TO HIS EXCELLENCY SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.B.

A.—No. 6.

25

No. 28. No- 50- Downing Street, 26th July, ISGS. Sib — The accident which detained the former mail from New Zealand has caused your Despatches of April to remain for answer now with those of May. In the Despatches of those two mails there is matter for much regret. I am deeply concerned to receive the painful intelligence of the massacre of Mr. Volkner, of Mr. Hewett, and of the other persons, Europeans and friendly Natives, and also the evidence of the strength of the Pai Mariri superstition, which you have recorded in those Despatches. But, on the other hand, in the most recent of them, you report that affairs on the East Coast have again assumed a more favorable aspect,—that there is little reason to apprehend disturbance in that part of the Island, —and especially that the Native race have themselves taken a large and active part in preserving the peace of that District. These reports are very reassuring. If indeed the event shall justify the confluent expectation you express that Ecwi, who has hitherto been the chief leader of the rebels, now intends to make his submission to the Government, we may expect the most beneficial consequences to follow that submission. What I have principally to address to you, however, in connection with these Despatches, must relate to the difference which lias so unhappily arisen between yourself and General Cameron, —and to the Military and Financial policy which, in concert with your advisers, you propose to pursue. Youwill have learnt from my former Despatches that I had already received from the Secretary of State for "War some intimation of your difference with General Cameron, and was expecting to hear from yourself an explanation of the causes of that difference and of the bearing of it upon the safety of the settlers, the conduct of military operations and the future welfare of the Colony. It now appears that the real origin of that difference has been an opinion on the part of yourself and your Ministers that, after the Waikato Tribes had been reduced, the safety of the Southern Settlements required that the Tribes between Taranaki and Wanganui who were amongst the most guilty of all the tribes, and that in a great measure without cause, should also be reduced to submission while, on the contrary, General Cameron has considered it undesirable to recommence hostilities —has thought it inexpedient to enter upon any further aggressive operations —has regarded it as necessary to consolidate what we had got, and especially has objected to your employing the troops in aggressive operations in the manner you have desired in the neighbourhood of Taranaki. My former Despatches will not have left you in ignorance of the general views which are entertained by her Majesty's Government on this subject. In objecting to the employment of the troops in aggressive warfare and especially in pointing out to you the peculiar hazards which always appear to attend the extension of settlement at Taranaki and the neighbourhood, I have indicated the course which her Majesty's Government desire you to pursue, and have plainly told you to include in the land taken for settlement no greater an extent than you are prepared to defend with a Colonial force, and to undertake no operations of any kind, wnether in the formation of roads, the extension of settlements, or otherwise, which would render more distant the time at which the troops of her Majesty might be withdrawn from the Colony. But I also concur with you in thinking^that if, consistently with these vitws it has been possible to chastise into submission the rebel Natives of the Taranaki and Wanganui districts, such chastisement was just in reference to the past, and politic in reference to the future. I assume that when you called upon General Cameron to engage in these operations and temporarily to occupy this territory you did so in the fullest reliance on your own power to maintain the position you have thus occupied, and to defend the territory you have thus acquired with a Colonial force alone, and without involving the necessity for any delay in sending home the Queen's troops. It is impossible to read without profound regret a correspondence like that which has passed between yourself and General Cameron, and to see that in the midst of difficulties and dangers like those by which you have been surrounded, it has not been possible for two very able and distinguished men filling positions of great responsibility and importance, to maintain unbroken those friendly and confidential relations with each other, which in fcuch circumstances are so essential for the public good. It has added to the pain with which Lord de Grey and I have received this correspondence, to find that Sir D. Cameron complains of your having made use of his letter to you in a way which he did not intend to authorise, and which he regards as having been unfair towards him, and calculated to prejudice the Colonial Ministers against him. Irrespectively of the scrupulous care which ought always to be observed when public documents are founded upon private communications, it is evident that the publication of such minutes as those of yourself and your Ministers in the colonial newspapers, could not but tend to impair the influence of the Officer commanding the Queen's troops with the general public of New Zealand, and that nothing short of absolute necessity therefore, could justify such a publication ; you appear to have concluded from G