THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE'S DESPATCHES.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1718, 27 August 1862, Page 3

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE'S DESPATCHES.

the "Inkcj thus hath the duke inferr'd."

Wj rl/ 10 P a Pers last received from Welif'vcasfi' ir i 1 ’ l ! iat despatches from the Duke •mblv 0 * at ecu laid before the General *W ain ie tenor of which had created W* 1 ? 1 an d alarm. It would bo jSiat can* 0 Were lt otherwise. No lt6 '‘ D 9 save t> Cai loso despatches with any ®°t but inpf l lt °f astonishment; and I cani n p' n( t to think that, when made N&fies «.“? au d’ w ith the running com--1 ev «r b,,„ a , r ° c °i'tain to provoke, that, Ser pt^let 0 a class > th °y will not li,/uf a,Ur aity of England in the illustf' Th 0s0( , Waswo "t to hold in the world’s , ! B fct of are conceived more in J, . s? eiiKr r , huckster than that of , 'dans too a *p ot * lc> s tatesman. Their pro?fulfiorv iT f l ' ame(l rather in the style of a h ?er sigQ gtn . eat y enforced by one powerful SC! “8“»t a feeble 0110 at its «M irit . ”• e “ coun « oineu f | !t «4losa to its youngest and t. T p Bg i,t te tbo brink

of destruction by past misgovernment; sacrifice past, sacrifice present, and sacrifice future, being inculcated with a sternness which does not pause to consider how those sacrifices are to be accomplished, at the same time that it aggravates their bitterness, by warning the very Governor—sent to relievo and, if possible, to restore us to the peaceful condition in which, nine years since, he left us, that the end inculcated is not to bo attained by “having recourse to the momentary relief of a loan, exhausted it would seem almost before it was raised !” The Duke, whilst exceedingly stringent on our obligations, almost entirely ignores the existence of any upon the part of the Imperial Government, at the same time that “ he cannot disguise from himself that the endeavours to keep the management of the natives under the control of the home Government has failed .” Exactly so! And that control, entrusted by the homo Government to a feeble, vacillating, and incompetent Governnor, has been the sole cause of the late war; and being so, should bo a sufficient exemption until Sir George Grey shall be able to restore e\v Zealand, to tbat condition of peaceful security in which Sir George Grey, on the 31st December, 1853, took leave of it.

Tho tone and temper of the Duke’s despatches are not less remarkable than their oppressiveness. To say that they are uncourteous to Sir George Grey,—a man of such mark that his relinquishment of a higher office in retrieval of this unfortunate and much mismanaged colony, was greeted with acclamation in the Imperial Parliament, whilst it was hailed as an immediate assurance of preservation here, —is tojsay little; a bitter personal enemy could scarcely have couched his language in more offensive terms; and tho contrast becomes striking indeed if one but refers to the suavity of His Grace’s valedictory despatch to Governor Brown, in comparison with those to a man who has already achieved so much towards tho final establishment of assured peace and ultimate prosperity.

With respect to the political and financial tenor of these despatches, they involuntarily compel the ejaculation, “Is the ‘empire on which the sun never sets’ about to culminate?” Is Macaulay’s New Zealander about to take his seat on the fragments of Loudon Bridge, and, in the language of Kirko White to inquire if “empire seeks another hemisphere?” “ Where now is Britain? Where her laurell’d names, Her palaces, and hulls? O’er her marts, Her crowded ports, broods silence; and the cry Of the low curlew, and the pensive dash Of distant billows, breaks alone tho void.

Even as the savage sits upon the stone Tbat marks where stood her capitols, and hears The bittern booming in tho weeds, he shrinks From the dismaying solitude. Her bards Sing in a language that hath perished; And their wild harps, suspended o’er their graves, Sigh to tho desert winds a dying strain. Meanwhile the arts, in second infancy, Rise in some distant clime.”

Tho main point of the principal despatch is one of which but too much has been already heard, but of which the injustice is so palpable as well as so pitiful that some have hugged themselves into an almost secure belief of the impossibility of its iufliction by a nation claiming to be the first in place and integrity among the powers of Europe. The services of a ship of war are for the first time, and under the most urgent circumstances, refused to a Governor, of such special appointment as Sir Geo. Grey. The despatch cavalierly conveys an intimation that if we require naval and military protection we must pay tho cost, or, failing that, we must gojjwithout. In other words that in our twenty second year we must maintain a military establishment, —for imperial, quite as much as for colonial supremacy, —an expense which England, after a thousand years of sovereignty, is unwilling to incur.

