Correspondence.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 372, 17 May 1861, Page 3

Correspondence.

To the Editor of the Colonist. Sra—There has always been abroad, more or less, among the Anglo-Norman race that strong leaning to the actual and tangible in the universe, to one phase of which a great modern poet has given expression, when he speaks of men being called upon to exercise their skill— " .Not in Utopia,—subterraneous fields,— Or so'ne secreted island, Heaven knows where ! But in the very world, which is tha world Of all of us,—the place where, in the end, We find our happiness or not at all I" This strong feeling to the practical, which has piloted us through so many of the perils of our early national life, now threatens to become the cause of some of our greatest difficulties in modern times.

. There is a meaning in the term ' modern 'times and ' modern ' history' as applied to a nation, far heyoad the mere accidental fact of a greater or less proximity to the date of our own birth. A nation has its childhood, and grows up to maturity neatly as pevoeptibly as an individual, and every stage in its life brings with it organic modifications, and corresponding modifications of the working of traditional institutions. We all acknowledge this to be the case as respects the institutions themselves. We perhaps however scarcely sufficiently recognise the same fact witli respect to those peculiar impulses of feeling to which these institutions owed their special form. We hardly understand sufficiently that the influence of growing years may have operated on the healthy feeling of childhood, I so as to convert it, unless controlled by the careful guardianship of a sympathising and appreciating criticism, into something wholly alien from its original character, and positively noxious in its , moral results. This makes it doubly incumbent on the statesman to study these idiosyncrasies of national life, which marks the features of history, to note those which have the appearance of anomaly and distortion, to trace them back in a catholic spirit to their origin, and, deducing from the attendant circumstances 4lie notion or feeling of which they were once the natural and adequate expression, to endeavor to incarnate the same (if : worthy) in a body, fitted to the requirements of a anore. advanced age. . It is to be devoutly wished that some one would «30, this for the histovy of New Zealand. We need •teachers whose cast of mind will ensure their catching those views and those phases of our colonial history which are most likely to rivet the attention of our legislators, senators, and rulers. Politicians have attempted this, and it is only a simple confession of the truth to Bay that they hare failed. Their own minds have been most deeply struck by some individual feature, and not: by,the combination of failures, and the puerile; attempts: to cover those failures by a «cow,attUy 1 boasting 'that all has been done.that was desirable.' How unreal and impossible a task for example it would be for our contemporary historian to lay open facts in connection with native and war policy to the broad, comprehensive understanding of a practical reformer, while the tricksy spirit of an interested Government is only willing to give "the materials out of the pigeon-holes of office after repeated shifting and delays altogether disgraceful to the present age. No wonder that a suppression of the truth-telling 'Press' is desirable for the purposes of the present day! . Our.statesmen's minds have been most deeply struck by a different phase of the.'providence of history' from that which is likely to impress most deeply the industrial order. Their own relation to colonial prosperity has been different. The Press has indeed * convinced' them of sin, but of sin containing intellectual elements, and mixed with shades of political sentiment, partly unreal to men of habitually different experience. It has taught them * righteousness,' but a righteousness abstract and shadowy to men who have never entered into their Bpecial and complex forms of temptation. It has pronounced on them judgment, but a judgment inspiring little awe in men who have never been indicted for the same class of transgressions. How difficult it would be so to unveil the special temptations of oQce and power as to pierce; the consciences of our statesmen by touching the living strife within them—and fairly let them have an insight too, of the miserable condition of those houseless, homeless settlers, whose feelings, in their legislative experiments, hafre not only ' not been, consulted,' but in almost every instance totally ignored. I will not, however, be tempted to wander from my subject by fthy further reference to this painfully interesting matter. There is much talk about the providence of history; and very little real belief in it. Everything that happens is supposed in some mysterious way to indicate the Divine guidance, and nothing that happens is practically referred to any agency but that of man. There are two main reasons why any faith in a real Providence of history is so rare, and where it is professed, so unreal. One is, that no real distinction is made between national virtue and national crime, and both are confusedly regarded aa bearing an equal share in

the evolutions of divine purposes. The other is, that no real distinction is made between the single and separate actions of nations which do depend on their own choice, and that chain of connecting purpose which adapts and unites simultaneous historical events as to make each fit into =aud modify each other, and combines them into a great whole. As in large business houses, the duties of each individual miglit be separately discharged, and yet nothing but clashing disorder produced if there were no directing purpose to over-rule the the coincidences of place and time, so in the affairs of nations—we are to look for the Providential influences less in the particular national actions which have been trusted to the agency of men, than in the mutual adaptation of the co-ordinate developement of the nations ; as, for example, in the introducing of German influence into Europe just when the vices of ancient Rome had rendered her unworthy of her high post. And this consideration helps us to understand the meaning of one-very startling fact which the study" of history always presses upon the mind. There seems so little appearance of any overruling guidance in the history of the ruder and more savage nations. It may be well, one often thinks, to talk of the Providence which rules over Greece and Rome, and France and England, and which has taught each of them by such sharp discipline, just when the lesson was most needed, to further the development of the others. But what are we to say of the Providence which overrules the destiny of the wild Albanians, the wandering Tartars, the Maoris of these islands, the Dyaks of Borneo, and the savages of Dahomey ? Century after century these people have grown up into the place of their ancestors, with the same 'wild justice' in their • hearts, and the same indolent ignorance in their understandings, without any increase in selfrestraint, under the guidance of inscinct, and beneath the government of passion. Where is the Providence of history here ?

