ENGLAND AND ITS ANTIPODES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 377, 17 May 1866, Page 1

ENGLAND AND ITS ANTIPODES.

(From tbe New Zealand Examiner.) -Nearly antipodal to England is situated New Zealand. And the question may yet ■arise. Shall it be retained longer as a colony under British rule, or shall it not? To some, particularly to those disposed to follow the Manchester school of politicians, it might be deemed advisable that our colonies should be held as dependencies of the British Crown, if for no other purpose than to consume the overstock of cotton goods manufactured in the mills of Lancashire, now that the chances of supplying India with this -drug in the market are really very dubious. Allowing this argument to be just, so far as our manufacturing interests are concerned, -still, would any statesman possessed of the most ordinary amount of forethought and judgment, listen for a moment to its reasoning?—or would he wilfully forego on its account the chances of improving the present the well-being, the future happiness, and the prosperity of the inhabitants of the two or three most noble islands of the entire Southern Hemisphere—the New Zealands ? Would it not give evidence of pusillanimity, or be pure peccancy in any statesman of whatever school to refuse to grapple with the crying evils of the present position anywhere, or, yielding to party feeling, hesitate to legislate for her Majesty’s subjects, let them be located at the antipodes or in Jamaica, and be their colour black or brown, or their rank in the scale of creation with the Circassian race or with the Negro ? In the Queen’s Speech occurs, a plain paragraph—r“ Papers on the present state of New Zealand will be kid before you.” Now, this simple sentence, though it - may be less portentous of angry debate than that which refers to recent affairs in Jamaica, is nevertheless of sufficient significance in itself to arrest the attention of the members of either House of Parliament, as well as to attract tbe observation of the British public. Any discussion on the present state of New Zealand—representing as it does geographically the future Great Britain of the South—will be sure to open the eyes of all to the rare value and very great importance of these islands to us as a field for colonisation. Numerous as are the colonies and dependencies of England, none are possessed of such vital interest as New Zealand, and when it is considered that it is favored with a temperate climate, similar in some respects to our own, —that it has also like our islands an extensive seaboard, fine harbors, a fertile soil, and great mineral wealth, —it must assume in the imaginations of intending emigrants all the charms of a new paradise, particularly to the aged ; while to the young it is the flickering cynosure of their yet wandering thoughts, and the wished-lbr iaven of their more matured desires.

Notwithstanding its great distance from the mother-country. New Zealand has within these few years past risen into such importance as a home for emigrants, chiefly from the British isles, that there are living there now not less than 200,000 of European race

or extraction, as compared with 50,000 souls in 1857, according to Swainson. As a field for the exertions of the industrious. New Zealand is without a rival. To the healthy agricultural laborer, or the small hardworking farmer, blessed with a thrifty wife, and strong and active sons and daughters, desirous of emigrating, it is worthy of more consideration than a mere passing thought. The sort of people who might emigrate there with advantage to themselves have been assorted into three classes, thus.-—The capitalist with money; the capitalist whose capital consists of the thews and sinews of three or four grown-up sons, able and willing to work for him; and the capitalist whose stock-in-trade is a pair of strong arms and a contented mind.

