NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, February 8, 1862.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XVII, Issue 1724, 8 February 1862, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, February 8, 1862.

In our present issue will be found a letter from Renata to his Honor the Superintendent in his capacity as member of the General Assembly. The letter, which was forwarded last year to the Superintendent at Auckland, does notappear to have reached its destination. Having lately received a copy of it from Renata, we give it publicity as an exposition of the opinions of the Natives on the questions afflicting their interests now under discussion, and take the opportunity it affords of saying a few parting words on the Taranaki question, and Governor Browne's policy. However Colonel Browne may have shifted his ground, both with respect to the Taranaki war and the Maori King movement, the Natives have been uniformly consistent in their statements. Their sympathy’ with William King is not so much of a personal character as a protest against the system of land-purchasing, or as Renata calls it, land stealing, which latterly obtained under Colonel Browne's government. They felt that if this system was established as the -rule of Government, the rightful owners had no security from being dispossessed of their lands. This has caused such an intense feeling on their part with respect to the Taranaki question, which Sir W. Martin has truly described to be a land quarrel, for if the policy there pursued was to prevail, in another's fate they read their own. This makes them so ex tremely anxious for a thorough investigation of the Waitara question, not a sham and make-believe in which the object would be to save Governor Browne’s reputation, but a bona fide investigation, conducted by persons above the suspicion of bias or partiality, in such a Way as to ensure the concurrence of all parties in the decision arrived at. At a recent meeting of the Natives tit Pawhakairo, at which Mr; Crosbir Ward explained to them the new institutions to be offered by Government for their acceptance,- Renata is reported to have said, —“These new institutions that you offer us are admirable, excellent, but if you wish them to be permanent, let all former causes of irritation be removed, let there be a thorough investigation of the Waitara, that we may know where the wrong is,” and illustrated his meaning by the following homely but forcible simile,—“ On all our great and important gatherings the careful Maori prepares himself for the meeting by washing his head and combing his hair, and removing all those creeping things which are causes of irritation, and then he adorns his head with the feathers of the huia and other birds, which remain firm and erect; but the sloven, without combing his hair; sticks in the feathers as he hurries to the meeting, presently the fingers go to work and the feathers soon fall to the ground. So with these institutions, unless you first prepare for them by removing these creeping things which are the causes of irritation.” And the necessity for this investigation has been forcibly illustrated by Archdeacon Hadfield in a letter recently published in the Spectator in which he clearly shews that Governor Browne in an official paper has ■ unconsciously given up the chief grounds on which he rested his justification of the Taranaki war. ItwasalwayscontendedbyGovernor Browne that William King had no right to the land at Waitara, of which bis Excellency alleged Te Teira was the lawful proprietor ; that King himself admitted this when he said to Mr. Parris—“Yes the land is theirs but I will not let them sell it,” and that his Excellency was compelled to prevent this interference on the part of William King with thc lawful owner of the land, or recognise “ a right which would have made W. King viri tual sovereign of this part of New Zealand.” And this was the ground on which he was defended in the British Parliament. And yet in the Maori Intelligencer Of August 15th, 1801, (a paper published by the Native Department under Governor Browne, for circulation among the Native population), it is stated that William King distinctly said “The land belongs to Teira and all of us," thus clearly asserting his right to the land, and leaving Governor Bhownf. without the shadow of a pretence for the course he pursued.

Of a similar character has been the course pursued by Governor Brownf, with reference to the Maori King movement. After' assuring the Natives that he looked upon it as mere child’s play which he might safely disregard, and leave to die out of itself, ho suddenly declares that the King movement must be put down, and makes it the pretext for a war which must inevitably have resulted in a war of races but for his fortunate and timely removal from the Colony. But as Renata forcibly shews, in tins letter, the King move-

merit was never intended to question the Queen’s supremacy, but was tin attempt by the Natives to provide a remedy for the evils arising from neglect, indifference, and misgovernment, a sorry shelter, to use his simile, against the storm, but the only one that offered, and one which they would gltidlv leave if ti better were provided for them. Wc sincerely hope and believe that this better bouse will be found in the New Institutions offered to the Natives by Sir George Grtr.r, and that when they are fairly brought into operation, the existing sources of irritation will be removed, confidence restored, and the Maori King movement will die away of itself ; that instead of being plunged into a disastrous and ruinous war for thc sake of an idea, as would have been the case if Governor Browne had remained in New Zealand, peace will be established by shewing the Natives that the Government are sincerely desirous to act justly and to promote law and order among them, that they will not be driven by force, but led by persuasive measures to a more excellent way, so that the most superficial observer will be able by the result to attain to a pretty correct estimate of the nature and causes of the disturbances which marked Governor Browne’s govern, rnent, and which it is Sir George Grey’s mission to remove, and this we have no doubt he will successfully accomplish, if he receives in the Colony, that general and cordial support from all parties which he is fairly entitled to expect.