The Duke of Newcastle’s proposition, though not new is not the less startling ; and it is, therefore, I think, no wonder that the House of Representatives should have adjourned the debate, to which it must inevitably lead, from the 3rd to the 14 th of the present month. In the history of nations and their colonies no such act of sordid and intolerable oppression, as this contemplated by the Duke of Newcastle, is to bo met with. Ambitious of extended empire, by such an act as this England must proclaim herself unequal to the maintenance or unworthy of the dominion which she has founded. Even in the era of their decline and fall the Romans scorned to abandon the Britons, whom they had subjugated aud colonized, to the ruthless inroads of the Scots and Piets. Struggling as they were for the maintenance ofthe°seat of empire, they did not turn a deaf ear to the supplications of a remote and conquered province whom their mode of rule had rendered defenceless; on the contrary, history instructs us that the Romans finding “ the necessity of self preservation had superseded the ambition of power, and that the ancient point of honour, never to contract the limits of the empire, could no longer bo attended to in their desperate extremity, recalled the whole military force.” And yet, even in this extremity, when the Britons, unequal to their own protection but “accustomed to have recourse to the emperors for defence as well as government, made supplications to Romo,” their prayer did not pass unheeded, for upon two occasions a legion was sent over and afforded them effectual relief; and was only withdrawn “ when the Romans reduced to extremities at home, and fatigued with those distant expeditions, informed the Britons that they must no longer look to them for succour; exhorted them to arm in their own defence ; and urged, that as they were now their own masters, it became thorn to protect by their valour that independence which their ancient lords had conferred on them. That they might leave the island with the bettor grace, the Romans assisted them in erecting anew the wall of Severus, which was built entirely of stone, and which the Britons had not at that time artificers skilful enough to repair; and having done this last good office to the inhabitants, they bade a fina adieu to Britain, about the year 448, after being masters of the more considerable part ot it during the course of near four centuries. It can scarcely bo possible that England, in the zenith of her power and glory, will prove loss magnanimous to her Britons of the South than was Rome, in the hour of hex decline, to the Britons of the North; that sh will withhold a temporary succour and suf port to a colony founded under hoi own auspices, peopled by her own subjects, governed by her own imperial rule, and rapidly achieving an important status anuds a warlike native race, over whom the colonists have never been permitted to exercise control; with whom they never would have risked outbreak, but against whom more than once been compelled to take up firiqs in obedience iq m inautlatcs qf fipll,

reckless, brainless, nerveless rulers, and in opposition to their own sense of justice and prudence. Whatever the native outbreaks of New Zealand, they are in no way chargeable on the colonists. From first to last they are entirely traceable to the system of misrule of those upon whom the imperial authorities conferred the sway. The colonists precipitated no war. They have been dragged into wars from which they altogether dissented ; and they have suffered sorely in life, limb, and property from the untoward issue. War having been waged by the command of those in supremo power, it is manifestly unjust that the colony should bo called to pay the cost of that war, as well as to bear its sufferings ; to witness one Province all but blotted out of the map, and the principal Province placed in a state of imminent peril; to be compromised in her relations with a native race with whom the colonists themselves were at peace, and with whom, from the sheer force of necessity, they would have continued to cherish amicable relations; and then, being so seriously injured, imperilled, and compromised, to be told “ pay for and man your ships of war, pay for your troops and your protection—or England will leave you to your fate!” If the despatch of the Duke of Newcastle means anything, it means this. The cry has been echoed and re-echoed. The troops sent, to give the cry more weight, have been magnified from 5000 to 7000 men. The colony has been taken by the throat—“ Pay me that, thou owost,” has been thundered in the ear. They that possess the power threaten to exercise the power; and that too without listening to any plea the colony may be prepared to put on record. The Duke of Newcastle cannot perceive that the colonists were disposed to arm in their own cause. Indeed? Will His Grace refer to the muster of upwards of 1100 armed men, volunteers, militia, and cavalry, on Her Majesty’s birth-day, the 24th May, 1860, fifty of whom were the only regular troops then in Auckland. The colonists were fully prepared to do their duty, until bungling, blundering, and hectoring—dismissing and then summarily and tyrannically seeking to reswear the militia—extinguished every confidence and respect, trampling out every feeling of martial ardour, and driving away our inhabitants by every out-going ship. Does the Duke of Newcastle call this no sacrifice?

