THE NEW ZEALAND WAR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 670, 10 February 1864, Page 6

THE NEW ZEALAND WAR.

The following correspondence is published in the " Daily News" of November :—

Sir—All who know what the honor of England is, will thank you for ypur protest against the course of butchery wbioh has been commenced in Japan, and which the organs of the Prime Minister are urging the nation to continue. But your protest will be vain. There was a time when the choice between this policy and that of honor was offered to us. The- -victory of Lord Palmerston on the question of the war made by him in China for the purposes of the opium smugglers decided that, so far as the present holders of political power are concerned, the policy of aggression was to prevail. The bombardment of Kagosima is the sequel of the bombardment of Uanton, and those who applauded one of these acts will not condemn the other, What the conscience of the-English people, to which you appeal, might say, is a different question. But long before the conscience of the English people can be fairly heard, the marvellous, and, we may be sure, not uninstructive civilisation of Japan, into which the peaceful influence of Christendom might in the end have infused a higher life, will be laid, like that of Mexico and Peru, and by hands more coarsely rapacious, in the dust. It will be so, at least unless, as seems posible, the Japanese, a spirited race, knowing the character of the Power which in the name of civilisation and Christianity approaches their coast, and having heard tales of Indian and Chinese slaughter, find, in spite of their weakness, salvation in despair. As to the case of Japan, however, you have said all that could be said. There was only one phrase in your article to which [ would venture to demur. You spoke of this policy as being carried on "for the extension of trade." It,is carried on, not for the extension of trade, not for the commercial benefit of the nation, but for the aggrandisement of a few adventurers, members of a class wUich, by its wealth, its energy, an 1 its union, has succeeded in making the Government its tool. - When these men have made vast fortunes by \h.a. abuse of the public force, and at the expense of the public honor, they will spend them, not for the public happiness, but in adding field to field, and house to house, in disinheriting the English people of the English soil, and of making English society more and more a hideous contrast between enormous wealth and luxury on one side, and a mass of wretchedness, degradation, and penal pauperism on the other. My present object is to call your attention to the last act of a long tragedy which, in pursuance of our great Christian " mission," is about to be presented in another quarter. " The day," said a wretch doomed to die by slow torture, " will be cruel, but it will end at last." The day of the New Zaalanders seems about at last to end.

This wild stock, if the accounts of its enemies may be trusted, had in it some qualities of high promise, and cultivated by kind hands, and under happier auspices, might have borne to humanity good fruits after its kind. It had been selected by Nature ■ for that climate, and was no doubt physically the best suited for it. Had an Augustine landed alone among the Maori race, he might have breathed into it the breath of national life, and have made it a Christian nation. Had Augustine visited our Anelo-Saxon forefathers with greedy ■ colonists, backed by the overwhelming power of a foreign Government, in his train, the AngloSaxon race, with all its dory and-its greatness, would have found, before its hour, a nameless grave. If we are members of the community of man, and if the interests of that community are •in any measure ours, the extermination of a race will cost us something,-in spite of the gratifying increase in our export trade. If you will take the map of the Northern Island, given in the New Zealand blue book of last year? to illustrate,these disturbances, you may trace at once the beneficient influence of Government on the natural process of colonisation. You may see how the wisdom of the Kingof Spain corrects the blunders of the Creator in the arrangement of the solar system. , ; Colonists, when left to themselves, will settle close for the sake of mutual protection—an arrangement which;is the best both, on economical grounds and for the purposes of civilisation. But when they are protected by the force of an! Empire, which they know very well,will, in spite of all protestations.to the.contrary, be sent to their aid as often as they please to make if necessary, their covetoumess of land leads them to spread wide, grasping the territory with'their out-settlements, and ."thus bringing themselves inevitably into hostile collision with the native tribes. It is this insubordinate rapacity of land that is at the bottom'j>f these wars; and it is to gratify this inordinate rapacity of land that the native race is now about to die. The " Times" tells us that the least punishment we can inflict on the "rebel" tribes is "the forfeiture of their land." I read the other day a long list of sentences pronounced by the most rapacious as well as the most cruel and hypocritical tribunal in history—that of the Spanish Inquisition. The sentences were very various, but they all. ended in " confissation of goods." Our Government has partly seen the source of the mischief.' Ijbhas rebuked the colonists for their, imprudent encroachments, and advised them to give up their out settlements." The colonists, of course, have the good sense to snap their fingers at a government which solemnly recommends moderation, aud sends troops whenever Ihey are called for to support aggression. It U needless to say that to these uncivilised tribes land is life, and the loss'of their land, wi'h which they are' incessantly menaced, ia death. They know no -handicrafts or trades by which they could subsist as mechanics or labourers under the new proprietors, nor has the notion of such a changed mode of existence yet, presented itself-to their minds. And, therefore, as they see the fatal circle of encroachment gradually- closing upon them they- fling themselves against it in de pair, and commit sct3 of savage violence and atrocity which inevitably bring on war—a war which " makes' a savage of the civilized, and kindles the fifes of hell in the bosom of the savage." ■ ■ . ' , " ' We are told that we planted ourselves in their country, ?" not by force or fraud, but by treaty." No doubt that treaty was made in perfect' good faith,-■ and the poor ignorant wretches fully understood what they'wnre doing when they signed it! I do not question that every step of this process of spoliation has been 'dulj consecrated by legal and diplomatic formalities. So was every step 6f the process by which the Anglo-Norman adventurers and their legal jackals disinherited the .Irish nation. We assume the right of intruding ourselves into, the territory of these people on the ground that they are savages, and that we are civilised men. We then affect to rteaLjwith them as though they were as civilised arirfas capable of comprehending the real effect of ail treaties and bargains as ourselves ; and when thy fly from a treaty or bargain, the consequences of which they.find to be their ruin, we visit them with the penalties of war and confiscation. .

