The Invercargill Times FRIDAY, MAY 12, 1863.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 1, 12 May 1863, Page 2

The Invercargill Times FRIDAY, MAY 12, 1863.

The story of British colonization is one of unnumbered successes. In every part of the world the AngloSaxon race has raised never-dying monuments to its own constancy and supremacy. Accommodating itself in a marvellousdegree to a variety ofclimates, it seems to flourish equally as well amidst the snows of a North-American winter, as under the scorching sun of tropical Australia. The Englishman has the proud satisfaction of knowing that in a hundred lands the language of his country is naturalised, and, from its wide dissemination, bids fair to live tli rough all time. The picture is a grand one, but it is not without dark shadows, which detract from its ennobling: beauty. Proud as we well may be of British colonization, it nevertheless bears the impress of something deplorable and degrading. The Anglo-Saxon colonist has everywhere carried with him a religious belief the most elevating ever presented to humanity, and side by side with the altar of his faith he has raised the altar of liberty. Alas ! neither the one or the other has rescued him from too often becoming a destroying angel in the land of his adoption. It is a humiliating fact that the advent of the white man, instead of heralding the dawn of a brighter day to the savage, has generally been the precursor of his tribe's decay and extinction. Throughout the whole of the North American continent the work of destruction has silently progressed, and the civilising influence of two hundred years of European colonization has resulted in the total extinction of a vast proportion of the ludian tribes, and the complete degradation of those of them whose fortune it is to survive to the present day. It is a remarkable fact that amalgamation of the two races has never taken place in any appreciable degree, although there are families at the present day in the States — rich and prosperous families — who boast that they trace their descent on one side from an Indian source. Australia affords. us another instance of the blasting effect that colonisation has had on the ancient possessors of the soil. Twenty, or even ten years ago, it was no uncommon sight in Victoria, to meet fifty or sixty " blackfellows," and occasionally far larger numbers, camped or travelling together ; in the present day, you may go the length and breadth of the land and perhaps not one will cross your solitary path through the bush. They have perished, and the few miserable wretches whom you may perchance meet, are, with scarcely an exception, suffering from diseases unknown before the colonist set bis foot in the land. In Tasmania the work is fully accomplished, and the aboriginal tribes are already extinct. What does the past history of the Maori tribes, since New Zealand colonization began, lead us to expect for their future? Are they to share the fate of the North American ludian, and the blacks of Australia aud Tasmania ? Is it a part of the inevitable law of Nature that the savage should die in the presence of a civilisation introduced by a race whose motto should be " Peace and good will towards men/' or is it, on the other haud, possible that by grasping that* civilization, and eventually by amalgamating with its introducers, the savage may be saved from the destruction which it seems certain must othetwise overtake him. It is scarcely necessary for U3 to allude to the decrease in the Maori population within the last few years ; every one knows that the same causes, and they are many, which have operated in other lands to the destruction of the aboriginal race, are at work in New Zealand. The process is silently but surely going on ; the Maori seems doomed, and, more than that, he is beginning to have a glimmering of the fact without fully understanding the causes. His intelligence, higher than is usually found in an aboriginal race, has led him to that conclusion ; and his courage, equal to that of the Anglo-Saxon with whom he is contending, urges him to resist to the utmost anything which appears to tend to such a consummation. To those who, like ourselves, earnestly hoped the Maori race might be preserved from extinction, not by the possession of a nationality altogether separate from the European, but by a gradual blending of races* the events of the last few years have a strange and disheartening gloominess. Although the decrease in the Native population was very apparent for a long while previous to the outbreak, still it was thought by many, ourselves amongst the number, that the gradual introduction of the good as "well as the evils of civilization would take place without

the destruction of the race ; that it would survive the change, and that, though weakened, in numbers for a time, the Maoris would eventually be raised in the social scale, and mingling their blood with that of the AngloSaxon, become by that means the founders of a great nation. The King Movement distressed no class more than the well-wishers of the Maori, for they knew that it was a retrogression, and that if it could have been allowed I bn other grounds, the Natives themselves would be the losers. And then came the exploits of Colonel Gold, and the so-called triumph of General Pratt, and hopes of a settlement were again entertained, destined, however, to be frustrated by the last news from the North, — and so the mutter rests. The Maoris are unsubdued ; they discard any fellowship with the European; but they can never again revert to their " old New Zealand " existence. There is but one chance for them, and that is a speedy subjection to English law. To stand still is to them death. They have tasted the bitterest fruits of civilization ; they have become acquainted with the vices and follies of the AngloSaxon ; they have left off, to a great extent, their old habits and ways of living, before they have thoroughly adopted those of the white man ; they are, in short, in nearly the same state that has preceded the destruction of other aboriginal tribes. If they perish, it will not be without guilt to the white man, for whilst civilizing he has corrupted them.