The New Zealand Herald SPECTEMUR AGENDO. "Give every man thine ear, 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. UNKNOWN canst not then he false to any man." AUCKLAND, FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1865.

New Zealand Herald, Volume II, Issue 539, 4 August 1865, Page 4

The New Zealand Herald SPECTEMUR AGENDO. "Give every man thine ear, 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. UNKNOWN canst not then he false to any man." AUCKLAND, FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1865.

Tr is certainly a painful duty to have to endeavour to sift evidence calculated to prove whether a statement deliberately made by the representative of her Majesty Queen Victoria in a speech addressed to the Parliament of the Colony, and reflecting on the Lieutenant-Goneral then commanding her Majesty's forces in the Colony is correct", or whether the positive denial of that statement bv the General be correct or not. It is quite evident both cannot be right", and if is equally evident that it is of the very utmost importance that the most implicit faith should be placed in every official utterance of a representative of the Queen of England and of a General of her army. Whatever shakes that faith is a grave and serious calamity : the moral sense and feelings of the community are thereby shocked, while on the other hand there are too lii.-mv who are always glad to copy the vices of 1 hose in power .Imagination and fiction, should not take the place of sober fact in stale speeches and slate papers. And as both the Governor and the General arc- men of mark, men of no slight experience in different parts of the world, the first impression is ihat neither of them would be guilty of so great a blunder as to state that which was not correct, and which they could not prove to be correct. It is due, therefore, to both to examine the evidence published, so as to obtain collateral or internal proof of the correctness of either the one statement or the other. AVe now proceed to do so.

On the Iflth of duly, Sir Oeorgo Grey, in a letter addressed to "Brigadier-General Waddy. C.8., Arc.," says, 11 I wish to know whether the instructions underwliich vnu are acting from Lieutenant-General >ir D. A. Cameron. K.C. 8., will permit of your proceeding to invest that place (the Wereroa pa), and to carry out regular operations for its immediate reduction, without the delay of a reference to him at. Auckland, or whether such reference must first be made." The reply of Brigadier-General Waddy says " 1 have to inform your Excellency that: .1 cannot undertake this operation against the pa unless I receive the orders of the Lieut.General commanding the forces to do so ; 1 will of course forward your Excellency's conimuuication without delay to Sir D A. Cameron, and I. will hold the troops in this district ready to move at the shortest notice, should the Lieutenant-General commanding the forces direct' an immediate attack on the pa." Brigadier ' Watldy therefore does not answer the Governor's question. He does not say one word as to what his orders and instructions were 'from flic General, yet this was what the Governor pointedly "asked him. Instead of telling the Governor what orders General Cameron had given him. Brigadier-General Waddy .says he will write to General Cameron for orders. And to show more clearly that Brigadier Waddy bad no orders "precluding" him from attacking the pa or assisting in its attack, lie actually does, in reply to a second letter, send -100 men and also a detachment; of Boyal Artillery, and to make the aid thus given more effective, General Waddy also sends an officer of .Royal Engineers to accompany them. Now Sir Duncan Cameron, not Sir George Grey, was the commander of the British forces at Wanganui as well as elsewhere in New Zealand. The former therefore was the superior ollicer whom Brigadier General Waddy was under strict necessity of obeying. Had General Cameron given such orders as "precluded" Brigadier-General Waddy from attacking that pa, the latter knows Ihe rules of the service too well 1:o think for a. moment of being guilty of so gross a breach of discipline as to obey a fliird party, and disobey the positive orders of his General. it was not the existence of orders not; to attack the pa, but: the absence of orders to at tack it, to which General Waddy refers. His second letter, date.'; noon, July 1 '•>. clearly shows this, as also the las', words of ihe last sentence of his former let ter of same date, whore he says that he will have his troops m readi ness should the Lieutenant-General order ail IIIM Em.VTK ATTACK OX THE FX. And ill the Governor's letter marked .No. 4, Sir George says that heunderstood that General Cameron had made certain arrangements with the view of taking the pa in question by surprise, if a fitting opportunity offered, and he ventures an opinion that these arrangements, so far as the number of men was concerned, were not on a sufficiently large scale.

So far then as " internal evidence" is concerned. there is no ground for the statement of Sir George Grey in his speech that the British Forces were " precluded by their orders from taking any active part in the operations against the enemy's stronghold." Brigadier Waddy made no such statement in his letters. He distinctly and very clearly avoided saying what his orders were, but contented himself in his first letter with saving that he could not attack the pa without orders, and in his second he changes his mind, and sends -LOO men to assist in reducing the pa, which if he had had orders not to do, lie would never have consented to do, in the broad and first principles of his duty, obedience to the orders of the General under whom he was serving.

The next stop is to ascertain if. any intimation was given to the Governor "by any other oflicer ot' the British army of that armv having orders which precluded them from attacking tho pa. No sign of anything of tho kind appears in the correspondence. Consequently we are driven to the necessity of believing "that no one made the statement to the Governor which he made to the General Assembly, and the Lieutenant-General pointedly and clearly tells .Sir George Grey and the public that lie never gave any orders to Brigadier-General Waddy or to any one else precluding them from attacking or assisting in attacking the pa. The burden of proof therefore lies upon his Excellency, and the public of the Colony, and the Right Honorable the Secretary ol State lor the Colonies will 110 doubt be anxious to have the authority on which the Governor made the deliberate statement be fee the Assembly of the correctness of which there is at present no proof, but the reverse, and which is solemnly and distinctly denied by " an oflicer and a gentleman," a distinguished General in her Majesty's service. There is a mistake somewhere, and the sooner it is rectified the better. .For it becomes not high ollicers of state to be so careless in tho employment of language as to make use of words applied by'the Earl of Derbv to a noble lord in the House of Peers, to " state that to be which is not." What a sad moral does this determined cll'ort to trip up opponents reach. One twelve months was spent, in wrangling with and endeavouring to entangle in a net certain responsible advisers, the country thereby certainly drifting toward ruin, another set of ministers are installed into ollice, and repudiation of engagements. profligate expenditure, and evil speaking, have been the most characteristic features of the acts of our rulers during the past six months.