Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1869.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 14, Issue 710, 19 August 1869, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1869.

ME. FOX IN 1866, AND MR. FOX IN 1869. The present is not the first occasion on which we have seen reason to expose the inconsistencies of Mr Fox's political life. Up to about the year 1860, indeed, he was justlv regarded as being a consistent, as well a clever, politician; but at that time, much to the surprise and regret of many of his friends, on the action taken by Governor Browne in the case of William King's rebellion, he threw himself into the arms of the Church Missionary Society, and became a Philo-Maori, or "peace-at-any-price" partisan, Next we find him associated with Sir George Grey, initiating and attempting to carry out the most absurd, impiacticable, and expensive scheme of "Native Institutions," by which it was pro posed (we cannot say expected) to restore and maintain the peace of the Colony by taking a large proportion of the native race into Government pay, and bestowing semisinecure offices upon them, until, indeed, a very large proportion of them were in receipt of salaries, and the Colony became the laughingstock of the friendly natives and the contempt of the rebels. Still later, Mr Fox was the warm advocate of

" vigorous prosecution"; and again, yet later, the severe critic and condemnor of the course of action pursued by the commanders of her Majesty's forces, —showing how utterly unfit those forces were for the work required to be done, and how much better a properly trained body of Colonial troops would be fitted for that work. Now, last of all, he appears as the advocate of Imperial aid in men, —announcing as a cardinal point in his policy the reten tion, if possible, of the garrison regiment still left in the Colony, and also the obtaining, at any cost, of another regiment specially for fighting purposes.

Thus he has been " everything by turns and nothing long." Dining the late debate in the House of Representatives on Mr Stafford's amendment on Mr M'Lean's resolutions, Mr Hall very ably exposed the contrast in the two latter phases of Mr Fox's political life by an extended series of quotations from a wellknown and appreciated work published by him in London during 1866, entitled the "War in New Zealand,"—condemning his present course of policy by an appeal to his own work —thus out of his own mouth, He shows how ably therein Mr Fox has proved that it would not be wise of the Colony to seek for the aid of, or to rely on, Imperial troops, even if we could get them, —because past experience does not warrant the expectation ot their accomplishing the work we require done (the subjugation of the rebels and the establishment of a permanent peace),—beoau.se they are likely to

prove even less useful than Colonial raised troops,—because of their cost, which would probably be £IOO per man per annum,—and, last but not least, on account of the double government difficulty, which it is impossible to get o\ er. On all these and such important matters we have Mr Fox's well-considered opinions, published under his own hand, after having, as he observes, "better opportunities of obtaining accurate information and observing current events than any other person," or at least, "any other person then in England." For our own part, we cannot bring ourselves to admit the sincerity of Mr Fox in making the employment of Imperial forces a cardinal point of his policy after all his written experiences in disparagement of that course; and we quote the following paragraphs from towards the close of the work referred to—the "War in New Zealand"—which we believe to be his convictions still, notwithstanding his antagonism to Mr Stafford and his policy makes him appear for the time as the advocate of the opposite course. At page 254, et seq., he says :—"I don't for one moment advocate the retention of troops in the Colony, except for the most temporary purposes. . . By retaining the management of native affairs in its own hands, the Imperial Government got it [the Colony] into difficulties ; by interference during their existence it has presented its getting out of theon. Let it be done with the present war on terms which afford a profitable [probable 1 ?] basis of future peace, and I am content never to see the face of another British soldier in the Colony."