The Press. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1869.

Press, Volume XV, Issue 1998, 10 September 1869, Page 2

The Press. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1869.

The latest English telegrams report that a debate took place in the House of Commons, on the 23rd of July, on New Zealand affairs; being, we suppose, the debate which Viscount Bury ! had given notice of hia intention to raise on Earl Granville's last despatch. The telegrams contain no information as to its objects or result; but we are told that both Mr Monsell and Mr Adderley took part in it, and that they agreed in ascribing the present state of New Zealand to the unwillingness of the colonists to take measures for their own defence, and in deprecating any interference by the Imperial Government. Mr Monsell is the Undersecretary for the colonies, and (the Secretary being a peer) represents, and is the mouthpiece of, the Cabinet in the Lower House. Whatever he said on this occasion, therefore, must be taken as expressing, not merely his own individual views, but those of Her Majesty's Ministers. Mr Adderley, who is a Conservative, occupied exactly the same position in Earl Derby's administration. This concurrence of sentiment among the members on both sides of the House who are, or have been, officially connected with the colonies, is a noteworthy and significant fact.

An article appeared lately in the Times to which we wish to call particular attention, because it explains very clearly why these views are entertained; and what, in the opinion of disinterested unprejudiced observers in England, render the colony so incompetent as it has shown itself to cope with the native difficulties. There is a saying that lookers-on see most of the game. Independently of the fact that the Times represents more accurately than any other journal the opinions of the great mass of the British people, it must be useful for us to know what well-informed men, accustomed to closely watch the course of public aflairs, regard as the radical defect which has brought about such a state of things as now exists in New Zealand.

The article was written on the receipt of the volume of New Zealand statistics for the year 1867. It begins by pointing out how completely the Maoris are outnumbered by the colonists, even where they chiefly, congregate and where the settlers are fewest. In December, 1867, the European population in the North Island was 79,913, while the Maoris in the same districts were 14,897 men, 12,353 women, and 9,857 children. Moreover the hostile natives form but a small proportion of the whole race. " Nearly one-half of the native tribes are prepared for actual alliance with the settlers; of the remainder scarcely 1500 are found in arms at once." Of the two bodies of rebels in the field on the East and West Coasts, each, it is guessed, may comprise 400 or 450 men. Is that, asks the Times, an insurrection too formidable to be dealt with ? What Englishman, it continues, are puzzled to comprehend is how a population superior not only in skill and resources, but even in mere numbers, can despair of making head against a few hundred savages in arms. The Times finds a solution of the mystery in the absence of anything like national feeling—a consequence of the manner in which the country is split up into separate fractional parts, each absorbed in its own local wants or interests, and careless, provided these are gratified, how it may fare with the colony as a whole. Of the 80,000 inhabitants of the Northern Island, " few," it says, " comparatively speaking, are available for anything like an exertion of national strength. The territory is divided into provinces, the provinces into settlements, and not one of these will enter heartily into the concerns of the others. New Zealand is a geographical expression for so many isolated townships, villages, or even households. There is no such community of feeling or interests as would enable the colony to act with the unity and effect of an organised State, especially considering the aversion with which public service is regarded. The colonists are settled comfortably on their own lands —all of them, in the words of one of their ; own statesmen, " industrious and occupied." They have their crops to raise, their herds to tend, and their harvests to get in. They are brave | enough and hardy enough, but they! have no fancy for leaving their homesteads on a campaign. The very people immediately in danger decline the work, still more those not actually menaced, and so one province will not hear another, and one island will not help another,,and all goes wrong. .A thousand savages keep the colony in alarm because less than a thousand settlers can be found to march out against them. .

In this predicament the colonists turn .to JBngland for assistance " some with a vague impression that it is;the duty of the mother country to flghfr

tQ'qr battles for them, sonte with a vit'W of getting soldWs cheap, some with a notion that the Imperial Exchequer could do no less than assist them with a loan." The Times proceeds to explain why such applications find little favor at home. " Putting the case in its broadest form it comes to this, that the New Zealand colonists are better off than we are, and far more competent to help themselves than we are to help them. They have escaped from a laud of struggles to a land of comfort and abundance. Why, at this very moment, the aim and object of our philanthropic statesmen is to aid as many thousands as possible of the home population to become what the colonists are already ! # # # When the colonists tell us that a soldier is not to be had in New Zealand for less than £120 a year, what does that mean ? It means that people of all classes are so well to do, and in the enjoyment of such ample comforts, that less than the salary of a schoolmaster or clergyman will not tempt a working man to enlist. When they explain that farmers are not disposed to go fighting, what does that mean except that they are unwilling to forgo the luxuries and profits of home ? It is this consideration which makes us insensible to their appeals." Leaving all past stories out of the account ; admitting that both the Home Government and the Colonial Government have made mistakes —though the Imperial policy was always determined by the interests of the colony, real or supposed ; the Times takes its stand "on the simple unimpeachable fact that the colonists are strong enough in all conscience to provide for their own security ; and if, under such circumstances, they are too rich, too unsocial, or too selfish -to combine for common defence, they must not expect others to interfere. It is plain from the reports of the war that if they had sent a competent force into the field this rebellion would have been at an end some months ago, but each opportunity of decisive action was lost for want of sufficient troops to surround the enemy when overtaken. * * * Fighting is far less irksome and costly to savages than it is to settlers with comfortable homesteads and-produc-tive lands. All that we can well understand; but so long as a barbarous race survives in the country the duty "of self-defence against it as part of the price to be paid for settlement. It is a price which has been paid everywhere, and which must be paid in New Zealand. The volume now before us contains proof positive that the colonists are perfectly able to pay it if they had but the will."

Such is the case of England against the colony, as stated by the Times. It says in effect that the people of New Zealand are perfectly able to protect themselves against the Natives; but that their superiority in numbers and resources is neutralised by the isolation of the separate divisions of the colony, by the exclusive devotion of each to the promotion of its own particular objects, by the want of political union and therefore of any consistent steadily pursued policy, and by the extent to which the interests of the colony are habitually sacrificed for the attainment of some local or sectional advantage. These, in the opinion of the leading journal in Europe, are the causes which alone render the native difficulty formidable, and there is nothing in them which leads it to the conclusion that the interference of the Imperial Government is either necessary or desirable.