THE LAND OF MISRULE AND OF BLUNDERS

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 51, 27 September 1864, Page 3

THE LAND OF MISRULE AND OF BLUNDERS

(From the Army and Navy Gazette-) Certainly " the Britain of the South "( asdthas been termed) has not hitherto proved a lield of. honor for the original Briton , of the North. A sufficient amount of " solid pudding " may there have been acquired by certain of her sons, but truly only a slender proportion of " empty praise." We are. not about to drive deeply into the sea of politics, or of questions of morality. The injustice towards the original possessors of New Zealand, prepetrated by or with the connivance of, successive English Governments, is glaring, palpable, and no less disgraceful than p.vlpable and glaring. Its reality stares us in the face, and no gag will suffice to prevent an expression of indignation at its permission rushing occasionally from the mouths of men, who think that wrongs done to savages are uot the less wrongs, and that the strongest obligations rest upon Christian and powerful nations to abstain from such wrongs. In a recent debate upon this subject, Earls Clancarty and Grey followed Lord Lyttelton in an admission that grievous injustice had actually been done to the Maori race. But our present purpose is not to dwell on this injustice, (however inexcusable it may be,) but to offer somo observations upon tho want of ability wliich has accompanied this evil doing, whether in the counsels of Government at home, the acts of the colonists of those ill-fated islands of which we speak, or the conduct of the little wars therein carried on by many of the officers employed thore. As regards the first of tliese considerations, we may mention the undue caro taken and deference shown to the colonists for many years past. They have long since multiplied sufficiently by immigration and marriage to be able to maintain their own position without the assistance of the mother country, and it is preposterous that we should (most mistakenly, as we have always though) encourage emigration on a large scale, with a view to national economy at home, and yet contribute largely from our public funds upon which sufficient demands aro made in other quarters for the support of colonists who have left our shores and ceased to become citizens of Britain, with the prospect, at least, of pushing their own interests abroad. But this is not all. These colonists, or at all events, many of them, in a spirit of grasping avarice and pride of questionable civilization, have picked quarrels again and again with the natives, and expect Great Britain in every way to bear tho burthen of tho consequent warfare. This is not as it should be. If the colonists want the luxury of war, let tho colonists pay for it. They are, or ought to be, well ablo. But we have more to say of this Baby-state. If its members will have their rattle they should not only pay for it, but handle it. In plain words, the NewZealandeolonistsshouldy?/7/'<fas well as pay, whether for their own protection or in furtherance of their views of continual territorial acquisition. Old England has sins enough of its own to answer for. The settlers in New Zealand are, in a great measure, British born, and many of them might have been expected to have been amongst the most stalwart specimens of the mother country, but they seem to have left their manhood behind them and to have become relaxed and enervated by the climate they have chosen even beyond what might naturally have been expected, for certain it is lhat neither they nor their progeny have often distinguished themselves by prowess in the land of their adoption. Considering that tlie native Maorics have dwindled in numbers from 100,000 down to (as its believed) 50,000, and that the imported raco may probably be represented by the former figure, and that moreover, at present but a small minority of their uncivilized neigh >ors are actually in arms, we do not. think we arc saying 100 much in asserting that the colonists of .New Zealand ought to be able to settle the " dire debate " now at issue by themselves. But by some of them, it seems, the atrocious cry of ex I crm inal ion lias been raised ; so true is it," that men always hate most those whom they have injured. A t.'hri.-tiun people calls for the extermination of a Biui-i- race whom they have by turns duped, swindled, and tried to bully! This is monstrous. What should we say of a gciicj-nl plot amongst the Maorics for the extermina' ion of the whit-e^raee ? What did we say of the massacres in India in 1857? And how did we requite them ? But if nothing less than the extermination of the Maorics will satisfy some of their fo.*s, at least, let, them not attempt to impo c tlie vile and disgustii g labor on British soldiers. The task is fitting only for those unsexed hags, or rather those incarnate lien Is, the drugged and demoniac Amazons of the King of Dahoniev ! Last) v. of the British force hitherto employed in tliese Islands of flic (in their case a misnomer) Pacific. We have even deigned to compare British sol tiers (or sailors) with any but British ; with those of past wars. We may have thought that the present generation do not, in all respects at least came up to the measure of their dispraise. We have, and do still recommend a careful attention to training and discipline in all their varities. Otherwise we have ever held them matchless, or such as should be matchless by mortal meu. We have shown that they ought to be an overmatch for New Zealand savages, not only in bodies, not only with the rifle, but hand to hand, inlividually, with danger or tomahawk. As it is, we uro not as yet decidedly triumphant over some tribes of savages, scarce half the number of our troops alone, and comparatively speaking unarmed. Ought this to be?