SPECTEMTJR AGENDO. AUCKLAND, TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1865.

New Zealand Herald, Volume II, Issue 446, 18 April 1865, Page 4

SPECTEMTJR AGENDO.

AUCKLAND, TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1865.

" Give every min thine ear, but few thy voloo: Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. This above all,—To tluno oinisolf bo true; And it must follow, as tho night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

The object of the "Weld Ministry is to humble the proud Province of Auckland. This was undisguisedly spoken at Canterbury at the famous Ministry-making-dinncr, when the wine was in and the wit was out> and the "Weld Ministry from the moment of its coming into power to the present time, has slavishly followed the dictates of those who then created it for the work. Every settler murdered within the confines of this province, every farm thrown out of cultivation, every friendly native converted into a rebel and a Pai Marire, is a positive gain to the men of whom the five gentlemen who compose the New Zealand Ministry are the creatures and subservient tools. The "Waikatowas conquered by the British army at an enormous sacrifice of blood and treasure, in comparison with the work to be achieved. Britain very properly having conquered the rebel tribes, and driven them out of "Waikato, left to the colony the charge of consolidating and securing the victory by the occupation of the conquered districts. Owing to the persistent opposition of Sir George Grey the opportunity for doing thr< was long'being brought about. Still, it ■was brought about, and the Waikato was declared confiscated. It was clearly then the duty of the colony to have fulfilled" its part of the contract. Did it do so ? Not at all. Money had been voted in a previous session of the Asscmbh' to do so. There were the conquered and confiscated lands of the Waikato, one portion of which might have been sold to find the means to permanently settle the whole ; but tohavedone this would have addedgrcatlv to the wealth and importance of Auckland

as a province, and therefore the "Weld Ministry allowed the whole work of conquering the Waikato to be virtually so muph blood and money thrown away." As now stnnd in the conquered districts, it would have been better that the war had never been carried into Waikato at all. A few isolated posts have been established here and there, but the work of occupying the country lias never been attempted. "We have just as much possession of it as serves to keep up the irritation of tho

native mind, but not sufficient to render the conquest so dearly achieved advance our position one single step nearer a sound and lasting peace. The Weld Ministry would seem in native politics to copy the doctrines of the Pai Marire superstition. They seek to crush Auckland by a slow but irritant system of insecurity. An atrocious murder is to be committed in one place one day, the settlers of a whole district are to fly for their lives upon another, and again, the European inhabitants of an out-district, as at Coromandel, are to be left to the mercy of a wandering band of fanatics. Had the massacre planned to take place at Coromandel been successful, as it was nearly being—had fifty or a hundred Europeans been brutally butchered, the Government would have taken it just as quietly as they did the murder of the Rev. Mr. Volkner— a very horrible tiling in itself, but quite a natural event to happen in the Province of Auckland ; the normal condition of society there, with which it was not their duty to interfere—a consequence which all must look for who are foolish, enough to chose the Northern Province of IS T ow Zealand as a field of emigration. The same plan is being carried' out in the Waikato and at Tauranga. Temptation to the Pai Marire fanatics to imbrue their hands in European blood is systematically held out to them. The garrisons are left just so low as to leave it a matter of serious doubt whether any one of them could resist a combined rebel attack, and so utterly weak that, as in the case of To Papa, Colonel I Greer dare not despatch a man to Maketu, where the danger is imminent, lest he should

not be able to hold his own position if attacked. We cannot think that the British G-overnmeut entered on the New Zealand campaign to post a garrison here and there, so weak that it can hardly feel safe within its own trenches, far less where it can afford protection to those who mi»-ht otherwise settle around it, and thus permanently occupy the country. If these garrisons were retained where they are for years to come, we should not be one step nearer the pacification of the country than we now are-and let the troops be once withdrawn and these posts abandoned, as they must bc.and we shall have the rebel tribes triumphantly returning and taking up their possessions as vantage ground from which to issue in aggressive attacks upon our nearer out-settlements. At the present time we write the whole of the Province is in a condition of the utmost danger—a danger brought about knowingly

