STAFFORD V. FOX.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 36, 30 September 1871, Page 14

STAFFORD V. FOX.

[lndependent, September 25.] The charge made against the present Government by Mr Stafford on Friday evening that it is " a boastful Government," whereas that of which he was the head never boasted, reminds us of a Scotch story worthy of being placed in Dean Ramsay's collection. A Scotch minister was thus found fault with by one of his hearers :—" You do not preach to us at all about our ain righteousness —that all our righteousness is as filthy rags." To which he naively replied, " I never saw ye had any to speak about." That Mr Stafford did not, and does not, boast of any remarkable successes must be accounted for on the same principle. He cannot point to any great legislative measure, to any useful reform, to any new institution, or to any great display of administrative ability, of which it could be said that he would be justified in boasting. The phrase used by himself to denote the state of New Zealand under his Premiership was ■«the wretched past." It is a pity that he should recall it by injudiciously contrasting the two administrations. His talking of the " paid organs of the Government," compels us indignantly to repel the insinuation that our praises of the Government are anything spontaneous tribute to their success in the direction at once of peace and of progress. The other journals, such as the " Lyttelton Times" and the " Nelson Colonist," included in this sweeping charge of being "paid organs," are perfectly able to defend themselves. We have noticed with much satisfaction that they have, during the recess, pursued exactly the same course with regard to " the wretched past" which we have studiously adopted. They have never referred to it until compelled to do so by the mis-statements of Opposition journals. In all their remarks on it, we feel sure it is a baseless calumny to insinuate that they acted the part of paid organs. With absolute certainty, at all events, we can speak for ourselves ; and without fear of contradiction we assert that in defending the present Government from attacks unexampled in journalism for their baseness and virulence, we were no more the " paid organ of the Government" than was the " Nelson Examiner," or the " Otago Daily Times,"—the journals in which these were made. The laudatory articles of the ministerial organs seem to have aroused the ire of Mr Stafford, but the insinuation that they emanated from ministerial pens,, or persons in ministerial pay, presupposes in "the wretched past" a state of things even more deplorable than we have ever ventured to depict That, we were aware, was the era of glowing military despatches, of " boastful " vice-regal speeches, of vainglorious addresses by the Native Minister and the Premier ; but it was reserved for Mr Stafford to engender the suspicion that it was also the era of systematic adulation of the Government, either by ministerial pens or else " bought" by ministerial pay.

We do not admit that the present Government is a boastful Government. We find no proof of boasting in any or their papers, in their royal speeches, or financial statements. So far from boasting we think the Government is much to blame for not, at the commencement of a Parliament with forty new members in it, putting before the country in a succinct form a comprehensive view of the state of the colony at the beginning of the last and the present Parliament, marking the period at which they took office. The excess of modesty, the utter absence of " boastfulness" in the opening speech of his Excellency has, as we stated at the time, done the Government no little harm. Opposition journals, finding the extraordinary success that has attended the administration of native affairs du ring what Mr Richmond was pleased to term " a miserable lull," expressed by a few words only, and these very far from boastful, have actually come to the conclusion that Mr Stafford was right when he asserted at Timaru that " the King party were never more hostile," and that '• the future was never more gloomy." If the expression "our relations with the natives continue to improve" is the utterance of a boastful Government, the Stafford administration, judged by the same standard—its vice-regal speeches

—must have been one of unmitigated gasconade. On the 9th of July, 1867, the Governor, in opening Parliament, used the following expressions, which, by the way, effectually sweep away the miserable excuse now put forward by the " Nelson Examiner," for the late Government having initiated no great measures, because all the time they were in office "they had to grapple with a Maori war."

I congratulate you on the re-establishment of peace generally throughout the North Island, in no part of which do I anticipate in future any systematic or sustained hostility to the Queen's authority. During the recess I have made a journey, partly on foot, through the North Island, and have traversed native districts which it had for some time past been deemed safe to enter. I everywhere found the embers of disaffection dying out, and I was received by the Maori population even in districts recently in rebellion in such a manner as to inspire confidence in the future peace of the country.

Mr Cox, in moving the address in reply, said :

For the first time in my experience in this House, the Government are in a position to say _" Peace is re-established in New Zealand." Within my recollection, no Government has'ever before used such an expression; the greatest length to which any previous Government has gone has been to express a hope that we should arrive at the establishment of peace.

To the charge of " having taken a too favorable view of the state of native affairs" made by Mr Carleton, Colonel Haultain, the Defence Minister replied, " nothing could be more satisfactory than the present state of native affairs, &c." How this foolish boasting ended let Mr Stafford himself declare in the vice-regal speech of 1869. On the 15th of June—that is to say ten days before Mr Fox took office —he is reported in Hansard to have said : We are met now in what cannot be ignored as being the gravest position in which New Zealand has yet been, because the hard struggle before the colony must be fought out by itself unassisted. Whatever the result—whether it may end in the rupture of the colony, in the destruction of many settlements hitherto progressing, and in a still further destruction of life—whatever the result, it must be our own action, and it is useless to look further beyond the bounds of this country for assistance. It is a hard struggle. Yet, having brought the country to this pass, he continues, as boastfully as ever, in the same speech : If I had myself to select, I will not say from the House only, but from those in the whole of New Zealand who had shown an aptitude and inclination for public affairs—if I had to select another Ministry, I should be much puzzled where to turn, and ivho to address with the request that he should take part in the great difficulties and anxieties which the administration of public affairs must entail at the present moment. We have none too many good men to meet the struggle.

