Spirit of the Press.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 306, 14 September 1865, Page 1

Spirit of the Press.

THE POLICY OF AUCKLAND. [From the Press, September I.] Ancient history tells us of a celebrated Roman Emperor who, at the very height of his feme, stepped down from his throne, laid aside the purple, and retired into private life to spend' the remainder of bis days in growing, cabbages. Very few men have ever been able to display such a remarkable capacity for adapting themselves to circumstances, and such resignation to the loss of power and dignity. The people of Aac land at all events, unhappily for their own peace and that of their neighbors, are far from being similarly gifted. Auckland, after many years of uncontested supremacy in the colony, has been gradually passed in the race, and has been compelled to transfer the metropolitan crown to her rival at Wellington ; but the Aucklanders have not borne their loss with the philosophy displayed by the Roman Emperor, and have wearied the country with clamarous appeals against such an invasion of their vested rights, and direful threats of coming vengeance. The present session of the General Assembly has afforded them the first opportunity for taking their revenge upon the immediate authors of the offence, but the Auckland members do not seem in any great hurry to avail themselves of it. We can hardly understand what line they are taking. They have manifested no very determined or systematic opposition to the Government; they voted for the reception of W. Thompson’s petition; and, most wonderful of all, they have endured in silence to see Mr Fitz Gerald assume the post of Native Minister—though it is probable that, had they foreseen what their votes on that occasion were leading to, they would have done their best to give a majority to the Noes. It cannot be said that they went np to Wellington without a perfect understanding of what was expected of them, for an association had been formed for the express purpose of protecting Auckland interests in the Assembly and elsewhere, and after a passing fancy that the dignity of the province would be best consulted by not allowing a single Auckland member to be present, it was agreed that the members should all attend in their places, and in every division vote in an united body against the Government We must suppose then that either the members are much more sensible than their constituents, and are willing to sink local differences and make the best of what they cannot alter, or else that they are biding their time for some fatal coup, when the banner of Stafford shall lead them to the onset.

: But if its members have fallen away a little from their first hate, the newspapers of Auckland remain true to their colors, and strive by energetic volubility of abuse to make up for the defection of their represen* tatives. No Scottish Gael ever expressed greater detestation for the Sassenach, —no member of the Young Ireland party ever poured out a more copious flood of invective against the Saxon, —than the Auckland papers unremittingly heap oh the devoted heads of Mr Weld and his colleagues. They are firmly persuaded that the one sole object of the present Government is to spoil Auckland for the benefit of the South, and in everything Ministers purpose, however innocent it may. appear, their unerring scrutiny detects the traces of the same nefarious design. Nothing that the Government either does or leaves undone can satisfy them for a moment. At one time it is thought that Ministers are inclined to clemency in dealing with the natives, and instantly tne Southern Cross breaks out in furious denunciations of their “ miserable imbecilityat another it is reported that Mr Fitz Gerald lias talked of hanging a native, and the New Zealand Herald, with a shriek of passionate indignation at such severity, holds up a horrid picture of “ the possible massacre of hundreds: of men, women, and children in the North” and sarcastically asks whether the lives of defenceless settlers an to he imfcrifled, merely because they are Auckkad

people ? It is odd, by the way, how strangely the General Assembly and the country at large have been mistaken in the character of the present Governinent. They are passing their Rills through the House, earring on the public business with great success ,and imitating very happily the appearance of a strong well established administration It is not till we'peruse the Auckland papers that w© find how much we have been deeieived, and that the men whose abilities we had estimated so highly, are in reality nothing better than “ bunglers,” “ incapabies,” “ drivellers,” and “ imbeciles.”

