A.—No. 1

16

DESPATCHES EROM THE GOVERNOR OE

decision in their case of the proper tribunals. The opinion of the AttorneyGeneral of New Zealand respecting the legal status of the Maoris will be forwarded by this mail for your Lordship's information. I ill Vf* cSFiP The Right Hon. Earl Granville, K.G. 'g. E. BOWEN.

Enclosure in No. 5. Hon. J. C. Richmond to Sir G. E. Bowen, G.C.M.G. Deab Sir G. Bowen, — Wellington, 22nd June, 1869. I hope you will accept of a private note in answer to your questions on Lord Granville's Despatch of 20th April last. It would be an oppressive precedent to require of a New Zealand Minister to reply officially to every charge founded on statements in a local newspaper. As you are aware, the means of a newspaper proprietor in New Zealand rarely admit of his paying the price necessary to secure intelligence carefully and conscientiously gathered. The Government generally, and I myself in particular, have always been willing to supply the best information in our poiver in matters of public interest; but we are seldom asked. In the case of the affairs at Ngatapa referred to by Lord Granville, there was, I believe, no newspaper correspondent at the front. No one asked me for the authentic facts, and in a camp among mountains and forests, I need hardly say there was no Gazette or other means of publishing officially an account of the offers or acts of the Government. The press writers depended wholly on gossip brought down from the front by word of mouth. The story of tho payment for the head is as follows. A party of Arawas, pursuing the enemy through the forest, after ho had evacuated Ngatapa, killed, among others, the chief Nikora, a leading man among the Hauhaus. Proud of his luck, the man who killed him cut off his head, and brought it back to camp, and it was proposed to dry it in Maori fashion, and carry it about as a trophy. Hearing of this, and being anxious to prevent the broad distinctions in humanity and civilization between our own allies and the Hauhaus from being obliterated by the revival of such a practice, I rewarded the man and purchased the head by a sum of £50, directing that the head should be buried. A thousand pounds was on the same day offered for Te Kooti, the ringleader of the murderers and marauders, and would certainly have been paid for his body, dead or alive. Eive pounds was also offered for every one of the Chatham Islands prisoners brought in alive, and this reward has been claimed in two or three cases. One of the men so captured was afterwards killed, as is universally believed, by a man whose child the Maori had barbarously butchered. An inquest was ordered on the body of the dead prisoner, but the jury returned an open verdict, and no evidence has been procurable of an act in which, under the excited circumstances of the times, every neighbour sympathized, and not unpardonably. I cannot forbear remarking that if suggestions of censure on the action of the Government and pceple of New Zealand are to be founded on statements gathered from the local press, the leading English newspapers might be cited to justify us in passing such censures by in silence. The following from a leading article of the Times of the 2nd Eebruary last is not an unfair statement of the position. The writer has been declaring for absolute non-intervention for the assistance of the Colonists, and concludes :—■ " On the other hand it is but reasonable that the Colonists should exercise their judgment in their " dealings with the rebel Natives. If they have to do the work they must be allowed to choose the " measures. The Home Government has hitherto interfered continually in this matter, as it had a right "to do when it was fighting tho battles of the Colonists. But wo have now abdicated the position, with " its privileges as weli as its duties. Henceforth the two races must be left to settle accounts with " each other ; and the Colonists may justly be credited with a better knowledge than a Minister at " this side of the globe, of what is for the advantage of their own country." I need hardly say that I do not mean to imply that your Excellency is not entitled to all the information you require, and in an official form, whenever you wish it. I remain, &c, J. C. Richmond. P.S. —Since writing the above I have read an article in the London Economist, which takes a similar view to that of the writer in the Times. The writer, in the concluding paragraph, expresses himself as follows : —"lt may be said, and will be said, that if the settlers and the Maoris are left to " fight it out, the Maoris will perish. That is quite possible, but it is not our business to preserve " them from the consequences of their own acts." This is, no doubt, cool philosophy, but the first sentence is precisely the view put by the Colony and the Address of the House of Representatives to the Queen in 1862, and the second is practically admitted by the non-intervention of the Imperial Government. The article ends : —" The settlers and " the Maoris should, in our judgment, be left to fight out a quarrel as incidental to the settlement of a " civilized race upon uncivilized territory, as fever to the breaking up of virgin lands." J. C. Richmond.

No. 6. Copy of a DESPATCH from Governor Sir G. E. Bowen, G.C.M.G., to the Right Hon. Earl Granville, K.G. (No. 77.) Government House, Wellington, My Lord, — New Zealand, Ist July, 1869. I have the honor to report that, soon after the commencement of the