FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 12, Issue 984, 3 October 1868, Page 3

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25.

Adjourned Debate. / ,],". Mr. Gteaham could not allow so imp(?r- 5 taat a question to Tb© decided Tpitaou^

>xnaking a few remarks upon the conduct of Ministers in their treatment of natives. He believe that the natives had vbeen ill-treated, and the consequence was, that the country from one end to the other felt alarm at the events that were occurring, and at the policy of Ministers, if : they could be said to have any policy. There was war on the East and West Coasts.;' If on the East Coast the management of the natives had been left to Mr.. M'Lean, peace would have been preserved, and a good deal of money . saved. There had been divided authority, no less than four different officers giving orders, laboring, as it were, one against the other, so that the natives did not know what to do or where to go for redress. He could not allow the occasion to pass without referring to the Pokaikai affair. In regard to that transaction, he must do an act of justice to Colonel M'Donnell. That officer was : goaded on by the native office, for he was told to "sweep" the country. Hfe (Mr. Graham) had seen great cruelty practised against the natives, and he would oppose every Government in power who used the advantages they possessed to - keep up the unfortunate differences between Maori and European. The Pokaikai affair was an act of treachery. [The hon. member read numerous extracts from the despatch of Col. M'Donnell, giving an account of the. attack on Pokaikai.] Col. M'Dohnell had sent to the natives emblems of peace and emblems of war, either of which they might choose, and accordingly, as they should choose, he would understand, their intentions. They kept the emblems of peace, and, notwithstanding that, an attack was made upon the village in the middle of the night and the natives attacked with the bayonet and rifle. [Mr. Graham read the evidence of a native woman named Martha, who deposed to an act of gross cruelty trjr one of the attacking party.] Some Of the attacking, party were drunk. The affair of Pokaikai spread all over the country. It was the fashion to call the Maori people savages— savages they were, but Englishmen called themselves a Christian nation, and should not commit acts which would disgrace even the savage. The Stafford Government, nine years ago, had brought on these disputes about land. The true native policy was to deal fairly with the natives, and to show that the desire for peace was sincere. He believed that a policy of justice, and honesty, and moral suasion would be successful, and be the means of 'preserving the peace and promoting the prosperity of the country. Mr. Caegill recited the circumstances which led to the appointment of the Pokaikai Commission. The orders given by Colonel M'Donnell were that the village was to be entered in silence, that the men were forbidden to fire. A rifle was fired by some mischance, but this was contrary to orders or a mistake. As to the illtreatment of the woman Martha by a camp-follower : that was an incident, such might occur in any fight.. There was also some reason to doubt the whole of the evidence of Martha. The charges that Potaikai was attacked by " drunken men" in the middle of the night, were to a great extent disproved. He believed that the attack upon Pokaikai was a mistake. He believed also there was divided authority. But it was undeniable that Colonel M'Donnell had great prestige with the natives, and they appeared to have confidence in him. As to the Commission itself, he hoped that there would be no more Commissions, the members of which were to be members of the House. He would consider the ofter of a Commissionership an '. insult after the remarks that had been ; made. It was not right that members . should be called on#in that House to defend their conduct. Jjfe £o the main question he believed that a change of Ministers was desirable. It was a poor game of cricket whera one side always kept the innings. Opinions changed, and what would be acceptable to public feeling oMb year would not be acceptable the next. The consequence was the pain which hon. members sometimes felt in giving a vote adverse to those whom they had formerly supported. ' Mr. Cox thought the Government, having referred to Mr. M'Lean all along, and being guided by that gentleman's opinion, should have consulted him upon the last occasion, when the defence force of Napier was taken from Hawke's Bay and sent to the Patea. But he did not think the Government could have done otherwise than they had done. As to themili-" tary character of Colonel McDonnell, he could not pronounce an opinion. It was generally admitted that the men who were wanted were men of pluck and prudence ; and the fact that the Government had selected Major Praser and his men, might be cited more . as an argument in their favor_ than an accusation that could be sustained against them. No man he would be better pleased to see on the Government benches than the hon. member (Mr. M'Lean). No man more deserved to be entrusted with the whole native policy ; but it should be entrusted to him under proper responsibility. There was one matter which he would like the Government to explain. In the' financial statement, as published in Hanscwd, Defence was set down at £71,000 ; but from examination, in another paper, it appeared as £159,000. He thought the same publicity should be given to the latter estimate as to the former. It should not be that if people were referred to Hcmsard — where the sum required was said to be £71,000 — that such a reference should only be misleading them. (Hear, hear.) He did not mention this with the intention of making a charge against the Government, but it was desirable that whatever the actual cost of defence was, they