MR. FOX AND HIS DETRACTORS.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 284, 10 July 1860, Page 4

MR. FOX AND HIS DETRACTORS.

To the Editor of the Wellington Independent. Grey town, May 19th, 1860. SIR, —I have read with much satisfaction your article in the Independent, of the 15th instant, vindicatory of Mr. Fox's conduct on declining to sign a Memorial slating that the grounds upon which his Excellency has taken up arms are just and necessary. That article has well nigh exhausted the subject. There are, however, one or two features in the case, which appear to me to have been lost sight of, and to which with your indulgence, I beg to call attention. It is a well-known fact that communities in their collective capacity have little or no conscience—that what they would shrink from doing individually they have no hesitation in perpetrating en masse— hence republics have ever been more rapacious and unprincipled than despotic monarchs. This laxity of principle alluded to is not merely insinuated but literally inculcated by the Editor of the Wanganui Chronicle himself. What does he say, indeed the Governor canmot now retrace his steps, even though he would. What does that mean, but that whether the Governor be^ right or wrong, he must be upheld in his present course of action; that is to say irrespectively of.the abstract justice of the case, he must be supported on grounds of political expediency, a doctrine from which in its general application T must totally dissent, for if one truth be more indelibly written than another on the page of history, it is the doctrine of a retributive providence,—that every political crime brings with it its own punishment. But this by the way.—With, however, the persuasion generally prevalent in the community that the Governor, whether morally right or wrong " cannot now re- j trace his sfeps " and if it hold with the con- j venient doctrine of the Editor of the Chronicle, that the science of politics is one of •* calculations, combinations and exceptions, according to place, time, and circumstances," it will be sure to support the Governor in the prosecution of the war, from mere motives of interest, irrespective of the justice of the case. The community seems satisfied to act on the version of matters rendered by the Governor and his functionaries. Perhaps they are justified in so doing not being constituted by their official or other position a judge as between the belligerents. But it is otherwise with Mr. Fox, who by virtue of his office as a member of the General Assembly will have to pronounce judicially, " not on the necessity for prose- j cuting the war to a decisive result, (on ■ which all are agreed) but as to whether the original cause of the war was just, and whether the Governor embarked in it with too much precipitancy and without sufficient precautions for the security of the Test of the colony not the actual scene of hostilities. Were Mr. Fox to have prejudged the case by affixing his name to the memorial in question, what weight could attach to his subsequent decision in the General Assembly ; or if in consequence of additional evidence being produced in behalf of the defendant Wiremu Kingi, he retracted his original judgment, how ridiculous and vascillating would he appear. Mr. Fox has acted wisely, he has refused to ignore in his judicial capacity the maxim audl allerem partem. For after all we have only Keard one version (the Government's) of the story, even the colloquy reported between Wiremu Kingi and Mr. Parris is no more than, a well authenticated exparte statement; and when some of the ministers of the Gospel of peace (whose opinion, according to the Chronicle) is not unusually greatly to be depended upon in secular matters,' espouse the Maori side, we may reasonably suspect that if there be not a suppression, there is some reticence of the truth, which can only be elicited by further inquiry. In brief, to arrive at a safe conclusion, as to the justice of the war, we must hear the Maories' versions of the affair as well as the Government's. If I may compare small things with great, are the members of the Imperial Parliament, in the event of a war, satisfied with the Ministerial representations as to its justice or expediency. Do they altogether ignore the representations of the power against which hostilities may be or proposed to be directed. No. Then why should Mr. Fox or any other member of the General Assembly prejudge this case on ex parte statements. Granting, however, that on grounds of political expediency (even if those of justice be wanting, which I by no means imply,) the Governor must be supported at all hazards now that he has taken the momentous leap, still it by no means follows that he should have looked well before he leaped, or that he has not embarked in the war with-too much precipitancy, and with-^ out sufficient precautions for the security of the rest of the colony, not the actual scene of strife. How has his forethought been manifested ? By relaxing the restrictions on tie sale of firearms and ammunition, by which he converted the disarmed Maori population, into one armed to the teeth, having large supplies of gunpowder, ripe for any mischief, and burning with desire to signalise their prowess on the Pakeha. He thus gave stability and feasibility to the land league, and Maori King movement, both of which strike at the root, not merely of British supremacy, but of British existance on this soil. And how has he provided for the safety of Wanganui, Wairarapa, Ahuriri and other localities of the colony. Let their present defenceless state (the white population being alike destitute of arms and organisation) unequivocally declare,—granting the war to be just, necessary, and expedient, will the Governor's most zealous partizans deny that he embarked in it with precipitancy without a due calculation of the cost or the dimen-? sions it was likely to assume. :If other-

wise, how comes it that until recently the troops were only equalto the defensive, a posture to which they seem to have again relapsed, for they are deterred from offensive operations, by a dread of the town of Taranaki being sacked, and its inhabitants massacred, there not being sufficient force in the absence of the military to avert such : a disaster. In very deed to the Governor's j impolitic procedure in relaxing the restrictions on the sale of arms and ammunition, to that and that alone we may attribute our present critical position. By Sir George Grey's wise as well as beneficent policy, the Maories had become all but disarmed, and even if bent on mischief were incapable of it at least in the face of British troops. But all this has been undone by that most gratuitous piece policy on the part of the Governor, the relaxing the restrictions on the sale of arms and ammunition. While therefore we give his Excellency credit for energy and decision in the hour of danger, and are prepared to uphold him by every means in our power in the prosecution of the war, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that he has been a principal instrument in creating that-danger. I cannot conclude without expressing my surprise how any lawyer could condemn one of his own fraternity, for not prejudging a case on ex parte statements, and my belief that however, disingenous Rowdies or Separationists may seek to make political capital for themselves at Mr. Fox's expense, by distorting and misrepresenting his conduct in reference to the Wanganui Memorial, they will signally fail. The public are not so obtuse as not to penetrate at once this ruse of political warfare. We may well say <■ great cry and little wool." Philalethss.