SIR JOHN GORST AND NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8812, 27 February 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

SIR JOHN GORST AND NEW ZEALAND.

We give the following further extracts from tho character sketch of Sir John Gorst in the Review of Reviews : — Sir George Grey, who was Governor of ew Zealand when Gcrst went there, was .ttracted from the first by the brilliant and nthusiastio young Englishman, and his ffer of a commissionership in the native listrict of Waikato decided him in favour f a civil as opposed to a semi-religious :areer. At the same time it would be unjust to jir John to represent a desire to marry and ettle down as the sole or even the chief actor in the choice of his life s work. In me of his journeys up country he made he acquaintance of "Te V\ aharoa, 'enerally called William Thompson, a daori chief who had been Christianised and :ivilised, and with whom lie soon formed in acquaintance which ripened into a warm ind lasting friendship which coloured the vhole of Sir John's career. It was from nany points of view of the first importance hat a coming statesman and ruler of the Empire should have been brought into :lose personal relations with a representative of the native races over whoso destinies we exorcise so powerful an influence. William Thompson, Sir John always declares, was a much better Christian than nine-tenths of the Christians who go to church in England, and in all that makes a man truly worthy of the respect and affection of his brother man, this Maori chieftain with a prosaic English name was blessed more than most of his paler-faced brethren. The besetting sin of Conservative administrators is a lordly contempt for their darker skinned brethren. The typical Tory, as he is painted by Liberal speakers, either despises or loathes those whom ho contumeliously lumps together under the generic term of niggers. Whether they are Hindus, or Africans, or Chinese, they are all Hottentots to him, and this pride has often made a gulf as wide between the English Conservative and our native fellow-subjects as existed between tho Georgia planter and tho negroes who toiled in his cotton brake. From this besetting sin of the men with whom he was destined to pass his political career Sir John Gorst was delivered by this opportune friendship with VV illiam Thompson. Among those, therefore, who have deserved well of England and of the British Empire that tatooed Maori deserves a leading place. Wo shall see, as we trace Sir John Gorst's subsequent career, how the influence of that affection, and tho sympathetic understanding brought with it, influenced him in more than one important crisis of his fortunes, and always influenced him for good, Thompson, Sir John Gorst's friend, seems to have been a very remarkable man, one who was as much saturated with the Old Testament as any Puritan who fought under Cromwell. His speeches were interlarded with Bible texts, and ho quoted Deuteronomy as if that wero an authority still recognised in Downing-streot. His attempt to establish a king over tho Maoris was avowedly based upon the example of the Children of Israel when they made Saul to rule over them. It is impossible to resist the conviction that if ho had been handled with ordinary good sense the subsequent calamities would never have overtakci either the colonists or the natives. Sir John Gorst calls attontion to one matter which is interesting, as pointing* out the mischief which sometimes follows the attempt to graft the laws of one nation upon those of another. The principle of tho English law which awards damages to the aggrieved party from the co-respondent in the case of'adultery was introduced among the Maoris, with the result of making the race far more immoral than it was before.