The Auckland Examiner. Thursday, July 25, 1857. "PUBLIC GOOD." CIVILIZED SAVAGES.

Auckland Examiner, Volume 1, Issue 29, 2 July 1857, Page 1

The Auckland Examiner. Thursday, July 25, 1857. "PUBLIC GOOD." CIVILIZED SAVAGES.

The political theorist who writes big books, or makes yard-long speeches, in proof that all men may be politically equal is seldom more liberal than that travelled Yankee who thought Englishmen had no right to call England a land of liberty when they would not allow him to “ wollop his own nigger.” For tall stump patriots nothing is more easy than to talk “rights of man,” and “ tear a passion to tatters,” when insisting upon once-much-insisted-upon Liberte, Egalite,

et Fraternite. But to realize equal rights for unequal man is no joke of a job. As yet every attempt to do it has failed. Jean Jacques Rousseau, in his book on The Origin of Inequality among Men, made out a logical-looking-case for political tail-stumpers who think that, upon the whole, no people are so virtuous or happy when civilized as when savage. Robespierre, in a way characteristically liberal, ‘ ‘bettered the instruction ” of Jean Jacques, by letting loose upon France its mighty hord of worse than Goth or Vandal. Now, Robespierre, of “ seagreen-in-corruptible ” memory, started politician upon principles purely democratic and ultra humanitarian. It was Robespierre who, in the National Assembly did, more than any other of its members, distinguish himself as the enemy of Death Punishment. It was Robespierre who practically anticipated the Prudhomme maxim —La propriete e'est le vol (Property is theft) which of all modern maxims is most favoured by professors of exagerated liberalism and ultra-montane humanism. In England these “ snobs ” are called humanity mongers; and not without reason, for their humanity is of a piece with their patriotism. Few are aware that reign-of-terror Robespierre was an avowed disciple of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the most eloquent apostle of liber te, equalite, et fraternite ever seen amongst men. Few know that’the “ seagreen-ineorrnptible ” was himself more extensively liberal in ideas, and more extravagantly liberal in words, than any contemporary patriot, except, perhaps, those very splendid impersonations of exaggerated liberalism, —• Danton, who was for one great massacre and have done with it, and Marat, who justified wholesale slaughter of the rich upon, the ground of humanity tn the poor, declared with reverence that Christ was his master and defended the Guillotine by texts from the Gospel. The enormous faith of millions made for one is not ours. Democratic in the sense of being anxious to see firmly established here, and wherever else it can be firmly established, a democratic as well as representative system of Government, we see in exaggerated liberalism the most dangerous foe of freedom and truth. One of the numerous forms assumed by it is the form philanthropic. Extremes meet. The exaggerator of liberalism commonly fraternizes with the exaggerator of antiliberalism.

In China war is now raging. The com. batants are Chinese and Europeans. Latest information from England plainly shows that there are English liberals who sympathise with the Chinese, who frame excuses for their treachery, palliate their cruelty, and even explain away their cannibalism.

In the ‘ Illustrated London News,’ of Saturday, March 7th, is a letter from the Canton corresspondent of that trustworthy periodical, who says : — “ Between 60;000 and 70,000 heads have been struck off by the exCutioners in this little tpace of ground, since February last. Daily, except on the Ist, 15th, and three days at the time of the Emperor’s birth day, have from 150 to 600 been carried in baskets by their fellow men to see the mangled remains of those who have by a few minutes-preceded them carried or dragged out of the wav, until the groun d has become, for several inches deep, a filthy composition of blood and mud. Nearly every diy one or two are tied to the cross ; the executioner facing the poor wretches, takes a sharp knife and rapidly cutting them in different parts of the body, finishes by putting it into their hearts. They are then cut down, their head, hands, and feet are cut off, their liver and heart cut out and, with their heads, taken to show the Mandarins.”

Multiplying extracts of this character would be easy but useless. The words here given will suffice to show that the civilized Chinese have an unppeasable appetite for blood and cruelty; that, in essentials they are unchanged by the many revolutions of which their empire has been the battle field, and though first amongst civilized savages they are last amongst civilized men. Y r et have they defenders ; eloquent defenders too. And what, more than aught else, staggers belief is that foremost among those eloquent defenders are philanthropic exaggeratois of liberalism.

Peace at almost any price Cobden pleads the cause of the- poor Chinese with characteristic vehemence. Peace at entirely any price Bright denounces our inhuman Avar upon them with characteristic audacity. Both exaggerate liberalism, and in the ardor of their affection for Chinese '/ rights,” justify the wholesale assassinations of their “ oppressed ” protegees. They bait Palmerston with the ferocity of bull dogs, because that minister thinks the flag of England should not be insulted even by a Chinese Commissioner; and that a British Parliament should not peacefully look on and see the heads of innocent Englishmen sliced from their shoulders, even by celestial cannibals.

But exaggerators of liberalism, with their natural allies the exaggerators of anti-liberalism, are strong in the British Parliament; so strong that reinforced by troops of politicians who, if they but get place and power, care not one straw for either Chinese or Europeans, they have been so far able to assist the former as to put the Palmerston Government in a minority. However, it is gratifying to' find that these English sympathisers with civilized savages are repudiated by the great English people, who are sick of humanity mongers, as well as disgusted with dishonorable-per.ee patriots, and, moreover, will not to]state a Government who, if consistent, would, as Lord Palmerston said in his Mansion House speech, hand over to Chinese barbarians the rewards which they had offered for the heads of British merchants and the cost of the arsenic which had been used in poisoning Englishmen at Hong Kong. As Lord Palmerston proposes to deal with civilived savages in China we would deal with civilized savages in Auckland. 'Savages are savages, however much you civilize them. Getting spots out of a leopard’s skin is scarcely more difficult than getting savagery out of born savages. The impossibility involved in an attempt to sweeten a certain kind of nastiness was shown by Dean Swift, and enlarged upon by various good wits who flourished since his time. Sweeten the thoroughly nasty is a feat our vampers-up of Native population capacities for civilization seem bent on doing. But these humanity mongering exaggerators of liberdism stand revealed and will fail. Auckland citizens can no longer be gulled by the cant of benevolence, or kept ignorant of Native-population nature. Auckland citizens will be taught by events to know that Chinese are very like Maories ; that neither Maories nor Chinese ever can be more than civilized savages; that probably they are of the same queer Mongolian stock, and certainly that sauce for the Chinese goose would be sauce for the Maori gander.