WHAT THEY THINK OF US IN MELBOURNE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Issue 27, 3 February 1869, Page 2

WHAT THEY THINK OF US IN MELBOURNE.

Oh ! wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us. The Australasian has the followiug, not very flattering remarks, on New Zealand affairs. Wecimuot say much in praise of the spirit which the New Zealand colonists show under their difficulties. They seem to carry their politics into war, and to treat au officer in command iu face of the enemy as if lie were as natural an objecfc for l-.nl*rering as the head of a department seated upon tho Ministerial benches. Nor is this all. They are resolved to impart war into their politics, aud to use the present crisis as a means for effecting political cbauges. We dare say that Col. Whitmore has the misfortune of being persoually unpopular, aud that the New Zealand Government is ill-constructed aud inefficient. But Colonel Whitmore ia understood to be a good officer, better, indeed, than the colonists are likely to fiud outside her Majesty's service ; aud whatever may be the defects of the Zealandian Constitution, it is not the time to bring in a Reform Bill when settlers' houses are iu flames. Yet, in Auckland, a crowded meeting unanimously adopted a memorial to the Queeu praying for the abolitiou of responsible government, at least so far as the Northern Island is concerned, and for a return to that system of goverument uuder which the colony advanced to prosperity duriug the -first twelve years after its foundation.' We hope that the Legislature of New Zealand is uot yet reduced to the condition of Jamaica. It is a lamentable failure wben a community of Englishmen (have assumed the rights and the obligations of political maturity, and then put upon record their iuability to manage their own business, and pray to be sent back odco more to the security and the discipline of the political nursery. In the same spirit, the project for employing a mercenary force of Ghoorkas continues to find among the colouists many supporters. But if English settlers are unable to defend their own homes against savages not one-tenth of their own number, the best course will be to abandon the Northern Island altogether. Let the Europeans retire to Canterbury and Otago, and leave the Hauhaus masters of their own country. It would be far better at once to meet political death than to drag on a feeble and dishonored existence uuder the protection of a regiment of Ghoorkas.