ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XVI, Issue 912, 7 August 1861, Page 3

ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES.

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times.

Sir, —The extraordinary position assumed by the Imperial Government in its recent determination not to continue the war unless the colonists pay for the maintenance of the soldiers employed, at the rate of £12 per man per annum, besides the contribution in men and money they had already freely offered, strikes me as not only unprecedented but unwise, unfair, and paltry in the extreme.

These are strong words, but not stronger than those of the late Colonial Secretary who has sought to brand as cowards, knaves, and slaves all who dare to dissent from him on this great subject. It is time under such circumstances not only that a committee in England, but that the colonies generally and New Zealand in particular should consider more seriously the position in which they stand to the Home Government on this vital question,for the course which the latter is pursuing is an entire subversion of all past and existing relations.

We have been accustomed to regard ourselves as British subjects and members of the same great family—many thousand miles, it is true, from the centre of Government, but none the less proud of our connection with the old country, and none the less loyal to the Sovereign who graces its throne. We hail her as our gracious Queen with no less ardour than our fellow countrymen of Kent and Middlesex, and have proved that we are ready and willing to do our best in the maintenance of her authority and the support of her crown and dignity. Between us and our fellow countrymen in England we know but one distinction : they stay at home and enjoy the comforts and luxuries of the old country ; we colonists, rather than stay there to overcrowd the old folks, scatter over the globe "prospecting" everywhere with serious privation, suffering, and ruin to many of the pioneers, and with infinite discomfort to all. Nevertheless we are happy, if at a few years' distance we see a hope of bettering our individual conditions, while in so doing we have the pleasing consciousness that we are equally improving the condition of all whom we leave behind.

It is however clear that the colonial office has taken a very different view of the relations between the colonist and the mother country ; and I regard the contemptuous, almost insulting letter of Sir G. C. Lewis at the opening of the present war as an index to what we may expect from that war department. Now, and in future, they virtually say, when wars are undertaken by the Crown's representative for the support of the Crown's authority, the luckless " settlers " who never know what is going on till they are iv for the consequences are to pay not only in person and in individual ruin, but '* £12 per man " besides. Assistance is no longer to be rendered until a cool bargain has been struck, and the Crown is to be our subsidised ally and not our sovereign and protector as heretofore. Such

are apparently the new lights of the colonial office under whose orders the Governor is of course acting' and in sober earnestness one cannot but feel astonished that the Assembly did not, in answer to his Excellency's message, at once reply that they had proved the readiness of the colony to do what it could; but if the Imperial Government had no objection to the throne of King Potatau II they must how to its dictates and do their best to live in peace with that potentate. This might have been a hazardous course; it might have proved in the end that the colony and the organised rebel Maories could not live together; but, at the worst, it could not crush an infant community more effectually •v ™ a debfc 'incurred in carrying on a war with European tactics, on European principles, and at a European pace,—to be concluded when and how the Imperial authorities may see fit, without reference to the colonial legislature or perhaps to colonial interests at all.

If, furthermore, he colony is to be hereafter chargeable for all soldiers which the Imperial Government may think it necessary or wise to send may I ask what share of this expence our Maori te low subjects, so much richer m land than ourselves, are expected to pay ? And finally are the rebels to go scot free ? Are they—the wards of the Crown, the unruly but especial charges of Governors and Bishops~to be allowed, while quarreling with their long forbearing guardian, to take the lives and destroy the property of peaceable colonists with impunity; and are the latter to be henceforth mulcted in expences whenever these little domestic differences occur ? If so, and our contribution is to be no longer voluntary, but an arrangement extorted under the threat of leaving the colony at the mercy of the Maories, then I maintain that the fairest principle will be to tax the colony in the ratio of its revenue to that of Great Britain, in which case we should pay about a one hundred and fiftieth part of the expenses of the war; and small as this portion may seem, it is quite as much as we can fairly be asked to pay for the conduct of military operation* in which the colony has not the least power either to control their course or to say when, where, or how they sbaU terminate; less power, in effect than the aborigines protection society or a few gentlemen of rnediceval tastes, in and about the othce of his Grace the Secretary of State for the colonies in London. I am, sir, your obedient servant, A.Z.