The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, FRIDAY, JULY 8, 1864.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 204, 8 July 1864, Page 3

The New Zealand Herald

AUCKLAND, FRIDAY, JULY 8, 1864.

SPECTEMUTI AGEXDO. " Give every mau thine car, but few thy voice: Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. This above all, —To thine ownself be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

" J al'ax is no doubt a long way oil", but it " eaimot be pleasant even' when dwelling in " Japan to find oneself made the ' vlllian' of a popular fiction." So wrote the Times on April Ist, while vindicating the actors in the late bombardment of Kajosima, against the unjust imputations of the "professional humanitarians" or peace party in England, who, as the Times expresses it, " never are so swift to sym- " pathize or so prompt to condemn inhuman-' " ity as when some vague rumour seems to " place their own countrymen in fault." If we but change the locality mentioned in the above extract, and substitute ]N r ew Zealand for Japan, we have our own position in relation to the public of Great Britain at the present moment fairly portrayed by the great leading journal of the empire. Mere colonists atthe antipodes, however, it appears, have not the good fortune of Admiral Kuper and Colonel JNeale in finding a champion to their hand, able and willing, on the spot where they are assailed, to defend their rights, and silence their detractors. Hitherto we have been content to remain almost passive spectators of the wholesale slander which has been heaped upon us both at home and abroad. Wo seem to have taken a good natured pleasure in allowing ourselves to be made the butt and target of a knot of fussy old gentlemen whose antiquated weapons we thought were more likely to prove provocative of our merriment than our anger. We have just lived long enough, 'however, to find to our cost that our doughty assailants really meant mischief. It is now very evident they had misinterpreted our

frffmour; mißtalfing our long forbearance for cdriteitjpt of their prowess, they liave doubly shotted their bltindefbussps, and dealt out their blows with vigour arid success. AVe are greatly mistaken if - patient, ploddiug, Englishmen that we are —we continue much longer without demur to have our beard plucked after this fashion. As a body ol" colonists, for years we have been systematically and greviously calu.ujiiated in t!>«' mother country ; our acts have been wilfully misrepresented in quarters t.'iore, and our motives, almost in every instance, in coii'necl io'n tfith tho native race; have been shamefully and unblushingly questioned. \ct hitherto through all this persecution we have been' content, unobtrusively, without council or without any special defence, to trust for a verdict on the justice of our cause to what we fondly hoped was the unbiased judgement of tho .British public. Under ordinary circumstances, no dollbt, this Nfas the wisest and midst judicious course to pursue. Our depeiidancd, for aid in our dilliculiies with the abtirigirial inhabitants of the country, on the generosity and good laith ot the Imperial Government, made the display of moderation on our part, even under very trying circumstances, decorous and incoming. But the time, we believe, has at length arrived when further continuance in this course lias become positively unendurable by the colonists. Their interests are being threatened in the most material points by the unrestrained underhand machinations* ot' both secret and avowed enemies. The most ungenerous advantage is being taken of our hitherto passive demeanour and tho conclusion apparently nnaniinouslv arrived at, at homo, is this, that; because in Englaiid we are undefended, therefore, our [ cause is indefensible.

How far we are ourselves to blame for such a state of things to-day, it were now bootless to enqure. A\ r e have erred, but it has been upon the side of forbearance and moderation. "We have sulfcred long and silently, but it was uot because we had no gooil defence to oiler. AV r e simply underrated the malignity of our opponents ; we gave them credit too readily for open and manly opposition, such as might be met and balanced by argument and counter statements of facts and iigures before an impartial tribunal. But we were unprepared for secret intrigues carried on in the Colony, and elaborated at home for the purpose of being there employed to llie prejudice of the colonists, and the ruin of the country. A\'o were unwilling to believe that such things could be doiie by the parties now chargeable with them, much less would we anticipate the doing ot' them.

