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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 10

[Sir George Grey continued]

page 58

The news brought us by the mail of yesterday, and your comments thereon, Sir, compel me to offer a few words more.

When the advanced telegram informed us that Mr. Weld had become Premier one might have foretold what the ministerial manifesto would prove to be. Mr. Weld and his Attorney-General, Mr. Sewell (like Mr. Fitzgerald) are exclusively South Island* Settlers; and, partly, I fear, from

* Compared with the two great Islands, the North and the South, the third is of such insignificant extent as to be a mere Isle of Man appendage. Geographically, we do not define the Mother-Country as Great Britain and Ireland and the Orkneys and the Isle of Wight; but as Great Britain and Ireland. Again, the fashion of speaking of New Zealand as consisting of Three islands, makes the true South Island appear the Middle Island; and thus invests it with certain attributes of centrality and superiority of position to which it has no shadow of real claim.

page 59 growing attachment to that pernicious "Provincialism" mentioned at page 50, partly, I fear, from want of firmness in refusing to bow to that "cry" of some of their Con stituents denounced at page 49, are Settlers who will not, I think, appear among the Mourners, should the policy they advocate insidiously bring about the dissolution of the present one Colony of New Zealand and the reconstruction, from its ashes, of two.

I heartily agree with Mr. Weld that Roads are essential to the welfare of New Zealand—they would be The Keys of Peace. But in his cry for "Roads, Roads, Roads" our callow young Premier puts his cart before his horse. To get Roads, we must first be masters of the Land on which, and of the Money with which, to make them. To form a good military 100 mile Road, with village and blockhouse dotted along its course, through the most magnificent, but, by sea, the most inaccessible district I have ever been over in New Zealand, namely, the coast-district from Wanganui through the Ngatiruanui Country to Taranaki, might cost half a million. For such Caesar's causeway, however, the money obstacle might doubtless be overcome—but, in the Natives, there would be found an obstacle a hundred-fold more difticult to overcome. The Road would invade the dominions of the worm-eating" Ngatiruanui, the most savage, lawless, land-leaguing Natives in the whole Country. The Rebel Tribes know what Roads mean as well as we do. They know that a Road through Ngatiruanui means, also, a Road through Waikato, through Ngatimaniopoto, through Taupo, through Tauranga. They would not forget that Mr. "Weld's scheme had published to the whole Native Race that, ere long, the Soldier would disappear, never to return; and the 10,000 or 15,000 of the present Rebels, page 60 joined, as under these new circumstances, they soon would be, by thousands of those "Neutrals" described at page 44, would band together to resist Roads like angry wasps resisting violation of their nests.

Indeed, without some miraculous change (no more to be expected, perhaps, than the retrogression of the Sun) should come over the Maori Race, Mr. Weld's pick and spade on his Ngatiruanui Road might have to be plied under the fire of fugitive bands of Bush-hidden Savages numbering at times, perhaps, from 3,000 to 4,000 well-armed Rebels—a force, on the peculiar ground where it would fight, equal to one of 8,000 or l0.000 in the "open," where it could be seen, got at, routed, and pursued.

Now, what Army of Workmen is to be found to make this first Road, and what other Army is to be found to guard the Workmen? Between the ages of 20 and 50, the entire male population of the North Island is not yet more than 18,000, * and three-fourths of this little body are Labourers, Mechanics, Traders, small Farmers, whose daily labour near their homes is necessary for the maintenance of their families.

