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Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 16, 10 August 1848, Page 2

Ido not care: I'll give twice so much land To any well deserving friend. King Henry IV. There has been some talk about the Church Missionaries taking advantage of the late judgment in their favour, to give up the disputed lands, which it is thought they might do with a good grace, seeing that they no longer stand in fear of ejectment. In fact, it was all but arranged in the North, after the news had reached them, that the young people, who are the parties chiefly interested, should come forward and endeavour to meet His Excellency's views, on the old Roman system of treating after victory, but never after defeat. With all due deference, we submit that a more impolitic step on their part could not well be taken ; impolitic and trasty, for reasons which we have already strongly urged in private, and which we now repeat, in order to give them currency at home. This argument, that they are now able to offer with a good grace, what they were obliged to refuse upon principle before, falls to the ground by its own weight. Captain Gbey himself, by his cavalier notice of appeal to the Privy Council, without tbe courtesy of first ascertaining their intended course of action after the issue of the trial, by the very act of rendering doubtful their success, has precluded them from taking advantage of it. They dare not do it; they know by this time, to their cost and sorrow, with whom they have to deal; they cannot but feel sure that motives would be made for them; that any proposal for coming to terms would now he imputed to the timidity engendered by a bad cause—timidity which would be measured only by the liberality of the offer. Until final decision of the question, we maintain that they cannot stir one step. It would certainly have been taking high ground, had the chance been allowed thein; too high, perhaps, to have suited his Excellency's purpose. He might have felt it as an usurpatiou, upon their part, of that dignity and magnanimity which appertains exclusively to j holders' of the vice-regal office; and more agaiu than that, it has even been seriously said that the< fear of their raising themselves to such a position was a leading motive in his sudden resolution of appeal. That the present would be an ill-chosen time to make advances—at all events upon the grounds which we have heard suggested—is too clear to need dwelling upon. But a stronger argument than fear of misconstruction can be offered in favour of resolute holding on. ' The missionaries cannot affect to doubt but that their personal characters have suffered much from the statements that have found their way to home; that their own society has feared, through not unjustifiable suspicion, to put forth its whole strength in their support; and that they are still very generally looked upon in England as a set of greedy, interested landsharks. j There is but one means of overturning this ill opinion—one single course left open to them : to demand a court martial; to challenge the completest and most searching investigation of their conduct and doings, from the moment of their having first set foot upon these shores.

But it is one thing to talk about enquiry, and another thing to make sure of its being held ; and we give it as our distinct conviction that the only way to secure such enquiry is to turn a deaf ear to any suggestion of coming to terms. For if once the land be given up, the muoh coveted, though worthless prize obtained, the whole matter will be suffered to drop; will be perhaps even purposely smothered up", the yielders remaining: saddled with a load of obloquy, that they would then have abandoned their last chance of shaking off. Investigation might be promised, but it would never be made ; at the most, it would be harried and shuffled over, through anxiety to get rid of a troublesome and over-mooted question,unless its interest'were kept alive. Public servants in England have their hands too full of work to spend much time in enquiring for the sake of enquiry alone; and, though the motive to exertion which has been named be not of an exalted nature, it will not be the less effectual. What the duties of the missionaries to their ecclesiastical superiors may be, what attention to their recommendations they are bound to pay, we have already explicitly stated that we do not know; that,>as laymen, we have perhaps no right even to form an opinion; the bearings of the question as a point of church expediency we have uniformly declined to take. But we do know of another duty which they dare| not J pretermit; the duty of handing down to their' children an unblemished name, of clinging to every chance that is offered in ceaseless endeavour to recover it. I'll have a starling; shall be taught to speak Nothing but Mortimer, aid give it him, To keep his anger stitl in motion— Says Harry Percy of the King. "Blood and treasure," without intermission, in his ears, say we; misrepresentations and inventions,fresh proofs of which are day by day coming forth to light, again and ugain dinned into him. If, nevertheless, Captain Grey would abandon the appeal; if he would make honorable amends for the injury he has done the missionaries, by unambiguously and openly retracting his assertions, so distinctly as to relieve them, from the necessity of courting inquiry .for self defence ; if he would suffer the lands vivhen given up to be held in trust for the benefit of the native race; we believe—we might even say we know, that an amicable arrangement might be arrived at with ease. But that, we dare venture to amnn, he will never be brought to do.