COLONIAL TAXATION.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 16, 22 April 1867, Page 91

COLONIAL TAXATION.

[Nelson Examiner] NO. VI.

The 1 Native Department is the only one which yields absolutely no return for the money expended upon it. All the other departments of our government, costly and burdensome as they are, may he said to have two sides to their ledger. They cost a great deal to maintain, but they alsofSjflect a good deal of revenue generally in ex cess of their cost. It is true that this is but a small comfort to the taxpayer, becuuee both sides of the ledger'tell equally against him; he pays the salaries, he pays also the money which the department cob lects j but it is a matter of seme importance nevertheless.- ' Untortunately,'. taxes must be raised to some amount, and in raising them, a staff of officers must be maintained; this part of our expenditure stands oil a clearly defined basis, therefore. We may think—our readers know that we do think this is badly and extravagantly managed, and crying aloud for a speedy reform; but it is a wholly different sort of question from that of the Native department, which is a machinery supported at a cost of nearly £30,000 a year, simply resulting in the expenditure of that Bum of'money, without, all events, the smallest money return. An expenditure of this kind is only to be defended on one of two grounds; it is either necessary in .discharge of past obligations ; or it is expedient, with a view to prevent future and greater evils. It is necessary to ask ourselves, to which of these two lines of excuse will our politicians betake themselves when pressed, as we trust they soon will be pressed, on this subject by the force of public opinion P What, then, are our'obligations towards the native race;of New Zealand? The question has been variously answered at different times and by different classes; but perhaps we are now m a better position than ever before, for giving a reasonable answer to it. The -natives of New Zealand are British subjects equally with ourselves, so far as'they. are willing to ac--cept the position this we cannot but admit, but beyond this, -we consider it-simply absurd to go. W e have been at war now for six or seven years, not to enforce the supremacy of law over the Maoris, but sim*ply to render them incapable- of carrying fire and sword amongst our *own people. To a considerable extent we-have been successful in this; but beyond this we have done nothing. Natives who live in close connection with us; natives who find it. to their advantage to become as like Euro'peans - as they can, are, like' ’ ourselves British subjects; - and towards them the Government of this colony .is bound to show every consideration. This, however, does not.mean a pension. That, and things of that kind, are precisely what the colony is"bound? not to giveto the natives. Ali ready we have corrupted these people more ■i tbac eupugh in this, way ; we have taught, Itiniih to ice. no shame in beggary, to feel i littledesire .to help themselves. • Instead ot good citizens we have been training paupers and instead of civilised inein k ■ we:have, produced a race-of medicants‘ air <_ ternately mean .and truculent., Bp.tfar-.of the lew—for. it must be owned that'there ard few indeed; eombartively—who have placed themselves/in the position of subjection to our laws.' The mass of the race i i isjindepenctent of us and meamto 1 remain } -f n" ■s£s' * a °BU?g® Pf; 9“*, politicians „,may eeem io contradict this, but so long as the i- lsitttfute’bodk contains* the iprdViflibni thatia n judgment against a native is ■ hot Vo J be enforced by <jtiite J saifr huv ]a : - BtancUhg .witness that we do. notgoyera the

xtofc in afiy proper sense of the word <fel; low-subjects -with' ouraelvps. Sentiment may induce some jk> bold that, even if this is the caae we aye under some sort of!,obligation to spend money on the natives.' For our own part we fail to see : it, at leastyin the sensein which it is meant. As-human beings, unquestionably we owe a dutyftb all other human- beings, but we : are not under any obligation to squander 1 money required for the Bupport .of our families uponithem. .Yet we maintain that this expenditure of £30,000-is simply this and nothing more.- • This money r is ; spent in the. very-districts where thex Government dares not .to .issue.an execution-in pursuance : of a . judgment of any court. ; It; is spent lipbn the'very men who will and: who do, as often, as occasion serves, mock at and . bully the: unhappy magistrates who are- paid for administering law amongst them. And we need hardly : add this money forms no trifling item intliat grinding taxation which Impounds a third part of the laboring mail’s weekly earnings. It may, however, be maintained that this money is paid, not because the natives have a right to it, but because it is better to pay this sum-than ten times as much for fresh wars. The comfort which some of our southern contemporaries take- to themselves in the matter is that'by this means they tide-over evils which will soon die of themselves. The comfort', we regret to say, is wholly misapphed. : The expenditure on our Native Department is not a source of peace and of good-will, biit of trouble; As administered it gives:rise to a thousand heart burnings between. European settlers and ;the'ir : native neighbours. It makes the settler hate the Maori who can.drag him into eourt, and recover damages for every -conceivable trespass, often upon evidence that would not be taken in any court whatever; and yet i’rpm whom he can obtain not the smallest satisfaction in the same court*, if he is injured, which generally-happens ten times for every time; he or his cattle injure his native neighbours.Nor is this aIL The native too is affected by it. He knows himself able to do as he pleases iu the courts, to be as troublesome as he may choose to his neighbours, and he sees that there is no course so certain of procuring him a pension or assessorship, by the recommendation of the magistrate Does this sound incredible to our readers? We can only say that it is strictly true. Nor can it be wondered at. The magistrate sent to a native district eats the bread of the Native Department with very bitter herbs indeed. To say he is systematically bullied in many districts is to speak within the markT 5 " The,'native's'ld6k~bn^liim,’nothais one who is to administer law to them, but as one who is to administer lawjfcr them at the expense of. their European neighbours, while to them he only administers pensions and salaries. We could produce a hundred cases in support of this, but it is needless. Let any inquiry be made into the facts, not, as tbe : vi-overnmcnt is so fond of doing, from. the poor - magistrates who have learned to pay the price of a continuance of their salaries, but from independent and reliable testimony. If this is done, it will be found, not only that cases of the kind we have referred to abound, but that nardly one. case can be produced in which native institutions have not directly-ministreed to the pride and lawlessness of the natives.

