THE NELSON EXAMINER. NELSON, NOVEMBER 30, 1844.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 143, 30 November 1844, Page 154

THE NELSON EXAMINER. NELSON, NOVEMBER 30, 1844.

Journals become more necessary aa men become more equal, and individualism more to be feared. It would be to underrate their importance to suppose that they serve only to secure liberty : they maintain civilization. D« ToCttCKVILLB. Of Democracy in America, vol . 4, p. 203.

In our last number we printed an extract from a despatch lately received by "Captain Fitzßoy from the Colonial Office, on the subject of the Wairau massacre, and pointed out the fact that, at the date of the despatch, its writer was in possession only of those garbled versions of the transaction which were afterwards admitted to be untrue by those who had promulgated them. Whether these admissions have ever yet reached the Colonial Office through any channel entitling them to, official credence or not, we cannot say ; but it is clear that any official opinion expressed previously to their receipt, must be enesided and entirely without value.

We gave last week a list of the principal documents on which the Colonial Office founded its decision. Most of these have been previously hefore our readers; but, with one of the most important, probably few of them have met. We allude to the Chief Protector's despatch to the Colonial Secretary, which is printed in the Appendix to the Company's Twelfth Report, and which, for general information, we reprint to-day in another column.

The document speaks for itself. Nor is it necessary for us to give our readers any information respecting it, except that it is the production of a^ggbfeited missionary, a man many yean inVHKsjmployinent of a

society established for the purpose of diffusing Christianity among the heathen, and an officer specially appointed to hold an equal balance between the two races in these islands, to harmonize and mollify whatever might be discordant or harsh between them. These are facts which the readers of the despatch in question would probably not have discovered from its contents.

The Directors of the New Zealand Company, on the receipt of this document, which was forwarded, to them by Lord Stanley, called his lordship's attention to it in the following manner : —

" The only other topic to which we think it necessary to solicit your lordship's attention, is one to which we have previously ventured to direct it, and on which the official correspondence which you have been pleased to transmit to us, has excited an anxious solicitude of the wisdom, as well as the humanity, of entrusting to some responsible officer the duty of protecting the rights of the natives, we are as fully convinced as her Majesty's Government ; but it is obvious that any person brought into such close relations at once of authority and confidence with respect to that part of the population, has the power of doing much harm as well as great good ; and that if his influence be not exercised with great discretion, impartiality, and temper, his agency is but too likely to have the effect of infusing unjust suspicion, unreasonable expectation, and ungovernable resentment, into the minds of those entrusted to his guidance. Without complaining of the conduct of Mr. Clarke, junior, as exhibited in the papers transmitted to us, on any ground but that of his appearing to act throughout rather in the character of an eager advocate of one party, than as a public officer disohorgixig aatny-co an classes orner Majesty's subjects, we can only regret that in this very serious affair the delicate duties of his office were not entrusted to a person of considerably maturer years, and somewhat more commanding station. But we cannot pass over the report of Mr. Clarke, senior, the principal protector of aborigines, without begging your lordship's attention to the haste with which he appears to have formed and expressed his conclusions, and to the evident disposition to view a complicated and obscure series of transactions in the aspect most unfavourable to this Company's settlers. And we feel confident, that it is not in such a spirit that your lordship will permit the duties of the protector of aborigines to be discharged."

To this temperate remonstrance against the violent partisanship displayed by the Chief Protector and against the appointment of a person -of such extreme youth as his son to the office of Protector of the Southern District, Lord Stanley's reply is as follows : —

" With regard to your observation* on the fitness of Mr. Clarke, junior, for the office of assistant protector of aborigines for the southern district, Lord Stanley directs me to acquaint you that, on your former representation, his lbrdship called on the Governor for a special report on that subject with reference principally to the alleged circumstance of the extreme youth of that officer.

" At the same time Lord Stanley desires me to observe that, although in the present case Mr. Clarke's expressions may in some instances appear stronger than it was desirable for him to employ, his lordship is not prepared, as at present informed, to visit him with any official censure for them."

We observe all through the correspondence between the Colonial Office and the Company that Mr. G. W. Hope, Lord Stanley's private secretary, whore name is attached to the above reply to the Directors, displays in the various letters written by him a most unfortunate habit of misapprehending the arguments and complaints addressed to the department in which he serves. The present document affords an instance of it. The Directors did not complain of the " expressions " used by the Chief Protector, but of the " spirit " indicated by them, which they conceived, as possibly others may also, was not exactly that which, ought to animate a Chief Protector. If the complaint had been that he had made his bow with the wrong foot foremost, some such reply as Mr. Hope's might have been proper enough ; but we really think it must have been considered by the Directors a very insufficient answer to so grave a charge as that preferred by them.

