NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR, AND COOK'S STRAITS GUARDIAN. Saturday, May 31, 1845.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 34, 31 May 1845, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR, AND COOK'S STRAITS GUARDIAN. Saturday, May 31, 1845.

There probably never was a colony placed in the desperate circumstances that New Zealand is at the present moment. It is not the recent •collision in the North (although terminating in the destruction of the oldest settlement in New Zealand,-) nor the collision we are now preparing for in~ the South, that causes our alarm — but when we reflect on the- character of the people to whom the destinies of this unfortunate country are confided, and the cruel abandonment of our interests by the Government at home, we must confess, the prospect fills us with dismay. In' vain we look, among the Auckland officials, for one man of ordinary capacity, or common judgment to extricate us from the dangers of our position. The sole object of all of them ap•pears to be the preservation of their own salaries; — and this object they pursue with such shameless eagerness, "that excites "at once our surprise and disgust. At the very time that the colony was groaning under the weight of unusual taxation, and the Bay of Islands was burning, in commemoration of their folly, they met — not for the purpose of retrieving past blunders or devising measures for future benefit — but, to squabble among themselves for their wages. It is said that rats desert the sinking ship — therefore the comparison that we were about to make between that class of vermin, and the tribe of hungry sycophants that swarm in every department of the public service would be hardly applicable — they may rather be compared to barnacles on the side of the foundering vessel — so tenacious is •their grasp to office and salary. A short glance at the claims and services of the principal of these gentlemen, may not be out of place at thfe time. Of all the officers of a colonial government after the Governor himself, by far the most important is the Colonial Secretary ; and he is usually selected on account of his general habits of business, and his supposed conversance with the wants and peculiarities of the particular colony to which he is appointed. It is one, and not the least of our misfortunes, that the rule in ordinary cases is generally the exception in .this. Under Captain Hobson's Government, this important office was given to an ex-lieutenant of the nayy — " a very illiterate man" — "a person who could scarcely write his own name," as one of the witnesses solemnly deposes to the Committee of the House of Commons. When this gentleman became acting Governor, his own official mantle descended on the shoulders of a highly respectable cabinet-maker, who' ministered for a while to the political necessities of the colony. The present occupant was a surgeon of a convict transport ship, and to give him all justice, we believe, a very tolerable botanist ; but who, in his wildest dreams, two years ago, could never have imagined the possibility of his present elevation. The next in, importance of the members of the Council is the Attorney General ; of whom it is hard to say, whether his ignorance or conceit is the most striking. When we remind our readers, that the Ordinances of Council are drawn up by this gentleman, we feel convinced that they will acquit us of using too harsh language in describing him. The only remaining member of the Government.of whom we have to speak, is the Colonial Treasurer — the " silent member" par excellence. It is a singular fact, that though highly useful as a dummy to the Governor, this gentleman has scarcely ever been known to open his lips in Council (or if he has, it has not been thought

worth while to report what he said,) except on one occasion, when in an ungrateful attempt on the part of his colleagues to -deprive him of a portion of his salary, he rose up, and uttered a convulsive protest against the injustice. Such are the men, to whose discretion, foresight, and capacity, our lives and properties are confided ! and well indeed might the Governor say of them, that his chief Dragoman, " that unpleasantlysanctimonious gentleman, Mr. Clarke," was worth to him, any five of them ! -These are the people (with a host of pigjobbers,' land-sharks, and broken-down missionary tradesmen, from which classes the Protectors of Aborigines are selected) that have the direction of the affairs of the colony. Fortunately for us, their especial attention has been hitherto confined to the northern settlements — and we have, consequently, escaped the anarchy and desolation, that have abundantly rewarded their exertions iv that district. The charge of our interests has, however, been deputed to a v worthy representative, in the person of our respected Superintendent. It is hard to define a-merely negative character — and if it were not for one strong and pervading feature, we could not, for the life of us, describe him better, than as " a walking gentleman, with buttons and smiles to match." In truth, he would be absolutely without any character at all — so weak are his perceptions, and so irresolute are his actions. But the one point that gives a kind of*consistency to his conduct, and happily assimilates him to his official superiors, is the universal characteristic of the tribe to which he belongs — an inordinate love of salary. Responsibility of any kind he shudders at — although we have known several occasions in which he has seemingly exceeded his powers, to injure us. Our readers will recollect the disbanding of the militia two years ago — and on a later occasion, his attempt to indulge his Auckland sympathies at our expense, by the precipitation with which he was about to carry into execution here, the Penny-an-acre Proclamation. In different circumstances we might, possibly, be amused at his attempts to balance himself, so as to accommodate his conduct to every fresh caprice of his Excellency's mmd — but these are times "for which a very different kind of person is required. Instead of a mere Satellite, however perfectly it may perform its revolutions, our position imperatively calls for, in our Superintendent, a man with capacity to meet those difficulties he only thinks of evading ; and possessed of courage, judgment, and energy sufficient to overcome them.

