The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1869.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 77, 3 April 1869, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1869.

It has been said that " there is no finer touic for tho worker than adverse criticism ; tlie friend's lavish praise may enervate, the foe's hardest usage braces aDd fortifies." New Zealand knows but very little of the lavish praise which enervates, but of the foe's hardest usage she has had ample experience, and if it be true that hostile criticism acts as a tonic, she ought by this time to be strengthened and fortified to a degree unknown to any . other community of Englishmen. We have before this had occasion to call attention to what is said of us in England where we have, it is true, some ■ few friends who occasionally see a bright side to our character, but, fortunately perhaps for us, hostile critics largely predominate, and many and exceedingly strong are the strengthening doses tbat are so charitably administered to us. But of all the physic with wbich we have been literally drenched, perhaps the bitterest and most powerful touic is contained in the following which we clip from the Boston (Lincolnshire) Guardian : — " The advices from New Zealand continue to be of the most painful and gloomy character. The rebels had surprised the settlers in Poverty Bay, and committed horrible atrocities. Men had been burnt alive, children mutilated, and the bodies of women thrown to the pigs. It is further stated that the colonial forces on the West Coast had retreated before the rebels, and that a large tract of territory had been abandoned. The latest news was . said lo be more encouragiug. The authorities have been charged with mismanage ment. It is certainly difficult to avoid the conclusion that the colonists have throughout displayed a degree of cowardice and demoralisation utterly alien to the English character. Surely Ihey ought to be able to cope with a lot of savages, however well armed, and if the atrocities reported do not rouse them into something like activity, their demoralisation must be hopeless." We do not know anything about the Boston Guardian, no doubt it is a very respectable paper read by mauy thousands of persons who, at the Christmas season of the year, when charity and kindly feeling are supposed to prevail more than at any other time, nnd when the heart is warmed into a display of "good will towards men,"' learned the terrible sufferings that had been endured by their fellow countrymen in the antipodes where " men had been burnt alive, children mutilated, and tbe bodies of women thrown to the pigs." Many of those who read these words were doubtless, shocked and grieved to find that such atrocities should have been perpetrated in an English settlement, but the kindly glow of sympathy to which such a narrative must have given rise, would at once be checked, when a little further on they learned that the objects of their sympathy were wholly undeserving of any such feeling, as they had "throughout displayed a degree of cowardice and demoralisation utterly alien to the English character." The editor of the Boston Guardian is clearly a; military genius and would soon put things right if he were in New Zealand ; he is perfectly horrified at the idea of Englishmen being worsted by the natives, and exclaims in indignation

" Surely they ought to be able to cope with a lot of savages. 1 ' Cope with a lot of savages — of course they ought 1 If this warlike writer, sitting in the snug seclusion of his editorial sanctum, could beat off the imaginary " lot of well armed savages " that rose before his mind's eye, as he condemned the cowardice and demoralisation of the New Zealand colonists, what could there possibly be to prevent a small body of settlers when they found themselves surrounded by three times their number of maddened bloodthirsty cannibals, bent on their terrible errand of rapine, torture, and murder — what was there to prevent this handful of settlers from discomfiting their real foe in the same complete and successful manner iu which this Christiau spirited critic, warmed with his Christmas cheer, and with his heart overflowing with all the kindly, genial sentiments that are called into existence at that joyous season, had dispersed his ideal enemies. Believing that he could easily have effected that which the colonists had failed in doing, our brave friend turns to his desk and, of course thoroughly understanding the subject ou which he is writing — all writers in English newspapers do this when they choose New Zealand as a theme, — he, in the pride of his heart, accuses the settlers of "mismanagement, cowardice, and hopeless demoralization." The toDics administered to us by our Euglish doctors (it might not perhaps be correct to call any of thera quacks) are seldom wanting in strength, but this is a dose of bitters for which we were scarcely prepared, and the only excuse that can be possibly urged for its being offered to us, is that our critic was in a state of the grossest and most pitiable ignorance of the case he was treating.