ENGLAND’S EYES ARE UPON NEW ZEALAND.

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 163, 13 March 1869, Page 5

ENGLAND’S EYES ARE UPON NEW ZEALAND.

[From the Nelson Evening Mail, March 5.] We yesterday published a despatch from Earl Granville to the Government of New Zealand, which we cannot allow to pass altogether unnoticed. In order to thoroughly appreciate the friendly feeling towards New Zealand which prompted the forwarding of this despatch, it must he remembered that it left England shortly after the arrival there of the news of the Poverty Bay Massacre. The Secretary of State for the Colonies hears that women and children are being mercilessly butchered in New Zealand, he knows that nearly the whole of the North Island is in rebellion against, the Queen’s authority, he must be aware that the colonists are taxed to the utmost of their ability to suppress this rebellion, and yet he inaugurates his accession to office by writing to her Majesty’s representative in this colony to say that he “ entirely concurs in so much of his predecessor’s instructions as required the immediate departure of the troops now remaining in New Zealand.” But one inference can be drawn from such a communication—England has washed her bauds of New Zealand —she has no objection to its being called one of her colonies ; she does not mind sending out an officer who shall receive £4,500 a year from the colonists to act in the capacity of what is, facetiously we suppose, termed the connecting link between the parent country and her offspring; but once apply the money test—ask her, at the cost of a few thousands of

pounds, to step in and prevent the wholesale butchery of her children, and it is soon found that the mother’s tender care does not prove equal to the occasion. This is what we are to expect from the English Government. It will be well to see in what light the English people view the state of affairs in New Zealand, and, taking the London Times as a fair exponent of public feeling, we there find in an article on the massacre by the Maoris, not a single word of sympathy, not one suggestion that assistance should be rendered to us in our dire necessity, but rather an intimation that we have to thank ourselves for what has occurred, and in fact that it is just what the Times has been expecting for some time. After finding fault with everything we have done, and assuring us that we have publicly disgraced ourselves, our Mentor goes on to say, that—- “ The New Zealand Executive and Parliament have now at least the stimulus to energy which arises from the consciousness that the eyes of the empire are upon them. They are still free to choose what course they please ; but their countrymen are free to criticise it, and will, the colony may assure itself, exercise their privilege. England is at least entitled to demand imperatively that the spectacle shall not continue, of an immensely larger body of Englishmen satisfied, if it be peace, to hold their tranquility at the mercy of the caprice or superstition of a few hundred savages, and contented, if it be war, provided the contest results in no worse than a certain number of drawn battles.”

The eyes of the empire are upon us. What a fund of comfort there is in this thought to the helpless family aroused out of their sleep by the yells of the Maori demons who are bent upon their slaughter ; what consolation to the doomed wife and mother as she sees her husband shot down, and her little ones’ brains dashed out, to know that the ‘ eyes of the empire’ are upon her, and that although England has refused to render that assistance by which she and her family might have been preserved from destruction, still that she is looking on and calmly contemplating the foul deed. The settler too, who on the faith of English protection, has brought his wife and family to settle in New Zealand, is dragged from his peaceful occupation to fight the enemies of England, while her soldiers are dawdling away their time in the towns ; he loses his life and leaves his family penniless, but as he breathes his last, he remembers with satisfaction that the * eyes of the empire’ are upon him, and that his countrymen in England consider themselves free to criticise his conduct. Again, we are told that England is entitled to demand that we should at once take decisive steps with regard to the Maoris. What has given her this right ? Is it her own noble conduct towards us? Docs the fact of her fiist involving us in a long and dreary war, and then leaving us to get out of it as best we may, entitle her to make this demand ? Or, supposing, for the sake of argument, that she is entitled to the privilege claimed for her by the Times, how long is it since she became conscious of possessing this right ? We do not remember to have heard anything of it in the days when 10,000 of her troops were supposed to be engaged in suppressing the native rebellion. If our memory serves us aright, England did not then imperatively insist upon a decisive blow being struck—had she done .so, there would have been no article in the Times, in 1860, on massacres by the Maoris. ‘ One serious charge brought against us, is that we employ friendly natives to fight for us • and we are told that ‘ a practice of subsidising certain tribes in order to insure their aid against their countrymen is even more obviously impolitic than it is degrading.’ We are not now going to enter upon the question of whether or not it is advisable to employ the friendly natives, but we should like to know whether it ever occurred to the w r riter in the Times that it was owing to the fact of our being deserted by our fellow-countrymen, we were compelled to fall back on the natives for assistance, and we would take this opportunity of saying, that had our countrymen in England proved half as trustworthy in their dealings with us as certain of the natives, whom it is ‘degrading to subsidise,’ have done, w< should not now be involved in such difficulties. Great stress is, of course, laid on our numerical superiority over the natives, but our exact position appears to be generally misunderstood in England. It is true that we largely outnumber our enemies, but English people might better comprehend the state of affairs if it were put before them in the following manner:— the population of England and Ireland conjointly to be 240,000, sparsely scattered over an area of those two islands, two-thirds of the number being in England; the whole adult population dependent upon their own individual exertions to supply bread for themselves and their families. The interior of Ireland is occupied by 30,000 hostile natives of nomadic habits, growing their own potatoes, on which they live, but at, the same time who arc able, in default of anything

better, to exist upon the roots and berries that they find in the woods. These natives from time to time make raids on their civilised neighbors, drive off their flocks and herds, murder their owners, and then retreat to almost impenetrable fastnesses in the wilds of the country. Had those in England who talk of our large preponderance in numbers ever experienced such a state of things, they would be better able to understand how greatly distance and the surrounding circumstances tend to neutralise the seeming advantages of numerical superiority. But we are quite convinced that nothing can ever be written in New Zealand will be of the slightest avail in inducing England to take an impartial view of our difficulties and our resources ; the former are to a great extent ignored, and the latter absurdly magnified, while at the same time the Horae Government is getting tired of us, and gradually severing every tie that connected the colony with the parent country. The time, we believe, is not far distant when the Australasian group will weary of the treatment they receive at the hands of an empire to which they were at one time proud to belong, but whose selfish conduct in graspingly endeavoring to derive all the benefits of the.connection, while she will confer none in return, has loosened the hold she had on the affections of the inhabitants of the noblest of all her colonies.—[English papers please copy.]