THE REV. J. BULLER ON THE MAORI WAR.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1944, 29 July 1869, Page 2

THE REV. J. BULLER ON THE MAORI WAR.

lu a lecture recently delivered in Auckland, the well-known Wesleyan minister, Mr Buller, thus refutes the charges frequently brought against the North Island colonists of inducing w: r by their greed and lust for laud, Mr Buller says (w r e quote from the Southern Cross) : I now turn to another pax-t of the question. To whom is the war owing ? It is evident from the tone of the English press, and even from the papers in some parts of New Zealand, an impression extensively prevails that the colonists are chargeable with the consequences of the Maori war ; that lust of fgaiu and greed of land induced the settlers of the Northern Island to force hostilities and then perpetuate them. While by many of the settlers the missionaries are blamed; they, in their turn are unjustly condemned. No doubt there are bad men in the colony. I know that some malicious spirits have done their- best to foster groundless suspi- s cions in the Maori mind. They are as much the enemies of the Colony as they are destroyers of the natives. Buts taken as a community, the New Zealand colonists compare favorably -with those of any country for intelligence, respectability, and character. To charge them with stirring up war is ridiculous, What could they gain by it ] Till very lately it was not in thenpower to obtain land but from the Crown. Set aside a few fortunate contractors and some needy place-hunters, and all the rest have been great sufferers by the war. They are entitled to the sympathy, and do not merit the censure, of England. Against the gains of the few place the losses of the many, and then strike the balance in the form of a huge, a terrible disaster. The burden of excessive taxation is as nothing compared with the devastation of happy homes, the utter ruin of fair prospects, and the bitter loss of beloved sons. At this moment there are many solitary families continually exposed to spoliation and death. What have they to gain by war ? Gain ! No, the settlers have everything to risk, and not a few have lost their all, and many have lost their lives. To charge o«r settlers with the greed of land is idle. They desired land: to be sure they did. What- else did they come here for? Did they leave their country only for their country’s good ? Did they not expatriate themselves from the dear old home that they might extend the glory of the British empire, by adding another gem to our monarch’s crown, in building up a nation on the virgin soil of this beautiful country 1 Is it supposed they could do this without acquiring land I But, I ask, did the settlers get land—did they wish to get laud—in any other way than by fair and honorable purpose ? I challenge anyone to say so. Nor could they have done so if they would. Whatever they gave for it was its full value. They inflicted no wrong on the Natives by buying from t.hem what they could not use. They cannot put their fingers upon the map of New Zealand and point to a single acre which has been wrested from them, unless it be as the penalty of rebellion. And Igo further than this. I ask if it was not in the order of God’s providence that a colonising people, like the Anglo-Saxons, should relieve the overcrowded population of the mother country by emigrating to this “ Britain of the South," and utilising the fertile wastes which the savage inhabitants could not ap-

propriate ? Millions of acres of wellwatered plains and luxuriant forests invited their enterprise. When would the Natives have built bridges, made roads, and settled towns? Was this fine portion of the Lord’s earth to be a perpetual preserve for wild pigs ? Ido not think so. Again, by what title did the Native tribes claim all the unoccupied territory ? That they did so, we know ; and to attempt to dispossess them in any other way than by treaty would have been neither right nor politic. But, after all, could they by themselves ever have fulfilled the conditions of their title, “ to multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it ? They could not. And for these reasons I always thought that a superior race would help them to accomplish the Divine purpose.