could be said for its present attitude. As I have said, both the responsibility for the native policy, and the actual policy itself were thrust upon the Legislature. It did not propose either; but, accepting the actual position, neither deserted Sir George Grey, nor yet gave but a niggardly support to his policy. And that policy was succeeding. The natives who had risen against the Governor were beaten in every direction. In some places, natives had come out, unassisted, and defeated the rebel natives. Many were coming in, tired of fighting, and tendering their arms and allegiance to the Queen. If the policy determined on had but been steadfastly adhered to as a whole for a very short time longer the native war would have been at an end, and many lives which will yet be lost in it, and some millions of Imperial and Colonial money would have been saved. (Cheers.) But about the beginning of last year the war became unpopular in England. It was, like all wars, costing money. Why, the very calling out of the English yeomanry was said to depend on its ceasing. It was not, too, for different reasons, a war that was liked by military officers. Letters from them and from some civilians also, were sent to England with a view to getting the Imperial Government to stop the war it had itself commenced and plunged the colony into. Pressure in and out of Parliament was brought to bear upon the Imperial Government, and the result was that instruction, were sent to Sir George Grey which rendered the policy originated by himself, and, at such sacrifice supported by *the colony, not impossible, but somewhat more difficult of success. Those instructions were certainly, to some extent, embarrassing, but, if acted on in good faith by Sir Geo. Grey, no evil result need have followed. Some people affect scruples in saying what they really think of the Governor. • I neither feel nor will affect any scruples. I say that Sir George Grey is maiuly responsible for the fact that the native war is not now ended, and much blood and money saved both to the colony and the mother country. (Cheers.) If he had only acted six months ago as he has done within the last few days, we should very soon have heard of no more war. By the last steamer we learn that Sir George Grey has issued a proclamation confiscating very nearly the same land of the rebels which for months he had refused to confiscate. If this had been done months ago it would have put an end to the war. The natives were then depressed and ready for

peace, as they are now emboldened by tbe vacillation of the Governor, and the spectacle of some 15,000 or 16,000 troops kept idle, while they—• the natives—are recruiting and laying up stores for another campaign. The delay too has kept the Waikato Regiments idle—neither soldiers nor settlers—at a very great cost to the colony, thus materially adding to the debt*which will be yet felt by our children’s children. And the mistake does not end there, for the proclamation itself is objectionable in form. It omits to forfeit any land of the Ngatimaniapotos who have been the very head and front of the rebellion. The confiscation stops with the land the soldiers have occupied, as if ingeniously framed to encourage the insurgents to contest every yard of ground, as none would be declared forfeited that the troops did not stand on. Instead of the forfeitures resulting as the punishment of lawless conduct, murders, and plunderings, for which the hgatimaniapotos have been so conspicuous, it is now made to ensue from defeat in battle. It is difficult to conceive anything more unwise. Another grave mistake in the proclamation is the intimation that Sir George Grey intends to forfeit such native lands, between Wanganui and Taranaki, as he might hereafter please to take, but without defining the lands. The effect of that intimation will simply be, that no native in all that district will feel safe, and that all will be dmen to make common cause with those already in arms to prevent the troops going on their lands, especially when the exemption from forfeiture of the land of the hgatimaniapotos because the troops have never occupied on it, is considered. I have already stated what were the question which the Legislature was last session expressly summoned to settle. Well, except the placing in office of a new Ministry, these questions are still unsettled. The great question of Ministerial responsibility is native affairs was suffered to go by default, hotwithstanding the position to which it had been reduced by the action of Mr. Cardwell, and Sir George Grey, no reference to it was made by those previously so vociferous, hot a word fell from the Wellington bench. We had not even the great sessional speech of Mr. Fitz Gerald on the subject, or anything from him, save an attack on his old ally, Mr. Fox. The position the Ministry should hold in native matters with the Governor or the Imperial Government, was only incidentally alluded to in some Ministerial resolutions referring to sending home the troops. Resolutions so obscurely worded as not to be intelligible to many. Indeed, I may observe as a curious fact, that a government composed of six as highly educated men as there are in hew Zealand should have all through the session couched their resolutions in involved and inelegant, if not ungrammatical language. The first resolutions moved by the Ministers were clear only in one point—viz., to send home her Majesty’s troops—but as to the relations on native affairs between the Governor and his Ministers, if the troops were removed, or if they were not removed, no one that I met before or since professed to understand them any more than they or I can understand the relations which are supposed to subsist at the present moment. The request to remove the troops was clear enough, but neither then nor since did the Ministry make any provision for supplying their places. The proposal, therefore, was not entertained for a moment by the large majority of the House, which could not accept that principal article of what has been termed the Canterbury programme, which it is understood was arranged at a comfortable dinner at the Christchurch Club, where some say it was even styled “ the voice of the country.” The remainder of these first resolutions was, as I have said, unintelligible. Even if the troops were removed, there was still the ghost of “ Royal prerogatives aud Imperial interests” to haunt the Colonial Government—the very words used in Mr. Sewell’s memorandum with Governor Gore Browne in 1856. Surely it did not require that the battalions should be sent out of the country to land in the position of 1856! What was meant by the words I know not. The remission of a few days’ imprisonment, the occupation of land below high water mark, are Royal prerogatives. Was it intended that the Colonial Government should not meddle with such questions, which the Superintendents are dealing with daily p As for Imperial interests, so long as New Zealand is part of the British Empire, it would require but little ingenuity to find an Imperial interest in any question. The majority of the House could not consent to ask that the troops should be sent away, and