The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, MONDAY, DEC. 5, 1864.

New Zealand Herald, Volume IV, Issue 332, 5 December 1864, Page 4

The New Zealand Herald

AUCKLAND, MONDAY, DEC. 5, 1864.

SPECTEMUTt AGENDO. " QVvo ©Tory man thine oar, but few thy voice: Take each ttihii'b censure, but reserve thy Judgment. . Thin above all, —To t-hino ovmself bo true; And it must follow, na the night the day, Thou canst not then bo false to any man."

Ouit readers nre awnrefhat a nioetingof Southern members, supporters of the Ministiy, -h-«s held on Friday morning last, to frame a new policy for Mr. Weld. It had become evident to these gentlemen that the slop-made articles got up on board the ' Phoebe' would not bear the wear and tear of a Parliamentary light. They saw elenrly enough, after the lirst week of the session had passed, that the policy which tlioy 'cnYiie prepared to adopt WiVR ah iVn practicable one. They found tlvnt it was a great deal easier to call upon fhc Imperial Government to withdraw the troops than to say how the Colony was to meet the eniergencj' of the situation when the .troops were withdrawn. It sounded well on board the ' Phoobe' to talk of INew Zealand making a stand for full responsibility in Native afi'airs, but when a weeks' residence 111 Auckland, anil an opportunity of making themselves masters of the exact state of matters had occurred, they foUnd non-responsibility was after all an alternative they might only be too glad to adopt. In this dilemma they have drawn up for Mr. Weld the following amended resolutions, in lieu of those which he moved on the 30th idt., the debate on which stands adjourned until to-day:—

1. That tho House takes this occasion of expressing its loyally and devotion to tho Crown, its dec]) gratitude /or (he generous Assistance rcndeicd by the Mother Country to the Colony, and its cordial appreciation of the galJnnt servi- es performed bv her Majesty's land and naval forccs in New Zealand.

2. 1 hat tliis House, having in its Inst, session accepted the decision of the Duke of Kcwcastle upon the subject of the responsibility of directing mid controlling the I*alive policy of the colony, as imposed upon it by his Despatch No. 22, of the 26tli February, 1863. •which decision has been inteipreted by the instructions to his Excellency the Governor,"contained in Despatches ISo. 43. of2Gth .April, and No. 65, of26th ilay, 386't, of the Bight Honorable Edward < ardwell, expresses itii confident trust thnt these instructions were issued to meet a temporary emergency and may lapse tlie moment a normal state of things shall be restored in tlie eolonv.

3. That this House does not dispute the claim of tho Imperial Government to exercise a reasonable control over policy upon which the restoration of peace must necessarily depend, whilst the colony is receiving the aid of British troops for the suppression of internal disturbances, yet cannot shrink from the expression of its conviction, that the joint responsibility of Governor and Ministers has resulted in divided counsels, which have been productive of great evils to both races of Her Majesty's subjects in this colony, and havo entailed heavy imd unnecessary expenditure both upon Great Uritain and on New Zealand.

4. Hint the resources of New Zealand have been already heavily burthened, and their developement retarted by the great sacrifices that havo been entailed upon the colony bv the nativo insurrection, 'lhat, nevertheless, tho colony is resolved to make every further possible effort to placo itself in a position of self defence against internal aggression, with a view to ncct pt tiie alternative indicated by the Homo Government, namely, tho withdrawal of Her Majesty s land forces at the earliest possible period consistent with the maintenance of Imperial interests and the safety of the colony, thereby enabling the Imperial Government to issue such instructions to His hxcellencv the Governor as may permit him to be guided entirely by the recommendations of his Constitutional advisers in native as well as in ordinary aflairs, excepting upon such matters as ma v directly concern Imperial interests and tho prerogative of the Crown.

o. That those resolutions be embodied in an humble address to His hxeelleney the Governor, requesting him to transmit them to ller Majesty's Prineiplii of Stato for the colonies.