Separation is sf ill the trump card in the Auckland game. They are constantly brandishing it in the faces of the South, and threatening that unless the other provinces consent to replace the Seat of Government, and crouch in dutiful submission to the will of Auckland, she will abandon them to their own devices, and enter upon a new career of glory as an independent community. We are reminded of Louis XVI endeavoring to stop the Revolution by proclaiming that if the Parisians did behave themselves he should be obliged to quit the Tuileries; or of the lady in “ Hard Times,” who tried to break the spirit of her disobedient children by threatening to wish that she had never had a family. If the Auckland Government could undertake the management of all the native tribes within its borders, and give satisfactory guarantees that none should ever cross the frontier to raise disturbance in other parts of the island, it would be a good bargain for the rest of New Zealand to cry quits for past expenditure, and allow Auckland to set up as a separate colony as expeditiously as possible. Unfortunately, separation on those terms is impossible, and Auckland must there fore be content to remain in partnership, and to be helped through her difficulties once again, as she has been helped hitherto, by the more abundant resources of the South

A change has of late come over the spirit of the North. Since their utmost opposition could not avail to prevent the removal of the Government to Wellington, they have found that Auckland is not such a power in the colony as had been imagined, and can no longer calculate on being able to resist the wishes of the other provinces single-handed. Accordingly, after the custom of states on finding themselves over matched, they have sought to strengthen themselves by foreign alliance, and looking over the rest of New Zealand they have observed a strong similarity of position and interests between Auckland and Otago. The proverb that extremes meet seems to have a geographical as well as moral truth, for these two provinces, situated at opposite extremities of the colony, are following identically the same policy. Each has been accustomed to consider itself the leading province in its own island; each talks of being a great centre of population, (though with regard to the latter, the recent discoveries at the West Coast have shifted the centre into Canterbury); and each seeks to dismember the colony rather' than submit to be governed from elsewhere. An alliance therefore was hastily struck up between Auckland and Otago, and New Zealand saw with surprise the two provinces throwing themselves into each others arms, and swearing eternal friendship in order to secure a total separation. This alliance has not been very fertile as yet; though its effects have been shown in a monstrous proposal to alter the terms of the Panama Contract by substituting Auckland and Port Chalmers for Wellington as the ports respectively of arrival and departure; and we may hope that it will come to as rapid an end as such coalitions usually do. The gold discoveries -at Hokitika and the Grey will help to break it down, by increasing the wealth of Canterbury and Nelson, and thus throwing the balance of power more into the centre of thefoluny. The moderation of the Auckland members in the Assembly is also a promising sign; and : when with the departure of the troops the excitement of the war expenditure has psssed away, and the province is left to depend upon its unaided resources, the people of Auckland will soon learn to take a more correct view' of their position, and cease to urge upon the rest of the colony claims to which they are;' in no degree entitled.

GENERAL CAMERON and the COLONISTS. [From the New Zealand Advertiser.] The Weld Ministry have taught General Cameron a lesson he will not readily forget. They have shown him that a reputation is not to he sustained through the adoption of under-hand means, and that, sooner or later, the intriguant must come to grief. Had General. Cameron not been a gentleman of a strangely irascible temper, he would have taken his defeat in a kindly spirit, and he would then have left the Colony under very different different circumstances to these which attended his departure on the Ist of August last. The war may not have been in keeping with his idea of right and wrong, but while he enjoyed his own opinion upon that subject, there was nothing to have prevented him carrying out his instructions, and still less did there exist any reason why he should have availed himself of every opportunity for heaping abuse on the colonists and the Colonial Government. In a memorandum, bearing date the 26th July, General Cameron says : ' The Colony appears to have experienced no difficulty in raising funds to remove the Seat of Government from Auckland to Wellington; to purchase Government Houses, Residences for Ministers; increasing the number of Ministers, and augmenting their salaries; paying large snms as compensation to Taranaki Settlers ; and entering into a costly new Postal Service to England in addition to the existing one.

