THE "NELSON EXAMINER"

Press, Volume II, Issue 44, 15 March 1862, Page 1

THE "NELSON EXAMINER"

Thk "Nelson Examiner" has done ub the honor to reprint ono of our numerous articles on the nativequestion, and to answer it. We shall return the compliment; because the " Nelson Examiner " maintains the literary pre-eminence which it always possessed nmidst the New Zealand press, and has therefore probably said—and said well—nearly all that can be said on the other side of the question. The " Nelson Examiner " is the ablest organ of policy of the late government, and must always command respect, even where it fails to win assent to its opinions. In reading therefore a formal reply to an article advocating a line of policy different from that of the late government, we are somewhat disappointed in finding exception taken to single words and individual phrases, while "the general bearing—the principles at issue—are passed over in silence. For example, the " Examiner " thinks we were wrong in saying the Maoris " were despised as savages." We consider a people are " despised," when their conquest is attempted with inadequate means. Those who went to war with Colonel Gold as their commander-in-chief, must have had a very mean opinion of tho prowess of the enemy. The rt Examiner " thinks we state what is not true when we say the array was "• cooped up " in Taranaki. It is a matter of opinion; we call an army " cooped up " when the whole surrounding country is, in a military point of view, iv possession of the enemy. That was the case at Taranaki. " There is false colouring," we are told, in the words " half-armed, ill-clad," which we applied to the native warriors. " It was not as warriors, and in our teeth, that these men ravaged." We confess, we can detect no false colouring in this expression; it is literally true. And it is of no consequence whether tbe natives fought as warriors or as chimney sweeps; there was the army to drive out these savages, and the naked half-armed savages were not driven out; and yet, as it is generally believed now, the army was the most numerous party of the twp. The natives pf course fought as was most convenient

to them. That they did not come to a general engagement with inferior forces, and inferior weapons, shews their military skill, not their cowardice. The conditions were the same for both parties, _md they beat us for months. Then we are taken to task for calling the Maoris a "noble race." Well, here again we must be allowed to exercise our judgement, and to express ourselves accordingly. We do think the Maori a noble race; we don't quarrel with those who think differently; we are only sorry that they have failed to discover elements of nobility which to our eyes are sufficiently obvious. The little anecdote related in the previous sentence in the " Examiner," might have suggested to the narrator sonrething of nobility in the mind whence such an expression sprung. " My great guns are night and storm" said Wetini, when told that general Pratt's great guns were on the road. What warrior, in the sad consciousness of his inferiority to his foes in all the engines and appliances of war, ever invoked the agencies of nature to his aid in words of loftier courage, or wilder poetic expression. I The ' Examiner' then proceeds to shew the " falsities contained in the impressive lines, 'it [the war had become the terrible and desperate struggle of a noble race to avert the destiny of annihilation which it saw slowly, but surely, overwhelming it." We must ask the ' Examiner' to be so kind as to read our articles before it replies to them. The writer ar"ue« as if he applied those words to the Taranaki struggl alone. Whereas our language was—-"The disput which commenced over a miserable bit of land ii one corner of the Northern Island had gradual! altered its character until it had become &c, &c.' J And was it not so? What was it which was gradual! l drawing in tribe after tribe into tho struggle ? Wha was ifc which originated the King movement, an< the laud leagues, and which has been stirring tin mind of the maori race for these four years past ? If i has not been a sense of the decay of their race, wha - has it been ? There is not one trace of a wish o] intention to drive out the English ; except perhaps with the very few more wild aud enthusiastic patriot: of the race. The idea has been to save what is left by the introduction of civil government, and bi holding the land. The action of the Waitara brought this feeling to a head. The natives said—'if any member of a tribe may be bribed to sell his individual holding to the Europeans, without consulting his tribe or chiefs, our land leagues are destroyed, and our race with them.' Is not this a fair account of the native view ; and of the reason why so many tribes who had no interest in the quarrel, joined the miserable hapu which first began the struggle ? These things are noAv on record, and those who do not see them are those who are wilfully blind. But the ' Examiner ' is unjust when it says that the ' Press' ever stated that " the annihilation of the Maoris was compassed." When have we said so? What we havo said and repeat is, that the practical result *of the government of the Maoris has been, that the race is dying out rapidly ; that law and order have not been introduced amongst them along with nominal government. There are but two modes of dealing with a barbarous race. Two peoples of different degrees of cultivation cannot exist in close juxta-positiou. The inferior must disappear; that is the law of nature as proclaimed in history. And there are but two modes of such disappearance ; by annihilation or by absorption—by utterly destroying the inferior race, "improving it off the face of the earth," as our Yankee cousins say—or. by raising it to tho level of the higher race, and absorbing the one into the other. Now, to put the matter in one word, we say the policy of the ' Examiner ' is annihilation,' ours is absorption.. We do not suppose the ; Examiner,' or the late ministers, or Governor Browne, would recognise this as their end. Heaven forbid we should think they did so ; but we believe such would have been the result of their policy whether they intended it or not. Lastly, when the * Examiner' tells us " a dozen errors disfigure the rest of our articb," we can only reply that those assertions which the ' Examiner'

calls •' errors' are recorded in the public history of the Country.

We shaU not prolong this dispute. We shall bea to be told that we are ' ignorant' and that we ar too fond of our own opinions " to be candid on an subject." We shall bear to char the present minister called ' seditious' and insincere' and so on. A' that is a part of the system of newspaper and part warfare ; and our friend at Nelson, at all event* uses a polished sword, and not dirty brickbats But what must not be forgotten is this, that there ar two distinct lines of policy before the public. Whils that of the late Government was being carried or the opposition said, such and such things can be don and ought to be done. We were told, they can't b done : you know nothing of native affairs, or yo' would not say so: you propose impossibilitiesabsurdities. Well, the policy went on, aud disaster accumulated, and a new government came; and thei all that was absurd and impossible was adopted The country was restored to peace, and a prospec arose of permanent improvement in the civil govern ment of the natives. The ' Examiner' is of course ; little sore at all this, and will argue to the last tha all would have come right had tbe late government j been allowed to continue iv power. As the history |of events which have never occured cannot be written wo may as well cease to dilate on this topic. Thi i ' Examiner,' frankly, and cordially, hopes that the nev j policy may succeed. We concur in that hope, and > we will go so far as to say, we are not presumptuously . sanguine as to its success. There is uncertainty in all human affairs, and every policy depends on the heads and hands which apply it. But we sinccrelv believe Sir George Grey has commenced the true rule of government when he said the other day, "mv plan is not to put down evil, but to put up good."