The question now is, what purposes of expediency does all this serve ? If the institutions now in force in the north of the Northern Island and at a few other points, were extended to the mass of the natives, not £3u,ooo,but at least, £IOO,OOO a year would be required to pay for them. Are these institutions to be extended? And if not, why are they to be maintained as at present ?, Are we really so weak that we are afraid to discontinue this tribute to the turbulent and overbearing of the natives? and have we. any good grounds for believing that such tribute is a thing more readily relinquished after twenty than after five years’ enjoyment ?' Eor our' own part, we look on tuissum of £30,000. not merely as wasted, c biit as put to a most immoral purpose. It encourages no good thing in the natives that we can imagine; but it does encourage laziness, drunkenness, contempt of a 11 authority, and-rebellion against all control. Its withdrawal would not, we feel sure, lead to a rebellion. Rebellion is not fostered by .acts, of manly justice, and an apparent reliance upon our own resources, but it is fostered by and produced by nothing so certainly and invariably as a weak truckling to the vices and disorders of a half-savage people.

NO. VII. | Those of bur readers who' have gone with | us in, the remarks, we have made upon the - Native Department of the New Zealand 1 Government may yet be inolined to ask, i What would you’have the .'Government to > do now in the matter ? Granted, they • would 'say, that .the system at present in ' force, is a'.back one-; -granted: that, the ha- : tiyes, are,-,not, benefited while the. Eurothrough ; this, ‘what *■ is s the. remedy now ? ; The difficultyis by no means an imaginary ' one we confessi ‘We have said' already that we'do notbelieve' a native: war would , follow, op, the, withdrawal of Assessors'*- pay from the great mass of those now receivingit j ’• butvtifis is after all a very-negative ad? vantage., ; It*is.yunquestiouably . one; Ithing. not’to set up such a system as our. Native; ©epartment/and- d 4| ybry' differen t : 'one to knqck it down is 'so. awkwarda thingto make sudden add vibbaijt? changes-th&fe 1 we dhbtildaot -advocate i.any-e

thing;; of the; sort when, another, course seemed ppen. , ; In this matter of our native expenditure; however, we do- not see that another is open. In the body politic, as in'the human body, there may be departments so diseased that no half measures are of any use. ; And this, we think, is the position, pf.qur Native Department. We arenow from year to year spending great sums of money in nourishing .not a healthy but an .unhealthy state' of things amongst the., natives,. and, so far as we can see, t here is no way in which we can patch up or modify .the system so as to do any good. We say, therefore, by all' means sweep it away, and bodily.-, •The position of the natives in this country is an interesting one, and indeed it lias been so for many years. Eor years we have been trying to work out the problem of how a savage race is to be civilised and yet preserved, and the Native Department has been the fruit of our plaus for effecting this. Everybody who knows anything at all about the Maories knows that we have neither succeeded in civilizing uor in preserving them as a people Here and there an individual has been drawn into the circle of European influences and civilization, and has chosen to remain there. In these cases our hopes of civilizing the Maories seem to have been realized; but even then any! hopes we may liave had of preserving them have been disappointed. It would be hard to say whether the natives most civilized by contact with Europeans, or those most ad*, dieted to native vices and modes of living, have disappeared the more rapidly during the past ten years ; either extreme seem-- 1 to have proved fatal to the decaying race. It is iio doubt, however, better that if the race -must,die out, it should die oat as a civilized than a barbarous people. It might ; be even worth while to expend money to a considerable extent, if we had it, in the philanthropic task of benefiting this dying race. The fact is, that we have spent all this money year after year, and have produced no such effect. We have sent magistrates into their districts,-and the tone of the natives is not altered even in the smallest degree. We have ap» pointed the natives whom we wished to civilize assessors or chiefs of runanga, and as a rule they have learned to behave a little worse than before. Nor is it to be wondered at. To give savages money, is not to give them civilization, any more than to give them magistrates is to give them law and order. The thing, in short, has been tried, and has proved a great failure. The natives have been no less, but rather more lawless since tkfjjhad law Stfd*'6rdeV pTaced*atftheir'fcet~with'"tke*request that they would patronise them. The individual Maoris have become a little more arrogant, a little more boastful and troublesome to their neighbours, aud a good deal more drunken since.they have had salaries given them for work which they could not understand and did not care to do. The whole system in fact is a rotten one, and the sooner it is done away with the -better the chance for all con» cerned.

