ENGLAND’S DUTY TO NEW ZEALAND.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XIII, Issue 1025, 11 May 1869, Page 2

ENGLAND’S DUTY TO NEW ZEALAND.

[FROM THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD.] The statement that self-government implies the responsibility of self-protection as applied to New Zealand is one of the modern fallacies for which the colonists have suffered. In devolving self-government upon the people the British nation is really liberated from a charge. It is true that those in power have lost the patronage of office, which was no benefit to the nation ; but the cost of maintaining colonies when they were under the Crown was no small item in comparison with their then commercial value. That value has enormously increased, and all the expenses of internal government have disappeared. But there are places where, from the peculiarity of the presence of a savage enemy, there is no sufficient power of self defence. The policy of the Crown in refusing military aid is likely to be disgraceful to the nation, since the inevitable effect is to commit the sword of extermination to colonists whose interests it may be —when they cannot defend their families in any other way—either to retreat and leave the country altogether, or spare no enemy whose presence awakens their fears or who can at any future period compromise their safety. It is clearly the duty of a great nation to fortify the weak parts of an empire so that its supremacy may be maintained, and that the law may be respected. It is a mere evasion of duty to call upon colonies remote from such dependencies to do what the present State refuses to perform.