The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 10
[Sir George Grey continued]
The news brought us by the mail of yesterday, and your comments thereon, Sir, compel me to offer a few words more.
* 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.
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.
* 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.
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.
* 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.
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.