THE NATIVE QUESTION.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 8, 27 May 1863, Page 5

THE NATIVE QUESTION.

To the Editor of the Lake Wakatip Mail. Sir.—The causes multiform of our disputes with the Maories, arise indisputably from the alienation of the native mind and feelings from us, from our institutions, government, and civilization. With our increase on the islands they associate their own extinction as a distinct race and people; and fain would, Canute-like, bid the fadvancing wave recede from the strand on which we have squatted ourselves. But surely and steadily the wave advances, and unless they accommodate themselves to the inevitable occurrence they must expect to be engulfed and exterminated. How enormous then must be the responsibility of those who guide them to a decision on this vital question! Whatever omissions to advance the happiness and prosperity of the natives we may be chargeable with ; whatever defects in our laws to meet the peculiarities of our position amongst them, and theirs amongst us, still the English Government must ever stand exonerated from any gratuitous imputations of cruelty or rapaciousness towards the natives of New Zealand. Our policy lias been a petting rather than a coercive one. We tave respected, so for as we could consistently with a sentiment of humanity, their opinions, habits, and customs. Our laws protect their lives and property; and even the sensitive Maori can adduce no charge against us for the tendency wc have manifested in this respect. If their mode of transfer and their titles to land, are of the most primitive description and full of ambiguity, we are blameless for the disputes that arise therefrom, in consequence of such defects in their own customs; unless it be argued that we should set these aside altogether. But this would require native assent and co-operation, which the Maori mind, as at present influenced, appears unwilling to accord; and therefrom results all our unsatisfactory relations with them. The change from barbarism to civilization, affecting a whole people, is not the work of a day or of one generation, but arrives in gradation, and, as it were, step by step: when once commenced it must be progressive, or, if opposed, destructive. Witness the fated red race of America, who clung to their primitive ways, and are therefore becoming extinct. It only remains now for us to enquire what is this latent malign influence that weighs on and directs the native mind and feelings against us, and the advancement of civilization among them. To this is fairly traceable all the evils that now threaten the peace of society and the lives of the inhabitants of New Zealand. In pursuing this inquiry, it appears natural that the missionaries and clerical instructors who have been the first teachers of Christian doctrines amongst the natives, and who live much among them, have gained considerable influence with their native disciples, and can do much towards directing the bent of native opinion on many matters social and political, as well as religious—if indeed there be any wide distinction between them, which is i doubtful, if wo rely on Archbishop Cullen's '

opinion that " Our Politics is our Religion and our Religion is our Politics." But we must also refer to the deliberately expressed conviction of the man of all others most competent to form a true opinion on this matter—the trusted statesman at present at the head of aftairs in this Colony—and what does His Excellency Sir George Grey announce? Why, that religious influence is at the bottom of the intractable conduct of the natives he so feelingly deplores and firmly denounces. It also comes to us in the form of rumours that such is a pretty general convictiou. Then how is such a case to be combated with due regard to the sacrednes9 of religious conviction f This is the grand problem Sir George Grey has been selected by our home authorities to solve. I am, Sir, faithfully yours, J. De Courcy Young.