EMPLOYMENT OE IMPERIAL TROOPS.

5

A—No. 9.

it, and therefore the Imperial Government, in the war. is the practical experience of the last three years, during which, notwithstanding that active hostilities have almo.t incessantly prevailed, —some of our flourishing settlements have been devastated, the Town of Wanganui, while garrisoned by Imperial soldiers, threatened, and massacres of women and children frequently committed, —not one Imperial soldier has been called on to fire a shot or to leave his garrison. And yet the presence of the regiment has been a great moral support to the Colony struggling in that contest, and its removal would in all probability have extended the area of insurrection and aggravated its horrors. Nor does there appear to present itself to Earl Granville's mind, with that force which those feel whose lives and fortunes are immediately involved, the wide distinction between the despatch of an Imperial Regiment to the aid of a Colony in which no Imperial Troops are stationed, and the removal of the only remaining one. from this Colony, in which a formidable rebellion has so long existed, and atrocious outrages so recently have been perpetrated. In the latter case, while the Native mind is in a ferment, while the restoration of peace on the one hand, and a general rising on the other, are almost evenly balanced, the effect of an act like the withdrawal of the sole symbol of Imperial interest in the Colony is calculated to extend and intensify insurrection, and to enfeeble those who are strenuously engaged in its suppression. The temporary detention, by General Chute, of the 18th Regiment has hitherto had the most beneficial effect. It saved at the time, as there is good reason to believe, the Colony from great disaster, and it has materially strengthened the hands of the Government in the restoration of tranquillity. Ministers arc now engaged in the most delicate negotiations with the (so-called) King party, with a view to the isolation of Te Kooti and other rebels in arms, and to the re-union of that party to ourselves, and to securing their active co-operation in the re-establishment of peace. These negotiations were gradually assuming a favourable aspect, but it is necessary that the greatest care and caution should be exercised ; and it is especially important that at this critical juncture Imperial sympathy should not be withheld, or the Natives be unmistakably shown that Her Majesty's Government view the Colonists with disfavour, and withdraw from them every symbol of support. It is therefore scarcely necessary to add that the receipt and previous publication of Earl Granville's Despatch seriously imperil the prospect of success, and justify an apprehension of calamitous results. Before proceeding to the other reason advanced for the removal of the regiment, Ministers are reluctantly compelled to advert to what appears to them a prevailing spirit of estrangement from fho Colony throughout the line of argument adopted against supplying it " even with the prestige of British " Troops." It seems to be argued that British Troops should not remain in the Colony, lest the strange and inadmissible alternative should arise of their being used when disasters occur. It has been shown that during the last three years, when if at any time this alternative would have arisen, such has not been the case; but Ministers, with the utmost deference, would point out that New Zealand is not an alien country; that it is peopled by two races, both of which —one by natural allegiance and the other by treaty —arc British subjects ; that the present Prime Minister, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1864, stated that "he did not see how England could with justice throw the whole " reponsibility of the war on the Colony ;" that "the policy which had led to the war had not been ex- " clusively that of the Colony ;" that the Home Government had approved it, and wore so far responsible " for it." That war to which Mr. Gladstone referred has not yet ceased. Ministers would further respec+fully point out that the Imperial Government have some obligations towards the natural and adopted subjects of Her Majesty ; that no Imperial Ministry can absolve itself from such obligations more than it can absolve Her Majesty's subjects from allegiance to Her Majesty; that the Queen assumed the sovereignty of the Northern Island of New Zealand under cession by treaty with the Native chiefs and tribes, in order, as stated therein, " to protect their just rights and properly, and to " secure to them the enjoyment of peace and good order," and that, in consideration of that cession, " Her Majesty the Queen of England extends to the Natives of New Zealand her Royal, protection, " and imparts to them all the rights and privileges of British subjects;" that that solemn undertaking precludes, both in spirit and in letter, an Imperial policy of absolute isolation and denial of moral support, while loyal Natives are being massacred because they do not secede from the Sovereign to whom they believe they owe allegiance. Ministers would also recall the fact that, in 1863, when the rebellion was at its height, the Colony accepted the control of Native affairs, "relying," as stated in the Resolutions of the Legislature, " on the cordial co-operation of the Imperial Government for the future;" that the Colony has not stinted its blood or treasure in its efforts to suppress that rebellion; that during the last three years, while almost reduced to extremity, it has struggled for the same object without the active intervention of a British soldier, or the expenditure of a shilling from the Imperial Treasury ; that all it asks now, when it has worked its way into less troubled waters, is the temporary continuance, for which it is willing to pay, of the existing Imperial moral support in the Colony, and by that means a reasonable prospect of soon reaching the haven of permanent security. Nowhere more than in New Zealand does there exist a stronger feeling of loyalty to the Crown, and of devotion to Her Majesty, or a higher value attached to its position as an integral part of the Empire ; and Ministers feel assured that throughout the Colony there will arise a universal feeling of regret that the tone and purport of Earl Granville's Despatch (written at a time when he must have known the Colony to be in the greatest distress), are scarcely susceptible of any other explanation than a desire to abandon this country, and to sever its connection with the Empire. The other argument advanced by Earl Granville is founded on His Lordship's disapprobation of the New Zealand Native policy, and is, in effect, that the prestige of British Troops in the Colony would encourage that policy, and that the absence of such prestige would compel the Colony to reverse it, or to adopt the alternative, (a course indefensible if the policy itself be unjust,) of placing on foot " a force sufficiently formidable to overawe " the discontented Natives. It does not appear that any good result would accrue if Ministers were, on this occasion, to enter into any lengthened defence on the points at issue of Native policy since its conduct was transferred to the Colonial Government. Such a defence must not only be controversial, but even recriminatory, for it would necessarily involve a criticism of the Imperial Native policy before and after the commence--2