THE COLONIST.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 359, 2 April 1861, Page 2

THE COLONIST.

NELSON, TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 1861

To those who are not weary of reading about Maories, treaties (which will bear as many constructions as any acute lawyer may choose to put upon them), majors being superseded by colonels, colonels by generals, and even generals by generals, the Memorial, to which we alluded in our , last number, and which we give below, will show that a large section of the community iin England still stick to the • Treaty, the whole treaty, and nothihg but the treaty,' of Waitangi. ; We have not the leastf doubt that it is a very good treaty in its way; but unfortunately'no one seems to understand it. The opponents of the Government declare that the said Government have broken the treaty Dy purchasing Teira|s paiid; while the Government ancl its frijmcls is pertinaciously maintain that they have kept the spirit of the treaty intact. Wei trust that after this unhappy and foolish {squabble (which has been made of consequence only by the folly of the Governor and the wickedness of his advisers) is put down and settled once and for ever, that, should the Treaty of Waitangi be still adhered to, that a mixed com-, mission will be appointed to discuss its merits and make its meaning clear to both Maori and European, s(vthat no la\y3Ter in future, however smart he may be, shall put any! other but the true and common sense construction upon it. And above all, no family compact should be permitted to exist in Taranaki or elsewhere, however extensive it maybe, or whatever; opportunities (minis--terial oi- otherwise) it may possess, capable at any moment, for their own selfish ends, * of embroiling the two -races^ The. humbler settlei s of Taranaki will? comprehend their position better after this^afrair is over, and will not again be so easily dragged into a war cry, in order to aggrandise a few families, or add to the riches of sundry . scrip holders. \-r Bluch of the mischief of the present con- i test has arisen either from; the design or, mistake of the Governor in issuing a; c Declaration of War,t ijhstead of" reading ' the riot act and then proclaiming martial law. By this declaration of war the Gover-. nor has conferred all :the rights and privileges of a belligerent power on the Maoris simply because a few old women hugged the* frightened surveyors in their brawny arms. Any one who can remember the railway times in England will be well acquainted with what trouble the survey of many of the lines of railway was accomplished: moonlight nights were chosen; Suriday was no day of rest; hundreds of bludgeon men and gamekeepers were posted to prevent such surveys; and yet we never heard of any case in which the military force of the-kingdom was called on to interfere in such matters. This declaration of jvar by the Governor: is looked upon by: one of the first constitutional writers of England as so gross a blunder, that by issuing it the Governor has made himself amenable to s be .triedJn p. court of law. We give one paragraph on this declaration:~ " ■* - ---■- 1 This document has been almost entirely overlooked in the; debates of. th« House of Representatives. The speeches of Messrs. Carleton, Fprsaith, and Fox, to which we turn with relief from the palsied debates of ihe British House of Commons, expose indeed the utter groundlessness of every act of the Governor. But they neg*lect to bring out, that if every assertion made had been true, if Teira had been sole possessor of Waitara, if Wirerou Kingi had asserted only a manorial right, if his claim. :. to that or any other right had been barred by conquest or purchase, if he hud never asserted any right at all, or if neither possessing nor having asserted any light he had driven off the surveyors by armed force instead of sending women merely to embi ace ;_ and incommode them, this proclamation was a declaration of war against the Queen's - subjects not in aims, amoontedin fact, to . levying war upon the Queen, and was therefore High Treason.' • > The Church Missionary Society and the '.NeW Zealand Question. 1. Your memorialists beg to 'refer to the part ] which the missionaries of this society bore mi

