THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, October 12, 1844.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 136, 12 October 1844, Page 2

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, October 12, 1844.

Journal* become more necemry aa men become more equal, and individualism more to be feared. It would be to underrate their importance to mppose that they serre only to lecure liberty : they maintain civilization. Db TocauzviLL*. Of Democracy in America, vol. 4, p. 203.

Our readers, we fear, are well nigh as sick as ourselves of the everlasting subject on which we are always harping — the temporizing servility of our Government towards the natives. We sympathize with them heartily ; the theme has become an emetic. And yet, so surely as we begin to thank God that we are quit of it, and rub our hands with self-gratulation that it is at length off them, down comes an account from the north of some fresh instance of concession, just enough varied in its form and circumstances to require another notice, and make it necessary for us once more to enter our protest against the policy of which it is a new and still more melancholy exhibition.

You remember Burkes story of the country 'squire at Constantinople, with which he satirizes the attempt of the Ministry of 1796 to conciliate the French regicides. The " careless and assured air," says he, " with, which the infidel strutted about in the metropolis of the true believers roused the choler of a malignant and turbaned Turk, who lost no time in doing to our traveller the honours of the place. T>fce Turk crossed over the way, and with perfect good-will gave him two or three lusty kicks on the seat of honour. To resent or return the

compliment in Turkey was quite out of the question. Our traveller, since he could not otherwise acknowledge the favour, received it with the best grace in the world ; he made one of his most ceremonious bows, and begged the kicking Mussulman to accept his perfect assurances of high consideration. Our countryman was too wise to imitate Othello in the use of the dagger. He thought it better, as better it was, to assuage his bruised dignity with half a yard square of balmy diplomatic diachylon. His friends, however, finding him a little out of spirits, entreated him not to take so slight a business so very seriously. They told him it was the custom of the country — that every country had its customs ; that the Turkish manners were a little rough, but that in the main the Turks were a good natured people ; that what would have been a deadly affront anywhere else was only a little freedom there, &c. &c. But the 'squire, though a little clownish, had some homebred sense. What! Have I come, at all this expense, and trouble, all the way to Constantinople only to be kicked? Without going beyond my own stable, my own groom, for half-a-crown, would have kicked me to my heart's content. I don't mean to stay in Constantinople eight-anoV forty hours, nor ever to return to this rough, goodnatured people that have their own customs."

For Mussulman read Maori — for Constantinople, [New Zealand — for the country 'squire, the Government (as far at least as to the ceremonious civilities returned for the kicks, for # the subsequent resolve will probably represent the English settlers') — and for his friends, some of the northern papers ; and Burkes story is the history of the transactions of British Government with the Maories since it has been established here.

From the moral drawn by the magnificent orator from his fable we quote but one paragraph :—": — " Patience indeed strongly indicates the love of peace ; but mere love does not always lead to enjoyment. It is the power of winning the palm which insures our wearing it. Virtues have their place ; and out of their place they hardly deserve the name — they pass into the neighbouring vice. The patience of fortitude and the endurance of pusillanimity are things very different, as in their principle, so in their effects."

Of which quality is the conduct of the authorities at Auckland an example in the following case ?

Tereia, the chief who murdered and ate the natives at Tauranga two years ago, and against whom Mr. Shortland sent all the troops he had at his command, but afterwards, getting Attorney-Generalized, went himself to the spot to paralyze the proceedings of the gallant and decisive Major Bunbnry, so that the whole business ended in protocols, at which the cannibal snapped his fingers, and in the Major's indignant refusal to interfere further in the affair, — this Tereia lately, it seems, paid a visit to Auckland, with a slave-girl captured on the occasion of the massacre. The girl, finding at Auckland two of her relations, domestic servants, fled to them for protection on the first opportunity; whereupon Tereia repaired to the Police Magistrate and Protector of Aborigines, and with threats demanded the restoration of " his property," These gentlemen assisted him, according to all accounts, in recovering the girl ; a favour which "the ferocious chief acknowledged by a promise of the girl's murder and other expressions too horrible to repeat." Some gentlemen, however, in Auckland " paid a visit to the tattooed grandee, and assured him of ample retribution if the woman's life was not spared ; and it is probable that their merciful interference will be so far successful*" But they were reproached in consequence by the Executive for their interference in Maori disputes.

