“THE WAR IN NEW ZEALAND.”

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 382, 4 June 1866, Page 1

“THE WAR IN NEW ZEALAND.”

3y Wm. Fox, A.M., Oxon, late Colonial Secretary and 'Native Minister of the Colony. London ; Smith, Flder, and Co., 1866. P.p. xvi. and 268, duodecimo. (I'rom ttie New Zealand Herald, 25tli May.) Since it was announced that a work on the aifairs of New Zealand was forthcoming from Mr Fox, its appearance has been expected in many quarters with much interest ; and that interest will not have been disappointed. Mr Fox is one of the few tvho combine the qualifications of being both a good speaker and a good writer; and the war in Now' Zealand is a subject with which lie is thoroughly acquainted. The book is written especially for readers in England, and it cannot but prove very serviceable in vindicating the Colony from many aspersions, and in removing much of the sublime ignorance that prevails on our Colonial aifairs. The style is good and vigorous, the narrative spirited and judiciously concise, and so the interest is well sustained. There is an appearance of truthfulness in the narrative, and a constant appeal to authorities; and in fact the story is, on the whole, very correctly told. Almost alone of all the writers in New Zealand, Mr Fox—with the true instinct of genius—shuns the mistake ■of impeding his work with a mass of subordinate details, either of narration or of criticism; and therefore every page is intelligible and interesting to the previously uninitiated reader. We are very glad that such a book has been published at this time in England.

At the same time Mr Fox makes no secret of his personal convictions and predilections —-we must not, we suppose, say “ prejudices,” for our author naively observes: “ I am not aware that I have any prejudices.” Query, is any one aware of his having prejudices ? It is of the essence of a prejudice that he who harbors it is unconscious of its -character. But certainly Mr Fox is not chargeable with having prejudices, properly so called, on New Zealand affairs. He prejudicates nothing, he judges nothing before the time; for on every subject of cf which he treats, the evidence is thoroughly known to him. This does not, however, prevent him from having decided sentiments, and giving them strong expression; and what he writes is, on that account, all the more interesting. In Mr Fox’s deliverances we can easily recognise—and we may add that we have much pleasure in recognising—first, the quondam leader of the peace party; secondly, the influential member of the Whitaker Administration ; and, thirdly, the man of Wellington. In the first-mentioned capacity, he convicts Governor Browne of rashness; in the second, he brings home to Governor Grey the charges of a fatal indecision, vacillation, and propensity to strife; in the third, he is unsparing to General Cameron wkh reference to the Wanganui campaign. But throughout the whole Mr

Fox tells the facts clearly and correctly, and the reader perceives that he does so. Some omissions there certainly are of what might be considered as tending in the other direction, but we are bound to say that such omissions cannot be regarded as essential. Mr Fox, be it observed, is the historian of the war in New Zealand, and does not profess to give, nor docs give, a history of the New Zealand politics contemporaneous with the war. This reserve is judicious in the personal politician, and is by no moans censurable in the historian of the war. Readers in England do not want to know the ups and downs of our colonial parties, but they did want to know the facts of the case about a contest in which her Majesty’s troops were engaged, and for which her Majesty’s subjects in the United Kingdom as well as in this Colony have been taxed. There is not a word in the hook on the Separation movement, either in Auckland or the Southern Island. Nor is any reference made to the extravagant manner in which the removal of the Seat of Government from Auckland, at such a crisis, was precipitately adopted and carried out. Nor is anything said about the Panama contract, or the other lavish expenditure of the Weld Administration. Of that Ministry, however, it is remarked that the “‘self-relying policy’ of the Weld Ministry” was “ a good-horse, but one which, it must ba admitted, they have done all they could to ride to death.” Again : Many of our colonists think that a policy which was brave and chivalrous in design, hud become in the bauds of the Weld Ministry, rash and quivotic ; and that by their continued cry to take away all the soldiers, they were destroying the hope of successfully bringing the self-relying policy into operation.