In those amended resolutions Mr. Weld is made to eat his own words of the 30th nit. J. hen lie boldly declared for no loss decided .in act than " that the House accepts the alternatiye, and requests the Home Government to withdraw the whole of its land force front the colony. 'llien Mr. Weld looked upon divided responsibility as so threat an evil as to cause him gliidlj' to fly to the above alternative, In these amended resolutions now before us is a great change; not one merely of words but of principles. .Divided responsibility is still bad. but there is no proposal to resort to any alternative. It is merely hoped that it is to be continued only to meet a temporary emergency and to lapse when a normal state of things shall have been restored to the Colony, There is no talk of applying for the immediate withchaw nl ol the troops. The nearest approach to any such an idea, and it is a very remote one. is where the resolution states that " the Colon v '• will make every furtherpossible effort to place J itself in a position of self defouce against " internal aggression, with a view to accept the " allenttilive indicated by the Home Government, viz., the withdrawal of i[or JVlajesty's " land forces forces at the earliest period consis- " tent with the maintenance of the Imperial inte- " rests, and the safety of the Colony —that is, when the war shall have been concluded—not sooner, it is evident, for the Imperial alternative \ ery explicitly states that if the war is not concluded by the end of the present month we shall pay for four regiments during the year 18(15. and for all that may be required in subsequent years. Mr. Weld's resolutions of the 30th tilt., however, called for the immediate withdrawal of the troops, that is, as soon as the Imperial Co ?J i ? u '' co, dd be received, in April or May next. V\ hen Mr. Weld was shown the draft of these amended resolutions we cannot but think that lie must have felt like the little woman in the song, who having had her pctticoats cut short while she was asleep, exc.aimed on awakening, " As sure as I'm a little woman this is none of I He could not possibly recognise the reflection of his own mind in these curtailed and emasculated ideas. We cannot see how any man who has pledged himself to th-e first set of resolutions

can -call upon tlio House to confirm the amended ones without placing himself in the position of calling upon the House to pass a voto of want of confidence in himself.

i'ho resolutions of the 30th. ult., so clear and explicit, so unmistakcablc in their terms, were tnot put forward as mere tentative motions, teelers to try the temper of tho House, put forward by sotne !ieeond-rute man of the party, to be abandoned if necessary. 'Xlicy were put forth by the Premier himself, boldly and unhesiintingl3r, as the keystone of liis policy. In speaking to his resolutions Mr. Weld said—

1 myself having fully and determinedly made up my mind on tms subject, lcel It incumbent on toe to take aJa m and decided course on t/iis question, I ask lor no mere negative support; j. .ask H6 man for his support except bucket by lua political conviction that the proposltiona which ai*e submitted to hiir. recommend themselves to his acceptance. 1 have only been induced to givo up my private wishes on this one ground—tho only thing that could have influenced me tQ to have accepted the position which 1 now hold, was tho recognition of an imperative duty to obev tho call of the country. I therefore expressed to the House, upon the occasion of my last addressing it, that unless I have not merely their negative support, but their entire confidence, 1 am not prepared to take on myself tho onerous and difficult position oi governing the colony. If the House furnishes me a fair, Jinn, ami vordial support, l*tim prepared to take upon mystlf that responsibility, it shall never be said of mo that 1 would ever desert a post in which the feeling of the coUntry and the House had placed me, so long as it is unmistakeably expressed. But, if lam iioi ready to aeeept amendments as principles on this question, let it not be said ol me that I am asking my houourable friends to-night to say that I am riding rough-shod over this llouse, inpiatimj such an uUernafui: ; but rather that this is a man who feels the sent itnents which be speaks, inul d (?5i res to V /srhayt/c n bounden pubheduty. Then lsuy--and lam sure 1 speak for my hon. colleagues—l say hero are men prepared to go, even under thu risk of failure, of tho loss of political reputation, and all that is dear to a public man, but only on one condition —(lie cordiul support- —not the negativo support—but the cordial support ol' this country. J think thai u.e are enunciating the views of tin country in the line of policy which ice adopt. Ido not say every part of the country ; but 1 believe that if we wore to lvturu to our constituents, they would emphatically. confirm the views, which lam laying before ffotc and which are embodied in these resolutions

Can anything be clearer than this ? He " lias " determinedly mnde up his mind on this sub- " j«et." (Jn the House giving, not its negative, but " a fair, lirm, and cordial support" in the carrying of these resolutions is Mr. Weld alone prepared to take upon himself the responsibility of carrying on the government of the Colony. He declares that " he will accept no amendments "as principles on this question. In another part of the same speech, he saj's :—

I do not wish to do more than allude to the fact in ttic elucidation of my view, that £70,000 a month has been lost to the colony by the colony's being in a constant state of balancing and o« ing to the unhappy dilleicnccs between hit* Kxcellency and liia Ministers. This, to me, is a sufficient reason for putting ou end to the system of double Government -which has hitherto existed.