and-wilfully by the present Colonial Government. At Maketu and Tauranga our garrisons are hemmed in by the rebelH, and our friendly native allies who have done good service to the Queen are left —to the shame of Englishmen be it spoken—to the mercy of a foe largely outnumbering themselves, and this very danger which. we cannot shield them from has arisen solely in consequence of their loyalty to our cause. The settlers of Poverty Bay. missionaries, men, women, and children have lied for their lives. The European settlers at Coromandel scarcely a fortnight ago escaped from one common massacre, to the chanco of which they had been left by the inaction of the Colonial Government. The posts upon the AVaikato are held under the dread of nightly attack, and as if all this were not bad enough, the Pai Marire fanatics arc allowed to wander unchecked through the native settlements of the country north of Auckland. Pai Marirism has been allowed to take root in the North. At the Bay of Islands and at AVangaroa it is said to be making great headway amongst the hitherto friendly and supposed Christian natives. The seed is being sown, and the ministry sit by with folded arms waiting for the harvest —that harvest the blood of their fellow-countrymen and women, and the ruin of the Northern and richest portion of the Province of Auckland. These are the fruits of the curse, of divided responsibility. The Governor has the Ministry for his scapegoat. Ministers have the strong party-feeling and rivalry of Southern constituencies against Auckland as their rock on which to lean. No matter though their hands morally be stained with tho blood of their fellow-settlers, though their administration be darkened with the ruin of an entire province—that blood is only the blood of Auckland men and women —that province destro}'ed was only a rival to those to whom they look for commendation and support—to those in fact whose creatures they arc! AVe are drawing no exaggerated picture. Wo are placing tho state of affairs in New Zealand as they are at the present moment in their true Unvarnished light. Tho destruction of Auckland at any cost, at any sacrifice, by any means, is the real policy of the South. All other measures are made subservient to this. It is the Alpha and Omega of the policy of the A\ r eld Administration. It is tho result which has flowed from the abuse of tho gift of representative government granted by the Crown. It remains, however, to be seen if the Imperial Government will allow this power given for the good of the colony as a whole to be wrested by one portion of it into .an engine of oppression against the other. AVc have every reason, from that sense of right and justice, and hatred of oppression of the weak by the strong, which marks the character of Englishmen at home, to look to them for protection from Southern jcalousv and hatred. If that resource fail us, Auckland must gird up her loins, and her sons must do their duty let the cost be what it inav.

TAURANGA.

The intelligence from Tauranga, received yesterday by the Sir John Burgoyne, is of an alarming character. Makctu and Rotorua are both threatened by a strong force of rebel natives, who, with "William Thompson at their head, are posted near the latter place. It appears that the direct attack is threatened against the Arawns, who have drawn the anger of the rebels upon them by the assistance which they rendered us some time since. The Arawas are surrounded on an island in the centre of the Eotorua lake, whither they had betaken themselves as the strongest post of defence they could occupy, but it is feared that unless we can raise the siege these brave fellows who have staked all and bled in our cause, will be left to perish miserably; a monument of shame and disgrace to the honor of the British nation. Colonel Greer, wo learn, was unable to send any nuen to the scantily garrisoned Tort at Makctu lest lie should leave himself with too few to hold the Redoubt at Te Papa. In such state have we been left in this province by the "Welti Ministry.

AVe learn with regret from a reliable source that: the whole of the natives about Taui-anga, with the exception of the Arawas, are Pai Marires, though when they visit the settlements most of them deny it. But in all their villages, the pole, around which the fanatics perforin their filthy and obscene rites, is set up, and at night they may be heard, by those venturing near, going through their abominable songs and recitations.

! The Thames natives, as will he seen by the letter of a correspondent from Coromandel, are ripe for mischief. One of the prophets is going from village to village with the head of a soldier, which ho exhibits, and by which no doubt he pretends to work miracles, and deludes men whose minds are only too willing to be deluded into anything that promises to give them back thebaibarism of thepast age, to the recollection of which they fondly cling. Altogether the news from the outlying district is growing more and more threatening. In the North we lea7-n of the preachings and spread of the Pai jNlarire doctrine, and the consequences of its introduction in that quarter may be most serious. Of course, had the Colonial Government interfered to prevent its introduction there— had thev used the most, ordinary precautions, or hal they wished even to keep this district free from the taint of this new superstition and its attendant evils, they might have done so. They have not done so, nor have they attempted to do ao.

