The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 10
Postscript
Postscript.
-Resignation of the Responsible Ministry.—The Weld Ministry, having been defeated, resigned; but, as an effort was about to be made to re-instate them, it cannot be considered as certain that Mr. Stafford, who had been sent for, will succeed m forming a ministry or maintaining his position,* and therefore the text of the foregoing remarks is left unaltered. This event, and the circumstances that led to it, afford however strong evidence that in the next Assembly (the present expires by effluxion of time on the 21st of this December) the separation policy is nearly certain to prevail. The Weld ministry were defeated by the champions of provincial interests, who carried a vote that three-eighths of all monies, raised by stamp duties for extraordinary expenditure, should be handed over to the provinces (like the three-eighths of the customs) for local improvements, thus confirming the assertion that the Southern provinces will not submit to further taxation for war purposes alone. It is admitted that Mr. Stafford's supporters are all separationists, and that if he comes into office he must yield to their views.
* Mr. Weld sometime back wrote to his friend, Lord Alfred Churchill, to inform us that he was about to commit political suicide, but he did not do so. Mr. Fitzgerald now writes to his friend to say that he is actually dead, but the probabilities are that he will be resuscitated. It is amusing to see how your very aspiring colonist treats the Colonial House of Assembly as a mere platform whereon to disport himself for the benefit of his admiring friends at home!
Self-Reliant Policy—Has proved to be a bubble, as soon as it came to the raising the actual ways and means for carrying it into effect.
Proclamation of Peace.—This measure was distinctly condemned by the Legislative Assembly, although the vote was subsequently rescinded on a threat by ministers of immediate resignation. It was designated by the settlers as a "ridiculous piece of state-craft," and "not worth the paper on which it was printed." Two murderers, included in the amnesty proclaimed, were at the very instant undergoing trial before the Chief Justice at Auckland—they have since been found guilty and sentenced to death.* As for the natives, they not merely treated the proclamation with contempt, but actually murdered two persons (one a native, the other a European and government interpreter) entrusted with the distribution of the proclamation in their districts. The new Commander-in-Chief appeared to hesitate about taking steps to avenge these nurders, possibly because he considered the honour of Her Majesty to be in no degree at stake—the war being the war of the responsible ministry, and not of the British Empire.
Mr. Fitzgerald has written a letter, for publication in the Times,† commenting severey on recent military operations in New Zealand, but as little intended to "detract from the reputation" of General Cameron and the British Army, as it is to depreciate his own services during his late two months tenure of office! No doubt the General and the Army will smile and forgive him—by this time they are quite alive to the style of political warfare common in the colonies, and so graphically described by the late Mr. E. G. Wakefield. "It is a general custom in the colonies," that writer says, "when your antagonist withstands abuse, to hurt him seriously, if you can, and even to do him a mortal injury; either in order to carry your point, or to punish him for having carried his. In every walk of colonial life everybody strikes at his opponent's heart If a governor, or high officer, refuses to comply with the wish of some leading colonists, they instantly try to ruin him by getting him re-called with disgrace: if two officials disagree one of them is very likely to be tripped up and destroyed by the other: if an official, or a colonist, offends the official body, they will hunt him into jail, or out of the colony. Disagreement and rivalry are more tiger-like than disagreement and rivalry in this country."
* "New Zealand Herald."
† 20th December, 1865.
Proclamation of War.—Nothing decisive has been done, but the natives (Hauhaus) have entrenched themselves in three pahs, strongly fortified, and Sir George Grey is invited to reduce them as, he says, he did the Wereroa pah. Meanwhile, our old adversaries in the Waikato, under Rewi, have replied to responsible ministers manifestoes by announcing their intention of re-occupying all the confiscated lands in Waikato as soon as the troops are withdrawn.
New Gold Fields on West Coast of Southern Island—Extend several hundred miles along the coast. The yield of gold during the month of September last, as evidenced by the actual receipts from the banks at Nelson, amounted to 45,568 ounces, value £177,000, "giving an export," says the Nelson Examiner, of October 2nd, "at the rate of £2,124,000 a year, from a district where, ten months ago, there was not in all ten persons to be found. This addition to the already large export from Otago will necessarily increase the area of indirect taxation, and so far assist materially the liquidation of the interest of the war loans; but the gold duty and license fees are items of provincial revenue, and form no part of the general creditors' security.
Home Government Guarantee for New Zealand Loans.—Mr. Cardwell, as was to be expected, absolutely refuses this and any other pecuniary assistance. The Southern people are much excited, surprised, and indignant thereat, just as if it was not the natural consequence of their assumption of absolute authority and demand for the removal of all the troops.
* New Zealand Papers, 6th April, 1865.
1. | Are the Northern Settlers to be allowed to govern themselves, or be ruled from the south. |
2. | Are they to recoup themselves for loss of time, cost, charges, and expences out of the 13½ millions of Native territory in their Province, or to sell their own allotments in the 3½ millions of English territory for the purpose. |
3. | May the Northern Settlers obtain assistance from Australia, or the United States (the Panama line will be very convenient for this purpose), and arrange for their remuneration out of the means placed at their disposal? It will be impossible to invite small farmers and labouring men to come 18,000 miles from England, at a cost of £20 per head, and then ask them to shoulder a brown Bess and subdue page 37 the natives, instead of quietly subduing the forest on their 40 acre allotments in lieu of passage money! |
4. | A proposition was suggested by a spirited contractor of Melbourne to put down the Maori insurrection by contract; the contractor to take possession of the country out of which he should drive the Maories. Will the Home Government sanction such a project, involving, as it might, the extermination of the Maories, and cease from intermeddling with the confiscation or cession of native lands, the location of settlers thereon, and such other proceedings as a self-reliant policy may necessitate? |
5. | Are all the vessels of war to be withdrawn as they were in the early days of Governor Browne's reign, as well as the troops? |
6. | If the great majority of able-bodied single men leave the Auokland Province for the Gold Fields of the South (the military settlers are already on the move), who is to take care of the women and children? |
7. | Is the missionary principle to be resuscitated, and will the British Government join with the South in attempting to restore "the link between the races," which is now "absolutely dissolved," entirely through their past united action? |
8. | Is the petition of the bishops of New Zealand to be relieved of their royal letters patent to be granted, and is any other measure of separation for the colonies in contemplation? |
"It is becoming an alarming question what the end of these things will be It may be expedient, on some political grounds, for the Imperial authorities to divest themselves of the trouble and annoyance inseparable from the management of native affairs, and insist upon the local authorities assuming all the responsibility and all the cost of restoring order. But let me once more press on your earnest consideration the fact that the Imperial government are not page 38 merely shirking a duty which, morally speaking, they cannot throw off, but that they are expecting impossibilities from the colonists. Every month widens the gap between the two races; by the atrocious proceedings of the few, comparatively, of the disaffected natives the voices of the European friends of the loyal Maori are silenced, and, as a whole, the colonists—the governing body—are fast drifting onwards to the period when the words 'Maori' and 'enemy' will be considered synonyms, and when the settlers, driven to desperation, will make no exception in the execution of vengeance. Only the untrammelled intervention of the Imperial Government can avert this. The North Island ought at once to be considered a Crown colony, and governed as such until peace and concord be restored."—Morning Star, 18th December, 1865,
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