The New Zealand Herald. AUCKLAND, MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1865.

New Zealand Herald, Volume II, Issue 553, 21 August 1865, Page 4

The New Zealand Herald.

AUCKLAND, MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 1865.

SI'KCTKMUK A'iKNDO. " Cii\*4» every mail thill'.* oar, but few* thy voice : Take eaeh man's rensnre. 'nit i-cmtvc thy judgment. above all,—To thine owiwlf be (rue ; Ancl it must follow, as tlie the. 'lav. Thou c:m>l not then be I'al.-e to any man."

Oxe of the principal items of political intelligence received by the Queen is the appointment of Mr. Fitzgerald—.lames Edward Fitzgerald, of Christ church —to the office of Native Minister. Ministers will not, we think, have much strengthened their position bv this addition to their numbers. Mr. Fitzgerald is most unpopular. However much his oratorical powers may be admired, as a statesman he is looked upon as unsound and untrustworthy. Canterbury members themselves are growling at the appointment, and those of Otago arc oven still more angry. Otago is least of all likely to allow itself to be tints shelved, and will probably find it to her interest to coalesce with Auckland in a common cause. The question has, we be-

liovo, been nlrondv innntx'fi to conlesro for tlie ])urposo of* ousting tlie present nflministration, ;ukl t'oriniiig ;tit Ot;igo Ministry, with Hieluirilson .'it its lieiul, ami with Orosbie W:ir«l as Postmaster-fu'iirra!. It is clear that tlie Ministry are. or perhaps were, slrottg on ;i want of confidence. and on nothing else. Thev have not, as the result of the debate on the Provinces' Limitation Act plainly shows, a working majority in hand. Even the division lists on ordinary ijiiestions show Ihis. To-morrow the financial statement will be laid before the House, and then in all probability there will be a still greater feeling of dissal isf'aci ion against them. The Ministry, we learn, have been rather (nken aback by the course of events which ushered in their announcements of partial peace, and (he arrival of the time when the services off he troops could be dispensed with. The almost siiniillanenus news uf l-'ulloon's murder and that of the crew of the Kate, of the murder of m'licers at Taranaki and A\ ranganui, and of the general rising of the East ('ci.-ist lima! ics. fell upon I lient like a thunderclap. They were even about, we hear, to liberate the fifty-seven natives taken ill the Wereroa Fa all'air. excepting two, who had been previously captured and who had signed a declaration not to light again, hut; they dared not do it in the face of so evident a sign of a general rising of the disaffected natives throughout tlie island. !\!r. Fitzgerald goes in, we understand, for hanging f hese Iwo natives. We would ask Mr. Fitzgerald to consider whether there is not blood enough to be answered for already ? Volkner, J'ulloon, and others have fallen victims to Maori savagery through the drivelling incompetency of men now in ollice, and if they carry out; this act of severity, are they, we could ask, prepared to prevent the possible massacre of hundreds of men. women, and children in ihe N"orth. Mr. Fit/.ge. aid and his colleagues live in security from native aggression. Their families are safe from tlie tomahawk, 1 heir properly from plunder—not so tlie settlers of the .North. Can Mr. Fitzgerald guarantee that these two men have no relatives whose tribes are living in the midst of our unarmed and exposed settlers—that their execution would not be tlie signal of massacre and bloodshed, as »fu for f hat execution ? We think that even the present Ministry should consider this matter, though it be. only Auckland men and women, and their children, whose lives may be imperilled by its act. Knmigh of Auckland l.dooil has been already shed. As will be seen by our report from the Fast; Coast, the native insurrection is spreading wider •ind wider. We have seen enough of the miserable folly of pursuing a policy of exasperation nnd ai the same moment of denuding ourselves of the means ot' defence. \\ ith I lie same breath that the Weld Ministry resolved to send away the troops, it provoked and irritated the native race bv a needless war of aggression carried into the \\ anganui Province, and now that: the troops are supposed to be on the eve of departure and the Maoris are thereby becoming the more emboldened, it is proposed to hang two native prisoners, whose deaths might set the whole North in a blaze. Had so stringent a course been proposed six months since, we could have understood the possible advisability ot' such an example on the native mind : to do it now is the height of folly and imprudence. .Had the Middle Island not already snflicientlv felt the cost of this war, that just as we were losing Imperial assistance we should have stirred up f he whole Soot hern portion of the island into a state of revolt and now seek to imperil Ihe more Xorthevn portion. Philo-Maori as Mr. Fif/gerald has been hitherto we should not. be surprised, now that he is in power, to find him the advocate of the most ultra siringenf measures—-perhaps even to ihe extent of proposing a native offender's bill. II is views are always of the most outre description. We have received our reports of the proceedings of the 1 louse, but asit isimpossibleto find room for more than even a small portion to-day. we have given the adjourned debate on the petition of William Thompson, and the result of the division. As will be seen, tlie reception of (he petition was carried by a large majority, all the Auckland members but one voting with the ayes. There can be no second opinion as to the insolent tone of the petit ion, or as to the disrespect to the loyal feelings of the House shown by Mr. .Fitzgerald in presenting it, but to have voted aga'nst its reception and thus to have rejected on a point of form the first acknowledgment of the natives of the power of t he Assembly, would have placed Auckland members in a false position at homo, and probably to entrap them, into such a position was one of Fitzgerald's motives for its prcsentat ion. 11 does however strike us after all that: this document may never have been intended for a pi-til 'mn. addressed as it was. not to the Assembly of is'ew Zealand, but to ■' Mr. Fit zgerald andthemembers of the Assembly." What: if Thompson disavows the petition and calls it only his jiuka-piilca. which, after reading the debate, he is likely enough to do. Mr. Fitzgerald will then have placed the Assembly in a silly position, and afforded this truculent savage the opportunity of laughing at our eagerness to treat with rebels in arms on any terms. 'i'he Queen, as will be seen in another column, has brought up startling intelligence from the East Coast. The native rebellion has now fairly commenced, and the utmost efforts, military, colonial, and native, will be required for its thorough suppression. The Hatihau superstition has taken a far wider hold on the native, mind than even the most sanguine alarmists could have conceived.