MR J. E. FITZGERALD’S LAST PUBLISHED LETTER TO ENGLAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 357, 12 March 1866, Page 1

MR J. E. FITZGERALD’S LAST PUBLISHED LETTER TO ENGLAND.

(From the Daily Southern Cross, 2nd March.) Mr Fitz Gerald’s letters to England always seem to produce far more effect than his writings and speeches ia New Zealand. This, probably, arises friTa two reasons. In the first place, he has a tendency to assume the prophetic character, and of course receives less honor in Ins own country than elsewhere. In second, he has a knack of putting things in a more favorable way in his En° glisli letters than in his colonial productions. When he writes to Mr Adderley he is on his best behaviour, and the wiid Irishman, whose characteristics so frequently crop out in the colony, is very completely suppressed in his English letters. His last letter is a notable example of this. At first sight the document is a moderate and even a statesmanlike and fair production. The colonial reader pauses at the moderation which has forgotten all about the perfidy and hatefalness of the Governor, and can now help to build up once more the reputation of one so lately denounced as a “ghoule.” The writer of eloquent but violent tirades against things in general, and each deed of the Government in which he has not himself some hand in particular, is hardly to he recognised in the dispassionate writer who criticises not men but measures. After all, it is not to be wondered at that Mr Fitz Gerald’s last letter should prove the. text for every leading English journal to found one or more articles upon. Personally,, the writer is unknown to the English public. He always has called himself the friend, par excellence of the native race, and it is not matter of surprise that he is admitted to be so where little beyond his own account of himself is known. That his ideas on native affairs are wild and utterly unpractical is true, but it is a fact not appreciated in England. That his estimate of all his rivals in politics is warped and unjust in the last degree is also a fact, but it is one which the calm tone of his English letters would seem to discourage. That his prejudice against a large sec-* tion of his fellow colonists is inveterate and unscrupulous is a fact which will scarcely be credited in England by any one reading bis philanthropic letters to Mr Adderley. All these things, unknown in England, are so well known in New Zealand as to need no comment or explanation from us ; and we only call attention to them now to account, to the colonial public for the great influence which such a letter as that republished by us the other day exercises over the opinions of the English press. It is true there is nothing wonderful in the letter itself. We shall speak of one or two very weak points directly; but at present we are concerned rather with the question why these are not* recognised at home; or, if recognised, why

they do not destroy the credit of the writer, or the influence of liis letter. The true reason we take to be that Mr Fitz Gerald, although so long a New Zealand settler, is even now very much on a level with the English public in his real knowledge of the matters on which he writes. Of course he has a sort of technical acquaintance with facts find figures of which they are ignorant, and this is exactly what makes him such a welcome expositor of New Zealand matters. He can speak as if he knew what he was talking about, and yet he does not do any violence to the purely theoretical view's of English people as to what the Maori is, and how he is situated, TV'ben he speaks of the existence of a large party in favor of peace and civilization, whom it is of importance to have represented in the Assembly, the idea does not eem an impracticable and mistaken one. These have no idea of the Maori as he is, either in his feelings or in bis position, and they like Mr Fitz Gerald’s way of putting these things, because he does in reality know little or nothing more about them than they do themselves. The letter itself had two distinct objects. It aimed at showing how r badly the policy of Mr Weld’s predecessors bad worked iu every way—military as well as political—and it was meant to prove the vast progress in every good thing that had been made by Mr Weld’s Government, and especially by the Native Minister, James Edward Fitz Gerald. At the outset he endeavours to show that the policy of 1563 has been an enormous failure. He points to the Waikato country, and he says we have paid three millions of money for it, and got in return 120,000 acres. To begin with, the statement is false. We have done nothing of the sort. There was still the better part of one million of money on hand when the Assembly held its last meeting, out of the threexnillioa loan, and as we never got anything like three millions iu cash for our debentures it is unfair to speak as though we had spent that sum. But, moreover, Ve have to ask what of expenditure at Wanganui ? What of that at Taranaki? What of the East Coast expedition and the pay of the Arawas ? Were these part of the expenditure for the conquest of Waikato, with its twelve hundred thousand acres of land ? Certainly they ■were not. In proof of this we have but to point to the fact, to turn to his own statement farther on, that large confiscations have been made at Wanganui and Taranaki; and that Mr Stafford’s Government has confiscated half a million more acres at Opotiki. Hence it will be seen that the statements of facts begin in an atmosphere of falsehood. To make out the war policy of 18G3 a failure was the object, and the first idea was to prove it as bad a speculation as possible. Hence tbe amount expended was increased enormously, and tbe total of confiscated lands was deliberately diminished to suit Mr FitzGerald’s views. This is characteristic, but we find it difficult to reconcile it with honesty. But we have a deeper ground of complaint than this against Mr Fitz Gerald. It is bad enough to tamper with facts and figures, but after all the injury done to the colony by such a course is not great. What we do complain of, and what we do regard as a serious offence on his part, is the reiteration in a covert, and therefore in a most injurious way, of the most offensive charge ever made against the colonists of New Zealand. We mean this; He has said that the policy of 1863 was a bad speculation. He has said that the colony made a bad bargain, and he has left it to be gathered that the war was undertaken as a speculation by the colony. This is the offence of which we complain, and it is one of the very gravest of which a New Zealand statesman can be guilty. It is indeed such a political crime as ought to render impossible anything like accession to power by the guilty party. In doing this the late Native Minister aimed a serious blow at our character’. It was bad enough for a newspaper writer to malign his fellow-colonists ; but the crime is increased tenfold when the offender speaks with a sort of authority as a Colonial Minister. Of his defence of himself, and bis attacks upon General Cameron, we shall probably have,more to say; but we think that in what we have said we have produced a charge against Mr James E. Fitz Gerald which it will need his best ability to explain away.