THE LONDON TIMES ON THE POLICY OF THE NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 51, 13 January 1872, Page 2

THE LONDON TIMES ON THE POLICY OF THE NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT.

The following appeared as a leading article in the "Times" of the 31st October: —

Time and events are justifying more amply and cogently than any arguments which could be offered in Parliament or in the Press the policy recently adopted by this country towards her colonies. For that policy the present Government is not alone responsible ; but to Lord Granville and Lord Kimberley is due the credit of having carried out with firmness and logical consistency the aplication of principles which their Conservative predecessors had accepted and begun to apply. For a long time these very reforms in colonial policy were conspicuous subjects of complaint. Distinguished colonists residing in England were never tired of denouncing the policy which was deliberately loosing, as they pretended, the ties which held the Empire together. New Zealand, in especial, was put forward as a case in which the new-born passion for economy and our unnatural disregard for colonial susceptibilities were working nothing short of a revolution, and we were threatened in the event of the " desertion" of the colony by the mother country with an appeal by the deserted to the tenderness of some more paternal Government than .that of Great Britaiu. We never placed any faith in these forebodings or menaces; we believed that the colonists, once taught by experience to know their own powers, and to value the privileges of self-government, would neither be outmatched by a few semisavage Maoris nor discredit themselves by seeking shelter, at the cost of freedom, under any foreign flag. The history of the Maori wars—as well as our struggles with the Caffres—had demonstrated the unfitness of disciplined English soldiers for a conflict in the bush with the agile native marksmen. Meantime the presence of the Imperial soldiers, though powerless to extinguish the ever-smouldering fires of aboriginal disaffection, released the colonists from the sobering responsibilities of selfgovernment in their relations with the natives. It cannot be denied that since the Imperial forces have been withdrawn from New Zealand, the Maoris have been treated with a clemency and at the same time a firmness previously unknown, while the task of uprooting disloyalty in its strongholds by opening up for colonization the unsettled parts of the North Island has been commenced with exemplary vigour and an assuring promise of speedy success. Everybody can remember what was our old policy with regard to New Zealand, and what were its results. The mother country maintained for the service of the colony in its intestine conflicts with the natives a numerous and well-equipped army, and kept a costly naval squadron for the same purpose off the coast. The Maori rebels were not subdued by this formidable combination of powers, nor were the colonists relieved from their fears. The British taxpayer bore a heavy burden, and his colonial fellow-subjects reaped no adequate advantage. The prospects of New Zealand never looked so black as during those years when this country was spending money and military force at an extravagant rate in her defence. The new policy wrought an instant and complete change. The withdrawal of the British troops offered the colonists the alternative of fighting out their own battle with the insurgent natives, or of making peace with them on fair and reasonable terms. Bitterly did the colonists complain of their desertion; but in their indignation they did not lose sight of practicable wisdom. They first set themselves to give a lesson to their enemies, and with the aid of friendly natives the colonial levies taught the Maori rebels to respect them in several sharp skirmishes, proving themselves immeasurably superior in bush fighting to the regular soldiery, whose loss they had been so needlessly deploring Then, with a still keener insight into the true way of dealing with Maori disaffection, terms of peace were offered to the rebels, which were accepted by all but a handful of irreconcilable outlaws, and, this being accomplished, a determined and courageous effort was made to combat savage disloyalty with the pacific weapons of civilisation. Whatever objections may

be taken on economic grounds to the financial schemes of the present Government of New Zealand—and it must be allowed that Mr Vogel's projects of loans and public works are startling—it cannot be disputed that the application of money and energy by the Ministry has been in the right direction. The Maori, who is admitted to be a fine type of uncivilized man, seems to be as remarkable for industry as for bravery, and the public works which, according to Mr Vogel's plans, are to be rapidly extended over the whole of the Northern Island are likely to be constructed iu a great measure by native labor. There is, as our correspondent observes, a curious and somewhat ironical significance in the fact that the Maori "navvy," who lends his hand to piercing the bush or crossing the swamp with road or railway, is fightingthe obstinate independence of his rebel kinsmen more effectually than any regiment of redcoats that ever marched against a "pah," or got entangled in a wilderness teeming with savage enemies. The work of opening up the inaccessible regions of the North Island to settlement and civilisation will as surely be followed by the pacification of the discontented tribes as the opening of the Scottish Highlands after the victory of Oulloden was followed by the reconciliation of the Celtic clans to the cause of order and Constitutional Government.

It is quite certain that if the Imperial forces had still been maintained in NewZealand, as the colonists unwisely demanded, and as some opponents of the Government at home ignorantly insisted—that if the duty of colonial defence had still been laid, contrary to all justice and wholesome policy, on the mother country, not one of the steps that have now been taken on their own account by the colonists of New Zealand would have been adopted. The new policy, of which energy and selfreliance are marked features, is, beyond question, the direct result of the course pursued in spite of an angry outcry in the colony by Lord Granville and his successor. Nor must we omit to reckon among the fruits of the policy of selfreliance the success which Mr M'Lean has experienced in dealing with the native tribes. New Zealand, now taught to weigh its responsibilities fully, and not to count vaguely on help from home, is treating the Maories with a consideration previously unknown, and the native tribes, in consequence, are beginning to recover their confidence in European probity, and to engage in traffic with the colonists without misgiving. The progressive construction of roads and the projected extension of a railway over the colony are giving an increased value to the lands held by the Maories, who, no longer refusing to undertake steady labor, are tempted to sell their comparatively unused right over large tracts of bush which will soon be cleared and settled. A most satisfactory measure adopted by the Colonial Government is referred to by our correspondent, which illustrates not only the peaceful state of New Zealand, but the view that is generally taken of the utility of the public works. The colonial force of "Armed Constabulary" raised to meet a sudden Ma >ri outbreak has, in consideration of " the state of tranquility the country now enjoys, which renders unnecessary in the field the employment of the colonial force," been set to work upon the roads in the vicinity of their depots; and the Government has announced its determination to reward " energy and talent displayed on roadworks by individuals just as if they had distinguished themselves in action." The Minister who dictated this order knows how to fight the rebellion better than any strategist or tactician the military academies of Europe could export to the Antipodes. By these methods, by encouraging immigration and granting land on liberal terms to working settlers, the Government of New Zealand will soon make an end of what used to be the " Maori difficulty." Even now, when, so to say, the colonists have barely put their hand to the plough, the colony is. far more properous, far more secure, and infinitely more respected than it was when it drew a discreditable profit from our enormous and scandalous military expenditure on a system of defence which was at once ineffective

and costly, and which we had neither the right nor the obligation to afford.