should know it, and that they should not be led to think it was only £71,000 when it was really £159,000. It was not to be doubted that the position of thecolony wasalarming, but the one thing needful was to rise not only above personal prejudice, but personal friendship, and approach the consideration of these questions in -a patriotic spirit. (Cheers.) Mr. Fox said he had not intended to have spoken on the present debate, but so much had been said about his policy, present and past, that he could not refrain from offering to the House a few observations. He knew that he would be taunted by the Postmaster-General with having wasted time, and the hon. gentleman would do a little sum to show it. But the contrary was the truth. The Opposition had done its work well. It had instructed the country ; it had shown the people the trickery, the, chicanery, and the deception which had been practised by the gentlemen on the other side of the House. (Cheers.) A great deal had been said about the people. But what did hon. members see ; they saw the people of Nelson, and the people of other districts to call upon the hon. Mr. Stafford himself, and those hon. members who supported him, to resign. The. Postmaster-G-eneral* had talked about miserable wrangling, but had he looked in the faces of - ithe members of the Opposition he /would have seen there united determina- 1 - TtipfiVttp prevent the destructive career , :^on|WMchthe Ministry had embarked. \;?l&&i^&Qisfyaa charged that his last V-iPP"?y; nad failed,' but that was not a .true /^.lustorical representation of what took :|pa^.s.;The policy referred; to was the of the House.: When he entered , joffiije the battle of \ Koherqa was fought. office three days before the battle Si&fe-: !w3ir>^r i,t : '"": : /'.'.l.. '■ ' '

of-Rangiriri. That policy had been resolved on by the House several months before, and he did not take office until November. Nor was that policy a failure ; had the Ministry of the day met with loyalty in the quarter in which they,had>a. right to expect it, it would haveV^bjsrafc*^ complete success. The native' race "had been subdued; the Waikato; had been swept; At that time there faere large' resources ; there were steamers on-.p^ Waikato. They had none of^hese-.th^flgs now, and yet hon. gentlemen were; provoking a war which they were miserably unprepared for. (Cheers.) While the hon;" member the Postmaster-General remain in the Middle Island perfectly at ease and completely secure, the people of the North did not know but that the homesteads which they had spent half a life time in building up might be harried by a savage enemy. (Cheers). And yet he talked of miserable wrangling. When a proposal was made to them by the honorable member for Napier (Mr. M'Lean) to undertake the management of the native question on the East Coast, they, for the sake of a miserable vote, betrayed and sold him (cheers) to Mr. Whitaker, and shut him out from the very district in which his influence was to operate. (Loud cheers). The result of that proceeding was to prevent the hon. member for Napier acting with the hon. gentlemen on those benches ; and he would warn the House what would be the consequence on the East Coast if the influence of the hon. member for Napier were neutralised or removed. The hon. gentleman, the Postmaster-General, invariably undertook to give the House a good set scolding. He insisted upon criticising the policy he (Mr. Pox) had submitted. But that policy was extinct for all purposes of discussion— it formed no part of the question, before the House. The policy of the hon. member for Napier and his policy were not necessarily the same. To drag the subject before the House was only to throw a red herring across the course of the discussion. He would ask leave of the House to read a letter from an hon. member whose absence through illness was an irreparable loss ; whose experience, and whose eloquence had often illumined this important question — he meant Dr. Peatherston. (Hear, hear.) My Deah Pox. — I am afraid that I shall not be able to come down to the House, but I wish that you should state to it what I should tell it myself, were I well enough to be in my place. I look on the present crisis as a very serious one, and all the more serious because we cannot see to what end the policy of the Government is leading us. The chief features of the Constitution Act are being obliterated, while no information is vouchsafed us as to what is to be substituted in their place. The country is asked to give up a great part of the Constitution bestowed upon it by the Imperial Parliament, with the general assent of the colony at the time, and to trust to the wisdom of the four or five gentlemen who occupy the Government benches, to provide them with something better. But what this " something better" is to be, they do not tell the country. All they tell it is of a negative character. It is not to be anything like Provincialism, and it is not to be that county system which was tentatively introduced at Westland last year, and already requires to be remodelled in all its principal features. What is it to be ? Surely the country will insist on knowing, before it abolishes a machinery of government which has worked at least as well as any that is likely to take its place. But a question of far more serious importance than constitutional change, grave as the latter is, demands the attention of the colony. It is fast being hurried into a war which bids fair to assume proportions more formidable than any which has preceded it. The hostilities on the East Coast might, I am confident, have been avoided by the commonest prudence. The Government have deliberately " thrown the torch into the fern" by acts so rash and ill-considered as to admit of no excuse and no palliation. There was no sort of necessity for inflicting the horrors of war on that part of the country, by