NEW ZEALAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 314, 12 October 1865, Page 1

NEW ZEALAND.

[Prom tlie Times, July 21. J If New Zealand does us no other service, it is destined to illustrate in the fullest and most striking manner the impossibility of governing, negotiating, or commanding at the distance of the diameter of the earth. We cannot understand or unravel the state of things that it presents to us. On the one side reports reach us that the war is virtually at an end. that the only difficulty is to find any one sufficiently influential to represent the Maori nation for the purposes of making peace, and that the matter will be speedily and satisfactorily settled by a species of barbaric Congress, in which Sir George Grey is destined to play the part which the French Emperor had chalked out, for himself in Europe. These flattering assurances are, however, encountered by the most discouraging statements. Our own correspondent tells us much of discord believed to exist between the Governor and the Commander of the Forces, of a precipitate retreat of Sir George Grey to the Island of Kawau, in order to avoid an interview with the General, who shares his cares and responsibilities, and of a total change of opinion and feeling on the part of Sir Duncan Cameron, who, having begun the war with a determination to bring the natives to reason by the most stringent military measures, has now, we are told, changed his opinion, and become a convert to the policy of inaction. Now, the report even goes so far as to state that the movements of the General are paralyzed by conscientious scruples, and that if Sir Duncan Cameron ' had become tardy and indecisive, only advancing, we are told, sixty miles in four months, it is because he considers himself the leader in an unrighteous war. For ourselves, we attach little weight to such reports. We believe that the Governor and General each know their duty far too well to act in the manner ascribed to them. We cannot believe that a person of Sir George Grey’s experience, placed in a position so trying and so responsible, would avoid an interview with the officer with whom he must necessarily concert his measures if his policy is to have the slightest chance of success. Nor do we think that an honorable and able officer, as General Cameron has often shown himself, would allow his military operations to be influenced by any view he might entertain as to the justice of the war in which he is engaged. To say the truth, we cannot very well see how such scruples can arise in the mind of any reasonable and right thinking person. Without going into contested questions of the immediate occasion of the war, it is quite clear that nothing less is at issue than the retention of New Zealand by a civilized race, or its return to barbarism, cannibalism, and perpetual feuds, only made the more odious and detestible by the sort of varnish of Scripture phraseology and the distorted Biblical precedents under which the champions of a return to barbarism seek to disguise their odious intentions. Happily, however, it is not necessary for us to make up our mind as to these difficulties. In one direction, at any rate, light breaks in upon all this darkness and confusion. There never was a wiser or sounder policy than that of calling upon the colony to bear a considerable portion of the expense of the Imperial troops employed in New Zealand on its behalf. It has worked wonders in bringing the mind of the colonists to a sound and practical view of the question between them and the natives on* subjects, in which all parties are agreed. The Secretary of State for the Colonies refuses to continue the troops in New Zealand, except at what the colonists truly call “ a ruinous cost.” The colonial legislature also urges the withdrawal of the troops at the earliest practical moment. The colonists and the natives are willing to defend themselves if aided by an armed constabulary force, under the control of the Civil Government. The Ministry are disposed to grant the natives civil rights, and to demand from them in exchange the performance of the obligations of good citizens. The Assembly, which is shortly about to meet, is to make a grant of .£187,000 per annum, which includes AT 27,000 for 1,500 men of the constabulary ’

force, A 30,000 for militia and volunteers, and .£5,000 for a steamer. Our correspondent seems to apprehend that this force is too small for the purpose which it is intended to answer, to doubt whether England will suffer all her troops to he removed, and to incline to the opinion that they will be retained with only a nominal payment for their support from the colony. We cannot agree in any of these opinions. It seems to us that New Zealand may very well defend herself with such a force ’as is here contemplated if she will only adopt a policy conformable to her altered situation. Of coarse anything like an aggressive policy must at once be abandoned. Neither fifteen hundrednor fifteen thousand men would be sufficient to effect, on the ordinary principles of savage warfare, the conquest of a country so naturally strong, and garrisoned by a population so active, so well acquainted with the ground, and so brave as the Maoris. But neither is a conquest necessary. Our policy in New Zealand should be, so far as the natives will allow it to be, a policy of procrastination, and delay. Time fights for us. Without the aid of the bayonet and the rifle, dark and ill-understood causes over which we apparently have no control are working out the gradual disappearance and destruction of the Maori race. For some reason or another the children are not brought up to supply the waste of the present generation. When the existing race of young warriors is gone, there will not, according to all appearances, be another to replace them. Without the stain of blood-guiltiness, we are certain, if we will only have a little patience, to see our present difficulties disappear of themselves We would not advise the colonis's of New Zealand to deceive themselves with the notion that any change will be made in the terms on which English troops will be left there. The policy of exacting a money payment is valuable not so much for the amount obtained as for the assurance which it gives us, so long as it is exacted, that the interests of the colonists are identical with our own —in other words, that it will lead them to put an end to hostilities as soon as possible. Nor do wc think the colonists need apprehend that, after the experience we have gained, there will he any reluctance on the part of this country to withdraw her troops. Yv r e desire nothing better ; we are content that the people of New Zealand, if they undertake the labors and dangers of a native war, should also undertake the management of native policy. They may not manage things exactly as we should wish them, hut it is their affair and every day shows us more clearly the impossibility of working out the experiment of colonial self-government by halves. Upon the whole, then, though we di not profess to understand the exact state of things in New Zealand, we think we see clearly our own course through the difficulty, and we are glad to think that the Assembly and the colonists themselves appear so entirely to coincide with the views of this country.