NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1053, 30 March 1867, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND.

(Fro:i: ;ne Siunilard, January 23-.) The New Zealand war may henceforth be considered as a chronic malady, which as it lias continued to defy all diagnosis, seems determined to baffle all regular modes of treatment. We rnuut accept it as part of tho price which England has i to pay for the easy possession of two of the finest islands in the world. The time lias gone by for us to debato whether or not our prize is worth the co3t; and it can be of very little profit to haggle about the terms of payment. \Y~e have 110 longer the choice, even if we ever had it, of savin" whether there shall be a war or not in New Zealand. We—that is, the people of England —have lost that option ever since we made over to the colony the burden of the " native question." By withdrawing tho Imperial troops from the island, we have, indeed, rendered it impossible that there should be again another great organised campaign such as that which General Cameron conducted in the Waikato country ; but we have not prevented, and cannot prevent, the quarrel of tho two races dragging itself along, and breaking out now and tlien "here and there so lonjj ns thero are two races to quarrel at all. General Cameron to whom sufficient credit for that service has never been rendered, broke the neck of the Maori insurrection, and disposed of for ever, even in the native mind, the question of military supremacy. He taught tlie natives to learn at last that no savage valour, no personal skill in arms, no strength of forest, swamp, or mountain, could avail against the disciplined forces of England ; and the Maories are far too intelligent a race ever to forget that lesson. Yet, at tho same time, there will for many a year be a New Zealand war. The Maories can no more resist the impulse of their destiny than tho lied Indians or the Carribs. There will never again be, perhaps, a general rising of the tribes ; but there will always be some tribe disposed to contest a question of disputed lands by force of arras. We never can be safe, under the intricate law relating to real property which prevails in New Zealand, aud which we seem disposed to acknowledge, from disputes of this sort. There are no sharper practitioners in the world than a tribe of Maoris in all that relates to land ; and there is no system of land tenure half so elaborate and complicated as the Maori system. There are the tenure by inheritance and the tenure by conquest, the lauds which belong to the individual, the lands which are vested in the family, the lands which are the common right of the tribe. The rights arise, intermingle, and are determined after the most extraordinary and fantastic fashion, the Maori conveyancer having devices and dodges at his own command which would put to shame even the firm of Quick, Gammon, and Snap. One recognized form of the creation of a lauded estate under the orthodox Maori law is the cat- | ing of a prsoner of v.'.i'. 'h>; portion of territory in ctu> ii'P.i'-'.r.cUwit i.; i-/rVcici ,/ ! 'Jh- vropfvly of tl;y ;:-i.'>r —accord;)-.!? >3 tin. I digest, so speak.

It is onfc of this fertile subject—land—that all future Afaori quarrels will arise ; and it is impossible to see any term to tliem so long as there are an} r Maories left in New Zealand. The passion of land proprietorship, burns as fiercely in the boson; of the New Zealand savage as of the Irish Celt. He may have a thousand times more land than he can possibly turu to use, but he will not part with an acrc if he can help it. It is not that he requires his wide huntinggrounds, as was once shrewdly suggested by an eminent .English politician, more distinguished by assurance than knowledge, simply because, let him be of ever so sporting a turn, there is nothing in the island to hunt. The Maori is essentially a cultivator of the soil, and the land is so rich that a very few acres are enough to keep a whole tribe, and all their pigs, in corn and potatoes. it cannot be supposed that an European colony is to grow side by side with such a race without a perpetual feud as to the possession of land. The Maories numbering barely 50,000 of all ages and sexes, who are yearly diminishing, held, eren after the late confiscations, perhaps three-fourths of the soil of the island. The English settlement is nearly double in numbers, and is increasing. How can it be supposed that tho two races can coutinuc in anii'.v if the inferior persists in excluding its masters from extending their borders. It is too late to discuss the question of the abstract right of England to the sovereignty of New Zealand. She is actually in possession and wc may saj' that that possession has been acquired by means certainly more honorable than those by which any civilized nation acquired a savage country. Perhaps this is not saying much, but it is enough for our justification. And we should never forget, when wo would accuse ourselves of any harshness towards the Maories, that New Zealand was the first new country ever occupied by an European race in which the native right to the absolute property of the soil was, from the first, acknowledged and respected. Up to the date of the last Waikato war not a single aero had been acquired by the British Government in the northern island of New Zealand, except by purchase from the natives, and with their consent. Nor can it affect the question that the original price was, in soma cases, very low. Whatever it was, it was the market price. If since then, the lands have become more valuable, it is simply and solely because of the British occupation. By the treaty ofWaitangi, concluded in IS-11— a treaty which has been actually repie.-ented by certain writers of the humanitorim school as an act of fraud and oppression c . >!i- natives—the Maories were pre. eluded (f'cr their own protection) from selling any lands except to the Government—being, of course, perfectly free to sell or not as they p'tasei:. At first they were only too eager t'li-sr