After perusing the published correspondence between his Excellency the Governor and General Cameron, we were prepared for a good deal, but we confess that the expressions above used stretch beyond our expectations. Ministers very properly condemn such expressions coming from a person holding General Cameron’s position, and have requested his Excellency to draw the attention of the Secretary of State for the Colonies to them, and they at they at the same time point out that there is here afforded additional evidence of that strong political animus which has exercised so unfortunate and influence upon the actions of the General to the great detriment of the public service in this Colony. Supposing that the assertions made had in themselves been correct it would hardly be thought by unprejudiced persons that a military officer was at all justified in setting himself up as censor of a Government with which he was expected to act in harmony, but, when they are utterly without foundation in fact, it must be presumed that the writer has been actuated by sentiments which are not calculated to raise him in the estimation even of the persons whose champion he appears to have become. From the commencement the proceedings of the Weld Ministry have been characterised by an honesty of purpose seldom displayed by a Government, and in the present instance, while denying that they are at all answerable to the officer commanding her Majesty’s troops in this Colony for any course of political action they may think proper to adopt, they notice the accusations, and give the most satisfactory replies to the charges which have been so unwarrantably preferred against them; The assertions relative to the removal of the Seat of Government, and the expenses incurred thereby, are simply a repitition of the lame attempts at fault-finding so frequently made by the Auckland press. As Ministers observeThe removal of the Seat of Government had been decided upon as indispensible for the proper government of the Colony by the Legislature before the advent to the office of the present Ministry, and an appropriation had been made, to provide for the necessary expenses, of a sum in six per cent. Debentures, which sum Ministers could legally have applied to no other purposes than those to which they have applied it. The change in the Seat of Government was, in the opinion of Ministers, as well as those of the Legislature, imperatively required on financial no less than on political grounds.

These facts General Cameron was as well acquainted with as Ministers, but some return was necessary in order to gratify the people of Auckland, and he launched out into these bold assertions entirely regardless of consequences, and without the least consideration as to the results. What the officer commanding the Imperial forces could possibly have to do with the proposal -to increase the number of Ministers we are at a loss to imagine. Certainly his opinion on the subject

was not asked, and we take it to be a simple, piece of impertinence for Mm to give it in the manner he has done. The increasing, pressure of public, business necessitated this step being" taken, and it is tor the represen* tatives of the people to say whether or not it is a proper one. The assertion that the sa* laries of Ministers have been augmented is utterly without foundation, although, had such been the case, there would have been ample justification, inasmuch that, as Mr Weld states in his memorandum :

The salaries of Ministers have not for some years been augmented in any way, directly or indirectly. As a matter of fact, the salaries of Ministers in New Zealand are on a lower proportionate scale than those of Ministers in other colonies or of many other high officials in New Zealand.

The allusion to the compensation paid to Taranaki settlers is in very bad taste, more especially when it comes from a military officer who must be intimately acquainted with the fact that the men who received compensation were in many instances utterly ruined, while nearly all were losers of more than they could possibly be compensated for. Moreover, it was determined by the General Assembly, in 1862, that this compensation should be paid, and the Government could not break faith in the matter under any circumstances whatever. The champion of Auckland again shows his colors when he alludes to the Panama question. Here, again, he shows that when he cannot have precisely, his own way, he will vent his spleen by making the most reckless assertions for the purpose of damaging the political character of his opponents, and injuring the Colony in the eyes of the Home Government. With regard to the latter point. Ministers say

The Panama contract was completed in fulfilment of obligations which had already been entered into by a previous Ministry, in the expectation that the financial advantages, direct and indirect, would be more than commensurate with the cost; in this belief the present Ministry concurs.

It is indeed a matter of regret to find a gentleman of General Cameron’s untarnished reputation as a soldier allowing himself to be led into making statements calculated to have the most injurious effects upon the welfare of this Colony, and it is still mare to be regretted when there can be found people so narrowminded as to applaud to the echo conduct which could not possibly help their cause, but which may still further complicate the difficulties the Colony has at present to contend against.

NATIVE MATTERS. fFrom th« Lyttelton Times, September The Native Minister has his work cut out for him. By every mail we receive news of fresh battles and of new accessions to the Hau-bau party among the Maoris. No doubt the fanaticism has been spreading in many quarters, although in others it is evident that a loyal feeling has incited some tribes to unwonted activity. The news is not as bad as it at first sight appears to be, iu some respects it is more hopeful than any that came down from the North during the campaign of General Cameron.

