The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1867.

New Zealand Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1053, 30 March 1867, Page 4

The New Zealand Herald

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1867.

SPECTEAIUK AGENDO. fi Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice ; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment Thie a vOve all, —To thine own self be true And it must follow, as the nisjht tha day, Tlmu caaat lint then be fabo to any man."

Akotlteh portion of the Imperial forces embarked for England yesterday, yet neither anxiety for the present nor fear for the future has been felt colonists in consequence of their departure. The one regiment which the mother country was willing to leave in. the colony will in all probability be embarked during the present year, and the knowledge of this probability is received rather with gladness that apprehension. Far better, men say, that we should accept a clear and defined position, even if certain responsibilities pertain thereto, than that we should be left between two stools to fall to the ground—retaining the semblance of Imperial assistance and with it the loss of administrative independence in native matters, yet profiting nothing practically by the £ of a mere handful of troops, whose | presence in the colony would be just enough to inflame the passions of the natives, without at the same time affording sufficient force to quell the disturbances which might arise out of such a state of affairs.

"We recognize in the withdrawal of the troops from New Zealand, in the anxiety displayed by the Imperial Government to bring about a federation of the North American colonists, and even in the readiness with which England has lately assisted Victoria with the means of defending her principal port, an indication of the policy laid down for the guidance of her statesmen as regards the immediate future of her relations with her numerous colonies. There is evidently a desire on her part that as soon as practicable we shall stand alone; that the tie now binding us as mother and children shall be severed, and the sooner that we bring ourselves to the task of preparation for this event the better. It is not until they have shaken off the leading strings held and pulled at the further end of the world that these colonies will get upon the right track and advance in prosperity unchecked according to their several natural advantages and capabilities. The sooner that the Australasian colonies one and all cau briug themselves to see that their connection with the mother country is a source rather of weakness than of strength—that Imperial interference with local administration is really a heavy drag instead of being what was intended that it should be. a wholesome check, the sooner shall we enter on the road to wealth, greatness, and power, which is undoubtedly the future of the kindred colonies of Australasia.

In our own cave, which is a peculiar one, the first step to be made is the attainment of local administration itself, which, as long as native met tors are virtually, anil practically under the control of the Imperial Government, we cannot be said to possess ; and the first step towards attaining this end will only be found in the entire rejection of Imperial assistance. So long as Great Britain stations a single company of soldiers to protect the colonists from the natives, so long will she insist on exercising a control over native affairs, which, exceptional as it may be sketched in terms and character, will always be found to practically mean absolute and positive interference, and to be the cause, as it has been up to the present moment, of the very wars and local insurrections, the supposed suppression of which entitles it to the enjoyment of such interference. Left to themselves in their dealings with the natives, the colonists of New Zealand are not likely to give or to receive cause for offence which need necessarily lead to war. In the minds of the natives the war has not been one against the settlers but against the Queen's forces, and the ill-will shown even in some cases against the European settlers, which has grown out of Che war and the forced share which the latter have taken in such operations, is really inconsiderable to what might have been expected. Murders and pillage would have been events of ordinary occurrence had any very great bitterness of feeling existed on the part of the Maoris against us as settlers; yet even at the present moment in the very hot-bed of kingism, the Aotea and Kawhia district, there are Europeans living amongst the natives, and our settlements, undefended by military garrisons, are left to develope themselves undisturbed by Maori aggression. "We have alluded to the Kawhia district because we are sorry to say many thoughtless persons keep up a continual state of irritation both in the minds of Europeans and natives, by the spread and often the publication of sensational items of intelligence, which, as one month passes another, prove to have been wholly unfounded. The cry of invasion of the TVaikato is taken up and the real progress of the Province receives a very serious check. Indeed by such means it is that the very danger feared lias not been already rendered an impossibility, for few who do not really know the facts of the case would venture life and property by settling in these districts. Some few notable instances, however, have occurred, which should go far to allay the apprehensions caused by these untruthful reports of _ an alarming nature, in which certain capitalists who have of all other settlers the best means of knowing the minds and feeling of the natives, are venturing both lives and property on the settlement of lauds situated in what are popularly supposed to be the most unsafe districts in the province. It was but the other day that a run in the Thames district was gazetted, which Mr. J. C. Firth is bound to stock at once with sixty head of horned cattle. Mr. TV. Buckland, has not hesitated, neither have the sons of Mr. G. Graham, to occupy ana stock runs in tlio very heart of rebeluom. These facts are significant, and should go far to bring discredit upon every vague fear and rumour expressed by the inhabitants 01 districts nearer home. Neither Eaglan nor the "Waikato has, we believe, special reason to dread attack from Kawhia. me Kingites have no particular quarrel against the former place. They have lost neither men nor land in the neighbourhood, regards the "Waikato they have, we .firmly believe, given it up as one of them said, as a

drift log that lias floated away. Moreover, it would not be likely, if they wished to enter on another contest, that they would choose the Waikato a second time as a field for operations. They hove been tauglit the impossibility of holding their own in it so long as tlic Waikato and its branches are running streams, and there is a steamer left to the Colony. Whatever fighting they may desire to do is far more likely to be carried on at Tauranga and at Taranaki, a kind of broken country, which in their estimation is far morn preferable for a campaign than the open plains of Waikato. The natives, too, arc well aware that the change from Imperial to colonial, or purely civilian troops, if we may use so paradoxical an expression, will render their chance of success in war more than desperate, while, in the after dealings, when they shall have been put down, their chance of regaining by dip-lomacy-what they may have lost in war, will be equally bad. Knowing this they will hesitate to provoke a contest in which they have nothing to gain and everything to lose; nor will the settlers, with the whole burden of a war upon their shoulders thouglitlcssly rusli upon a contest if it can be honorably avoided. If anything can save the native race it is the withdrawal of Imperial interference from between them and the colonists, the removal of all restrictions on the sale of their lands beyond the necessary investigation and settlement of title, and the placing them as quickly as possible on the same footing in the enjoyment of privileges, and the responsibility to law, as British subjects, with the European race in this Colony.

Por these reasons and for many others, then, we cannot confess to any feeling of regret at seeing one after another of the troops of the Empire withdrawn from the colony. As individuals who have lived amongst us now for some years, and to whose assistan.ee we have been largely indebted, and whom in private life many of us may have learned to esteem, both officers and men of the British army who have served in this Province of late years will long be remembered with kindly feelings, and none more so than the honourable corps now leaviug us. As such we wish them " God speed," while as a mere portion of the British army we cannot but feel satisfaction at their departure.