THE "ENGLISH PRESS " UPON NEW ZEALAND AFFAIRS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 7, Issue 433, 31 October 1863, Page 2

THE "ENGLISH PRESS " UPON NEW ZEALAND AFFAIRS.

Intelligence of the successful attack of the 4th June had reached England before the departure of the August mail. The Times of the 18th of that month has an, article upon the . New Zealand position, which, we think, shews a decidedly improved state of feeling in England with respect to the affairs of this colony. The writer says that " G-eueral Cameron, who enjoyed the special confidence and esteem of the late Lord Clyde, appears to have divined with happy instinct the exigencies of the crisis. His tactics have been justified by an early, signal, and most opportune success." The following paragraph, having reference to the future, will serve to indicate the views of the " thunderer " upon the, to us, great question of the day : — It is in these features of the new contest that we must seek for assurance as to the future. Sofar is the war from- being over that it is described in our correspondence as only just commencing, and likely to "exceed in extent aud importance any of its predecessors," We may hope that this estimate will prove exaggerated, and that a struggle which has been opened with such unwonted success will not be of very long duration. It is clear, however, that between ua and the Maoris there is no peace, nor can we say that we are surprised at the fact. When one race encounters another under such conditions, war is a natural consequence. The Maoris are martial, intelligent, jealous, and ill-disposed to yield to the advances of a more civilized population. Though so acute a people can hardly ba blind to our actual superiority, yet they have hitherto had no great reason to distrust their own chances in wax-. They have defied our arms, if not with absolute success, at any rate, without discredit to themselves, and with the effect of making us greatly disinclined to begin war again. So they are not likely to succumb without resistance to the fate before them. From that fate, put it how we will, they can have no escape. We may regulate land sales, and respect tribal rights, and protect native interests to the best of our power, but we can never stop the growth of a British colony, or reconcile with that growth the claims of a barbarous population to the lordship of the land. Three years ago the colonists were as numerous as the natives, and since that time the Europeans have rapidly multiplied under the attraction of the goldfields of Otago. Does any body imagine that these settlers will allow small tribes of savages to forbid their natural expansion and contiue them within a territorial pale? The New Zealander may be assimilated, or exterminated, or civilized off the land, but he will certainly never hold that laud to the prejudice of a stronger and superior race, whose title to occupy it, even if based only upon conquest, would be as good as his own.