THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, July 5, 1845.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 174, 5 July 1845, Page 70

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Nelson, July 5, 1845.

Journals become more necessary v 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 dnfixation. Db Tocaußviiu. Of Democracy in America, vol. ir., p. 202.

The contemptible subserviency of the present Colonial Office to the representatives and leaders of the Great Order of Old Women in England, whether in full cackle sonorous at Exeter Hall or piping small in Lower Brook Street back parlours, has, thank God, become at length notorious. At length it is beginning to be felt everywhere how utterly unworthy of a great nation it is to leave the rule and governance j of an empire, larger and more populous than that of Rome under Augustus, to the mistaken sympathies and maudlin crotchets of these meddlesome but irresponsible gossips. The Normanbys and Stanleys will, it is to be hoped, find ere long that the day has passed for adding to their political influence at home by giving full play abroad to the mischievous energies of these people, however numerous the class they affect to represent. Then we may hope to see the government of the colonies entrusted to men ; and common sense and vigour being once more in the ascendant, all the dependencies of the empire will revive and rejoice in unusual prosperity, and England herself have a share in the general amelioration.

Meanwhile it is humiliating to see how all the underlings — the " under-spur-lea-thers" of all kinds employed in colonial government — endeavour to out* do each other in prostrations before the great Baal, the brazen image of mock-philanthropy which Exeter Hall, the noisy, has set up. So, for instance, in New Zealand, the slightest reference to the corpulent Blue Book for 1844 will show all the Government officials, down to the lowest, fully masters of the tone required by their superiors, giving to their most trifling despatches and communications an air of excessive regard for the natives, of most scrupulous sensitiveness about their fancied rights, of anxiety to take the most favourable view of them in every particular. And this they set off more clearly by inuendoes and sneers, as open as they dare make them, against their own countrymen ; dislike, or suspicion, or unfavourable opinion of whom, they seem fully aware will of course be taken as evidence of their love of the aborigines. The letters and reports of the Murphys and Clarkes and Dawsons, of the Swainsons and Shortlands, and all the other body-and-soul devotees to place and patrons, will sufficiently illustrate this fact. Governments in most countries are knowing enough in the choice of hacks, and the hacks generally no whit behind hand in the perception of the sort of work required of them.

But sometimes zeal outruns discretion. And no better instance of this could be given than the case of Mr. Attorney-General and his view of British sovereignty in these islands, so unceremoniously knocked on the head in the despatch we printed last week. " Mr. Attorney " is indeed just the person you would have expected thus to be caught in his own trap. He newer will content himself with backing his superiors ; he must be dashing chivalrously a-head of them, and

into all sorts of places they do not want to meddle with. Thus, exulting in his conscious mastery at the game they were all playing, that of lowering themselves and their country before the Maories, he must needs go so far, after one or two warnings, as to declare British sovereignty over these islands depended solely on the acknowledgment of it by the natives in that absurdest of mocktreaties, the Treaty of Waitangi. So that all those (most likely by far the greater part) of the chiefs in the North Island who had not " signed " that precious document, were to be suffered to persevere in their cannibal and other abominable practices, without any British Governor or Government presuming to interfere.

Lord Stanley's despatch is an admirable specimen of that species of official castigation called " snubbing." There is in it all the dignified contempt, the flippant terseness, the assumed and asserted superiority characteristic of that kind of composition. There is aknock-me-down, don't-talk-to-me tone about it ; an echo of the " When I ope my mouth let no dog bark" in its mode of quashing all argumentation by self-satis-fied and confident assertion. " I do not think it necessary or convenient to discuss with Mr. Swainson the justice," &c. " Mr. Swainson, if I rightly recollect his meaning " — to show it, it was not worth while to refer to the document containing it. " Mr. Swainson must be apprized that neither he nor any other person," and so on, in the severest style of administering three dozen with a cat-o'-nine-tails of red tape. Poor Mr. Attorney !

