Additional Remarks

Suggested by the Debate on New Zealand affairs of March 11th

In the above debate the following passage occurs in the speech of Mr. Mills:—" One section of the Colonists said, ' We cannot afford to carry out this spirited policy.' But his answer to these persons was—'At your own risk, without inducement from the Government, you have chosen to settle in a colony 12,000 miles from home, and you say that we, who have been fighting your battles for so many years, should defend you for ever, although you have absolute control over your own affairs.' "

Surely, since an English House of Commons first came into existence no statement of six lines can have been made page 72 within its walls containing so much of the "Suppressio veri," the "suggestio falsi," as this. Mr. Mills' "spirited policy" is that of sneaking out of a quarrel which, as shown at page 34, is one that the crass folly of Downing Street and Exeter Hall provoked; while, further, he adds that this "spirited policy" (the policy of withdrawing half the troops before the Taranaki "Core" of the rebellion has even been touched, and while the Rebels feel that every where they have been triumphant) is a policy, Credat Judaeus Appella ! advocated by the Colonists,.

Certainly, a clique of South Island Settlers represented, for the moment, by a South Island Ministry who, as hinted at pages 49 and 58, would be gainers if the North Island were suffered to relapse into a wilderness, does, shame to say, advocate Mr. Mills' "spirited policy,"—but to assert, or to let it be inferred, that the New Zealand Colonists as a body, or any ten men in the North Island, approve of such a Policy, is a trespass on even parliamentary license, and an insult to common sense. Three successive Minis tries: the "Stafford" Ministry, the "Domett" Ministry, the "Fox" Ministry—true Representatives of the North Island Community, the people who suffer from the War—have, by deeds and words, indignantly protested against Mr. Mills' "spirited policy."

Again, Mr. Mills asserts, that at their own risk, without encouragement from Government, the New Zealand Colonists have chosen to settle in a country 12,000 miles distant. Now, with the mere exception of the New Zealand Company's Pioneer Settlers who, as Mr. Roebuck truly observes, saved New Zealand from becoming a French Possession, standing before the very doors of Australia, the New Zealand Colonists (as shewn at page 28) have been very page 73 considerably "encouraged" by the Home Government to plant new Homes in New Zealand.

If the Americans had retreated from their War with the Seminole Indians—a war vastly more arduous than this,—no terms in our vocabulary of derision would have been spared them. You, virtually, are retreating defeated from a War with 5000 Savages, and members of your Legislature and your Colonial Office seek to hide from you the shameful fact under the assertion that the Colonists wish you to retreat.

If, with your troops on the spot, you had refused longer to be hoodwinked by Exeter Hall, and by those sure Destroyers of the Maori Race typified in Mr. Buxton, and had proclaimed to the Native that, hand in hand with the Colonial Regiments, you would use your troops and withdraw not a man till you had secured some such a Peace as that sketched at page 45, you would, in a few months, have closed the Temple of War in New Zealand for ever.

As it is, I sadly fear that it will prove you have done just enough further to incense the "Rebel Tribes," and to show them their superiority in arms;—and just enough to show the "Friendly and Neutral Tribes" (described at page 44) your weakness, and to deter such shrewd observers from adventuring to lend any effective help to that which they fancy is the weaker side.

Indeed, rather than do what your complaisant Colonial Secretary hints to Manchester and Taunton he will do—namely, withdraw half your Force from the fire of a triumphant foe—it would, I think, have been better for your honour and for our interests had you never sent one Redcoat to the Country.

Let us hope, however, that the Blind Goddess will bring page 74 us better Fortune than we deserve. Let us further hope, too, that, as one step towards the enlightenment of the British Public as to the real character^* of the New Zealander, the Daily Telegraph may learn from Mr. Roebuck that, in his present state of barbarism, the Maori's Ossian frothings are quite compatable with the act of mutilating the bodies and parading the heads of gallant Soldiers,^† and quite compatable with a slumbering but innate, and some-what weasel-like, appetite for blood.^‡