The truth is, I believe, that we must not look for providential guidance, in our ripe and complex sense of the term, where the human society in question is not sufficiently cultivated to admit of this subtle and finer influence. There cannot be a providence of history where there is no history —'Where there is no true national life. There can only thenbe a providence over individuals composing the nation, and that only in the simpler sense in which there is a Providence over t ; c undeveloped child. It is vain to look for the same Divine guidance where there is not the same;scope and opening for Divine guidance. It is clear that the more cultivated are the faculties of human nature, the more openings there are for divine teaching and appeal. The child can be only prepared by happy external influences for that unfolding of the faculties, to which, when unfolded, higher appeals may be made. It is certain that the higher is human culture, the more various, the more visible, the more destined is the Divine word; You cannot talk to the simple in the speech of the widely cultivated. You cannot provide as much and wide instruction for the savage who has so little open faculty to receive it, as you can for those whose mental avenues are thrown open. As the gates open, the supplies can come in. But the two pr cesses must go together. . The difficulty is not really in the absence of a Providence over the wild nations of the earth, but iv the low state or developement, which renders them inaccessible to the teachings of Providence in its ampler and finer sense. Without a national history! there can be only an individual providence. And it is easy to imagine that the individual life of an untutored and wild people sends the single individuals who compose it into the higher teaching of another world, in a state quite as adapted for progressive culture, and in some directions better disciplined for that culture, than the life of children even in the most civilised communities. It is only a question of how much of culture is imparted to us in this world, how much remains for another. And we must only say, that in the case of a cultivated people, wide avenues are open to present teaching, which remain sealed up in the uncivilised, waiting for the unsealing experience of a new life. A fine opportunity now presents itself to us. Surrounded by a semi-barbarous race, to whom Christianity presents as a bond of union the precept—" Ye are all brethren? ouv statesmen, profiting by the sad past, may make the future the history of a people growing in wisdom, and a nation increasing in strength, the whole cemented by the holiest emotions, and the liveliest devotion to the will of Divine Providence. I will resume- tills subject in my next

Yours, &c, DELTA,

To the Editor of the Colonist.

SlR—I am reluctantly compelled to notice the vagaries of your contemporary, which display in an intensified light the absurdities into which weak minds may be led, when actuated by ?, cavilling party spirit. The subject of these remarks has taken a fancy to criticiue the Superintendent's address on the opening of the Provincial Council, either from the want of a subject or as a part of that persevering system of attack which it has always pursued, and which embraces alike every act of the Superintendent or his advisers with indiscriminate acrimony. Is Tow riothing is easier than fault-finding—the mote in our brother's eye always seems so much larger than the beam in our own; so the Examiner, in attacking and parading the fancied flaws in the address, has exposed in a rather glaring manner its own inconsistency and captiousness. With a little badinage, which reminds me ctifiDickens's * forcible feeble,' your contemporary gingerly approaches a subject which touches his susceptibilities in a rather tender point: he refers to the trifling increase of expense in blue-book printing which mighr possibly accrue from a small omission in the speech ; and it strikes me that this.is; the first time, from no mysterious cause I. believe, that his conscience on this point has become bo economically alaimed, that he considers it incumbent upon his censorial! position to raise an outcry, and, with an air of offended virtue, to sniff about for a grievance, like a snarling poodle upescu whose tail his Honor has accidentally trodden.

After the enunciation of. the startling theory that a sparsely populated district is entitled to as much consideration, if not more, in financial outlay as a settled one^ it proceeds to say that the duty of the Provincial Government is to act a« pioneer, and to invite the settler, without holding out sufficient inducement, to follow into the unopened country, running exactly counter to the admitted principle, that the colonist should press forward, the advanced guard of progress, thus . contending that supply •hould be the precursor or." demand. I am afraid that the flighty criaic under consideration, in vaulting through thi« rather impracticable koop,'has .caught his foot in it, and may not be able to alight upon the back of his hobby, without "detriment to his editorial shins.

Everyone must be awa.re of the inconvenience and annoyance caused fay the want of the proposed bridge over the Wairoa; yet even here your contemporary steps in, and, placing the * much-desired and unoffending bridge project on the one

side, arrays upon tue other, in a glowing tirade of Nelson thronged like a beehive, her haven teeming with expectant shipping, the surrounding country groaning beneath clustered buildings, capital flying about like water, and Golden 13ay swarming with mining adventurers; reminding one, in his inspired and poetic vision, of the shadowy glories of the New Atalantis, or of a scene fioni the capital of Prester John.

Aninitim pictura pascit inani. One is inclined to think that when the money to be expended on the bridge and similar improvements had produced these Utopian results, your contemporary .would be lost in virtuous indignation at the nonperformance of those necessary works, which would so materially have assisted t'.ie settler, and so beneficially have prepared the country for its consequent expansion of trade.

In the meantime I am rather curious to see what new and elegant syllabub he is concocting to wash down the remainder of his highly consistent review.

Yours, &c, PUBLICOLA,