As to the " extreme youth " of Mr. Clarke, junior (more properly, perhaps, maxime juvenis), Mr. Hope's reply reminds us of Jeremy Taylor's to Bishop Jewell, who objected that he was not old enough for some preferment he sought. " That, my lord," said Taylor, " is a fault that I will mend if I live." Mr. Clarke was, we believe, exactly eighteen years of age when he received his very important appointment. When he was about nineteen, the Company complained of his " extreme youth." At twenty, Lord Stanley writes to the Local Government for an explanation. By the time the young gentleman is twenty-one,

the Local Government may perhaps reply that " there are no longer any persons of * extreme youth ' in the office of Protector ; at all events, in course of time Mr. Clarke will • mend that fault if he lives. 1 " But the many faults which he may have committed before he mends that one, the Government which appointed him, and Lord Stanley who thus helps the lame dog over the style, would perhaps be sorry to answer for.

Is it not, however* perfectly monstrous that it should be so ; that the working out of the nicest problem which has ever en- j gaged the ingenuity of man> and which has hitherto baffled his skill— the amalgamation of savage and civilized races — should be committed to such hands as it has been in this colony? The Chief Protector was originally, as we have been informed, a working gunsmith I—small1 — small blame to him for that; but in what respect does it proffer any hope of peculiar fitness for the office of Chief Protector ? Let the despatch before us answer. His son, at the age of eighteen* is appointed Protector of the Southern District of New Zealand, four hundred miles from all official advice or control, in the very confluence of the two mingling tides of barbarism and civilization. Well might his father tremble on the emergency of the Wairau, and recommend to Government " the propriety of some gentleman connected with his department* being sent to his assistance ; but surely it would have been more to the purpose if the Colonial Office, instead of writing to the Local Government to report upon the subject, had at once directed that Government to dismiss from such important offices all persons yet unarrived at years of maturity.

In contrast with this lamentable display on the part of the Chief Protector and the Colonial Office, we have much pleasure in printing from the Wellington paper a letter addressed to its editor by the Rev. Mr. Ironside, relative to the treatment of the natives by the settlers. Mr. Ironside, it will be recollected, is the missionary who resided in Cloudy Bay previous to the Wairau massacre, and who performed the rites of sepulture to the sufferers on that occasion, under circumstances which entitle him to, and have .gained for him, the esteem of all who have heard of it. What will the Honourable Mr. Cooper, M. P. for "Crosby Hall say, if it should meet his eye ?

" To the Editor of the New Zetland Spectator.

" Sir — I have « great objection to scribbling in newspapers ; but, as my opinion has several times beea requested with reference to the persecution and injustice to which, it is said, the Natives of New Zealand have been subjected ; and, as my silence might be misconstrued by certain parties, I hesitate not to say that, during a residence of more than twelve months in this settlement, so far as I have observed, the settlers have been uniformly kind and considerate towards the native population. " There have been disputes and misunderstandings between the races, but they have arisen mainly out of circumstances over which the settlers have no control; and it has given me pleasure to witness the forbearance of the white people towards the natives, under the very painful and discouraging circumstances in which they have been placed through the non-settlement of-the land question. " Let the settlers continue to exercise patience and forbearance, and we may hope the morning of prosperity is not far distant, and will yet dawn upon us. I remain, sir, " Your obedient servant, " Wellington, Nov 5." " Sampbl Ironsiob.

A pretty little craft of about thirty tons, named the Ann and Sarah, came over on Monday last from Massacre Bay, where she has been built. She will get her rigging completed here, and then make a trip to Wellington and Otago.

Coal. — The Ann and Sarah brought from Massacre Bay a full cargo of coal, of a better description than any we have before seen.

Flax. — The machine for dressing flax, constructed by Smith, has fully answered the expectations of its inventor in the short trial given it. The parties concerned in the business, consisting we believe of three or four mechanics, have commenced the erection of a large wooden shed, in a place known by the name of the Happy Valley, in Suburban North, for the purpose of drying the fibre without exposing it to the sun. From the samples of flax which we have seen dressed by this machine, we are of opinion that this great staple of the colony is really at last about to be turned to some account.