EARL GRANVILLE'S DESPATCH.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue V, 5 January 1870, Page 2

EARL GRANVILLE'S DESPATCH.

"Downing-st., Oct. 7, 1869. " Sir, — Before this despatch reaches you you will have received ray answer to your telegram of the 7th of August, in which you inform me that the General Assembly has passed resolutions praying for the detention of the 18th Regiment 'as a garrison and moral support;,' and that an Act has passed ' binding the colony to pay whatever contribution the Imperial Government may demand.' I have now before me your despatch No. 103, of the sth of August, in which you enclose, among other papers, copies of those resolutions, and of the Act passed in accordance with them. I remark that the Act and the resolutions do not exactly correspond with what your telegram had led me to expect. They do not refer to the detention of tlio troops 'as garrison or moral support' — very important words — as indicating, if they had been used, that the Assembly did not require her Majesty's troops to move out of the principal towns or military stations, or to engage in active service. The Act and resolutions,, however, merely speak of pecuniary contribution. And, further, I could not but suppose, from the terms of your telegram, that the General Assembly prayed her Majesty's Government to allow the 18th Regiment to be detained for some indefinite period in New Zealand, and had pledged itself to pay such, contribution as her Majesty's Government might demand for that indefinite detention. But it now appears that the prayer of the resolutions is not addressed to her Majesty's Government, but virtually to fciir Trevor Ghute, who is requested to detain the troops till the decision of her Majesty's Government is known, and that the Act only assures him that the Colony will, if required, contribute towards the support of the troops pending that decision. No offer or pledge is made, directly or iudirectly, by the Government or by the Legislature, that the colony will accept the decision of the Home Government respecting the terms on which the troops are to be finally stationed iu New Zealand. The question substantially raised by these papers has been considered with the attention which its importance demands, and, as you are already aware, Her Majesty's Government have felt bound to adhere to the decision already communicated to you, that the Queen's troops should not be employed in the present hostilities. Ida not underrate the arguments which may be urged in favor of that employment. They are obvious in themselves, and have been forcibly urged by yourself and others ; but the objections to that course were overwhelming. All experience, and not least the experience of New Zealand itself, has shown the fatal consequences of carrying on a war under a divided authority. It can but lead to continued differences, imperfect co-operation, interrupted enterprises, and the other eviis which are alleged to have characterised the Maori war. The British and colonial troops must, therefore, be placed under the same command. But, on the other hand, her Majesty's Government are under a responsibility for the safety and honour and discipline of British troops which they cannot transfer to a Colonial Ministry ; and, on the other hand, they could not assume the conduct of a war, to be carried on ostensibly at the expense of the colony, without making themselves chargeable for its ill success, and entitling the colonists to expect that it should be prosecuted at the expense, if necessary, of this country, to a successful issue. It may, indeed, be said, that the British troops might, iu accord" ance with the conditions at present insisted on. by her Majesty's Government, and suggested by your telegram, remain in the colony for the mere purpose of holding certain towns or military stations ; but such an arrangement could not, I think, be really maintained. If disasters are apprehended it is impossible to suppose that the British regiment would not be counted on by the colonists as part of the force they have always available to avert or retrieve them ; and if thesa disasters really occur, it is practically certain that, in the absence of other sufficient force, the regiment will be so used. The alternative will then recur which I have shown to be inadmissible. Either this country must place its troops at the command of a G-overanaent not responsible to itself, or it must assume the respoasibility of the war, or it muss resign itself to the disastara coasaqtidQt on a doable Gjvara^jat,

And these considerations derive increased weight from the circumstances of New Zealand, If the active employment of British troops in a colony in which responsible government has been established under ordinary circumstances is fraught with difficulties, it is still more objectionable when the presence of these troops is calculated to encourage the Colouial Government in a policy which the Home Government have always regarded as pregnant with danger. The present distress of the colony arises mainly from two circum-stances-~-the discontent of the natives consequent on the confiscation of their land, and neglect of successive Governments to place on foot a force sufficiently formidable to overawe that discontent. That the discontent of the natives does maiuly arise from the confiscation of their lands is manifest. The neighborhood of Tauranga and other confiscated districts on the east coasfc is that in which Te Kooti maintains himself. In Taranaki your own officer states that 'the larger and more generally operative iucitemenfc to rebellion is the hope of recovering land and status, 9 ■while the restoration of the large extent of land confiscated in the Waikato is unequivocally put forward by the advisers of the so-called Maori King as the condition of pacification. These being the sources of the danger to which the colony is exposed from the natives, it is pressed upon her Majesty's Government that the task, of reducing the natives is beyond the strength of the Colony; and this is conclusively shown both by the experience of the last war, in which, as you have frequently observed, the colonial forces had the assistance of nearly 10,000 regular troops, and by the present state of the North Island, where a few hundred insurgents suffice to impose a ruinous insecurity on large numbers of settlers and a ruinous expenditure on the Colony. Meanwhile, I perceive that the average strength of the colonial forces on foot during the year preceding the commencement of these disturbances hardly exceeded 700 men, having, in the month of March, been allowed to fall to and although it has been of late greatly increased and improved, yet that your present Ministry, on its accession to office, contemplated its speedy reduction. Large concessions, therefore, are unavoidable to appease a pervading discontent with which the Colony is otherwise unable to cope, and still larger concessions will be required unless a force is kept on foot capable of commanding the respect of the natives when the Queen's troops are withdrawn. But the abandonment of land, the recognition of Maori authority, and the maintenance of an expensive force, however indispensable some or all of these may be, ' are distasteful remedies which will not be resorted to while the Colony continues to expect assistance from this country, and a decision to supply the Colony even with the prestige of British troops, objectionable as I have shown it to be on grounds of practical principle, would, in my view, be also immediately injurious to the settlers themselves, as tending to delay the adoption of those prudent counsels on which, as I think, the restoration of the Northern Island depends. It is in no spirit of controversy that I make these remarks. I should not gratuitously have criticised the proceedings of the Colonial Government, who are entitled to the entire management of their own affairs. But this country is asked for assistance; it is asked for assistance to sustain a policy which it does not direct, and wh.ich it is not able to foresee. Upon such a state of ! facts many questions arise; and among them it becomes- material to enquire whether that assistance is for the real advantage of those who seek it. Judging from the best materials at my command, I am satisfied that it is not so, and that it is not the part of a true friend of the colonists, hy continuing a delusive shadow of support, to divert their attention from that course in which their real safety lies — the course of deliberately measuring their ' own resources, and, at whatever immediate sacrifice, adjusting their policy to them. It is not, then, without a full sense of the responsibility which attaches to her Majesty's Government in deciding on this important question, < nor without a firm belief that they are discharging that responsibility in the manner most conducive to the interests of this country and of the inhabitants of New Zealand, that they tviiW instruct Sir T. Chute, in terms which * flfeall preclude the caqtipuaQce of any sveb

doubts and surmises as you report to exist in some quarters, not further to delay the execution of the orders which he has received for the removal of the 18th Regiment from New Zealand. If these orders are now promptly executed, her Majesty's Government will not excercise the powers vested in them by the recent Act of charging against the colony the cost of the delay which has been incurred. " I have, &c, " Granville. " G-overnor Sir G. F. Bowen, G.C.M.G., &c."