an attempt to recapture the prisoners. If the slate of the East Coast was such as to make their presence dangerous, they were certain to be much, more dangerous when exasperated by futile attempts to recapture or destroy them, than they would have been if suffered to escape into their fastnesses, wiser and sadder men by their past experience. And now that the Government has driven them to desperation, has shed their blood and allowed them to taste ours, it abandons the exposed population of the district and removes the small defence force which might serve as a nucleus of protection for the colonists. This last crowning act of folly at once proclaims our weakness to all the disaffected natives in the island, and invites aggression on that part of it which is denuded of protection. And when I reflect that this state of things has been brought about, I might say deliberately, on the East Coast, at the very moment when our utmost energies were required to quell disturbances on the West Coast, originating in a different sort of mismanagement, for which the Government is equally responsible, I cannot help looking forward with the gloomiest presentiments to the probable fate of the Northern Island, if the government of the colony be left in the hands in which it is. And here I have no hesitation in saying that had the assistance of the friendly tribes on the West Coast been sought and obtained, immediately after the murder of Cahill and others, the chances are that there would have been no occasion for commencing the present campaign, which, carried on as it must necessarily be, with untrained undisciplined forces, will inevitably involve the colony in frightful disasters ; but, unfortunately, there is not a man in the Ministry who either enjoys the confidence of, or possesses the slightest influence with, any of the tribes in this island. I would above all things ask the Middle Island members to consider their position. Though their constituencies may escape the personal hardships, disaster, and ruin in which the Northern Island must be involved by war, they will not escape the financial burdens of war; nor the general depression which must affect every part of the colony. With the Middle Island it rests to cast the weight into the scale which shall determine the lot of the Northern ; but, decide which way it may, it cannot but share— and that in no small degree— in the good or evil consequences of the decision. If the Middle Island supports the native policy of the Government, let it not think to escape the certain results which that policy will bring in its train. — I am, &c, I. E. Featherston. Wellington, 25th September, 1868. —The hon. member for Napier had tabled his motion, and the terms of it could not be doubted, it was a motion of want of confidence, and the Government should not be allowed to screen themselves from the consequences of the vote that would be taken, in the manner similar to that resorted to a few nights ago. They had evaded the consequences of a vote which would have been adverse, by dividing upon an issue with respect to which both sides of the House were agreed. (Cheers.) Haying had the verdict of the country against them and the opinion of that house

against them, they must not be allowed to ride off on the amendment of the hon, member for Coleridge. That amendment was simply to the effect that a constabulary was a very good thing. Why if the amendment were that the lion, the Post- . master-General should ride to the Hutt and. back, before the vote was taken, it ws>uld have as muck relevance to the potion of the hon. member for Napier, as j^be amendment of the hon. member for ' Coleridge. (Cheers and laughter.) He hoped the House would not be deluded by •*a%y such trick. He could not suppose /such an amendment was the handiwork of 'the hon. member (Mr. Wilson), who was an Englishman, straightforward, open, and frank, and quite above any such chicanery. The Government had taken up the policy of " drift " and supplemented it by aggression. (Cheers.) He believed the House would not suffer itself to be deceived by an amendment which was the emanation of a mind differently constituted from that of the hon. member for Coleridge. The House would vindicate its own opinion, and show those hon. gentleman that it was not to be turned from its purpose of saving the country from the disasters which were to be apprehended from the then proceedings upon the native question. (Cheers.) The Hon. Mr. Stafford said the House had been treated to an amusing episode. The House must have expected a good deal more from the great man, the " coming man," the clever fox (laughter), but it turned out there was nothing in him after all; he stood before them dessicated, dried up as it were, somewhere between Jerusalem and Jericho. (Laughter and cheers.) The hon. member for Rangitikei had taken up the role of " lively rampant." He had told the House about the Waitara, but that question he rather shirked. The Government knew very well that thehonmember for Rangitikei had comeup to turn them out. The Government did not blame the hon. gentleman. He had a perfect right. The hon. member for Clive must have found himself in a difficulty. Last session he had the greatest fear of the hon. member for Rangitikei. He said " Oh, why don't you hurry on and destroy these provinces, for if you do not Mr. Pox will be here next session, and you will not to be able to do so." (Loud cheers from the supporters of the Government.) The conduct ol the hon. Colonel Haultain had been severely criticised. He (Mr. Stafford) never knew a man upon whom he could place greater dependence. In everything he had done he had the approval of his colleagues. The hon. member for Franklyn was a high-minded English gentleman, who would do his duty. Every member of the Ministry was as individually responsible as he, for what had been done by