What has incited the doubtful tribes to join the Pat Marire fanatics has been the continued inaction of the military authorities. They have seen the Hau-hau leaders commit one atrocity after another with impunity, and have learned at last to believe the boast that the Hau-hau god would drive the Pakeha into the sea. At the same time the insecurity arising from the state of war in which the North Island has so long been plunged, made them reckless and ready for any change. Cultivations have been abandoned; old homes broken up; while the faith in the power of; the Government has been terribly shaken. The Maoris as a race have long doubled the power of the Government to execute the laws and to protect life andpropert"'. Ther* have been many signs of an inclination, on the part of natives now in arms against as to live peaceably, if only they were sure that we were willingly and able to keep the peace throughout the colony. The hostile natives are now learning a lesson which would never have been taught as long .as the. military an;borides held swiy iu N\w Zealand. Not ou ly are they defeated

again and again by small parties, who hunt them out of their strongholds, and have the audacity to bayonet them in their rifle-pits, but they have the mortification of flying, before the Maoris who have remained loyal. The wisdom of arming friendly natives was long doubted; and the fear of rousing bid feuds and passions made the Government long hesitate in arming friendly tribes against those which were hostile to us. But the spread of the barbarous and terrible Hau-bau fanaticism removed all doubt. Fortunately the experiment bus in every case proved successful; ami now that the Maoris have been placed iii the same position in every respect as the ■ Pakehas, and that they are declared by law to be fellow-subjects, with ourselves, of Her Majesty, the last objection is removed to the arming of the volunteers ot the native race. Wherever they have been called out they have proved themselves Hot ouly gallant allies but humane eneniies. After the battle of Moutoa, on the Wanganui, the first eifort of the victors was to obtain from Government the release from captivity of the prisoners taken by them ; and the last mws received from the North contrasts the desire to save life, on the part of the friendlies with the disgusting barbarities of the fanatics. It is not only wise, but just, to arm the friendly natives, and they have already shown that they appreciate the confidence placed in them, if they were left unarmed, and at the mercy of the fanatics, what wondor if they sought security by joining them ? The insecurity of their position has driven many of tho East Coast natives info the arms of the murdering Pai Marires.

The leaders of the Hau-haus have committed themselves to predictions of invincibility, and are supposed to be invulnerable. Every defeat must tend to shake the allegiance of-the newly converted. And if the leaders in the murder ut Mr Volkner and others, who have beenostentatiouslysacrificed the new religion, are speedily brought to justice, there is every reasuu to hope that the new superstition will disappear as speedily as it arose. The delay in pursuing the murderers has, we believe, been unavoidable ; as General Cameron would have initiated another Waikato or Wanganui campaign on the East Coast, if he had been euimsied with the duty ; but iu this case the criminals will find that the tardy foot of Justice is very sure. They have flattered themselves into such an idea of their immunity from punishment that they have actually taken no steps for self-defence; and it is to be hoped that the force sent against them may, alter all, surprise them in the neig iborhood of Opotiki.

It is quite curious how much the colony has recovered in self-confidence since General Cameron has gone, and the Colonial Go vernment has undertaken the control of operations in the field. There is no misgiving when colonial forces are sent anywhere, lest they should fail or be defeated. Let them be ever so few in number, their fellow-countrymen have full confidence in their resources and their valor. What can we think of a military system under which Englishmen had learned to lose that confidence in British soldiers which it takes so much to shake? Even the successes of our liaudful of our handful of military settlers are mot enough to wipe out the bitter feeling of humiliation and disappointment with which we remember how the prestige of the British arms has been lowered iu the eyes of savages. It will be bard to forget Mete Kingi's objection to go up to buttle alongside of Englishmen, unless there were four Britons for every Maori that would have been required for the work in hand. We . are thankful that the colony is Wiping out the stain left on her Majesty's arms.