The Press. FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1864. PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITHS LAST LETTER.

Press, Volume IV, Issue 486, 20 May 1864, Page 2

The Press. FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1864. PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITHS LAST LETTER.

Evebtt one remarks on reading one of Professor Gold win Smith's letters to the Daily Xeics, such as that we published a day or two ago —" what a nasty letter." And there can be no doubt the Professor does manage to say the most disagreeable things in the most disagreeable manner. But a thing is not

necessarily untrue because it is disagreeable, and if a truth is unpopular, and has to be strongly enforced, it may be not only wise and right, but necessary, to state it in a form which commands attention, even at the

expense of creating annoyance. It is almost impossible for us, who are deeply interested in the result of the war with the Natives, to form an entirely unbiassed opinion. But the Professor evidently looks at the problem as a whole—as history will look at it. He does not take into consideration all the party and

partial and temporary motives which influence our conduct; he does not allude to the fact, that there is a large p.irty ia the colony who agree with his objects and views, though not in his mode of stating them. He looks at New Zealand as a whole, lie deals with the policy now pursued as a national policy, adopted by tlie parliament of the country, imd speaks of it accordingly, and he says the result of the whole thing is, that the English are murdering the in order to get their land. And that such will be the verdict of history, no man who has any capacity for realizing the whole bearing of the events of tlie age in which he lives, can reasonably doubt. For history

does not look at this litlle event, or the other little fact; it will not ask whether there were isolated acts of provocation on one side or the other: it will take the great whole and judge accordingly. And what will that whole result be ? We suppose it may be assumed that this war will result in the extermination of the Native race. The innocent dream, in which our war-policy philanthropists indulged that a great effort was to finish the war, and restore peace to the colony, all that is at an end. That the longer we fight the more surely we shall elicit the desperate determination of the Natives to hold out to the last, is patent to every one. That we are spending money in a manner which must soon sink the colony in hopeless embarrassment, -whilst we are inflicting comparatively trifling injury upon the enemy's' sinews of war, this is sufficiently obvious to all. That the means of resistance and capacity to prolong the struggle, on the part of the Natives, have been totally underrated by those who have assumed to speak authoritatively, as having an intimate acquaintance with the race, this too is beginning to be felt. The fact is staring us in the face, the longer the war continues, that it is becoming a war of extermination. There are few now so sanguine as to be. lieve that the Natives will give in until they have been as a race practically annihilated. Twenty years hence there will hardly be a Maori left in the Islands; we shall have " improved them off the face«of the earth." It is when all the tale is told that history will begin to judge. It will then relate how the English cjime to New Zealand shores, and were warmly welcomed by the savage islanders ; how the Natives rapidly dropped their savage customs, abandoned cannabalisui, in a great measure gave up their wars, took to English habits, adopted our dress, and used our implements of labor and cultivation It will tell how for thirty years we lived amongst them, with slight exceptions, in perfect peace, not only in our own settlements and under the protection of our armies, but isolated families, women and children, defenceless in the midst of remote tribes, and yet with no sense of wrong or even of danger. It will record the amazing fact, that, setting aside those scenes in which war was recognised as existing by both races, (and the periods of war have been very brief,) there is hardly an instance during all that time of the murder of a European by a Native. It may probably be aeserted as a fact that, excepting in those few districts and at these short times in which we were at war with the Natives, there have been more white men murdered by white men than by Natives. Do the new coinere in these southern Provinces know this startling fact? When they hear the Natives spoken of as a savage people, resisting every effort on our parts to bring them under our law, do the public here know that without force, without police, without law, numbers of Englishmen have been living in all parts of the Native districts, and have been enjoying their hospitality during the past thirty years ? If they do not know it, history will not be so misinformed ; and it will further relate that tins people, who are described j as acting flic part of the dog hi the manger in respect of their lands, have voluntarily given up to us sometiling like two-thmUof the whole area of these islands

for an amount of remuneration »o insignificant that the cstato may b<* almost regarded as a gift. All this will be told with fetal accuracy in times to come; and history will then go on to state, that as we poured more and more of our population into the country, a bitter jealousy arose between the two races in respect to the possession of the laud ; how the public press all over the Northern Island harped perpetually upon the, one topic —laud. How it wa3 argued, without any protest on the part of the colonists, in the public prints, that the Natives had no property in their lands at all; how at last, over a piece of laud, a war arose. All this our posterity will one day rejd, and they will turn orer a few pages and find that—the

Natives are no more. There in a few words will be the whole story. And will it not be true ? Is not Professor Smith really putting the plain, disagreeable, naked, ugly, truth before us, when he says —" This is a war for land." When the chapter upon tbe Natives is ended and the leaf turned over, will not all the world say the same thing ? If this be so, let us thank the man who rises above the blindness of his ago to tell us the simple truth, that we are engaged in the perpetration of a hideous crime.

In one respect only the Professor seems to us unjust. He speaks as if it were the fault of the colonists—this war, and these horrid blunders. This is not true. It was the blunder of the Home Government, and of that alone. It was the Home Government which persevered for years in cheating the Natives out of the fair market price of their lands when they were willing to sell. It was the Home Governmeut which established the Tile and wicked system by which tho buyer of the lands was constituted the sole court with no appeal but to the sword, to judge of the validity of the purchase. When the colonists attained the power to control the dealings of the Government with the Natives, the mischief had been all done. The colony was at war, the affections of the Natives entirely alienated, and their confidence exchanged for mistrust. It is quite true that the colonists abused the trust reposed in them. It is true that the first step they took was to pass a series of laws which will stain the Statute Book with disgrace to the end of time —kw3 which would affix an indelible shame on tho character of any free und educated people. But great as is the folly and wickedness of the policy of the present ministers, it has this excuse: that it arose out of a state of things handed over to us by the Home Government. Had the Home Government acted with ordinary sagacity and prudence, the result might have been different. In handing over the powers of government, it did not throw on the colonists that responsibility which is the only (Tiiarantee for the righteous exercise of power. If war brought with it no evils on mankind, if it entailed no burden, and demanded no sacrifices, the world would live in a perpetual state of savage hostility The natural machinery provided in the providential economy of the world for restraining man's lusts and passions, is the pain which follows their indulgence. It is with nations as with individuals: wars of aggression bring with them the most enduring of curses. Had the Parliament of New Zealand sat down to the consideration of this war question with the contingency staring them in the face—this war will cost so much money—to pay for it we must submit to be taxed, we must abandon a part of our luxuries, of our trade, of our progress —had the colonists by these means been compelled to consider what they were doing, we believe their conclusion would have been just and humane. But what did they do ? They resolved on war, and demanded that it should be mainly fought by British troops, and paidforbyßritishmoney. The temptation toflghtunder such encouraging circumstances was irresistible and affords some excuse to the colony. England was to bear the cost, and the colony was to get all the advantage. If we could all play the game through life—" head? I win, tails you lose," who would not be gamblers ?

Is it yet too late ? Is the murdered man actually down under the hearthstone ? Or will some kind providence intercede to save the colony from the consummation of the hideous crime it is committing ? Who can tell ? We dare not say that poace and confidence will ever again be restored, but should the attempt be made, it is at least a satisfaction to think that it will be made by men who have some faith in the omnipotence of right. It is encouraging to recollect that the ranks of those who love peace more than war have been purged for ever of men who, like the present Native Minister, regard opinions and principles oqly as stepping-stones to power.