The Workers we might find—but even half the Fighters we could not find. Indeed, speaking of Mr. Weld with all possible respect for so truly admirable a Colonist as we are

* Mr. Weld may have counted on combatants to be raised in his own Island. But, remembering the feeling growing up among his Constituents, the feeling that the War is no concern of theirs, and looking at the full employment and rich gains of the South Islanders drawn from their wool and gold fields, Mr. Weld may rest assured that his Ministry will pass no Volunteer or Militia Act which would enable our gallant Taranaki Partizan, Major Atkinson, to get any permanent force of more than a few hundred "South Island Rifles" into the actual Northern field of operations.

page 61 fortunate enough to possess in him, * I cannot but say that, since the days of a certain Dame who essayed to stop the Atlantic with her Mop, no scheme has been devised by Sanity where "ends" have been more cloud-high above "means" than in this scheme of the Lord of Flocks for stopping; New Zealand's War with a Pick.

Let General Cameron and Major Atkinson march a mixed imperial and colonial force of 3,000 or 4,000 men from Taranaki fifty miles down the open coast to the lovely country around Waimaté, and there effectually defeat the "Worm-Eaters" and their allies on their own ground, and then, and then only, may we look to see the "Core" of the Rebellion cut out, and not only Land, but Native Labour, too, got for Roads.

Mr. Weld's scheme, altogether, indeed, is so crude and strange a one that sober folk might be pardoned if they took it to be a sort of grim joke. Excuses, however, are to be made for Mr. Weld. New Zealand Colonists have been so scourged by the English Press and Parliament

* A Cadet of the fine old Dorsetshire "Lulworth Castle" "Welds, he was one of the first pioneers in New Zealand, and is a good specimen of those intelligent, educated, practical Shepherd Princes of Australasia who are throned on Merino.

Among the various passions of mankind evoked by the Colonisation of New Zealand the "cacoethes scribendi" is not the least remarkable, for from Diffenbach's down to Gorst's some tons of Books have been made or written about the Country, its merits and troubles. Two, and two only, of the number have been contributed by practical, public-life, Colonists, namely by Mr. Fox and Mr. Weld. Mr. Fox's "Six Colonies of New Zealand" despite its Title (a lapsus linguse of "Provincialism ") may be read even now with both pleasure and profit, arising from the lucidity of its style and from the bold good sense almost everywhere displayed; while Mr. Weld's little Work on "Sheep Farming" is a little gem, stamping him a very pleasant and a very practical New Zealand Maro.

page 62 for high crimes and misdemeanours of which they are guiltless, that the exasperation among some of them is such that the great question with them, now, is not how to deal with the Maori, the Rebel, but how to get rid of England, the Libeller—of England whose laches, as shown at page 34, gave them this War, yet who is ever abusing them for getting into it + This feeling is particularly strong in the Canterbury Province, one of whose Representatives in our New Zealand House of Commons is Mr. Weld. He lately met his Constituents, when, using that freedom of speech common on the hustings whilst a Man is not a Minister, he seems to have denounced the acts of Downing Street with great vigour, and to have hinted that if He ever came into power he would emancipate New Zealand from Downing Street. A few days after (by stroke of Fortune and the commotions of the times) he was sent for to New Zealand's Windsor: Mr. Fox would have no more to do with Sir George Grey, and Mr. Weld took Mr. Fox's portfolio. He is the last man in the world to eat his words—and thus, the Premier of New Zealand seeks to do what the Hon. Member for Canterbury vowed ought to be done.

He is rather on the horns of a dilemma, though. Indeed if you will imagine Mr. Bright, on the Monday, vowing to the good people of Birmingham that every man shall have a vote, that the three-hooped Pot shall be a made a tenhooped Pot, and that on the Thursday, by some political harlequinade, Mr. Bright found himself in Lord Palmerston s place (banded say with the O'Donoghue), and felt himself bound to issue a ministerial programme providing for Vote by Ballot, for Universal Suffrage, for abandonment of Ireland to her Aborigines, you will have some idea, Sir (allowing page 63 for radical differences between men and measures), of those "Cares of State," those "Perils of Place" which already, I fear, begin to blanch the ruddy cheek of our Shepherd Premier of the South.

Mr. Blight's Ministry might last a month—Mr. Weld's may last a month—but, at the first breath of Action, down it goes, like House of Cards.