.But in withdrawing from these native institutions, it may be said we should be allowing the natives to sink back into barbarism, This we know to be the cant phrase; in the matter, and we may be thought very feckless' by some when we say, as we do most heartily—Let them sink back into barbarism by all means! A. ; good honest, healthy barbarism is a state of things quite easily understood and not hard to deal with; but the sham civiliza tion, the/pretence of law, the parade of magistrates, and the loud talk about order and good government —these things going hand m hand with disorder and lawlessness of everv kind—form' a social problem such as vie cannot hope to deal with with any success. If the native institutions were done away with—if the magistrates were withdrawn from some districts wholly, and their duties defined and restrained in others;.,if the assessors and heads of runanga were dismissed from x their offices, and cut off from their accustomed means of supplying themselves with rum —something might yet be done to civilize the Maories. We have said that the natives' have not been civilized by these tilings; we will endeavour to suggest some things that would tend to civilize them. The basis of all civilization is selfrespect. With all their boastfulness and arrogance, the Maories have never yet even begun to learn .the lesson of selfrespect. They often bully their European neighbours, but they are quite aware that they are vastly better than themselves. Theyget judgmentß against them in Courts, and damages front tlieni for trivial or imaginary wrongs, while they are themselves regardless ol“ the judgments of the same Courts, and scorn the motion of paying damages j yet they feel that they are not on an equality with the,European settler. It is mot privileges they are in want of, ior ot these they have more than enough, but it is responsibilities. Eor years we have treated them as children, and alternately coaxed and threatened them, equally wituout success. What is left is now to treat them 1 like "men. We should tell tnem plainly, .they ./must be < one thing; or the gther..; Ji‘ they wish. to be, lawless aud .fay.ivgg,-let'theni be so j but let them te so opejuyjband apart. lf> they would use' our t«jurtßiand..JUve 'aniong our people, they should be tanght that there is not one law for a; uptfrb ~an<t another European The man who can. sue in a Court must; also .‘be tfie; man to be sued;

fhe can get judgmenp ajoctexcjou-tida-iinusc, ueimUib: to Lfonsamti

of. law. We do-not say we eipect a * great revolution in Maori morals from, such 1 a plan- as this all at once/;,,.f0r we do not thinks any scheme would effect that ; but it would have two good pointa about it which-'our present plan wants—it would be manly and it would not be costly. In our view of the case wp are now spending £30,000 a year in degrading ourselves and tile natives; we should like to. see the ex 7 periment tried of saving £30,000 a year in teaching the Maories the. primary virtue of self-respect. The importance of this question cannot be adequately measured by the mere money saving, however. It is far from unimDortarit, indeed, that the colony sboiild save £30,000 a year if it can be done; but in the case of the Native Department that is not all. The colony is now in a critical position, and in some way or other the danger takes the form of Separation. If it is asked why peonlefagitate for Separation the answer is, |||Oh, difference of interests,” or, pegupps more plainly, “Because of the Jppive question.” Now this does not meafllso much the cost of the war, which is nearly at an eiid, as it does a sort efinite dread of that machine for spending money year after year with no results and no returns—called the Native Department. If Separation ever takes place, and this'fine colony is ever weakened and dwarfed by being divided, it. will be to the Native Department more than to anything else that the evil will, be owing. Like many other evils in our arrangement, we are aware that it has got a firm hold, and will require vigorous efforts before it cau be uprooted; it is, however, well worth the effort. In our opinion the welfare of the Maories no less than the welfare of the settlers demands it, and the cause of colonial unity is intimately bound up with it.