Will the mere enunciation of the evil principle of divided Government, and the hope that it may be discontinued alter the war is Over—as embodied in the amended resolutions—jmt an eml to the existing system of double Government in the sense hero ulluded to by Mr. Weld so us to save .1:70,000 while the war is still going on ? "YV e think* not, and we think, moreover, that Mr. Weld will not abate from the principles which he has already declared are .such the acceptance of which by the House could alone prevail on him to accept or continue in ollice. j\Jr. "S\ eld is not a man, who, having once pledged himself to a line of policy, on which he lias declared that his mind was determinedly made up, is likely for the sake of office to turn round and abjure those principles and allow himself to be made the tool and month piece of apart}'. It he does so, then farewell to the reputation for political honesty which as yet he enjoys, larewell to that reputation which is more dear to such a man as Mr. Weld, inasmuch as its distinction is shared in by so very few around him. Can we believe "that Mr. Weld will be false to his principles and to his reputation when he so clearly says :

When a serious difference of opinion arises between us unci his Excellency upon any question native or domestic we shall, I repent, immediately resign our office ; and 1 believe that if other Ministers who may succeed us will lake the fame view, and adopt as firm a stand, and if this House will accept these resolutions -vliieh I hare the honour of laying before them, I believe wc shall then obtain a real constitutional Government, a constitutional Government as a tiling rather of precedent than of memoranda or written * * The pioposition submitted to mc by his Excellency is the principlo whieli I maintained for the distinct enunciation of my intention and determination to resign on the first occasion that his Excellency should seriously differ with nie in opinion. Now if this House can pet successive Ministries to take that lirni stand which for the first lime in \eu> Zealand the Jltmnlry hare taken, if, I say the House can get future Ministers who in the course of events, or in the rotation us it were of the wheel of fortune may succeed, then I think a some future period 1 may be abe to rise in my seat and congratulate the House for achieving the object for which we lmve been struggling for a greater number of years.

Now that the correspondence between the Governor and his late responsible advisers has been laid before the public, any doubts which heretofore may have held men's judgment in suspense, who were but partially acquainted with what was passing behind the scenes, as to the cause of the miserable inaction which for so long a time has been fanning anew the flame of rebellion, and disgracing theßritish name throughout the Colony, will have received their final solution.

We never for a moment doubted what that solution would be nor did the country doubt it. A few opposition members of the South while yet (he H /u(a/ier-i'u.v Jlmixfty ica.i nominally in office must, needs make political capital by aflccting to doubt who was to blame for the complication of affairs that had arisen, but having played out the little game to their own entire satisfaction and a few of them having actually attained to the much coveted sweets of olliee, we shall <loubtless. as far as they are concerned, hear no more on this subject. As a proof of this, when Mr. Urodie placed a resolution on the notice paper for iN'iturday. calling upon the House to afiirni the following opinion : —"That the thanks of this House are due to "the late Ministry for the firm and decided "action which they have taken, during the •' recess, to maintain the principle of Responsible "Government in the management of iS'ative "affairs; ami further, that this House also

"approves of their endeavours to cany out the " policy laid down for their guidance by a " majority in both Houses of the Legislature, as " to i:lie manner in which the jSativerace should " be controlled," we lind that at a suggestion of the Weld Ministry made out of doors, Mr. Urodie is induced to withdraw his resolution, unless he chose to be charged with, prolonging the session by importing into it n broad subject of discussion—and, moreover, he is threatened that if pressed it will be made a Ministerial questiou, for that manifestly, if the resolution were passed, the late Ministry, and not the present one, would be the men commanding the confidence of the House. Knowing the temper of the House, that the " unholy alliance" of the South are prepared to support the present Ministry in power right or wrong, in order that each dog may have its bone—Wellington—the Panama contract, passing on the seat of Government to Canterbury at no very distant date —Mr. Urodie very properly withdrew his motion. He knew that what the House under any other position would unanimously have allirmed, it would, as at present circumstanced, negative —not because it was voting according to conscience and right in doing so, but because expedienoy demanded such a course of action.

