THE STATE, OF THE COLONY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume V, Issue 257, 26 April 1865, Page 3

THE STATE, OF THE COLONY.

(Abridged from the A. Z. Herald , April 20)

From end to end of the Northern provinces rebellion and murder stalk openly and unabashed throughout the land. . Nothing on earth but the counterpoise of the European population in this province at the present moment suspends or renders partial the bloody action of the hordes of srn-Mgo miscreants now everywhere hovering on the outskirts of our settlements." How long this immunity may p we a safeguard ‘hone cab tell. In every direction the presence and doings of the TVt Mahore fanatics are daily heard '.of. Their iatiuence i- extending, their numbers increasing, a.id their attitude is hourly becoming more and more threatening to the safety of the colony. Ol I ho removal of the Seat of Government of too Hernia say?: —“This event pre-eminently has excited the rebels to frenzy all over the country. It has raised rebellion to fever beat, and turned Maori lawlessness into madness. The poor deluded wretches, whom all along it has been our policy to make believe we were afraid Of them, are now drunk with exultation over the fancied retreat, of the Pakeha, and nothing short qf the wholesale destruction oi themselves, or of us as their victims, at this moment seems possible. It is a terrible alternative to contemplate, but it is useless any longer to shut our eyes to the fact. Who is'responsible we need not stay to inquire. It is notnow the time to waste words in vain reproaches and profitless recriminations. We caution the Colonial Government, with all the emphasis and solemnity of deep conviction, of the consequences that are surely impending. A general determination among the natives io drive the Europeans from the country instituting a system of isolated murders, which should render occupation of the country districts unsafe, has now been arrived at, and indeed forms the main doctrine of the new superstition. Should the astounding infatuation ot the Southern Ministry as it now threatens to do, actually precipitate this state of things we may look for no oilier result in this blood stained land than the certain consumation of the dire calamity so long yet so vainly deprecated—a hand to hand struggle between the races, ending as it must do, at an •/ cost, in tbe final extermination of the intractable Maori. For this finale to the colonization of New Zealand, Great Britain will have none to blame but-herself. To her philanthropists at home, and their agents and organs in the Colony, will she be indebted for the ineffable disgrace, it might not have b en so. A straight-, forward, manly, common sense course of action in this country would have averted the evils which have now overtaken us. But we pandered to the vices of the savage instead of subjugating him to rule. Wc were tender of his weaknesses until his passions became too powerful for us to govern, and too strong for him to control. Every species of villainy which well practised hypocrisy could cloak was glossed over and condoned, ostensibly by the loathsome impersonation of corruption incarnate, long known <n this country as the “ Native Office,” but really, and in fact by the Governor of the day, the Imperial Representative, and the agent-general of a quasi-religions influential clique in England, whose superstitious project it was to engraft Christianity upon heathenism, civilization upon barbarism, and order and- good government upon habitual and openly avowed lawlessness, in the persons of ignorant and savage aboriginals. Folly and presumption are 'exhausted in the details which these attempts disclose. Universary history may be challenged to produce a parallel. Nothing whatever approach* ing to the example which this country furnishes of the lengths to which well-meaning ignorance wifi lead zealous self-righteous enthusiasts to intermeddle in affairs of others to- their injury or th- ip ruin, could we believe be met with, where every consideration of past experience has been ignored and every principle of practical wisdom' ordinarily acknowledged among men has been ■openly and unsparingly violated. At thedborof

the perpetrators and apologists of this vicious folly we lay much of the guilt of the bloodshed and crime which stain the history and soil of-New Zealand; We have -all along declared it to be our conviction that the authors of the evil are not far to seek. Recent events have done much to tear away, the vail in this point which has so long and so strangely overhung the public mind both here and in We Lave said that Great Britain is Jo blame, but we did not mean to imply by this that she is the occasion a”d source of our troubles. She lent her ear too trustingly to meu whose station and influence hare been made use of to k eep her in unsuspecting ignorance of the true state of affairs in this country and she lias committed herself in consequence to a course of action at once impolitic, cruel and unjust, but which we are confident would never have been entered on had the British public known how matters really stood. To protect the vested interests of these men, who throughout have deceived her and abused her confidence, wisdom and sound policy have been repudiated, her military reputation among the Native lias been sacrificed, aud the lives, property, and prospects of the colonists of New Zealand' for years hare been held ch«ap as water. The pass to which things have at length come in this colony, is the direct result of the machinations of the same proMaori organization.”