COLONIAL SECRETARIES.

West Coast Times, Issue 651, 25 October 1867, Page 4

COLONIAL SECRETARIES.

(FEOSI THE LONDON SPECTATOR.) Lord Carnarvon was in many respects one of the very best Colonial Secretaries we have had. Short as was the period of his official life, he had time to display qualities of firmness and judgment which inspired universal respect. His dispatch to the government of Canada on the subject of Mr Seward's remonstrance as to our treatment of the Fenian prisoners, if not quite as peremptory in wording as we could have wished,, was in substance thoroughly wise and dignified*. His treatment of the Jairiaica question, on which his subordinate, Mr Adderly, expressed himself so violently and improperlyin Parliament last session, has been throughout firm, just; temperate. Nothing could be better than the circular he issued in January on martial law to all the Colonial governments, .which was approved last Tuesday in the debate on that subject in Parliament. And, indeed, except on the question of colonial bishoprics, on which one must, of course, admit that a high-church colonial Secretary is not likely to take a line agreeable to strong Erastians, and on the one unfortunate topic of of New Zealand, Lord Carnarvon's ministry was all that even a Liberal could wish', and teiided very much to raise the public estimate of his power and judgment, and to impress the country with a sincere respect for his high moral tone. .But on New Zealand he fell into exactly the same almost stupid class of blunders which disfigured Mr CardwelTs administration, and more or less even the late Duke of Newcastle's, though no minister in recent years has shewn, on the whole, so much temper and insight into the state of that unfortunate colony as the Duke of Newcastle. The vice of our colonial policy with relation to New Zealand has always been the same — a sort of priggish schoolmasterish tone, the example of which was unfortunately set by Earl Grey, and which has been imitated by nearly all his successors — a tone haughty, didactic, suspicious, imperious without knowledge, and always full of a Pharisaic assumption of superiority. The'root of this we believe to have been in many instances the promptings of the high-church party in the colony to whom our recent Colonial Secretaries have always inclined a favorable ear. But, at all events, the fact has undoubtedly been that in the case of no other colony could you produce a Secretary of State's correspondence the tone of which is so uniformly unpleasant, so full of unfounded suspicions, of disagreeable warnings, of ostentatious lectures on the moral deficiencies of the Colonial Government. Yet in fact, and we have watched New Zealand politics very closely, on the chief subjects of dispute between our own Government and the colony, our own Government lids been almost invariably in the wrong, and not only so, but very needlessly wrong, in consequence of allowing insinuations from private sources to bias our Minister's mind before time or opportunity have been given to the colonial authorities to explain their own side of the questions at issue. A very remarkable illustration of this kind of blunder is now before us. On the 25th of December, Lord Carnarvon wrote to Sir George Grey, the Governor of New Zealand., as follows : — "Finally, I must observe, that while you thus appear to cling to the expectation of continued assistance from this country, your own reports, or rather the absence of reports from you, show how little you recognise any continued responsibility to the Imperial Government for the conduct of the war. While in your despatch of the 15th October, you inform me that a trooper of the colonial force had been killed by some hostile natives, you leave me to learn from the newspapers that in the neighborhood of Hawke's Bay, a body of natives who refused to give up their arms, had been attacked by the colonial forces in their pah, which is said to have been unfortified, and driven into the bush, twentythree of them being killed and a like number wounded ; and that a native village on the west coast, after being summoned to surrender, was attacked by a Colonial force, and escape being cut off, about thirty or forty persons were killed. In the account before me, this last transaction is described as ' the most brilliant success of this guerilla war.' Meantime your own despatches would hardly lead mo to suppose that any recognised warfare was in progress. I need hardly observe that if at any time it were alleged in this country that these affairs — described by the colonial press as brilliant successes— L were in fact unwarranted and merciless attacks on unoffending persons, I have no authentic means of reply afforded me by your despatches." We need not say that this tone from a Colonial Secretary to the Government of a colony is exceedingly unusual, and calculated to excite a very just feeling of irritation. Lord Carnarvon assumes the suppression of important facts, and in the absence of any explanation from the Government on the subject, goes on to hint a very disgraceful reason. The despatches relating the engagements might possibly have been suppressed, he suggests, because the " brilliant successes" in question were " unwarranted and merciless attacks on unoffending persons." Now, what except the not unfrequent but very unworthy schoolmasterish spirit which makes it a duty to find fault, and to suggest faults if it cannot find them, could have prompted Lord Carnarvon to give this unjustifiable and needless kind of offence P Was Mr Gorst or some other ex-New Zealand Conservative at his ear, suggesting possible vices in the Colonial Government which it was his Lordship's duty hypothetically to rebuke P No wonder the New Zealand Ministry, in their very natural irritation at such despatches, speak of Lord Carnarvon's inuendoes rather broadly as " calumnies." The real fact of the case was, that the Governor was absent in a remote undisturbed district, and not able therefore to send home his official account of these victories by the mail by which Lord Carnarvon heard of them in the newspapers. Lord Carnarvon had ample means of knowing that this was so. Moreover, if he had read the "Gazettes " announcing the victories in question, which reached home before his despatch was sent off, though probably not before it was written he would have known that no such interpretation as he suggested could possibly have been put on them. There is not really the shadow of blame to be cast on the New Zealand authorities for either of the matters referred to. No one, even in the colony, has ever made any public charge that either of these successes was "an unwarranted and merciless attack upon unoffending persons." The Colonial Ministers, in their memorandum, give full information — which Lord Carnarvon no doubt had received from the Governor a few days after sending off his dispatch — as to the nature of these operations, and

