—I have letters from New Zealand, which contain the Governor's apology for withholding representative government from the Southern Province. The letters are so confidential as respects the writers, that I must not show them or mention names; but you may rest assured page 73that the apology is Governor Grey's own, and that it comes as directly and intentionally from him to me, as if he had written to me himself

His case is as follows. He thought the Southern Settlements perfectly fit for representative government, and "anxiously" wished that they should have it. But he was as decidedly of opinion, that giving representation to the Penny-an-acre Landsharks of the North would uproar the universal peace. They were not colonists, but mere speculators in land-sharking; and they would be sure to use legislative authority for the purpose of getting vast estates from the Natives at a nominal price. This is the one idea of active minds in the North; and their first object in making laws would be to realise the idea. Therefore, come what might, Grey would not establish representation in the North. But, then, how could he, withholding it from those amongst whom he is condemned to live chiefly, bestow it on the distant South, which he only visits occasionally? By doing so, he would make his own house too hot to hold him. Come what might, then, he would not do it. But he hoped that Lord Grey would. Short of officially asking that it should be done by the Home Government, he has "urged them to do it."

The urgency, I suppose, was that of hints in private letters: but he insists that he has done all he could (meaning, of course, all he could short of risking some collision with the Office hurtful to himself) to induce them to take the right step, which he could not take, but they easily might. But they have been deaf to his suggestions. And so the end is that he has been compelled—"most reluctantly compelled"—to set up a Nominee Council for the South and postpone representation for years.

This is his own case. It is not very creditable to him, since it shows him sacrificing convictions and high duty to selfish personal considerations. He does this twice over: first, by not doing what he had power to do and thought ought to be done, lest he should make his own residence uncomfortable; page 74secondly, by not really "urging" his own convictions at home, lest real urgency should bring on him the ill-will of the Office.

And what is the public case? That the true colonists of the South (whose wrongs Grey fully admits) are sacrificed, I will not say to the land-sharks of the North, but to Grey's personal ease, his avowed motive being, not an opinion that free government ought to be withheld from the South because it must be from the North (on the contrary, he thinks that it ought to be given to the South although withheld from the North), but his unwillingness, from personal considerations, to do himself what he thinks ought to be done. This, of course, is not the interpretation put on his conduct in New Zealand, because his selfish motive is not avowed there. The colonists of the South, not perceiving his selfishness, see nothing but what they deem his insincerity and love of arbitrary power. All his talk to them, and his official published writings, about their fitness to enjoy representative institutions without delay, they consider false profession; and they naturally suspect him of liking despotic government best. They look on him as a deceiver and tyrant at heart; and they hate him as we are all apt to hate him who deceives and oppresses us. The consequence is hot water again in the Southern Settlements. Though there will be Government factions there, I have no doubt that Grey's popularity in the South is gone. There is no prospect but violent squabbling, loud complaints, and all sorts of impediments to prosperity. But whose is the fault? His own, combined with that of the Office; of the Office, which has shabbily thrown on him a task, the performance of which would have cost him much discomfort, but them nothing. However, we taught the Southern settlers to stand up against such treatment: and we may be sure, now that the hope of local self-government, which has kept them quiet for two years, is at an end, that they will kick up row enough. They are Englishmen, practised in agitation under the auspices of the Company and the Whigs. So much for the South.

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In the North, the policy of attempting to colonize in the midst of a great native population, which has only been carried on thus far by means of a war expenditure, seems to be breaking down. The latest accounts about the Waikato Tribes and Heki are, at least, ugly. I have never ceased expecting war again in the North. That it should happen is in the nature of things. We all thought so in 1845 and 1846. My letters by the Cornelia lead me to think that very serious disturbance in the North will probably be reported by the next arrival—almost certainly ere long. This makes the case of the South worse. The South is sacrificed to the North, which itself is a total failure except as a military post, and, even as such, likely to prove a failure. Was there ever such a mess, except Fitzroy's and Stanley's, which it exactly resembles?

What is to be done now? Your last effort for Canterbury alone seems to have wholly failed. Hawes deluded himself, and you, and others. The public, too, is greatly deluded in another way. But New Zealand can no longer be puffed as the most peaceful and prosperous of colonies. The truth must come out now: and the truth is, that the affairs of New Zealand including colonization, are in no better plight, after Lord Stanley's critics have had their own way with them for three years, than they were in 1845. The only real difference is, that then the Company and the Whigs made plenty of noise, and now there is nobody to make the truth known in this country. But there is somebody. Events in the colony render concealment and puffing no longer possible. The truth must now come out, and be made familiar to the public at home. Most of the old hands will not agitate: but some will (of whom I am one); and there are new hands ready to do what the Company and the Whigs did so well from 1843 to 1846. This is now settled, if it cannot be averted by inducing the Office to do at once what we used to agitate for. I regard the revival of agitation as a pis-aller. Is there any chance of its being averted by the only possible means?