These words were uttered, be it remembered, after Colonel Whitmore's " victories." Whatever he did, and we never ignored his merits or his successes, it is clear from Mr Stafford's own words when speaking with all the responsibility of a Minister, that the present Government came into office when New Zealand was "in the gravest position," when " a hard struggle was before the Colony," which might end " in the destruction of many settlements hitherto progressing," and that not one of the present Ministry was considered by this pattern of modesty worthy of being addressed with a request to take part in the great difficulties and anxieties which the administration of public affairs then entailed. No, Stafford was out of all sight superior to a .Fox or a Vogel, and it was preposterous "to turn" from Mr Puchmond to Mr M'Lean! Contrast this boastfulness with the recent action of the present Government. Having succeeded in securing peace, although they have never yet boasted so confidently about it, the Government turned their attention to these great questions which had escaped the consideiation of their predecessors even in a much vaunted state of peace. Their proposals were submitted to the late Parliament, in which Mr Stafford boastfully predicted that they would never secure a majority sufficient " to give effect to any policy they might propose," and were accepted by the largest majority a Government ever secured. To carry those measures into effect, the Colonial Treasurer went home and raised the necessary capital. On his return he gave an account of his mission in no boastful manner. Recognising that on the proper expenditure of this loan, especially after the signal

failure of Mr Reader "Wood, the credit of the colony abroad, as well as its progress at home, very largely depended, the Premier, rising above the reminiscences of " the wretched past," and with a view doubtless to secure a Government strong enough to resist the clamors of Superintendental factions, or the chance combinations of parties banded together for log-rolling purposes, invited the assistance of Mr Stafford to carry out the policy he last session so heartily approved, and which he " boasted" that he had so largely helped to pass into law in its present shape. That offer was surely no proof of boastfulness. If it is true that Mr Stafford has allowed his own personal and party feelings to stand in the way, and has positively declined a seat in the Cabinet, then it must be inferred that his own " boastful spirit" has prevented him from rising to the occasion, and from failing to appreciate the magnanimity, the generosity, and the patriotism which prompted the offer. At the present juncture a strong Government is evidently required, and we are glad to think that the Colonial Treasurer has so earnestly and with so little " boastfulness" set forth this necessity in the financial statement. Such a generous appeal cannot be made in vain. Meanwhile, we reiterate our opinion that neither the present Government nor "their paid organs" are justly chargeable with boastfulness. On the very question of the administration of native affairs, on which Mr Stafford spoke so warmly, no journal has given more " boastful" utterances than the " Hawke's Bay Telegraph," a journal whose rancorous attacks upon the present Native Minister are only exceeded iu virulence by those directed against ourselves for " blindly supporting the Fox-Vogel Ministry." Witness the following :

Within a few days two years will have elapsed since the present Ministry supplanted that of Mr Stafford, and nothing could be more widely separated than the policy puisued by each of those parties. The one pursues the " sugar and blanket policy," the other endeavored to control the natives by means of force ; and it was in the Grovernmenfc of the Maoris that the main difference lay between the Ministries of Messrs Stafford and Fox. ... In every possible way that a policy can fail, Mr Stafford's failed. Our forces, in the main, were defeated in the field, the fairest districts ruined, murder and rapine reigned supreme, and the whole colony was driven to distraction and sunk in debt. The settlers in the North Island were in such extremity, that at one time it was. if not seriously contemplated at least proposed, that the Island should be abandoned to the people, whom we, by misgovernment, had converted into as savage a race as we had at first found them. If ever a policy were given a fair trial, that of the late Ministry received it, and the consequence was ruin to one half of New Zealand, while discontent and taxation was the result to the other. The cemeteries bear a record as painful as truthful of the frightful effects of bad government, and many years will elapse before the memory of that dark page in the history of this colony can be obliterated. On the 25th June, 1869, in consequence of a vote of want of confidence having been carried the previous night in the House of Assembly, Mr Stafford resigned, and Mr Fox being called to the head of the Government, a brighter era dawned on New Zealand. The war was concluded, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, allowed to die out, and every means were adopted to bring about a feeling of confidence and friendship between the two races. If to bring about our relations with the natives to such a satisfactory state had cost as much, or more, as a war would have done, it would have been cheap, but no comparison can be made between the benefit both races derive in the one case, and the undisturbed possession of the island, we should have secured by the destruction of the Maoris in the other.

This state of things has been brought about by the adoption of what is derisively called the " sugar and blanket" policy, and now, only after a two yeear's trial, so much has been effected in every way beneficial to both races, there can, we imagine, be but few who do not see that prosperity is only to be brought about by peaceful means. Several years of war, even had our arms met with an uninterrupted success, and we had destroyed every Maori in the Island, could never have repaid its cost, while, with a comparative small outlay, and with a continuance of good government, in a short period we may hope for as undisturbed a peace as if no savage ever existed in New Zealand.

When Mr Stafford next accuses the Government of " boastfulnes" let him point to their having used any language as strong as this. When he next refers to the praises of " the paid organs of the Government" let him produce anything half so strong as this extract from an Opposition journal ! No, the present Government is not boastful, but were the charge true Mr Stafford, whose "ruined reputation" Mr Collins so pathetically deplores, is not the proper accuser.