THE RAGLAN ELECTION. Below will be found a letter addressed to us by the Secretary of the Northern Association. We, too, have noticed witli somewhat of amusement the remarks which have appeared in a cotemporary respecting the candidates at present in the field. One tiling we do know, that never at any meeting of the Northern Association was the subject of the Raglan or any other election ever mentioned or discussed. We were therefore somewhat amused, when on Friday last we noticed in the editorial columns of the JVeic Zealamhi- the announcement that " it is said that Mr. William Buckland will be the nominee of the Northern Association." -We could quite understand the sneer' at the conclusion of the paragraph, that Mr. Buckland was "at in the South in search of a sheep rim " —for wc knew that the journal in question bore no love to Mr. Buckland. The following day, we find the same tone repeated. We "find it there "rumoured that-instead of Mr. Crispe retiring from the contest (as had been recommended by the Cross), the nominee of

the Northern Association, Mr. Backhand, "will not go to tho poll." It then goes on in the interest of Mr. Crispe, tho " Old Practical" of its columns, to deprecate the system of returning men of wealth as such. But when we take up Monday'B issue of our cotemporary —what a change—"Buck-land's the friend, not Crispe — Crispe may be all very well you know, my dear, but Buckland—Buckland's the real friend."

Our Shortland-street friend, we know, is willing to turn its coat, eat its own words and opinions, do anything in fact from grinning through a horse collar to advocating Maori extermination for the sake of regaining the popularity which it has justly forfeited —hut we were not prepared for the. change of. opinion which Monday brought .forth, The tiling was so undisguised, so palpably after the style of the Vicar of Bray, that though the better cause has been espoused, it, is felt that it is not on the merits, but on the expediency of the course, that tho change has been made." Of course, as everybody kndws, the patronage of the New Zealander to another candidate is worth just nothing, except, as it thinks, to itself. There is one thing, however, in its article of yesterday which requires comment, and that is, the reiterated assertion that Mr. W. Buckland is the nominee of the Northern Association. The _ Council of tho Association at its meeting held yesterday, through the secretaty, emphatically denies this assertion. We ourselves know it to he untrue. As used by the New Zcahtndcr we see in it the unwilling support given to a political opponent for purposes of political expediency. The throwing over board of Mr. Crispe by the New Zealander from such motives is a piece of moral turpitude of which only the New Zealaitder could be guilty. There can be little doubt where the choice of the electors would turn in a fair contest even, nor will Mr. Crispe have advanced his cause Ij3' his party address of yesterday to the electors.

The following is tho letter alluded to in the commencement of this article :— THE NORTHERN ASSOCIATION. To tho Editor of tho New Zealand Herald. Sir, —I am instructed by tho Council of the Northern Association to request tho publication in the New Zealand Herald, of the following memorandum, which was unanimously adopted by the Council ut a meeting held to-day. I have, &c, Robert Kidd, Secretary. Oftico'of tho Northern Association, Auckland, April 17, 18G5. " Referring to nn advertised address to the electors of the district of Raglan, which purports to be issued by Mr. J. Crispe, and in which occur the following words, 'Neither is it in pood taste of the Northern Association to dictato who should, or who should not, bo your member'—and in which it is said the writer thinks 'it unfair that it [the Northern Association] should now be used as a dictating body to influence tho electors' —and in Wiiich are also the following words, ' the whole machinery of the Northern Association against me.' " Referring aleo to statements lately made in the editorial columns of tho y~ew Zeulander newspaper, in which Mr. AVil iam Buckland is designated as ' the nominee of the Northern Association.' "The Council of tho Northern Association deems it right to declare, that the foregoing statements and assumptions are entirely devoid of foundation. The" Northern Association has nominated no person to the electors of Raglan; the machinery of the Northern Association has been hitherto employed neither for nor against any candidate ; nor has any action whatever been taken by tho Association or its Council with reference to tho Raglan election.."