Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addict us jurare in verba magistri. THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1871.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 1025, 25 May 1871, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addict us jur are in verba magistri. THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1871.

We observe in yesterday's Herald a leading article bearing on a lecture recently delivered in Auckland by Mr Gillies, the Superintendent of that Province, before the Young Men's Christian Association, in which a paragraph referring to the early history of the Province, and the spread of civilization consequent on the introduction of Christianity, is taken and applied to the credit of the present. Government of New Zealand and the native departnient. The writer saying, " This paragraph, .coming from, perhaps, the most rabid oppositionist in the country, and introduced into the middle of a speech bristling with sarcasms at the Native office, is tolerably stiong testimony to the good results that have attended the administration of the present Government." It is in the early portion of the lecture (which may be found reported |n the Daily Southern Cross of the 9th inst) that Air Gillies uses the paragraph referred to. He is describing, as we have said, the early history of the Province, and particularly the introduction pi Christianity into islands, which paragraph our contemporary applies tp {he. present General Government of the

Colony and the Native office. In order that we may expose the perversion we ; quote the paragraph as it stands.

'.'So early as*lßH that devoted missionary, Samuel Marsden, with a small band of associates in the good work of Christianising and civilizing the then cannibal- natives, landed in the Bay of Tslands, and from thence onwards the good work progressed. Not without many errors and failures, not without much we might wibh to see undone, not v. ithout many false hopes and representations, many ebbs and flows of the onward tide j but, in spite of all these, the work of civilisation has steadily advanced, till we can now. point to the territory north of Auckland as one in which, though British law may not be paiamount, still as one in which, with any reasonable degree of prudence on the part of the Government, no serious co in plications need ever arise to compromise the safety of the Europeans settled there, or to cause a deep-rooted hostility on the pait of the natives." Tt vvill be .seen that by no possible fair construction can it be made to appear that Mr Gillies awards, either by intention or otherwise, one particle of credit to the Native office or the present Government for the state of affairs as described ; nor indeed, does he in any way whatever allude to them until, towards the end of his lecture, where he fearlessly asserts —and produces proof amply sufficient to warrant his assertion —that until the Native department be swept away we may .despair of the existence of a better state of things than at present exists. He describes the native difficulty as the great obstacle in the way of pro gress and colonisation, and gives tlnee things as essential to a better understanding between the two races : Ist. The sweeping away of all special legislation for the natives 2nd. The abolishing of the. native office; and, 3id, The treating the native race as fellow subjects and fellow men. In working out the demonstration of his views he uses strong but, we believe, perfectly justifiable language regarding the officers of the native department — terms which are sufficient to show that he bears no testimony to any good results proceeding from it.