Having been favored with a copy of “ The War in New Zealand,” forwarded to us by a correspondent in London, we have hastened to present our readers with a notice of what appears to be its most prominent characteristics. We now proceed for the present to cull a few of the most noticeable dicta in the work, and we shall on a subsequent occasion make some further extracts. Mr Fox is decidedly of opinion that the system of storming pas was a complete mistake. “ Closely invested,” ho remarks ;

These 'waterless entrenchments were mere traps ; and had we contented ourselves with surrounding them, and abstained from throwing away ammunition and lives in rain attempts to storm them, the Maoris must, in every ease, have walked out into our lines at the end of forty or fifty hours. Even if, at the end of that time, the natives hid succeeded in breaking through our lines, as at Orakau, a small cavalry force in reserve would always have enabled us, as it did on that occasion, to cut off their retreat and inflict crushing loss upon them. Speaking of the Governor’s “reluctant” consent to the Tuuranga campaign, Mr Fcx observes—■ The Governor, who (like the Maoris when they build a pah) always likes, when responsibility is to be incurred, to leave a back door for escape, assented, but said he did it “reluctantly.” In the narrative of the affair at the Gate Pa, the Maoris are accredited with heroism, or something like it, in the following terms:—■ Imagine the position of the Maoris lying still in their grass-roofed and wattled burrows excavated in the banks of their rifle-pits, listening hour after hour to the roar of the big guns and the hurtling sound of the projectiles, feeling the terrible concussions of the shells as they struck close by or just over them, or scattered in fragments, and carrying death among them, with the certain conviction that before night they would be assailed by the bayonets of an overwhelming force of trained soldiers. It must have required something more than a dogged disregard of death in untutored men to enable them patiently to await their apparently inevitable end amidst such a terrible scene.

Not much is said about the “ Memorandum! ad : ’ of 1864—nor indeed was it necessary to dwell at length on the details of the controversies between Governor Grey and his then reponsible advisers; but to the more recent topic, and to an English reader, the more telling one of the differences between Governor Grey and* General Cameron, a ■whole chapter is devoted. The writer awards commendation, in a moderate way, to Sir George for the capture of Wereroa, and recognises heartily the doings of the Colonial forces. The chapter alluded to commences thus

The campaign between Sir George Grey and General Cameron seems to Lave been by far the most “ vigorously prosecuted" of any which was ever carried on in New Zealand. If those “ two able and distinguished persons” had exhibited as much energy and determination in fighting the rebels as they did in fighting each other, the war might perhaps have been brought to a much earlier termination. Of the late lamented Duke of Newcaitle, the author observes : The death of his Grace the Duke of Newcastle was a grave loss to Now Zealand. He had had the New Zealand question under Lis care from the commencement of our difficulties, and thoroughly understood it. He acted with great liberality and sympathy towards the colonists; and I think, if he had lived, he would not have put that “interpretation” on responsible Government, as intended fay him, which haa since been given to it. Oa Mr Cardwell’s despatch of July 26, 1805, it is remarked—and the remark is still more applicable to some subsequent despatches from the same Eight Honorable gentleman;— Mr Cardwell has refused this reasonable request in a despatch which, for hardness and want of sympathy, is, I think, unequalled ; summing up by an anticipation every possible argument which could be used against it in Parliament, and refusing positively even so much as to ask the House of Commons for the assistance requested. In the concluding pages of the last chapter, cause is shown why we must expect a speedy extinction of the liluori race. Statistics are adduced which evidence their progressive diminution, and the operating causes arc partly sanitary and partly moral. The latter are referred to as follows : So long ns the communistic and vicious social economy exists among them which has hitherto existed, tlie destiny of the race is certain. The missionaries had before the war altered the habits of the natives in many particulars ; but this great evil they had barely, if a; ail, succeeded in touching. It is true scarcely a hint of it appears in their reports home; but they kno v- well, and in conversation freely admit, the ’magnitude and universal prevalence of habits which are sweeping the natives into an early grave.

The Aborigines’ Protection Society is invited to leave off “ writing feeble homilies in baby English,” and to turn its attention to a mode of treatment more really humane: If the Aborigines’ Protection Society had devoted its energies to some systematic attempt to ameliorate the sanitary condition of the natives, and to teach them the laws of life, and by writing feeble homilies in baby English, but by sending among them medical officers capable of teaching these laws, they might have earned the title they have assumed, and would have had the cordial co-operation of the colonists. Here is a field of practical utility open to them yet, though one which would cost both money and labor. The following is the concluding paragraph of the book ; My own conviction is, that had the colonists from the first been allowed to arrange their own relations with the native race, and conduct their own political intercourse, no serious difficulty would have arisen between the two races. It is to the representatives of the Imperial Government, in whose hands the administration of native affairs, and the function of purchasing native lauds, were jealously reserved, and to the injudicious advice of seif-constituted friends of the Maori at home, that all the troubles of that uahappy country are attributable.