•soprrrfHal'le valleys—the complaint i'isc <torfrmiK-jit in those Jsy-; ihrS <?';•_< z.-v----*»«.r Jsads quick l*ow% the policy s\aori pati'ic'.^ : a. policy which we a?e son/ to las Iwn applauded' and justified by some of iheu .<)j. sympathisers, is to prevent any land Vhntovsr being sold to the British Government, in order to check the development of the European colony.

Of course tins policy cannot be pursued without perpetual quarrels between the two races, and equally, of course, the extension of the British race is not to be impeded. For the present there appears to be a temporary suspension of European enterprise in the northern island, owing partly to the depression which has followed as a reaction upon the sudden withdrawal of the troops and the conclusion of the war. The lands confiscated on the Wailcato, which had been granted in small farms to military settlers, appear to be either very ineligible properties, or the military settlers, which is the more probable, are not the best kind of agriculturalists, Many of the farms have been deserted and the Maories are said to be gradually reoccupying theni. Of course they will have to be turned off again at some future day, and there will be another little Waikato war. Another element of quarrel, of the orthodox old Maori kind exists, in the shape of what is known as the Tauranga Block, 011 the eastern coast. Some two years and a half ago General Cameron made, as it will be remembered, a campaign in this direction, of which thejprincipal incident was the disgraceful repulse of the British troops by one-third of their number of savages at the Gate Pah. The Tauranga tribe having been subsequently well beaten, made atonement for their offences by ceding a tract of some throe or four hundred thousand acres on the eastern coast. Of this only 50,000 acres were retained, the remainder having been restored through what we cannot but consider was an act of foolish generosity. So little responsive are the late owners to Sir George Grey's magnanimity, that they are now occupied in contesting our right even to these 50,000 acres. All the old devices

of Maori ltur are being resorted! to to cheat us 1 out of oar- conquest. First, the land did not belong to the tribe who were conquered ; nest, it belonged to them only jointly with some other tribe, every member of which was not in rebellion. The Government, iii the midst of tliis carious dispute, is acting with that irresolution which is unfortunately too characteristic of Sir George Grey. Tho surveys, we are told, have been several times begun, and as often suspended through the violent interference of the natives. The governor will not or- cannot mate up his mind whether he will retain the Tauranga Block or not. In the meantime, every day of indecision encourages the Maories to persevere in their demands, and render subsequent settlement of the dispute, without force of arms, the more difficult.

Tho history of this Tauranga Block may illustrate the peculiar nature of the relations between tho European and the Maori in regard to the lands ; and it is out of these relations that all future wars will come. Nor is it easy to see how a long series of petty New Zealand wars can be prevented so long as this cause of quarrel continues, and it must continue while there are any natives left in the northern island. The best, if not the only assurance of ultimate peace in New Zealand is furnished by the census returns lately published, which prove that, in spite of all impediments, the British population of tho island is steadily advancing and the Maoris rapidly decreasing. Of the ultimate solution of the problem, it is nature fi'liich has taken charge.