The argument with which the Downing Street boatswain lays on to the back of unfortunate, seized-up Mr. Attorney is very short and summary. You have left out of view altogether (most carelessly, if through inadvertence ; most mistakenly and injudiciously, if with design) the commission issued under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom for the Government of New Zealand. That asserts the sovereignty of Great Britain, if nothing else has ; and that assertion gives it, if nothing else does. If this argument does not convince you, lay down your office, and go to the devil. It it quite like Lord Peter's argument in the Tale of a Tub.

But he condescends to " tackle " him again. You say, if British sovereignty ii to extend over all the natives, they must all be amenable to all British laws. I say they must not. If this solution of the difficulty is a bad one, every other is worse. Therefore adopt it, or go, &c, as before. Q.E.D. « I have, &c, Stanley."

" Mr. Attorney," no one will deny, thoroughly deserved this drubbing for his mischievous officiousness. To take the sovereignty is perfectly right, there can be no doubt of that. But though " Stanley " does not choose to discuss with Mr. Swain* son the policy or justice of the course the Queen has been advised to pursue, the world (of New Zealand, at all events) may discuss it with " Stanley." And there can be no doubt that Mr. Attorney had rather puzzled, and consequently nettled, her Majesty's adviser, whoever it was. For while they choose to uphold that absurd treaty at all, as up to the present time, even I in spite of the strong condemnation of it by the Committee of the House of Commons, they do, it cannot be denied that it is very inconsistent to take arbitrarily that right of sovereignty which it was the sole object of the treaty to obtain by concession. Or, if the power of giving the sovereignty did not belong to the natives, then Government is released from the obligation (which was the equivalent given for the concession) to secure possession to the natives of waste lands, as Captain Hobson construed the treaty, or even of lands occupied, as the Committee read it. They annihilate the treaty altogether by Lord Stanley's treatment of it, that is certain.

With respect to the consequence of the sovereignty, namely, the amenability of the natives to British law, it is clear that Lord

Stanley is perfectly right in the abstract in his view of it. But while his principle is rational enough when applied to many other colonies, it is, to say the least, very questionable when proposed for adoption here. Thus it is right enough where sovereignty is established over civilized subjects, to allow them exemption from British laws. In French Canada, for instance — at the Cape — in India, you may allow, perhaps in justice ought to allow, the laws you found in force there to prevail even after your assuming the sovereignty of those countries. For these people were previously civilized^ had laws, in fact, written, acknowledged, acted upon. But to call the barbarous and confused customs of the New Zealanders laws, and to consider them entitled to such respect that they are to set aside or prevent the introduction of British law, is too manifest an absurdity. It will take more trouble to discover, arrange, commit to writing their customs, to make law at all of thfcra, than to introduce and establish your ow|, laws. But look again at the practical difficulty and absurdity Lord Stanley's view of the case raises at the very outset. He is obliged to allow that " cannibalism and human sacrifice," and we suppose infanticide, though he does not mention it, and such " customs as are in conflict with the universal laws of morality," are to be excepted from the indulgence he would grant to other customs. But these are the very customs it is most difficult to abolish ; and just as much power and trouble as would be required to introduce and establish your own laws altogether will be required to put an end to these. What have you gained, then, by acknowledging the natives in other customs exempt from the operation of your laws ? You simply retard their civilization and prolong barbarism, by an indulgence which confers upon them no temporary good even. All this is very ably shown by Captain Grey, in his Report upon the Treatment of Aborigines so highly spoken of by Lord John Russell and the Committee of the House of Commons on New Zealand affairs. The ill effects, too, of the very course recommended by Lord Stanley in the despach we are commenting upon, to " tolerate native law" as he calls it, " in all cases in which no person of European origin was concerned," are pointed out in that report. It is manifest that cases would continually arise where individuals of both races were concerned, and where the customs of the natives would have to be disregarded, and their feelings therefore outraged. Besides, your laws must appear to them, in that case, not as founded on natural morality, the obligations of which are equal upon the whole human race, but merely as so many customs of your own, for which you have the same kind of preference they themselves have for theirs.