AVe are now undeceived. Tiie Colony can no longer doubt tlie real character of the opposition it has to expect, and the means that are being unscrupulous!v used to jeopardize its prosperity. That steps at length should be taken to set ourselves right with the imperial Government and with public opinion in England, is a question of the last importance to the entire population of these islands. Hut whatever else may be deemed necessary under the circumstances, there is one resource open to lis which we think so obvious, and at the same tilne-so practicable, that we wonder the propriety of it has not long since suggested itself to those to whom the doing of it would properly belong A\ r e refer to the appointment of a competent political agent in England whose special business it would be to prevent oil the spot the fulmination of odious libels on tbe Colony, to dseminate correct information on the origin, the character and objects of the war; to explode unfounded prejudices, and expose, promtly and effectually f invidious, uncharitable false statements, whether emanating from the pulpit, the platform, or the press, bringing to condign punishment at the bar of public opinion the author of all such slanderous proceedings without exception, be they clerical or lay. To discharge those duties we should have a mail of some address, who would represent us authoratively and efliciently in the mother country. He must be an "individual possessed of special adaptation to the post. The qualificotions should be essentially of the practical and productive class— local knowledge, average ability, tact and judgment, with readiness sufficient; to com mand attention and respect from any audience and under any emergency. One such representative of New Zealand, resident in Britain, active, intelligent, judicious, would aceoinpisli more good for the Colony in a month, than all the memoranda and documentary data, which, without such an agent, could be sent from here by post for the next two years. The immediate necessity for an agency of this character is to us evident to a demonstration. Not a moment, we believe, should be lost in making the appointment, beyond the time absolutely necessary to lind the man. But we must have only such a man as that whose qualifications "we have here described. Of all other appointments of the Government this preeminently 'should illustrate the maxim, " The right man in the right place." It may be true wo have not often seen men of this class depart from amongst usin our interests heretofore, but itis earnestly to be hoped that we have got to the end of the old regime in this particular, and that the importance of the crisis we are now passing through will suggest the necessity for greater circumspection in the future. At any rate the experiment should now be made. AVe have a precedent before us in Colonial history, if we need one, for adopting the course here suggested, in the conduct ol' the early American colonists, just previously to the war of Independence ; and, we believe it is not too much to say, that their necessities at the time were not a whit more urgent or pressing than our own. Benjamin Franklin did not sail for England on a more important mission on belialt ot his oppressed countrymen, previous to the first American war, than our own New Zealand representative would carry with him at the present moment to the same destination. It is--true we have not precisely similar grievances to redress, but we have interests to guard equally threatened, and which are equally dear to us as theirs were to tliem, and which will be as resolutely maintained. The quarrel in our case, we rejoice to say, is not as yet so mucn with the Imperial Government itself as with a taction whose influence upon it, we have reason to believe, is abused to our detriment, and which it is, therefore, our duty, in self defence, to confront and expose. Hitherto, wo have been content to defend ourselves here at the Antipodes as best we

could, but though the legitimate press of tlie colony has done its utmost, and is still exerting itself, in the good cause, it is nevertheless evident that we are carrying on the contest at by far too great odds. Distance and the lapse of time are all in favor of our wary assailants, and our shafts, aftef l ' ft flight, of sixteen thousand miles, too often fall pointless on their object, and come far short of their intended mark. Tt would not ho so in Tsrit«in if we had a competent organised agency, which would fake them up on the spot, and use them to tho best advantage, and while each slander on tho colony forwarded by private letter, or in the columns' of the' the TVe/fiiijfoii Bj)ri;/(tf,or, oi' the P/r.v.v, is fresh in the minds ot the public at home, point out its fallacy and its wickedness, and so prevent its gaining a footing before the antidote arrives by the next mail. Auxiliary to the presence iind untiring exertions of such an agency, the Colonial Press would make itself heard to some purpose, and with results which we have confidence in affirming would not disappoint the moderate expectations of the colonists) of thiri count IN-