SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1847.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 106, 5 June 1847, Page 2

SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1847.

Be just and fear not : Let all the ends thou aims't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

" It is strange that all the Dominic.ina should be of one opinion, and all the Franciscans of the quite contrary, as if their understandings weie formed in a different mould and furnished with various principles by their \cry vile." 7'aylor's Liberty of Prophesying.

"So the New Zealander has gone into opposition !" Has it indeed. Let us congratulate I the finders on their mare's nest, though its only occupant be Puck, "neighing in likeness of a filly foal,'* to beguile them. Yet we have been so many times assured of it, with such comical gravity of assertion, that we reverted, with some misgivings, to our last Saturday's article, to see whether any uncourteous exptcssion, in the liuny of writing, had escaped us — whether the tone ofjjjt was illtempered — or the opinions violent and extreme. We really felt relieved when we found that we had fallen into no such errors as these ; that at least we could not be accused of having sinned against good taste ; for there was noshing there that could be possibly so misconstrued, save a plain and temperate expression of opinion on a subject affecting so much the health and future progress of the Colony, that any squeamishness of speech about the matter would have been as culpable as it would have been ill-judged. And this is called "going into Opposition." iYJay we be allowed to ask, what meaning is attached to the phrase by those who have arrived at this conclusion? Is it supposed by them that a government measure cannot be discussed but in the madbull style of partisanship, or else with the bitterness of animosity ? Must a political article be of necessity overluscious with honey, or intolerable with gall ? We will tell them one great truth, — that fdw men, at the bottom ot their hearts, hold extreme opinions. "When they profess them, or think they feel them, they are deceiving themselves, or deceiving other people. They who speak as they really think, faithfully after their own simple and unbiassed judgment, do so, generally with modesty, but almost always with moderation. To agree with another man in every point of opinion, is as naturally impossible as to differ ; and profession of such agreement is open to the same repioof as the profession of difference between the Franciscans and Dominicans aforesaid. INo one can dislike more than ourselves the carping and cavilling tone, the long drawn snarl of a professedly opposition paper. But not for that shall we give up our tree right of inquiry, or be satisfied to trip contentedly at the heels of government, like Creusa after iEneas, finally to be disregarded and left behind. We shall lend the government our support) little worth as it may be, wherever we are able ; and shall endeavour, by reserving the right of questioning any measure we may think inconducive to good, to make that support more influential than it-would else have been. "Pe&simum genus inimicorum laudantes ;" and we do not yet sufficiently dislike the government to flatter it. Should we be driven to finding fault, it shall be done without fend or favor, and always, unless we mistake ourselves, in the frank and candid spirit of agentleman. Our creed is Conservative (Tory, we called it in our younger days} ; our inclination, in spite of the misfortunes of Candide, to Optimism — to believing that " whatever is, is right;" our hope is, that we may be long suffered to indulge that belief. We are anxious* to be able to shew our loyalty to the Queen, by supporting her representative, be he Log or Stork, Tros Tyriusve fuat, without refer* ence to his person, but merely because he is her representative ; and, if we do not so, assuredly the fault shall not rest with us. An attack upon the governor ! He who can term that an attack must have formed his ideas of war among the blunted lances of the tilt yard ; he may have been dubbed knight, but " with unhacked rapier, and upou carpet consideration." A charge, il'outrance, is another sort of thing. For an attack, there has as yet been little call. That man must be blindly prejudiced who is unable to appreciate the cleverness, with regard to- details, that Captain Grey has shewn throughout. Details, we say, not invidiously, but because he has only so far yet been proved ; for, of his ability to take a comprehensive view of things, of his chances of ultimate success in solving the grand problem of New Zealand — complicated as it has been by the carelessness of the home government, in taking upon itself to legislate for us with an inconceivably small stock of local information — it is hardly time to speak. If we be forced, together with his closest adherents, to admit that he has made some occasional mistakes, — one, indeed, that the French would call, une platitude ;— -yet when we consider the little assistance he could have found within the colony, except from the lucid intellect and careful guidance of the Attorney General ; when we see how he came, upon the spur of the moment, his time for learning

occupied by the immediate necessity of acting, — the wonder is still, that he should have made so few. If there should appear in him some slight signs of rashness, of hurry to act on plans not yet mature, let it not be forgotten how soon over* confidence is engendered by success— Such a fault, for such a reason, is what most of us would be well content to labour under. U at times his policy should have been tortuous, or, to use a word in its peculiar local acceptation, colonial ; in a colony, by every right of verbal affinity, such policy must be apt and good. But, we apprehend, it matters little to him which side we take. The colonial press, particularly in a small community like this," is powerless, compared with that of the mother country. The inferior ability with which it is conducted, together with the small influence of public opinion in a thinly populated settlement, is sufficient to account for its weakness. Defence is not needed, aud attack is vain Its real and useful office is this — to serve as a check upon despatches ; to give those in power at home an additional insight into the state of things out here. Let accounts be never so conflicting, if there be but enough of them, a keen and practised eye will seize upon the truth, will detect without fail " the two grains of wheat, hid in two bushels of chaff." And our object shall be, to spare as much of this latter trouble ts we can. We profess to give an ungarbled account of things as they are— of the feeling of the colonists of events— as far as we can with accuracy ascertain the details. As to faction, or any attempt to embarrass the government, we wash our hands of it, leaving that office to those that are better able, and more inclined. Our taste does not lie that way. We hold with Erasmus when he says, "Mihi adeo est invisa discordia, ut veritas etiam displiceat seditiosa ;" or, as Bishop Hall has almost translated it : » 4 Some quiet error is better than some unruly truth."