The last paragraph of the despatch is ludicrous, and even the snubbed " Mr. Attorney " must have laughed in the sleeve of his silk gown till it was nigh being rent to tatters, to read it. Lord Stanley " entirely approves of Mr. Shortland's having overruled Mr. Swainson's objections to the exercise of the royal authority over the chiefs and district of Tauranga."

And how was the royal authority exercised ? The chiefs of Tauranga committed murder and ate their victims ; openly boasted of it to Messrs. Clarke, Chapman, and Shortland ; defied Government as openly, and declared they would persist in these precious customs. Mr. Shortland expressed strong condemnation of their doings ; they laughed and jeered him ; and he returned to Auckland. Such British sovereignty may indeed be exercised without raising the question of Maories being amenable or not to British law. But was there ever such another office as the Colonial Office ? — such another Government as that of New Zealand ?

The prosperity of the middle classes in Great Britain is in a high degree attributable to the representative form of government. No doubt there is room for improvement in the present state of the

representation, as well as for an advance of prosperity; but probably few will believe tbat prosperity would be advanced by abolishing the House of Commons, and givi ig the people the Home Office as their sole representative and administrator of affairs. The system which works well in Great Britain for the mass of the people might be supposed to be adapted for her colonies also, yet in many of these there is no representative government, their councils, legislative and executive, consisting of nominees of the Crown, a majority of them bound by the tenure of their office to support its views, however opposed to those of the colonists. And this is curious, that though colonies are in fact offshoots of the British people, yet no sooner are they formed than they are shorn of all British institutions, and me ;amorphosed into a sort of exclusive property of the Colonial Minister. The efforts of all colonists, here and elsewhere, ought to be directed towards the means of again becoming a people — of ceasing to be the m are vassals of a successful politician, his cle :k, and secretaries. We do not deny that, in the earlier period of the existence of a colony, il is desirable that a controlling power should be retained by the mother-country which planted it ; and this must continue so lc ng as any dependency exists, for otherwise he colony becomes an independent nation. But there is an immeasurable distance between the honourable dependence of an heir-apparent and the bondage of a vassal. If we are free, we must have the ma: ks of freemen. The first of these is representative government. How much of tmt have we in New Zealand ? Little enough ; and little enough have they in most colonies, for even in thase which enjoy a representative Legislature within themselves, the acts of that Legislature are liable to revision and disallowa ice in the Imperial Parliament, and in tiat Imperial Parliament the colonies have no representative. But why should they not be there rep resented ? Are they not as integral a par! ; of the empire as York, Exeter, Liverpool, or Bristol? What reason is there why the inhabitants of those towns, living in one part of the empire, should enjoy the privilege of self-government, and on emigrating to another part they should be deprived of it? What inconvenience would arise if a bench of colonial members sat among the borough and county members ? This inconvenience, that they would be of might enough to make their voices heard anc to influence decisions of the Imperial Parliament on colonial affairs ; and more t lan that, they would strip the Colonial Oi Bee of its unconstitutional powers, which no doubt would be a very great inconvenience to those who now wield them. Not only should the colonial member claim a vote in all matters affecting the colonies, but in all matters affecting the interests of the empire at large. Is Daven* try or Reading more concerned in a question of peace or war with France than Australia and New Zealand. The colonies have ever been the small change of nations ; why should they be excluded from discussing and voting on matters which vitally affect them ? The representatives should be paid, as those in the United States are, on the principle that few can afford to give their time to the public for nothing. They should have a property qualification invested in the colony. The electors also, in less amount. The salary of representatives should be a charge on the Colonial Revenue, but paid by the Imperial Treasury, for reasons apparent in New Zealand. The expense would be considerable in the aggregate, but not the thousandth part the amount chargeable on the non-repre-sentative misgovernment at present inflicted. The cheapest Governments in the world are those in which the most complete representation exists. In Switzerland, the taxation amounts to a sum varying from half-a-crown to five shillings a head per annum. The expenses of the whole civil jurisdiction