It is upon English testimony alone that we are to bo called to maintain the troops whose presence English mismanagement has for a time rendered imperative. Let me attempt to show why no such call should be made upon tho colony, and why, the colony not being able to meet such a demand, she should not be threatened with tho consequences of her inability. I repeat, then, that as England founded the colony, that as she framed and administered the laws for its government, without any intervention on the part of the colonists, that having established her right of preemption to its native lands, and having peremptorily inhibited all bargain, sale, or lease, or even entrance upon native lauds, under stringent pains and penalties, that having, through her own appointed Governor; relaxed the Arms Importation Act, and thereby enabled tho natives to obtain large supplies of arms and ammunition, and having rashly and recklessly plunged the colony into an ill considered and ill conducted war, that in honour and honesty it is incumbent on her by the moral effect of an armed torco to preserve the colony from the ruinous consequences which the premature reduction or withdrawal of that force could not fail to inflict.

It would 1)0 no more than justice to the able aud enlightened ruler, selected by the Imperial Government, of whom the Duke of Newcastle is the official mouth-piece, as the man of all others preeminently fitted to restore peace, order, and prosperity, and to retrieve the evils of the past, to strengthen that man’s hands by every practicable means. Five years of feeble, incompetent, and imperious misrule have so alienated and disgusted the native mind, have filled it with so much suspicion and contempt, that Sir George Grey with all his great personal influence, with all the acknowledged resources of his fine and fertile genius, finds his task of pacification one of the utmost difficulty; if he be weakened instead of being fortified in his efforts what but failure can ensue?

I might multiply the pleas, why, as a matter of justice, it is England’s duty to see us safely through this emergency of her own creating; but I prefer to adduce ouc or two pleas of interest aud expediency. It is England’s interest that New Zealand should prosper. Already she has given happy homes to thousands of her subjects, and beyond any other Colony of Australasia she is adapted for the reception of a dense and prosperous population. England’s Native wars have curbed and controlled the flow of immigration, which, but for them, would have poured in in sucli continuous streams, that the growing British would soon have so far outnumbered the decaying Native population, that outbreak from either would have ceased to be matter of apprehension. As a matter of expediency, it will be quite as conducive to the prosperity of England as to tho progress of the colony, to retain the troops for two or three years. Under their protecting presence, immigration will again set in more strongly than before, the lost balance will be .restored. The cost of tho troops is but a small amount of capital placed out by England, the principal and interest of which the colony will nobly and promptly repay, by affording a homo to England’s starving thousands, by furnishing employment for England’s shipping, by giving an increased and yearly increasing impetus to English commerce and manufactures. These are°cogout reasons why England should not hastily kill the goose that I ays such golden eggs. New Zealand is in the dawn of a promising auriferous career, and, young as she is, if England will only cherish instead of threaten to coerce aud oppress her, the day may not be a distant one when she may he able to pay for whatever protection she may require. Have patience then, oh England, and wo may yet return thee thine own with usury. If you jam us suddenly into a corner, you may injure yourself aud ruih us, and where will be your gain? One more observation and I have done. Now Zealand, it should uovor be forgotten, as a colony, is of the utmost naval and military importance to England; possessed of incomparable maritime resources, her value to a naval nation can scarcely be over estimated: and as the advanced guard to tho Australias, a counterpoise to Tahiti and New Caledonia, (where, by tho way the Isis, a French transport, with 500 troops, has just arrived), a centre of the great future ■Jvaffio pf tho Soiitli Pacific* she dogevves to

be aided and encouraged in the development of her latent resources, not curbed and crushed. There are innumerable pleas in favour of New Zealand, and I earnestly trust that Sir George Grey, with his accustomed ability, will be enabled to place them strongly and effectually before the imperial authorities. New Zealand, in happier times, has been designated tho “ pet’* colony; it is earnestly to bo hoped that she may escape the threat of being made the “ spoilt” one. A Briton op the South.