that without any provision being made for substituting in their stead some armed force; but as every member was most anxious to retain Mr. Weld in office, it was arranged that the debate should be adjourned to consider the situation. A meeting of Mr. Weld’s supporters was held, when it was decided to ask him to frame resolutions in such a shape as would allow those who could not support the immediate removal of the troops to vote for them. To this Mr. Weld with some reluctance consented, and accordingly the Ministry brought down other resolutions, which were passed, by which the removal of the troops, and I may say the question of Ministerial responsibility in native affairs, remained in nubibus. The latter resolutions I was able to vote for, not that 1 or anybody else particularly admired them, but they were, like a chip in parritch, neither good nor 'harm. But I did regret that the important subjects to which they referred, had not been better dealt with, and that because of some half informed despatches of Mr. Cardwell’s written under pressure at home, and the last of which, by the way, contained a sneer at the colony quite unwarranted, the Legislature which never before had been backward in asserting its position, should have succumbed, almost like hounds crouching beneath the whip of the huntsman. Never was a Ministry in such a false position with the Governor as was Mr. Weld’s. When Mr. Weld attempted to define their respective positions in writing, Sir George Grey merely appended to the memorandum submitted to him by Mr. Weld, a minute to the effect that he would do, not what Mr. Weld might require him to do, but what a majority of the Assembly might concur in. Nothing under that memorandum could be required from Sir George Grey, unless the Assembly had expressly concurred in it; and, anxious as Mr. Weld may eventually be to resign, I predict that he may find it difficult to induce

Sir George Grey to admit that lie is bound to accept his resignation. Sir G. Grey has only agreed to do what the Assembly might agree to, but, as the Assembly agreed to nothing, Sir George Grey can act as it may so please him. At such a time such a position for a Ministry is a most improper one. The Assembly, in its hurried session, failed to settle anything between the colony and the mother-country; in fact, it did nothing but raise the interest on the war loan from fire to six per cent., and raise the Customs in a highly objectionable way [hear, hear]. I know of no community in a more dangerous financial position than New Zealand is at present, and yet we were forced to go to our homes, well knowing that we had done nothing permanently to improve that position [hear, hear]. Mr. Fitzherbert is an able politician, and fit to be a Minister of the colony, but he is certainly out of place as Finance Minister. I hold his corrected Financial Statement in my hand—not that which he made to the House of Representatives, but one that had been cut down and corrected—many of the figures even now are wrong. After an Act has been passed for raising tho amount of interest on the loan so as to insure that the remaining two millions shall not be sold under par, the balance remains stated as if the remainder of the loan was to be sold at the same rate as the first million, when the increased rate of interest was particularly astented to in order that the whole two millions should be received, and not the £162,000. When that Act and the Debenture Act were passed, clearly £380,000 should be added to the estimated income of the colony. (Hear, hear.) That is one sample of the loose manner in which a highly important financial question had been placed before the public. With respect to the Customs Act, I was told, about half an hour before it was brought before the House, that it was intended to propose an alteration in the Customs duties. It was, however, after four o’clock, when the Custom-house was shut, that Mr. Fitzherbert told me what was intended. If it was meant to surprise the House and the country, it was of course but fair that no one should know of it. But it would have been much better to have passed a resolution to the effect that from a certain day, certain Customs duties, to be afterwards specified, should be levied, and then there would have been ample time to discuss what the duties should be. I asked the Colonial Treasurer to taka that course, but he declined. I then asked him to modify some of the inequalities most complained of as to the measurement goods; but that he would not do. The fact was, he was determined to run his bill through both Houses under suspended Standing Orders in one night, so that of course there was no time for useful discussion or careful consideration. I agree to the propriety—if the Customs duties were to be increased —of raising the duties on wines, spirits, ale, and, possibly, tobacco ; but I altogether dissent from raising the duties on the other articles included in the tariff; and, had a fair discussion been permitted, I believe the new Customs Act would be very different from what it is. (Hear, hear.) On the following day the Government again came down to tho House, and suspended the Standing Orders to introduce certain financial resolutions, and raise the interest on the loan. I protested against such hurried legislation, but without avail, and I therefore left the House, rather than be a party to determining such important questions without fair and full discussion. (Hear, hear.) In the late short session, nothing was settled about the finances of the colony ; but it must be settled ; taxation must be enforced, but enforced in as fair a manner as possible, and so as to give no reasonable cause for grumbling. The Government failed also to consider the po ition of the Provinces of Canterbury, Otago, and Southland, with all of which arrangements had been made or proposed by the late Government in reference to the Provincial loans, which are at present unnegotiable, but which must be provided for if the public works are not to be stopped, and much loss and misery to ensue. It was the duty of the Government not to suffer the Assembly to separate without seeing to this important matter. Truly Mr. Fitzherbert took credit to himself in words for remembering the provinces, but in deeds he neglected them. Southland is insolvent at present, with the Sheriff in possession of the property of the local Government; Otago is about in as bad a position ; and Canterbury, high as she Las hitherto held her head, is verging on a dangerous financial position. I know from many sources, that before very long the southern portion of the Middle Island will suffer want and destitution little dreamed of hitherto. Many even at this time feel tho difficulty of making both ends meet, and they will feel it oven more. (Hear, hear.) There will be much individual loss and ruin before things get better, and 1 hold it to be criminal to allow such a condition of things to remain unconsidered and nncared for. (Hear, hear.) The few things which the Legislature did were objectionable, and those it did not do affected the vital interests of the colony, which required immediate attention. (To he continued.)