“The Press” In 1864

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30479, 29 June 1964, Page 12

“The Press” In 1864

June 29 Th-- latest telegraph by the English mail, scanty as was the intelligence it conveyed, brought us news of no ordinary Importance, as ‘o the light in which the confiscation policy of last session of the General Assembly is regarded by the Home Government. It appears that the Governor has been instructed to limit the operation of the Act, though it has not been disallowed He is not to allow any land to be confiscated until a Commission has been appointed to make fuli enquiry into the facts of the case The Governor, in fine, is once more restored to the ild position which he held up to March, 1863. He Is now again a separate Executive authority in the colony, acting not under the advice of Ministers

responsible to the Assembly, but under instructions from Home. The form which has been gone through, turns out to be a farce. When Sir George Grey wrote to the Home Government to recommend that responsible government in Native affairs should be given to the colony—what did he mean? When the Duke of Newcastle wrote to the colony that celebrated despatch establishing the system of responsibility, what did he mean? When the colony replied in that notorious Address praying her Majesty not to desert the colony in its utmost need by imposing on it the responsibility of managing its own internal affairs—what did it mean? When the Duke again replied, saying that the Imperial dictum having gone forth, like the laws of the Medes and

Persians could not be changed, and that we must manage our own Native affairs, whether we wished it or not—what did his Grace mean? And when the colony, thus driven into a corner, accepted that responsibility last session, and undertook the task, inaugurating the blessing bestowed upon it• by the humane and enlightened expedient of “material guarantees”— what did all this mean? It appears now it meant nothing. The Home Government was willing that we should manage the Native policy just so far as it thought right but that if it differed from us the responsibility of the Government to the Assembly should cease, and the latent power of Home instructions should be revived, to set aside or control the action of, the colony.