FURTHER PAPERS RELATIVE

W. King's Natives, who seized the survey instruments. A short struggle ensued, in which a Natir* who accompanied the survey party struck down one of King's men. The District Land Purchase Commissioner, Mr. Parris, thereupon rushed in to prevent further collisinn and prohable bloodshed, and directed the Surveyors to retire. Unquestionably the interruption of the Surveyors was a formal act of defiance on the part of the Natives. On the 4th of March the Block was occupied by the Troops —not as a Military operation against King, but in support of the civil power. As to the Proclamation of Martial Law, that was a measure of precaution rather intended to restrain, if necessary, the Europeans than directed against the Natives. Actual force was net used until a fighting party of King's people had erected a pa, and danced the war dance upon the disputed ground, and had contemptuously rejected a summons by the Officer in command to evacuate the pa. Immediately after the offer of land to the Governor in March, 1859, King wrote to the Waikato* for aid in resisting the sale of the Block, and before the Troops moved to Waitara he had prepared two strongly fortified pas, well stored with ammunition, and had sent letters to all parts of the country requesting support. It will scarcely be believed that King would have proved amenable to the Civil authority when he had been thus actively preparing for armed resistance to Her Majesty's Government. And surely it is blind unreason to expect that a Maori Chief, with a hundred or two of armed followers prepared to do his bidding whatever it be, and who has set at defiance successive Governors, can or ought to be dealt with in all respects as a loyal and peaceable citize i. 111. Upon the third and last head Ministers remark that the interest of the Natives, no less than that of the Colonists, requires the settlement of the land question in Taranaki, which has been an open sore for sixteen years. Sir George Grey in his Despatch to Earl Grey of 2nd March, 1847 (Parliamentary Papers, December, 1847, p. 2) remarks, " These individuals [of the Ngatiawa, in Taranaki,] have been quarrelling amongst themselves regarding their respective claims, and in order that there might be much to pay for, have prevented the Europeans occupying any additional land, although many hundred thousand acres of the richest soil are lying perfectly neglected and useless, whilst many European families have been left in comparative want. Indeed, the inability of the Natives to adjust their respective claims, now makes them unwilling to allow the land to be sold at all, and they constantly assert that those Natives who wish to sell land have no right to dispose of it." Such is the testimony of a dispassionate witness. The quarrels to which Sir George Grey alludes have gone increasing in bitterness, till, in 1854, they resulted in bloodshed, aud the peace of the Prorince ever since has been more or less disturbed by Native affrays. Referring to a temporary cessation of these hostilities in 1859, a recent intelligent writer on New Zealand observes, "The feud, however, is not settled, the cessation of hostilities is more an armistice than a peace, and its permanence will only be secured by the Government purchasing the disputed lands." [Story of New Zealand, by A. S. Thompson, M.D., Vol. ii., p. 259.1 His Excellency's Ministers entirely concur in this opinion. A few minor topics touched on in the Protest ought not to pass wholly unnoticed. His Lordship extols the loyalty of King and his people, and deplores their entanglement in the land questions raised by the English settlers at Taranaki. Of the truth and fairness of the reflection upon the settlers let any one judge who has perused the Reports of Mr. Spain, and the correspondence of Sir George Grey on the Taranaki land question. As to King's alleged services against Rangihaeata, their value is very questionable. It is certain that King absolutely refused to join tke Ngatiawa of Port Nicholson in the pursuit of the rebel chief, and that in consequence the latter made good his retreat to his stronghold at Poroutawao. King's attitude throughout the war was little, if at all, more favourable to the British Government than that of an armed neutral. More perhaps could not be expected of him, but it is absurd to extol him as a faithful and efficient ally. His fidelity was doubtful. His efficiency is altogether denied by those who were serving with him. See the Reports (passim , ) of Mr. Servantes and Major Durie in the Parliamentary Blue Book in continuation of papers presented 26th Angust, 181 G. King's position at Waitara has been one of pure hostility to the interests of the settlement of which he has been occupying a part of the destined site—a hostility unattended by the least advantage to himself or his followers, and which has, on the contrary plunged the district into a series of disastrous feuds Upon the vast tract of fertile land which he and his party have been the principal means of withholding from the industry of the European settlers, the thistles now stand, in many places, so thick that a horseman cannot pass, aud the seed may be seen blowing along the ground like snow. Allowance may and ought to be made for a savage who clings to his savage life, and to the beautiful wilderness which he cannot use, but has always been free to roam over. But it is worse than injudicious to hold him up as a benefactor, entitled to the grateful feelings of the English settler. Such unjustifiable exaggerations evidently tend to excite sentiments the \ery opposite to those which they purport to inculcate. More important than these trifling indications of his Lordship's constant bias, is the declaration that the colony was avowedly formed for the protection of the Maories, and that this remains of right the primary object of the British policy in these Islands, to which every other is to be sacrificed. It is believed that there is no sort of authority for such a doctrine, successive Secretaries of State, beginning with the Marquis of Normanby, having declared that the equal benefit of both races was the motive for assuming the Sovereignty of the islands. The true state of the case is clearly expressed by Lord Stanley in his despatch to Governor Sir George (I rev, dated 13th June, 1845 : "You are aware," his Lordship writes, "that the colonisation of New Zealand was not the spontaneous act of the Queen's Government, hut was forced on them as the only means of averting the evils with which the unauthorized settlement of Her Majesty's subjects there appeared to threaten the inhabitants, whether European or aboriginal.

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