' In resuming' the consideration of tnissionaryism and its effects, we feel that it is much more painful to be obliged to prove the minor proposition — that the conduct of missionaries since the arrival of British colonists has been consistent with their previously expressed hostility — than to support the major, which only required statements that they have made, and the expression .of sentiments which they have avowed. To have opposed the formation of the cdlony prior to its establishment, only -argues a species of mental obliquity, but to continue the opposition subsequently, in the face of declarations of friendship, is a line of conduct that we will prove before we characterize it. The Rev. J. Beecham, in a letter to Lord Stanley, dated 7th March, 1844, volunteers the following statement : — " When the question as to whether New Zealand should or should not be au English colony, had been decided in the afjfrfmative, it from that moment became an. object of constant solicitude on the part oi the Committee, that the missionaries of the Society should, in New Zealand, as in all other places where British colonies are actually established, steadily employ their legitimate influence in promoting kindly feeling and harmonious co-opera-tion between the natives and the colonists, so far as that end could possibly be attained, without sacrificing the cause and interests of the natives, who naturally looked up to the missionaries.as their advisers and protectors." Such declarations as the foregoing must be -held to be gratuitous and impertinent — gratuitous, because it is only thereby professed that missionaries are to perform the simplest and most obvious duty of Christian men, and impertinent, because they prove nothing, excepting in so far as they supply a standard by which to measure the degree of consistency that exists between profession and practice. The latter part of the statement, however, is of more importance, since it suggests the mode of reasoning by which missionaryism is evolved, and the high and solemn object and duty of the missionary debased and degraded. An impression is at once produced by its perusal, that the " cause and interests/ of the settlers may be opposed to

Ihope of the natives, and upon this assumption — the fallacy of which we have already seen — it is evident that the missionaries, to discharge the self-imposed duties of advisers and protectors of the natives, must be continually placed in circumstances, in which the operation of the prejudices they have imbibed, and the natural wish to be felt to be of service to the natives, -will so bias their judgments, that they must appear to their fellow-countrymen in the odious light of meddlers with things foreign both to their professions and their office. The following extract from the evidence of Mr. Walter Brodie before the House of Common, will illustrate the manner in 1 which protection and advice have been afforded t — " How do you know that the land was never purchased by him (Colonel Wakefield) of the natives ?" " I have had it from the natives themselves : I will mention one case to the Committee which I was acquainted with : there were some missionaries travelling on the coast at the same time that I was ; they were talking about land-; and we were stating what we had seen in the papers as to the land that had been sold in. England by the New Zealand Company ; one of the party questioned a native about his being so foolish as to sell the land at the price which was named; the native said that he had never heard anything about it." — " Who were the parties who, as you have stated, questioned the chiefs at Wanganui, how they could be so foolish as to .part with their land ?" "I think Mr. Hobbs was one ;he wa&a Wcsleyan Missionary." — " Who was the other ?" " Another missionary who lives there." — " Did they say what they meant by being so foolish as to part with their land ?" " They found fault with them." Another circumstance strikingly illustrative of the same thing occurred about two years since, when the natives in the Te Aro pa were permitted, if not advised, by the Rev. G. Smales, then resident here, to inter the body of a deceased member of their tribe within the limits of the pa, in order that the land might-acquire, ' by this' act, such a sacrednessof character, that it. should be placed beyond the power of the natives themselves to consent to its alienation. One more instance shall suffice,, in -which the excuse that may be made for the above — namely, watchfulness for the native " interests" — cannot apply, though watchfulness for interests of another kind is painfully apparent. Refeiring to the Rev. Henry Williams, Colonel Wakefield writes, under date, May 25, JS4O :—": — " With respect to the land claimed by him, amounting to forty acres or more in the best part of the site of the town, to ■which, in the opinion of everybody here, he had not a shadow of right, — the bargain with the native who assigned it to him two months after my first visit here having been concocted in fraud, — I thought it better to compromise the-matter with him, andto ensure the support of the Church missionaries by giving him an interest in the place; and therefore, after a candid avowal on his jaart, that he wished to have a slice for ' himself/ and other confessions equally disinterested and compatible with his pretended anxiety on account of -the native reserves, I agreed to give him one acre of the land he claimed for .himself, and one acre for the sole use of Richard Davis, the native, they, in consideration -of the land being surveyed, yielding all their rights to the -Company. I cannot express to you the feelings of repugnance entertained by the respectable colonists who came in contact with Mr. Williams towards him, on account of his selfish views, his hypocrisy, and unblushing rapaciousness. He frequently said -that, finding that I had been before him in the purchase of land in the Straits without consultin'g'him, 'he had endeavoured to do the best for himself, and had disparaged the Company, and its settlers to the natives. On the whole, it was only by a great effort, and in the hope of benefiting the colony, that I could bring myself to hold any terms with this worst of land-sharks." From the premises thus established, one of two conclusions is inevitable — either the missionaries are " compassing and imagining" the injury of their countrymen, or missionaryism is adverse to, colonization. The latter is that which we have undertaken to prove, and we have only named the former to shew the " horns of a dilemma" on which those will find themselves, who may deny the justice of our conclusion. The one, indeed, is wholly at variance with the estimable character of many of the missionaries, while the other explains much that otherwise casts a dark shade of suspicion over those whom, as men, we esteem and honor. How else shall any excuse be made for the conduct of Archdeacon Williams at the Bay of Islands ? How else shall those passages in the letter of the Rev. S. Ironside be accounted for, wherein he describes the woman killed at the Wairau, as " the wife of Rangihaeata," knowing, as he does, the sasredness which, in European eyes, attaches to that relationship, and at the same time that she was but a wife, and scarcely that ? Or that in which the same gentleman describes a respectable Englishwoman, Mrs. Blenkinsop, as a native woman, and alleges that the deed purchased of her, in and by which the Wairau was conveyed to Captain Blenkinsop, and by which purchase the interest of her deceased husband was transferred to the New Zealand Company, a deed of purchase and sale of the woman herself from a native tribe ? These extracts,

