THE HAWKE’S BAY TIMES. NAPIER, THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 1861.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 7, 15 August 1861, Page 2

THE HAWKE’S BAY TIMES. NAPIER, THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 1861.

In a memorandum by His Excellency Governor Brownie, bearing date 25th May, 1861, a scheme is propounded for the education of the native race in agriculture, the English language, &c. This scheme, or one of a kindred nature, seems to be favorably regarded by several individuals in both of the opposing political parties of the day, for tve find Mr. Mason, in the course of the debate on want of confidence in the‘Stafford Ministry, giving it as his opinion that the present state of things rested with the Imperial Government, who had not introduced a system of secular education for the native race, nor taught them the use of the English language. We likewise gather from various expressions of the Fox Ministry that they seem to favor a similar course, which is no doubt very desirable, if it were really practicable. The particular expressions of His Excellency to which w r e have referred are found in articles 10 to 15 of the Memorandum—

_“A much larger staff of European officers will be required, if the Government really undertakes the civilisation of the Maori people. At present the difference of language places communication with the Maori in the hands of religious bodies, and a very small number of settlers, few of the latter being willing to enter the native service. The consequence is that Government is dependent on a very few individuals, and in many places is almost unknown by the natives.”

Articles 11 and 12 refer to the remodelling of the Native Department, and the establishment of a Native Service, with rewards of advancement and increase of pay for fidelity and efficiency, on which the Government might rely for information, and by means of which the Government could maintain a civilising influence, and establish institutions among them for their welfare. Article 13 contains a plan for the education of persons willing to enter the Native Service, by the establishment of a school for instructing them in the Maori language.

Articles 14 and 15 declare the duty of Government to provide for the secular education of the native race, and recommends that schoolmasters should he appointed to reside in the native “ kaingas” rather than that the natives should he removed to a school for a temporary period. The most striking point presented on a cursory view of the above articles, if we except the 15th, is the expense which it would involve in comparison with the results which may from past experience be reasonably expected to flow from- it. We confess that grave doubts may he entertained whether the end can he accomplished for which it is undertaken. mose wuo nave had many years expen-

ence in the Colony will remember that the secular education of the natives was a favorite idea with Sir George Grey, and his plans had the additional point in their favor that they were to be carried out through the medium of the religious bodies who were already

in communication with the natives, and who possessed their confidence. With this end in view (the secular education of the native race), large grants of Crown land were made in various parts of the Colony, to different religious bodies, for the establishment of industrial schools for the education of native children and adults. One of which grants —that at Wanganui, consisted of hilly onethird part of that surveyed and laid out for the town, intersected by streets and numbered in quarter acre sections. That all this ultimately proved to be a failure was shewn by the result of the labors of a Government ( Commission appointed to enquire into and report upon the state of these schools, when it appeared that the Maories would not avail themselves of the advantages offered to them by these establishments to any appreciable extent, that the pupils at the "Wanganui school had not averaged more than two or three at a time ; while at Otaki the venerable Archdeacon Hadfield absolutely refused to give the Commissioners any information -whatever, or to allow them to make an investigation. The reason of this failure with regard to adult Maories is partly to be found in a fixedness of habits and preference for their own customs and language, which is perhaps universal with peoples in their situation with regard to us, and exemplified by the Welsh and the Irish in our own country, w r ho have for centuries, with more or less success, adhered to the language and customs of their forefathers, and withstood the adoption of ours ; and partly by the incapability to pronounce several of the sounds of the English tongue wiiich are not found in the Maori, and which—as is well known—is amatter of great difficulty or impossibility to acquire after the organs of speech are matured. While, on the part of the Maori t children, the grand difficulty has always been * found to be an unwillingness to submit to any kind of control or authority, as they are as little accustomed to such in their “ kaingas ’ as are the young of the brute creation, and wiiich unwillingness they prove to exist by running away from school as soon as such authority is exercised. Past experience having shewn the failure of the means hitherto employed for so desirable an end, it certainly behoves the Governor, on the part of the Imperial Government, to adopt such measures as are more likely to effect the purpose, and we think the plan of “ schoolmasters in their own ‘ kaingas’ ” at least more hopeful than those that have hitherto been tried, and it has, moreover, the merit of economy, as it does not involve the grants of large tracts of land for school endowments, nor of public money for buildings, &c.; and though the progress may, and doubtless will, be slow, we incline to think it calculated to be more successful than any hitherto tried. The Government are also blamed by some' for not establishing courts of justice amongst the Maori people, and for not enforcing the law r s against Maori transgressors. Here it , cannot be denied that the Imperial Government has been to blame in not having given the authorities sufficient military force to compel submission. Who does not know the readiness with which the Maori applies * to a court for the benefit of the law when he is the aggrieved party ; and the almost impossibility of bringing a Maori to justice when the case is reversed ? We remember an instance where the officers of justice, in the execution of their duty, entered a pah for the apprehension of a native woman, who, as soon as she found she was wanted, leaped into the river, swam across, and laughed at the officers from the opposite bank, who bad to return without their game. And even here, in the Province of Hawke’s Bay, w 7 e know 7 of natives who are debtors to Euro-

peans, and who cannot be reached by the law, as it is well known they will not obey a summons, and their attendance at court could not be enforced. We know where goods have been taken from a settler’s premises on credit , nolens volems, and no redress or payment hoped for by him. And such cases as these are not rare, yet we find Tamihana in his letter to the Governor, the Maori orators at the feast on the recent occasion of the opening of the mill at Wahaparata, &c., &c., crying out for “justice in our courts,” and making that (the difficulty of getting justice done) an excuse or reason for the King* movement. War—especially civil war —is a fearful tiling ; the sacrifices it will involve on those of our fellow colonists who shall be called on to remove from their homes, leaving stock property to the mercy of the foe, are great indeed; but we maintain that—without the formation of a . new native service, . with all its cost, there is in our courts all that the natives need for redress of their wrongs, and for their punishment when evildoers, if the magistrate can only enforce it, and bring its machinery to bear on them ; and this must be the sine 1 qua non of peace—submission to the law ; not such a nominal submission as we have seen them profess and exercise up to this time, but such as is rendered by their fellow subjects the pakehas. Till this is accomplished, we must perforce submit to have war with all its horrors ; when it is, we may hope for a permanent peace—but not till then.