THE NELSON EXAMINER. Saturday, May 22, 1869.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXVIII, Issue 41, 22 May 1869, Page 2

THE NELSON EXAMINER. Saturday, May 22, 1869.

Journals become more necessary a3 men become more equal and individualism moro to be feared. It would be to underrate their importance to suppose that they serve only to secure liberty j they maintain civilization. De Tocqueville, Of Democracy in America, vol. 5, 230.

Throughout the present troubles we have steadily advocated the self-reliant policy. We have done so for two distinct causes. First, we believe on the ground of experience, that the assistance of British troops, if they could be got, would be far more expensive and far less efficient than the exertions of colonial forces may be made. Secondly, we are convinced that British assistance, in the form either of troops or of direct contributions of money, cannot be got. There is a form, however, in which we have a perfect right to call for aid from the Home Government ; and if we call for aid in that form, and under fair conditions, we are all but sure to get what we ask. And further, we make bold to affirm, that the form in which we are most likely to get Imperial help, is the form in Avhich that help is most likely to benefit the colony. Nothing can be more clear than that Great Britain, under its present administration, will not give us anything that can further burden the already over-burdened taxpayers of Great Britain ; and nothing can be more clear than that we who, taken on the average, are better off than the British taxpayers, have no right to ask any such thing. Great Britain is indeed the wealthiest political community on this planet, but unfortunately there have been generations of class legislation, throughout the whole of which the principle acted upon appears to have been simply, that " unto him that hath unto him shall be given, and from him that hath not from him shall be taken away." This prolonged course of political action has resulted, as is no more than natural, in the present state of things. An enormous proportion of the population of Great Britain and Ireland is reduced to a condition in which it fluctuates between pauperism and crime. Not unnaturally, the best minds in Eugland have perceived that the present problem is, not how to extend, not even how to maintain the limits of the British Empire, but — disregarding military glory, and prestige, and ancient diplomatic fables altogether — how to • relieve the population of the British Islands. Mr. Bright, no inconsiderable influence in the extant Ministry, has raised the standard of the "cheap breakfast-table." Does anyone suppose Mr. Bright has done so in order that he may sugar his tea more freely, or that the " working-man " may do so ? His object unquestionably is this: that the masses may enjoy the comforts and necessaries of civilized life from which they have hitherto been debarred, and that, partaking of those comforts and necessaries, they may be more and more fitted to exercise the privileges of civilized men, to which they are by the Eeforin Bill called. Every remission of taxation in an over-taxed and thickly-populated country, tends to raise a new stratum of the population above low water-mark. Every penny removed from the taxation of these necessaries, sets so much more of the income of the working-man free to educate his family, to educate himself. Every man, whose income somewhat more than suffices for his daily bread, is a less dangerous member of the community. He has hope to elevate him, where before he had but despair to tantalize him. He can accumulate, and, the prime hope, in man, may hope to see his children begin the battle of life from a better point than that from which he himself started. National economy from this aspect is anything rather than mean. "Were it otherwise, what right have we to ask aught of Eugland that should cost her aught ? It is true we are more heavily taxed than British subjects elsewhere, and that we are certain to be more heavily taxed than we yet are ; but we can bear it better. We do not ignore the fact that there is poverty among vs — cruel, biting poverty; but in this case the balance must be struck. The matter is one of averages. On the average, our population is far better off than the population o±" Great Britain. There is of course this consideration, that our population is also far less firmly seated. When once, as is the case with most of us, a man has given up his home, the country of his fathers, so violont a wrench has been made that all other changes are as nothing. Heavy taxation in a colony would simply depopulate it. Now, without population, the most valuable land is valueless as a security. Unquestionably those capitalists who have advanced large sums on the security of the colony, unquestionably those interested in the production of the goods of which the colony takes several millions in value every year whether they be working men or capi-

talists, will do well to consider the effect of that annihilation of the security, that destruction of their market, which the depopulation of the colony, consequent on increased taxation, must, and inevitably will, produce. We hope they will consider this question, and that a considerable section of English public opinion will be thus interested in our behalf — but we trust that their interest in our fortunes will not take the form which the patriotism of some among us has taken — a clamour, namely, for mere military intervention. AV"e trust rather that this interest will rivet the attention of the British Ministry and British Senate to that form of assistance which we may fairly ask, since it will not affect British taxation, and which while it is innocuous at home, gives the best assurance of efficiency in the colony. What form that aid may take is perhaps difficult to reduce to detail, though simple enough in principle. First, the British Grovernment should, in the interests — capitalist, commercial, and manufacturing — of Great Britain guarantee the loan which we must shortly ask in the home money-market, and, if possible, our other loans. Secondly, both on grounds of morality and expediency, the resources of the Empire should be thrown open to us ; we should be permitted to purchase our military stores in the Imperial arsenals at cost price. Thirdly, we should be allowed to invite to New Zealand from India, or elsewhere, but at our own proper cost, military officers of experience in warfare of a description similar to that in which we are engaged — and there must be no few officers of proved ability and experience in India and elsewhere to whom our climate would offer no inconsiderable inducement, did our Government show a liberal spirit in dealing with them. This much of aid we have a right to ask of the Imperial Government. More we have no right to ask ; and whether we ask it or not, in the present political conjuncture ifc is perfectly certain we shall not get it. There is no sounder wisdom than to confine one's demands to what there is a chance of obtaining, even did no higher motive recommend the policy we advocate.

Tlis telegraphic news received from Napier yesterday is not very satisfactory. The difficulties of the country are terrible, and the Arawas, hrave and steady as they have often proved themselves, lose heart under the privations they have been called upon to endure. The Urewera country, in which Colonel Whitmore appears now to be engaged, is exceedingly lofty, and the weather has been severe. With short supplies of food, exposure to wet and cold, and half destitute of clothing, the fatigues of war are too great for our allies, and Colonel "Whitmore is experiencing, as many commanders have done before him, that in such a pinch his chief reliance must he on his European force, for no dark skins can endure the sufferings our countrymen will go through when necessary.