THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, June 7, 1845.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 170, 7 June 1845, Page 54

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, June 7, 1845.

Journals become more necewary a* men become more equal and individualism more to be feared. It would b« to underrate their importance to tuppose that they terve only to secure liberty: they maintain civilisation. Dc Tocau stills. Of Democracy in America, toI. if., p. 202.

Is is one of the characteristics of the Local Government of New Zealand, even when they take any step or pass any measure in accordance with the wishes of the people they are by a great stretch of imagination and a bold figure of speech supposed and said to govern, to do it in such a manner as to preclude the \ ossibility of its being looked upon as a boon or accepted with gratitude. And the reason of this failure even in well- doing is partly found in the fact that the boon has in every case to be wrested from them ; and is ordinarily only so granted when the worst consequences foreseen and pointed out by those who demanded it have actually taken place, and made it impossible any longer to withhold it. But the imperfect ness of the thing itself when done, or supposed to be done, is perhaps the chief reason why it fails so utterly to gratify or win over those for whom it purports to be done.

The proceedings of Government with respect to the establishment of a local force in New Zealand afford a good illustration of this. Our readers well know that so long ago as the years 1839, '40, and '41, Lords Normanby and John Russell successively recommended such a step in the strongest and most decided terms. But no notice was taken of their instructions by the then Governors. And the settlers have always been anxious to see the measure adopted, and ready to assist in carrying it out. But their evident need of the force as a protection has produced as little effect as their expressed wishes, or as the instructions of the Home Government. It is rather difficult to account for the obstinacy of the Local Government in this particular; but the probability is that the influence of the protectors and missionaries, so baneful in many other respects, has not been inactive or unsuccessful in this one.

In the mountainous mass of printed paper forming the last New Zealand Blue Book, among many other interesting disclosures will be found Lord Stanley's acknowledgment of a petition for adequate protection, addressed to the Colonial Office some time after the Wairau affray by the inhabitants of Nelson. It is dated the 11th March,

1844. After brief mention of the petition, it »ays in a few words " that it will be quite impossible to provide for the defence of all those detached posts without the organiza-

tion of a loy al force, under the provisions of a law to be passed in the colony." Another short despatch, duted the same day and immediately following the one quoted from, refers Captain Fitzßoy expressly " to the Marquis of Norman by 's and Lord John Russell's instructions, pointing out the necessity for the establishment of some local armed force," and especially adverts to the latter lord's suggestions as to the kind of force to be raised. It then directs Captain Fitzßoy to introduce a bill into the Council to establish such a force.

Now our reader* will probably be a little surprised, first, that t u ey should- never till so lately have had any notice of such an answer to their petition — that Captain Fitz Roy should never before have had the courtesy at least, if a sense of duty did not compel him, to make them acquainted with it. But they will be more surprised at the excessive coolness with which he quietly shelves or gives the go-by to the most distinct and express instructions of his superiors. He is quite one of the Lord Stanley school ; and as his noble master lights his pipe (if he smokes one) with the I Report of his masters, the House of Commons, so Captain Fitzßoy applies to some j equally necessary purpose the instructions j of his unmanageable lordship himself. Insubordination is the rule throughout. Captain Fitzßoy, however, as will be recollected (before devoting these instructions finally to, | darkness and oblivion), paid Lord Stanley the very equivocal compliment of introducing a bill founded upon them to his Council, after a somewhat sullen and unwilling fashion, observing that he did so because he was compelled, but that it would be for them to say whether they would adopt or reject it. They were not slow iv speaking upon this hint. Dr. Martin was " strongly opposed to it." That chivalrous echo, the Attorney- General, wa3 "so strongly opposed to it, that he would have been glad if Dr. Martin had moved it to be read that day six months." Mr. Brown dittoed the Echo. Upon which II out spake the brave Sir Codes " — the Governor " was so decidedly convinced of the extreme in t Hey and imprudence of the measure, that, hud it been entertained by the Council, he should have remained passive till calk'd upon to give his assent, which he most certainly should have with' held." Complimentary language this to their lordships three — Normanby and Stanley and Russell ! Away with them ! it is clear they must go. Poor Lord Stanley cannot withstand for a moment Dr. Martin, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Swainson, charging three deep at the tail of the Governor. So the instructions are voted waste paper, ar.d a local force the fanciful chimera of a few right honourable imaginations. This was on the 24th of September, 1844.

