THE CAFFRE AND THE NEW – ZEALANDER.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 622, 31 March 1852, Page 3

THE CAFFRE AND THE NEW - ZEALANDER.

(Fiom the London ' Alias,.') A clever writer in Blackwood maintains that cannibalism in a people is a proof of its capabilities of civilization. The lowest order of human beings content themselves with such food nt> they can find. The Australian savage, for instance, is sitisfied with cobra worms and fern roots. The absence of the lower animals from the New Zealand Islands compelled the natives either to content themselves witli vegetable diet or to tdke to eating one another. Too far advanced and of too high an organization for the first of these alternative I},1 }, they adopted tho second as a matter of ms

I ocssity. Whether this reasoning is true or false, the ci-devant cannibals have proved themselves most unexpectedly ready for the le&sons of civilization. While the lied Indian, the Negro, and the Caffrc adopt nothing from the white man but his weapons and his brandy, the New Zoalandoivs are reading and writing, worshipping in Christian churches/ building vessels, and establishing mercantile firms. That the partners of these firms happen to be tattooed, and retain a lively recollection of their earlier days, when the fleshy part of a young female was the' greatest of delicacies, may possibly be a hindrance to a ready acknowledgment of their commercial credit, but the very fact that the tattooed boy and girl-eating youth has turned into a regular beef-devouring citizen, cognizant of bills of lading, and with a balance at his banker's, proves a capability in the race beyond all belief. No argument could be equal to the bare spectacle of a tattooed New Zcalander sitting in his office, coolly examining invoices and calculating Avith his European clerk on the probable advantages of a speculation in coffee. During the late war we first learned to estimate with some degree of accuracy the capabilities of this singular people. You never know your neighbour -with certainty till you have fought with him ; and the contest unquestionably taught us that our deductions from punctured laces and an appetite for human thighs, done very soft, were not altogether correct. While the courage and conduct of other savages in war was altogether individual, the New Zealanders knew how to conduct a campaign. They could construct a stockade with admirable skill ; and though the whole population was not 150,000, they kept the European invaders at bay for five years, and at the end secured an honorable peace. Captain Fitzroy, in 1849, informed the Home Government that— " f have been assured by many excellent and experienced officers, well acquainted with America and this country, that there is in a military point of view, no analogy at all between the natives of the two countries. The Maories, botli in weapons and knowledge of rbe art of war, a skill in planning, and perseverance in cairying out the operations of {^lengthened campaign, being infinitely superior to the American Indians. In fact there can be no doubt that they are, for warfare in | this counlry, even be tcr equipped than our own troops. " They have repeatedly, in encounters with our troops, been reported by our officers to be equal to any European troops, and are such good tacticians that we have never yet succeeded in bringing them to a decisive encounter, thpy having always availed themselves of the advantage afforded by their wilds and fastnessts. Their armed bodies moved without any baggage, and aie attended by the women, who cirry potatoes on their bncks for the warriors, or subsist them by digging fern root, so that they are wholly independent of supplies, and c«n move and subsist their Ibices in countnes where our troops cannot live." And as no nation ever possessed capabilities for war without possessing those of peace in an almost equal degree, the Governor adds :—: — "They are fond of agiiculture — take great pleasure in cattle and horses — like the sea, and form good bailors — are attached to Ei oppana — admne their customs and manners— are extremely ambitious of rising into civilization, a/id of becoming skilled in European arts.. — They are apt in learning ; in many respects extremely conscientious and observant of their word— are ambitious of honour, and are probably the most covetous race in the woild. 'Ihey are also agreeable in manneis, and attachments of a lasting character readily and frequently spring up between them and the Europeans." In consequence, this last of our dependencies promises to take the lead of the whole batch. At all events, it has taught us a lesson with regard to our expectation of aboriginal improvement, which may be of essential service to us. From the New Zealand natives we expected nothing, and we have got a useful and meritorious fellow subject. From the Hottentot and their South African relatives we expected a good deal, and we have got — the Caffre war. For three centuries we have had dealings with the black gentry of the African continent : we have kidnapped them, murdered them, taught them, christianized them — made them slaves atone time — friends at an other — we have tried them as officers — we have tried them as servants ; and the result is, that they are just as barbarous, as impracticable, and as useless for all the higher purposes of life as they were when our first navigators touched at the mouth of the Senegal. Now, if a few years can effect improvements so startling in the New Zcalander, surely the effects of the tuition of three centuries ought to shew themselves somewhere in the character of the Negro, if we are to expect any effect at all. If not, we have learned our lesson. We may, for the future, give up our idea of a Hottentot parliament regulating the finances of Cape Town and its dependencies : we may spare ourselves the trouble of listening to Caffre warriors on the subject of international tariffs, and we may believe that civilization, which has made so small a progress on this people after so many centuries, is not to be expected in half a dozen years by the mere force of a constitution at the Cape of Good Hope. ' The experience of mankind through a course of ages is sufficient to prove that nations capable of civilization adopt its habits very soon after they are brought into contact with it. We have been in contact with the Africans for three centuries, and they have not made a step in advance yet. If it is a fair deduction that they never will, the admission will save us a world of trouble, and put an end to experiments absurd in themselves and not quite safe in their consequences.