It is "but natural that the " Spoliation Ministry" should be supported ; by men who regulate their motives of action'and their Votes by the amount of plunder which they are enabled to secure. Aucklaild is to be looted, and that Ministry is of course considered the best by Middle Island and Wellington members which hands her over in the most helpless condition to their mercy. It is not now convenient to these men, even when justice demands it, to give due credit to the late Ministry, if by doing so they weaken tile one from which they derive their power to hypothecate Auckland revenue to prop Up., tlic . South; bitt tiie general public havb iiH interest in the matter which invests the correspondence between the Governor and the late Ministry now published with a deep and absorbing importance. The present Governor of New Zealand never stood high in the estimation of the people of the country generally, but we venture to affirm that there is not an individual in the Colony, even among those whom Sir George Grey's previous inconsistencies and perversion of truth had most grievously injured, who will not now be taken by surprise at the startling disclosures which these papers reveal. That the man who, twelve months ago, on the disastrous breaking down of his own mischievious scheme for the Government of the colony, who, in a despatch to the . Secretary'of State, claimed for himself the credit of ; having initiated the confiscation policy of the General Assembly, justified its principle, and recommended its adoption, should now charge his Ministers with a desire to push him beyond the bounds of justice, because they propose to carry out the policy in its integrity ; that he should seek to fix upon them a reflection for lieartlessncss and inhumanity, for no other reason than their refusal to sanction a suicidal and disgraceful overture of peace to the rebels —though objecting on precisely similar grounds as those on which he himself, at a far more favorable moment, -had positively declined to treat with the Maoris, even after he had promised them that he would do so — that he should attempt through the columns of his own newspaper to cast upon the Colonial Government the total and direct responsibility in regard to the safe custody of the prisoners at Kawau, which the correspondence in the clearest and most conclusive manner (ixes immediately upon himself alone—and again that he should have the temerity openly to charge his responsible adtisers with having tendered liiln advice contrary to " law and equity and when challenged to name an instance in which anything of the kind had been done, miserably prevaricates and ultimately declines to answer, is most lamentable to reflect upon. That we should have such a man —capable of such a series of open and unblushing contradictions and contraventions of fact —in which honor, justice, and veracity are all equally set at nought and sacrificed to a diseased longing for fame and doubtful reputation—in the position of representative to the Queen in this colony, is a misfortune not to be expressed in words, but which all must feel keenly and earnestly and bitterly deplore. The country, however, has now nothing more to do with this matter, as between the late Ministry and the Governor. The correspondence places the conduct of his Excellency in a light clear enough to satisfy eveiy man's judgment in regard to the real state of the case, and here the public will be glad to have done with the mere personalties of the quarrel, but we regret to be compelled to believe that the Colony has not yet done with the evil that has been brought upon it by the Governor's most extraordinary and most unprincipled conduct. After eighteen months' of war, and the expenditure of vast sums of money, we are in a worse position than ever we were in before. A war lethargically carried on principally through his Excellency's incessant vacillation and indecision of purpose has but taught the enemy more thorough l} r to despise our power, while the escape of the whole of the prisoners taken in the war in a body from the very centre of British rule in these islands, the ineffectual attempts to recapture I hem either by negotiation or stratagem, and the confession of our inability to do it by force, the repeated overtures of the Governor to rebels in arms to accept a cessation of hostilities, virtually on any terms they pleased —the substitution of " confiscation " for " cession " afterconfiscation had been already actually put into operation to some extent—this continual change, modification, and concession in our dealing with the insurgents has brought matters to a crisis of terrible peril, and the Colony has almost exhausted the patience of the Home Government,and saddled the country with a debt lor which at the present moment it has nothing to show. TVhat the future may have in store for us, as the result of this state of things, is more than any man at this hour can foretell. It will, however, be the business of those who have recently assumed the direction of public aflairs to see to this. Upon them devolves a weighty responsibility at the present time, and they may depend upon it that the eyes of every constituency in New Zealand will be turned enquiringly upon them. If they can bring the Governor to listen to reason so far as to permit them to take steps to arrest the tide of evils which his Excellency's past unprincipled and mischievous obstructions and bad faith has raised against the Colony they will deserve the gratitude and certainly will have the thanks of the country at large. But half measures and an accommodating policy will not accomplish this. To dally with time or attempt to resort to plans of expediency with a view of further compromising principle and coquetting with impracticable theorists in England aucl elsewhere will but have the double iil effect of aggravating while it precipitates the ruin they would avert. We warn Mr. Weld that 110 Government will succeed in this country that will not manfully grapple with the real difficulties of our position. Our relations with the Home Government must be defined. Our attitude towards the IS atives must be firm as well as reasonably conciliatory. European interests in the Colony must cease to be sacrificed to Sir George Grey's insane anxiety lor the applause of Exeter Hall, and the approbation ot his confreres of Aboriginal Protection notoriety. Any attempt to play into the hands of this party which, from the earliest year of our existence as a British Colon}-, has proved itself the implacable enemy of the colonists, and the curse of New Zealand, will be the sure forerunner of the overthrow of the men, whoever they may be, who shall have the hardihood again to trifle with the lives and interests of the people of this country.

A Southern Ministry may thinkitselfbcst adapted to master the diiLiculties of our position liere in the -North, and thinking so, it is natural that its members should wish to have an opportunity of trying their hand in an effort at their readjustment. That opportunity is now granted them, and we shall look on with interest while they make the experiment, though as yet we have failed to discover anything better in their acts and speeches than the premonitory blunders which usually precede the betrayal of an illconsidered scheme.