The recent attraction of the gold-fields of the Nelson and Canterbury settlements are calculated to increase the population of New Zealand enormously, and to set at rest for ever the fear of any lengthened continuance of a renewed outburst of hostile collisions with rebel Maoris. The vexatious war that has raged for so many years past has at last dwindled down to such small proportions as to be accounted uothiug but a series of petty insurrections confined to portions of the Northern Island. The Maoris are not §pch contemptible beings as the barbarians in Australia or in the Polynesian groups-of islands, as has already been found to our cost in men and money. Small in number as these doughty, hostile barbarians are when compared with the European population of New Zealand now, being abont a fourth or fifth only, yet from the physical condition of the country, mountainous and thickly wooded in parts, and from the indomitable nature of the Maori himself, excluded, as he conceived, from his fair patrimony, aud driven, like a stag at bay, to the hard necessity of fighting for that which he firmly believed to be his own, a tedious aud lengthened struggle was forced on us ; nor can it now be matter of wonder that such a race of men—barbarians though they be called —would tamely submit to laws introduced for the compulsory sale and partition of their lands by strangers who had been permitted but a short period before to settle among them. From evil, however, there often cometh good, and from the war which had its origin, as some would insinuate, from the jealousy and rivalry of race, but which was undoubtedly aggravated, if not originated, by an unwise adjudication to settlers of lands loosely purchased from the natives, irrespective of certain intricate territorial claims still held over those lands by the Maoris, and which claims, in their estimation, were as inalienable as the rights of the Forest and the Game Laws among us. The result was natural. When, shortly after the sovereignty of New Zealand had been ceded to the British Crown by the Treaty of Waitangi, and the settlers had begun to survey, enclose, and build upon the lots which they had purchased, they were immediately challenged, and then set upon by natives, whose notions of the rights of soil differ so very much from an Englishman’s idea of the same. Conflict under the circumstances was inevitable ; but now the war, it is to he hoped, has reached it close, and both races may have in its progress discovered estimable qualities in each other. Both are possibly tired and disgusted at the results of the struggle, and both Maori and settler may feel assured of the integrity of purpose and capability of the Crown to protect and defend each in its rights of citizenship, and let us hope it may afford a lesson to our statesmen at home as well as in the colony, to frame in future such laws as are likely to give the greatest encouragement to immigration, preserve tba, rights acknowledged and defined of citizens — Maori and European—induce capitalists to invest money there, and encourage local indus<ry. Englishmen at home may be thankful that the main difficulty has disappeared. Our Government have experienced the folly of opposing 10,000 British troops to a parcel of barbarians, ultimately found capable of suppression by a handful of local volunteers, whose interest it is to chastise the savage brutality of their nature, and to conciliate as for as possible the amount of the reasoning faculty they are possessed of. The British troops in future will prevent a

foreign foe from obtaining a footing on the shores of New Zealand, The hostile remnant of Maori tribes and the insensate and fanatic Hau-haus will be taught by the native troops the necessity of conforming themselves to the laws of civilisation prescribed for them and for the colonist alike—equally subjects of Queen Victoria. Whatever direction any discussion on the affairs of New Zealand may take in the coming Parliamentary debates, we may rest content that it will tend to the benefit of the colony, and in a manner advertise anew to the world the vast advantages likely to accrue to the settlers on these the prime of islands under the Southern Cross. But with all the natural advantages New Zealand possesses over other colonies to tempt the emigrant to locate himself and family on its hills or on its plains, security must henceforth be fully assured him by a responsible local government, capable of affording protection to the peaceably disposed, and of intimidating the factious. This is indispensable, whether the power in these islands is to remain invested in one central government, or each of the islands is to have a separate legislature; yet we feel certain that the future prosperity of the whole, or of any portion of the country must depend upon an able and firm administration of affairs, internal i id external. In the event of separate legislatures being sanctioned, it will take but small effort of the judgment to augur that that settlement or island will soonest rise into the greatest importance where law is respected and industry encouraged; where the capitalist will be tempted to invest his money, and the mechanic and agriculturist to settle. The present squabbles for the separate governmental establishments among the settlements of New Zealand would seem to afford a special reason for the Home Government continuing to retain powerful but patriarchal hold over New Zealand, at least till by an increase of population members of the Local Government or Governments shall become capable of that selfcontrol which at home is the grand sheet anchor of British freedom, and the best security for British progress. It is due to the emigrant, besides, that the Home Government should possess partly the power of protecting him in the land of his adoption till he is fairly established; and the rights of the British Queen as Sovereign being once again established throughout the islands, it would seem the Home Government, being the stronger power, should be permitted to guide and advise the young bantling Britain of the antipodes till capable of standing alone among the nations of the earth. Till that period Great Britain and the New Zealands should be inseparable in rule as in interests.