we confess we do not think it possible that Lord Carnarvon now attaches the slightest blame to the colonial authorities in either case. This unpleasant suggestion was entirely and absolutely gratuitous, and the reason for th« delay complained of in the despatches was as obvious and straightforward as it could be. No wonder the aggrieved Colonial Ministers feel this needless and foolish taunt somewhat bitterly. They say in reply :— "The first intimation of these calumnies reaches the Governor and his Ministers in this despatch. So far as Ministers are aware, no question of the justice of the attacks on the natives, either at Hawke's Bay or on the west coast, or of the conduct of the colonial forces on these occasions has ever been publicly raised in this colony, or in the United Kingdom. Nor were they aware until they read the despatch that the question had ever been privately raised. The inference is painfully clear. The Secretary of State has allowed himself to be influenced by some secret report, studiously concealed from the Governor from his Ministers, and from the public, and without resorting to authentic intelligence, of waiting a few days for a despatch from the Governor, has given authoritative currency to such reports. Ministers do greatly complain of that fatal facility, unhappily so often illlustrated of late in some Imperial departments of State, of listening to secret slander of the reputation of public men in this colony, and of investing reports, which otherwise would have never come to life, with the authority of official recognition. Against this system of secret defamation ministers most emphatically : protest. It saps the foundations of all government, and destroys all confidence in public men. In the case of New Zealand, the tacit allowance, if not encouragement, in the War Department I at home of such a system, has, ministers believe, done much to waste the resources of the Empire and the Colony, and to paralyze their joint efforts to suppress insurrection." And we cannot say we regard the complaint as unjust in substance, though it might have been more dignified, and rather less resentful in form. Again, look at the way in which our Colonial Secretary has treated New Zealand in the matter of withdrawing the regiments. That the regiments should be withdrawn the colony had asked, and they had no right to complain of being taken at their word. But there was no sort of occasion to do the matter as it has been done, with the greatest possible ostentation of want of consideration for the colonial authorities. Some posts which imperfectly control the country were vacated without even that formal notice which would have enabled the colony to occupy them if it were thought right, and, in [consequence, one had already, at the last advices, been occupied by the enemy, who announce that " the road that way is closed for man and mail. The way for the Pakeba is by the sea." The troops have been taken away as ungraciously as they were retained. The General was, we believe, directed to offer several regiments to any of the Australian colonies who would take them, with or without contribution. The Australian colonies do not need them. New Zealand had consented to part with them because the Home Government insisted on such hard terms for their continuance that their finances would not admit of acquiescence. And now they are almost thrust upon Australia. The rebel natives on tho west coast, whom Lord Carnarvon proposes to glorify as injured and "unoffending persons," were, as is well known, on the eve of tendering their allegiance at the very time selected by a subordinate officer — the whole regulation of the movement of the troops has been expressly withdrawn by tho Home Government from the power of the Governor and his responsible advisers — " to give orders for the withdrawal of the Imperial troops occupying certain posts on that coast." And of coiu'se the rebels were thereby at once encouraged to persevere. Iv short, tho Government of New Zealand has been systematically treated by our recent Secretaries of State as a little pickle who ought to be whipped as often as excuses for that proceeding can be invented. Instead of writing to the Governor and of his advisers as men who know but little of the actual condition of things should write to men who know much, the various Secretaries of State sneer and scold, and invent little discourtesies and irritations for them which must before long end in separation. We confess we think Lord Carnarvon too wise, able, aud high-minded a man to have taken any pleasure in this sort of thing. Yet a worse instance of groundless and unjust diecourtesy than we have produced from his despatches we should find it difficult to discover in the archives of the Colonial Office. What unfortunate fate is it which makes really able and just men weak and impertinent when they have to deal with this unfortunate colony of New Zealand ?

An absent-minded professor in going out of the gateway of his collego ran against a cow. In the confusion of the moment he raised his hat and exclaimed: '"I beg your pardon, Madam ! " Soon after, he stumbled against, a lady in the streets j in sudden recollection of his former mishap he called out, "Is that you again, you brute ? " The old gentleman who undertook to take the twist out of the Maelstrom, has gone out to whitewash the Eocky Mountains. He goes in for large jobs. Old Singleton, on hearing there there was a song called " The Children's Hour," remarked, that it could of course only mean bed-time. He added a hope that the song did not sanction the absurd idea of after dinner being the children's hour. A miserly old farmer who had lost one of his best hands in the midst of hay-making, remarked to the sexton, as he was filling up the graye — " It's a sad tiling to loso a good mower at time like this ; but, after all, Tom was a great eater. A widow, who had just lost her husband, was weeping bitterly for the departed. A friend tried to console her. " No, no," Baid the fair mourner, " let me havo my cry out ; after that I shan't think anything about it." The latest style of bonnet has just made its appearance. It is called the " Eevenuo Cutter," and consists of a twopenny postage stamp worn on the head, aud tied under each ear with a horse hair. It presents a very pretty appearance at a distance, and must bo very comfortable. Aujltebation. — The greatest triumph of alliteration is that in which, not only every word but every syllable begins with the same letter. Tho following is a samplo of this kind of composition — "alliteration's artful aid"— " Let lovely lilacs line Leo's lonely lane j " Plant poppies, peppers, pippins, pulpy, purple plums j Barest red roses rearing round rich rows : Graft gages green ; group gorgeous grapes j grow grass ; Graze gregal geese ; get gold-gilt grain-graced glebes ; Watch weeds ; wheel wood with wain when | winds whin" warm ; I When witwals westward wind with whirling wing.