This, then, is a sample of British government by mediation only,' to which apparently Lord Stanley has restricted it. A captive escapes from the murderer of many of her

tribe, in the seat of Government itself, and is taken from her relatives — by whom 1 By the Protector of Aborigines and, yet worse, by a British magistrate, and restored to the, savage ravisher, all the while vowing vengeance against her. And his threat of murder there is nothing in Maori customs or in his own previous character to give rise to a doubt of his possessing the inclination and ferocity to fulfil ! Yet when Englishmen, smitten with pity for the victim, and shame for these living libels on the name of British authority, interfere to save her, they are visited with reprimands "and reproaches! So that Slavery iiv its most hideous form is to be allowed, nay, encouraged, not only in a British colony, where we were accustomed to believe with something like pride it did not dare to raise its* head, but in the very seat and centre of the Colo** nial Government, — and Government officers are to exert their power to support it, and so-called Christian ministers to_abandon to its most brutal and bloodiest licence the helpless victims they are extravagantly and especially paid to protect ! What will Lord Stanley, who used to be taunted with his " mania " for the emancipation of Negroes, say to this patronage by his own servants, and as a consequence of his own instructions, of an unspeakably more cruel and degrading species of bondage than theirs ? What will the Anti-Slavery Society think of it ? What, finally, the people of England, with their twenty millions of treasure lavished so generously to secure the extermination of the accursed thing from end to end of their world- wide empire ? It isNa revive and flourish again, forsooth, under the august countenance and encouragement of a Police Magistrate and a missionary, and some handfuls of cannibals in this petty corner of their dominions !

But oh, Mr. George Clarke, chief protector of aborigines, what shall we say to you ? You who denounced the defensive step of firing upon Maories at the Wairau as " an unconstitutional and murderous attack " ! Where now is your tenderness for the constitution, your sensitive dread of infringing its glorious maxims, one of the first of which is, that " liberty is a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts of God to man at his creation, when he endued him with the ' faculty of free will," and the only condition of the possession of which is that it be " not abused to the prejudice of any other man"? — Ask the Maori girl whom you returned to a hated ravisher I What has become, too, of that Christian horror of yours at bloodshed which condemned it as murder though necessitated by self-defence ? — Ask the Maori slave-girl abandoned to the murderous threats of the ferocious Tereia ! •

The Cultivation ot Flax. — Mr. Warbeck, of Coromandel Harbour, is at present cultivating the finer species of flax. From his calculation, it is stated that on every acre of land 2,240 single plants may be grown. Each of those plants will annually yield thirty pounds. An acre will accordingly produce about thirty tons of green or raw material; and supposing that every six pounds of green will yield one pound of dressed flax, the yearly produce of an acre would be about five tons, which, being of superior quality, might be expected to realize in the English market from £40 to £60. We are confident that some of the flax of this country would bring more ; but supposing it to be only £40, an acre would yield £200. A sum so large, that even if the flaxcould only be dressed by hand labour, it must pay. We would recommend the subject of the cultivation of flax to all our country friends. It is a subject on which they may easily, and at little expense, experiment. The Agricultural Society should offer a premium to the best essay on the cultivation and dressing of flax, as well as to the person who shall give the best report of experiments, carefully made by such person during the next twelve months. We desire to keep this subject constantly before our readers, because we are thoroughly convinced that in time flax will be the most profitable crop grown in New Zealand. Other countries may compete with us in the growth of wheat and other grain, but flax is peculiar to New Zealand.'— Southern Cross, August 3.

Hbktt.— "We have recently seen some cloth which has been dyed by this bark, which is apparently far superior to any of the common dyewoods. The doth has a beautiful black colour. The dye is said to be much more permanent than that produced by the ordinary means. — li.

Dsbbntitbbs.— The extraordinary disappearance of everything in the shape of coin has induced some of the respectable shopkeepers to issue their own notes for small sums. This seems to us the only course left to them to carry on their trade— albeit we are far from thinking it • desirable meavaxt.—Auckland Ghronide.