THE DETRACTORS OF THE COLONISTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 197, 30 June 1864, Page 5

THE DETRACTORS OF THE COLONISTS.

T.> the F.aitor of the >"ew Zdalaxd Heeald. Siu _Tllo state of the New Zealand question in Vir'Uuiil is now naturally the first thought ot l,y'a true co.onist on the arrival ot the moutkh the colonv had no enemies but those m open anus against it, anxiety on this point probably would' he altogether u '' k y^ vl, - but ; r sjs^SSS o.llioiv.", and 11,0 of ""J: representation in .l-hmland. ot ulnell the unscrupulous textiull'ists anil | iliat we are compelled to w.itcli narrowly _and constantly the etleet proJuml limn montll to month -ou the public mind at home. It mils- ' be admitted it is not a verv position io I be placed in, but .seeing there is seldom a nock j without some black sheep among them, wo ot | .New Zealand, I suppose, must needs accept the ( situation and make the best we can ot a bad connexion. Kvcrv family, some one has said, has its skeleton, and if, as a people, we have iu our , midst a low political praise-God-bare-bo ties, ! whose moral unsnjhtliiiess charity herselt call [ scarcely cover, whose unsavory nakedness none

-of us, 1 am sure, ■would choose long to look upon, and indeed between the wind and whose lugubrious philanthrophy, which subsidises lawlessness and condones rebellion, few of Her Majesty's better favoured lieges here would wish to come ; that after all is only a question of degrees, as between our ovm and other communities, all the world over, not even excepting Oreat JBritain herself. There in their day we have had our chartists, our whiteboys, and our pretenders, cach iu his turn cheerfully ready to open upon his country the flood-gates of discord, -rapine, and lawlessness; each to push forward his hobby or gratify his spleen, willing at a moment to barter his birthright as a Briton iLiid sacrifice .national honour, as far as in him lay, to some foreign idol of the hour. The difference, however, between the circumstances of those times and our own, and between those renegades to country and political consistency, and the men we have to do with here appears be this, —that in the one case the penalty of the law could be relied on in the event of arrest and conviction, while in the other the evil doers us, it appears, have unrestricted license in any amount of inflamatory and ifisjj/.ious speech. JL'o such an extent has this liccrjie been advantage of all along in Zealand, that in the verj r heart of.' the British " S&rhn, that a considerable section of the insurgents, it is said, at the of the war, in their ignorance perhaps of the <isinc(..~ity S f*"the men who were deluding tlieri, w-:4"e in S confidant expectation of being led to victor} 7 against the Queen's trooft by a individual among the I'hilo-Maori demagogues. Of course to us Europeans the „ idea of such a con Ire temps was simply rediculous, knowing as wo did that the hero off the cabbage garden himself was adventurousness personified, contrasted with the men who —themselves assured of perfect immunity throughout, whether from behind flowing canonicals, or under cover of the convenient " we," by aspersions on the Government and calumny on the colonists —were for years insensibly, perhaps, but not the less certainly, constituting themselves active agents in driving the natives into rebellion. These, sir, must be recognised as the true authors of the confiscation necessity. To these men tl»o infatuated rebels of New Zealand mav poinl\ to-day and thank them for the loss of their cherished lands. These sowed, for them, the wind and tlwy reap the whirlwind.

It is tlien against tho saying and doings of these men and of their party in tlie colony, and out of it, that the colonists are now daily necessitated to aet on the defensive. A party unique in its embodiment of the popular idea of an unlioly alliance, composed as it is of disappointed •politicians and thwarted ecclesiastics, differing <essentia]l} r from each other in every natural predilection peculiar to either, but coalescing on a ground of positive wickedness to avenge a doubly disappointed ambition. And liow have we been hitherto combating this latest development in political organisation ? Here, I fear it must be admitted, the friends of order and good government amongst us have not been always guiltlessly tit fault. There is a delicacy it is true ; there is even a prejudice on the point which makes men unwilling at anytime to speak in terms of disapproval of a class of persons whose sacred calling we would wish to respect, and whose social position in the comjnunity we would fain see held inviolable to reproach. But how far are we just or safe in persevering •in thisi course under the circumstances ? Do we know thin, whilst we are thus delicately, deferential of the bone and marrow of this antiEnglish league, and are giving all attention to the secular outward covering of its grosser and more noisome parts, its ramifications in the ecclesiastial branch of its connexion are hourl}' extending themselves, to our hurt, unopposed throughout every parish and handet in Great Britain ? Surely it is not well to lose sight of the most obvious and suggestive fact: it is not not wise to overlook deliberately the characteristics and resources of our wily opponents. Let it be remembered in tliis contest in New Zealand, of civilisation against barbarism, we are engaged against no common enemy ; we have arrayed against us in the struggle an organised resistance as inveterate as it is wide spread, as invulnerable to argument as it is unrivaled in its appliances for blindly and persistently prosecuting its one stereot3'ped aim—the humiliation of the colonists and the glorification of its own pampered native neophytes. The influence of this powerful engine penetrates every section of society in England, from the cottage to the throne. You see it in the newly arrived immigrant, whose cautiously expressed suspicions just blush to find thein fame; you see it in the tone and bearing of nine-tenths of the British press, which, to do it justice, would sometimes speak a good word for us if it thought it could, but which deploringly confesses it cannot see its way ! You see it in the semi-official despatches of philo-Maori philantrophists in England to a philo-Maori Governor in the colony, and in the veal despatches of honorable Secretaries of Btate to the same, who, by the way themselves just now, have a difficult card to play with mother church, being bound in any event to treat tenderly the wooden horse of Exeter Hall. How much farther onward toward the higher circles of social, political and religious life in England we might ratq tli9 working of this nefarious o*'Uspir;icv againsv the colonists of New Zealand, and to what cxttut even it is loosening the bonds that unite us wnV the hearts and homes of our ; fatherland, I wi\\ not occupy further time in the th?l If' f lm ; ch )S to ° certain l a c:u " wt ? ct »,l |e operators who so industriously have loured and are still successfully labouring to filc\> KOO(1 |jnm( , : much as we have hitherto sulVored ut their I liands we have yet much more to suflpr It is I Irigh time to look to this. It. j s time we had 1 done with mere hungry subordinates and woisv I camp followers. We have boon dieting o'nv artillery long enough against the outworks, the sand bags of the enemy's stronghold. It is really pitiable to think how readily and fre-

quently wc have been thrown oil' the scent bv the very dustmen around us, whose occupation it is to keep, up a cry and make nil the noise nboui our ears. r patriotic press of ]N"ew Zealand find highA than these on which (o bestow its noticel believe it can. and I maintain it must jf it would do the State some service. I am, &c,. Auckland, June 2'J. ?J '