Colonel Haultain.. The hon. member for Omata had censured everything the Government had done, and had criticised the appointments made by them. What were the appointments made by the member for Omata at that time ? There was one officer appointed by him who had to be arrested by his junior officer for drunkenness, and not only was the hon. member for Omata responsible for that appointment, but he gave that officer power of life and death without the need of any reference to the Governor whatever. The first thing the hon. member's successor did was to cancel such enormous and unjustifiable power. The hon. member for Rangitikei had accused the Government of " sticking to office." Why did not the hon. member himself resign office in 1864, when himself and colleagues could not do anything useful owing to the opposition of the Governor. For seven months the hon. member held office when — Mr. Pox said the hon. gentleman was in error. Prom the time when the Ministry of that date found they were being thwarted, to the time they had felt called upon to resign and tendered their resignation, was not quite three months. But there was a period of two months, when the resignation could not be accepted, owing to the difficuilty of getting the Assembly together. For two months, therefore, that the Ministry held office, they declared that they would not be responsible in consequence of . the action which had been taken against them in a certain quarter. The Hon. Mr. Stafford : The appointment of Mr. Whitaker was the same as had been given to Mr. R. Graham and Dr. Pollen. Then there was the letter of Dr. Peatherston. What did the Government care about Dr. Featherston's letter. That expedient was something like the heavy business at a Transpontine theatre. The Opposition must be very hard up when they resorted to such a stage trick. (Cheers and counter cheers.) As to the amendment, the Government had no part in drawing it up. They would support it because it was a contradiction to the absurd language of the motion, and they did not care how soon they supported that amendment. (Cheers.) Major Atkinson defended the appointments he made when Defence Minister. As to the power given to the commander, it was a power which was given to commanders undertaking warlike operations, namely, when they caught a murderer redhanded to execute him. If Titokuwharo were so strung up if caught, it would be thought to have an excellent moral effect. Mr. M'Lean rose to address the House at twenty minutes to one o'clock. He reviewed the arguments of the Government, and defended his own conduct. The Government had neither the ability to avoid danger, nor the courage to face it. They had not the ability to deal with an emergency which they had created. He was prepared, in whatever capacity he might be called on to serve, to give his advice and assistance to whatever Government might command his services. [The hon. gentleman concluded an eloquent speech, (which we regret, owing to the lateness of the hour, we are not able to report' at greater length) by reading the resolution — ■" That this House views with alarm the position in which the colony is placed by the action of the Government in relation to Defence and Native affairs."] The hon. member sat down amidst general cheering, and loud cries of " Divide." The Speaker read the resolution and put the question in Parliamentary form, " That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the question" — when the House divided, with the following result : —Ayes, 32 ; Noes 32. Ayes — Messrs. Atkinson, Baigeant, Bell, Borlase, Brandon, Brown, Burns, Cargill, Collins, Dignan, Pox, Graham, Heaphy, Main, Ormond, O'Rorke, Parker, John Patterson, Potts, Rolleston, Reynolds, Stevens, Studholme, Tancred, Tareha, Taylor, Travers, Yogel, Williamson. Tellers — Messrs. M'Lean and Ormond. Noes — Messrs. Ball, Barif, Bunny, Campbell, Carleton, Clark, Curtis, Eyes, Gallagher, Hall, Harrison, W. H. Haughton, Hepburn, Jollie, Kenny, Kerr, Ludlam, Mervyn, Mitchell, Paterson, James, C. O'Neill, J. O'Neill, Reid, Richmond, Russell, Stafford, Swan, Wells, Wood. Tellers — Messrs, C. Wilson and Cox. The Speaker gave his casting vote for the Government. Both results were received with loud cheering, which lasted two or three seconds. The amendment of Mr. Cracroft Wilson now became a substantive resolution. The Speaker was about to put the question when, Major Brown stepped forward and said that, rather than see the real question thus disposed of by a " red herring" being thrown across the path, he

would propose an amendment viz., that there be added to Mr. Cracroft Wilson's resolution to the effect "that the. condition of the Northern Island required that an efficient force of constabulary, organised after the Irish model, should be embodied for a definite period," the following words — " That regard to the welfare of the colony requires that the organisation and disposal of that force, and the administration of native affairs, should not be entrusted to the present Ministry." The announcement of this amendment was received with cheers and counter cheers. The House divided with the following result : — Ayes, 31 — Messrs. Atkinson, Baigeant, Bell, Borlase, Brandon, Burns, Cargill, Collins, Dignan, Graham, Heaphy, Macfarlan, T. Macffarlane, Main, M'Lean, Ormond, O'Rorke, Parker, John Patterson, Potts, Rolleston, Stevens, Studholme, Tancred, Tareha, Taylor, Travers, Yogel, Williamson. Tellers — Major Brown and Mr. Fox. Noes, 32— Messrs. Ball, Barff, Bradshaw, Bunny, Campbell, Carleton, Clark, Curtis, Eyes, Gallagher, Hall, Hankinson, Harrison, W. H., Haughton, Hepburn, Jollie, Kenny, Kerr, Ludlam, Mervyn, Mitchell, O'Neill, C, O'Neill, J., Paterson (James,) Reid, Richmond, Russell, Stafford, Swan, Wells, Wood. TellersMessrs. Wilson and Cox. The amendment was therefore lost by a majority of one, and the House then adjourned.