But Councils are human ; even New Zealand Legislators may err. What if the three Lords were in the right, the three so confident Misters in the wrong? On the 25th March — five months after — the Militia Bill has somehow revived ; the instructions, it seems, are still producible, and now may be made known. Johnny Heki has enlightened the Council on this subject suddenly and miraculously, as he did on free trade and political economy. The Governor has at length (after the Bay of Islands town is reduced to chimney-stacks) discovered the advantages of a militia. Right about face — quick march 1 The Attorney-General wheels like lightning. There he is, decided as ever. He wi.o was "to strongly opposed to the measure," now declares it " essentially necessary." We are to show the natives " that we are prepared to fight — that we can fight — that we will fight !" And he has actually the astounding coolness to adduce as a reason for its being passed, " that if 70 or 80 men had been well trained, the result would have been

very different at the Bay of Islands." T bis from the very person who prevented Iho training ! True, most magnanimous Att >r-ney-General; but you, who so forcibly hold the door open when the steed was in the stable, surely, now that it is stolen, need not be so very loud in calling on us to shut it I Surely you were deaf or asleep wl en the same arguments were used live mon ha ago, and which had you listened to, the Bay of Islands, as you acknowledge so eagerly yourself, would still have contair, ed a populous and thriving settlement Hi ye you yet any misgiving as to your natural aptitude for the business of governing ? Or were the arguments, which are so forcible now, only budding then ? Did they want another season to bring them to bloom and maturity 1 Was the summer sun needed to make them pungent — perceptible to your senses — fascinating to your imagination ? But with an incorrigible tendency, a gravitation towards error no human force can counteract, they rush as wildly and precipitately into the new course as they did upon the old. The whole population are to be called out at onee — all between 18 and 60 years of age. If the provisions of the bill | were to be enforced, all business would stand still — all cultivation and commerce cease. A week has not elapsed before the bill is found impracticable — at least the measure is to be carried out as if there were no details in the bill at all. A hundred or two hundred paid men aTe to be enlist jd, and all the rest it seems to go scot free. I We do not pretend to argue upon the thinjg ; we feel it is useless to discuss any measure . of the present Government. We confess we are dazzled, astonished — are living in a phantom scene, a whirling unreal world. To-morrow our scene-shifter will be at work again most probably, and the whole asp set of things be changed. Another slide vrill be thrust into the Government magic-h intern. Other demons will dance, other heads seem dissolving into cabbages. So we m list wait and look on as patiently as we can. But if they have any steadiness of pirpose, if these militia-figures, which we may say the burning fire of popular indignation has at length projected upon the blankn ess of their understandings, are to stay there long enough to be moulded and managed at nil, we do hope they will do the thing effectually. We do hope they will take some steps to bring all the white population into an efficient state of military discipline. But not by forcing them all out at onee — an utterly impracticable attempt — but in successive bodies, of one or two hundreds at a time, in some not altogether unreasonable way.

There is a letter in the Sydney Morn ing Herald of May 21 about New Zealand snd Nelson — a very rabid, very foolish, vi;ry false, and very ungrammatical one — which we think it unncessary to notice further than by a flat denial of almost every statement it contains. We really think jtha editors of influential papers like the one! in question should pause before they give insertion to anonymous attacks so sweeping and evidently absurd. In every society there are poor jaundiced creatures, who contrive to draw upon themselves the dislike and contempt of the great majority of those they live among; and in new colonies a common practice of these unfortunates, when i they are rejected by a community, is to run away and abuse it. Some such an one is no doubt the author of the childish letter alluded to.