with those already given in a former number of our journal, as also those from a letter by the Rev. J. Whiteley, quoted in the same place, prove the existence of the spirit whose origin we have traced to pre-existent prejudices, — whose rise and development we have rimrked, and whose existence may now, unhappily, be felt and seen everywhere. In the measures of Government, and in the worse than useless " protectorate," as well as in the sayings and doings of the missionaries themselves, the same spirit is rife and rampant. Most unhappily, we repeat, not for the sake of the colonists alone, but for the natives also, for should it continue, we may reasonably fear, or rather confidently predict, that the terms in which an intelligent writer of our own day has described the present condition of the natives of Peru, will in a few short years be the melancholy history of the wreck of the New Zealanders. " There is not a class of men under the sun (says Mr. Bell, in his "System of Geography") better fenced with a host of protecting laws than the Indians of Spanish America ; and yet, in spite of such legislative enactments in their favor, none have suffered more severely from rapacity and oppression, and nowhere have the conquered so much degenerated. Placed by these very laws in a state of perpetual pupilage, the Indians can never improve; excluded from all intercourse with strangers, and living under their own caciques, as -a separate race, their intellects are never enlightened, and their ignorance is perpetuated ; the very multiplicity of the laws in their favor, has produced a corresponding busy interference of priests and magistrates in their concerns, who are thus enabled under pretence of serving them, deeply to injure them. Their privileges excite the envy and hatred of the other castes, and alienate them from them. They are distrustful in their temper, and suspect every one who does them a kindness, of a design to impose upon them ;they are stout and robust; capable • of enduring labour, 'but lazy, dirty, and improvident. Their habitations are miserable hovels, destitute of all conveniences, and disgustingly filthy. Their dress is poor and mean, and their food coarse and scanty." It only remains for us to mark strongly the distinction between missionaryism and the high and holy end that the missionary societies contemplate. To this we are urged by a double motive. On the one hand, we yield to none in our personal appi'eciation of the proper end of missionary labour, and on the other, we feel it necessary to prove that this is not the spirit we are combatting, and that palpable motives exibt for the latter, which again prove its distinctness from the former. The spurious and morbid philanthropy of Exeter Hall, working upon the minds of those weak and imbecile men who have held the reins of Government in these islands, is the cause of its dominance in " high places." The sweets of an office which subsists upon this morbid feeling, accounts for its influence upon " protectors" great and small, and one or other of the two classes of motives we have hinted at, will explain its appearance where we most of all regret it, in the persons of the missionaries. " The zealous (says a contemporary) are ensnared by their wish to secure a beneficial influence over the natives, ar,d others by the tempting prospects which their position affords." The Church missionaries, it is well known, are among the largest claimants of land, and although those of the Wesleyan Society are clear from this charge, yet a direct temptation is held out to them by the fact, that they are partly supported by purchasing necessaries with goods in barter from the natives. This appears so extraordinary, that we would not have ventured the assertion had it not appeared in the " prent-book," on no less authority than that of Mr. Beecham ; and when it is remembered that gunpoioder has been used in this way, we are constrained to observe the potency of the spell which these circumstances weave round those who would stand aghast if, at other times, such things could be suspected of them. We submit, therefore, that the case is thus I made out, and in leaving it for the present, we , do so with the consciousness that, by the course ! taken, we shall prove ourselves eventually, the friends of missions, and at the same time, of our country and our race. '

We are informed, on good authority, that the Maories at the Bay of Islands a short time back slaughtered fifty bullocks, the property of Archdeacon Williams, in order that they !might not become food for the soldiers.

On Monday morning, pursuant to notice, the Volunteers assembled on Thordon Flat, for the purpose of being enrolled and sworn in as Militiamen, under the Ordinance recently passed by the Legislative Council. The arms which they had previously received from the New Zealand Company's stores were returned, and they were supplied with muskets and bayonets, belts and cartouch boxes, belonging to the Government. The regulations to which the Militia are expected to conform were then read, and the following general order was issued by his Honor the Superintendent, as Commandant of the Forces in the Southern District : —