oV Zurich amount to tenpence a-head, the m|ilitary (and they are a military people) to sixpence. The settlements of Switzerland are " scattered and indefinitely multiplied." liji New Zealand, we pay from one to two pounds a head per annum. Nor is it the amount of taxation only, but its expenditure. In nonrepresentative countries it is all lavished on those who tax ; in representative, it is expended for the benefit of the taxed. There are more valuable public institutions, cheaper law, ;u>d a far more general spread of education in Switzerland and the United States than in any other countries in the world. In New Zealand, with a taxation most disproportionate to our numbers, we have literally no public institutions except courts of law and police, which extract additional expenses on Ihe suitors, besides their maintenance from the general taxes ; we have no public works, no public defence, no public benefit, but a host of public officers.

Could these things be if the colonies were properly represented in the Imperial Parliament ? Private individuals interested in the colony, fighting gallantly, have, after five years of accumulated evils, dragged our case before the throne of the British people. But what would have been our case if those private individuals had not taken our part ? What public, constitutional security have we for the future ?

The maxim of the Chinese towards foreigners is this : — " The barbarians," say they, " are like beasts, and not to be ruled op the same principles as citizens. Were ajny to attempt controlling them by the great mjiaxims of reason, it would tend to nothing bjut confusion. The ancient kings well vnderstood this, and accordingly ruled barbjarians by misrule. Therefore to rule barbarians by misrule is the true and best way ojf ruling them."

{ On such a principle does Great Britain rUle her colonies. Whatever made her free is withheld from them ; whatever made her gjreat is denied to them. She remembers hier own foundation on the popular institutions of her Saxon sires, and she fears with t\\e jealousy of a step-mother the precocious gjrowth of her offspring if nourished with the same food as herself. Jeshuran will wax fat and kick. And so, to make sure, she subjects her colonial child to the absolute despotism of the Colonial Office, who commits it to the deputy charge of what the Chinese call a " paper tiger," who bullies atnd starves the stout bantling till it djwindles into a rickety idiot, like poor Sjmike.

The difficulty is to get all the colonies to act together in a matter of this sort. We must have a loud voice to be heard at once in Australia, Canada, and the "still vexed J'rrmooethes," an epithet by the way, very prophetic of all colonial political experience. Nevertheless, we cast our bread upon the waters, hoping that as the grievance is extensive, a like remedy may be suggested elsewhere, and our cause become general at last.

The only arrival during the past week has been the Comet, from Twofold Bay, with sheep. We are disappointed in our expectations of receiving late English news by her, as, at the time of her leaving Sydney (June 2), the latest direct arrival from England was the 21st of December, nearly six months. Intelligence to the 11th of Jan. had, however, been received through an indirect channel, and the most interesting exttacts will be found in another column. A whole fleet of English ships must have been due at Sydney when the Comet left ; and as the schooner Mary Ann was laid on for Wellington, to sail early in June, we may hope our next arrival from the latter place will bring us intelligence of a much later dare. The Star of China will in all probability be in Wellington by the end of next wteek. She may be expected here about the 22d instant. The only shipping notice relating to this colony which we can perceive in the Sydney papers, is that the William Stoveld sailed from Torbay on the Bth of January, for Port Phillip. As this v6ssel left Gravesend on the 10th of December, she must have experienced nearly a month's detention in the Channel. The William Stoveld has cargo for this place, and will come on here after calling at Sydney.

When the Comet left Sydney, a confused account of the late encounter between the troops and the natives in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands had been brought by the Thistle, which left Mauranghi on the ldth of May. The Thistle conveyed a large number of passengers to Sydney.