the first attempts to civilise the natives of New Zealand; to the part which they bore in explaining to the natives the provisions of the treaty of Waitangi, both before and at the time of its being signed by the chiefs; as well as to the fact that the missionaries have been led by force of circumstances, and in some instances at the request of the Governor of New Zealand, to take part in the discussion of the question now at issue between the government and the natives. These references will afford, your memorialists are persuaded, a sufficient ground for addressing her Majesty's Government on the present occasion. 2. Your memorialists have felt it their duty to investigate with the utmost care all the accounts which have been received fiom New Zealand through public channels of information ; and they have themselves received much additional information from the letters of the bishops, missionaries, and other clergymen, several of whom are residing amongst the tribes now unhappily in conflict with the troops. Your memorialists beg to refer to a memorandum upon New Zealand affairs which accompanies this memorial. 3. Your memorialists are persuaded that they only express the sentiments of her Majesty's Government in deprecating the notion that any just rights of the natives, which have been guaranteed to them by the treaty of Waitangi, and by numerous subsequent official declarations, will be sacrificed on the ground of a superiority of race, o# to satisfy the want of the settlers of enlarged cultivations. 4. Yet your memorialists are convinced that it is an apprehension of such an invasion of the natural and guaranteed rights of the natives (more especially in respect of tribal rights, and of the claim of the chiefs to represent those tribal rights as well as the interests of orphans, minors, and absent members of their tribes) which has led to the unhappy collision with the natives of Taranaki. 5. Your memorialists deprecate the various statements which have been made by certain officers of Government, threatening the introduction of a *new system' in respect of native titles. But your memorialists are happily relieved from the necessity of dwelling upon this point by a declaration of the Colonial Secretary to the Bishop of New Zealand so late as September 5, 1860, to the effect ' that the Government does recognise to the fullest all lawful rights of the chiefs and tribes which have been recognised by former governments, or have been understood to exist;' which declaration the bishop and the clergy generally liave accepted as a satisfactory disavowal of any 'new policy' in respect of native titles. 6. Your memorialists however earnestly request her Majesty's Government to make some authoritative declaration to the effect that the tribal rights, and the rights of the chiefs in respect of land titles, will be recognised as heretofore, so as to allay the apprehension of all parties in New Zealand of any deviation from the policy which has been for twenty years regarded as established by the treaty of Waitangi. 7. Your memorialists are compelled further to express their deep regret that, under all the circumstances of the disputed claims at Waitara, martial law should have been precipitately, as they apprehend, proclaimed, and proclaimed also under the equivocal expression in the Maori language of ** Fighting law," against all the tribeb of Taranaki. Your memorialists would, therefore, most respectfully urge, in the second place, that Her Majesty's Government should take some method of explaining to the natives that such proclamation of " fighting law" did not, and does not yet, preclude the peaceable solution of the questions at issue. 8. Your memorialists beg, also, to represent the importance of immediate measures for securing an adequate adjudication of the disputed claims of Wiremu Kingi, and of the other claimants who have objected to Te Teira'3 right of sale, so as to remove the immediate cause of strife, apart from the general settlement of native titles, which may require much time and lengthened discussions before it can be brought to a conclusion. 9. Your memorialists would venture to remind her Majesty's Government that a bill, the provisions of which could have facilitated the settlement of native titles, was in preparation at the very time of the outbreak at Taranaki, and that if such a law had been previously in operation in New Zealand, the adjudication of Kingi's claims would have been conducted by a very different process from that which occasioned, a disastrous collision with the natives. Your memorialists also refer to a recent declaration of Mr. Richmond, the Colonial Secretary for Native Affairs (Memorandum, May, 1860), that the Colonial government are anxious for some competent mode of adjudication upon native titles. 10. Your memorialistF, therefore, venture to suggest as a third measure, imperatively called for, the adoption by the Home Government of Borne mode of adjudication upon the particular case of the land at Waitara. 11. Your memorialists are fully aware of the complications caused by the Land League and by the Maori King movement in New Zealand, but they believe that these combinations have received their most fearful aspect from the events at Taranaki, and that they would lose their chief strength if that affair were peaceably settled, and the Government policy on land titles were distinctly avowed. . . 12. Your memorialists confidently hope that the adoption of the measures they have now ventured to recommend would allay the apprehensions of the native race, and they think it probable that Wiremu Kingi himself, whom they regard as a chief not insensible to generous and noble sentiments, might be won back to his ancient loyalty ; and they feel assured that the effect of such measures, if emanating from the direct authority of the Queen, upon all other natives, especially upon those not committed against the Government, would be most salutary, and so tend, under the Divine blessing, to stop the effusion of blood, and to avert the horrors of a war of races. 13. Your memorialists have not presumed to urge the three suggestions now specified as the only measures which may be required, but only as those which peculiarly belong to their own province and to their relations with New Zealand, and which are in themselves peculiarly urgent; they also believe that these measures would satisfy the numerous Europeans in the colony who are now advocating the just consideration of native claims, including the Bishops and late Chief Justice of New Zealand, and the great body of the clergy, and and many other disinterested parties; and their powerful co-operation would be thus secured to Government in the adjustment of existing .difficulties. At all events, as your memorialists wonld most respectfully represent, such a manifestation of the Christian principle of conciliation on the part of her Majesty's Government, while putting forth the strong arm of power, will afford the best ground of hope for the blessing of Almighty God upon whatever measures may be subsequently adopted for the pacification of the interesting and important colony of New Zealand. Chichesteh, President. The Duke received the deputation with courtesy, and declared that 'there was not the slightest intention on' the part of the Government, either at home or in the colony, to depart from the provision^ of the Treat// of Waitangi.

Capture of a Whale. —Early on Sunday morning the people of the Port were in a high state of excitement upon it being known that a whale was stranded on the Rabbit IslaDd. Mr. JJrown and two others manned a boat, and pulled Jn that direction. Very shortly after five men, from the Albion Hotel, started in chase, and after Borne hard pulling came up with and passed the first boat, and landed to capture the fish ; but (bey were suddenly surprised by seeing John Westrop sticking a flag in the monster. Upon the principle of first come first served, the fish is the property of Westrop. It is a fine sperm whale, about 50 feet jn length, and will probably yield about 7 tons of oil and head matter if well tried out; as sperm oil is worth in the Englishonarket ,£lO5 per ton, the fiih may probably bo worth alone £500 here rafter paying expense?—if well managed.