Without going into' details of any particular compact or dispute, thus much is clear on the whole—the Datives have been deprived, without any adequate compensation, of a great part of the territory which was rightfully theirs and which is necessary to their existence;'and they are manifestly destined by the growth of our settlements to lose the whole, together with the separata nationality, which'we are told they • distinctly i ' prize. .Under these circumstances, they are not unlikely to be ,'i suspicious,'': .andwyto imagine that fraud lurks even where it may happen that no fraud 13 intended. So great' and urgent is their cause for resisting the further progress of their destroyers, that I doubt whether a liberal morality would be extreme to mark the occasion of their resistance. • ' •'

Till lately the natives were under our nominal guardianship, and little patches' of land ostenhibly "reserved" for them amidst the rising tide of encroachment show, in justice beit saiil, that the Home Government has made unavailing efforts to discharge a -trust far beyond: the reach of its real power. But a short time ago the Colonial Secretary perceiving the hopelessness, of the task, ■ frankly renounced the protection of the natives. Yet he has no scruple in employing the forces of the empire for their destruction. Are these poor wretches under our Government or not 1 if they are, we owe them effectual protection. If they are not, we owe. them neutrality in war. The truth is, they are really left by us to the tender mercies of the local Government, which is hostile to them, and practically independent of us. But on the ground of our nominal sovereignty we continue to lend the crushing assistance of our arms to the settlers, and deprive the unhappy race of the last chance in its struggle for existence.

By the colonists and by us, whenever a quarrel arises, the natives are treated as ali'n enemies, and as alien enemies who are not entitled to the usages of civilised. "war. The Government proposed to let loose a horde of Sikhs upon them, and it abstained from doing so, by its own avowal, on the ground of expense alone. But in official contemplation they are " subjects of her Majesty," and they enjoy at least one privilege of that condition, since, when they rise against us, they are treated as "rebels''and punished with forfeiture of land. The Mexicans, when tbay resisted the Spanish invaders, were put to death as the just punishment of " rebellion"—" a word," says the historian of the Spanish conquests, " that has been made the apology for more atrocities than any other word, save religion." Our sovereignty of New Zealand is futile or wore than futile, for all good purposes; bu

iv one respect it is no mere shadow. It makes U3 the tacit patrons of aggression, and the executioners of an unhappy and, had they been left to dwell in peace, perfectly unoffending race. We are lords of New Zealand for one purpose, and one purpose alone—to back encroachment, and to crush its struggling victims with the power of an empire. It is for this, and to butcher Japanese, that the fleets and armies of England a- c sent to the other side of the globe, while, in the midst of our own community of nations, Poland dies unaided, and we follow up an abject confession of inability to prevent that gra\ c wrong with a series of diplomatic whirlings which the strong oppressor treats with merited insolence, aud which will be the scorn of history. When colonists, craving for lan 3, planted themselves in Sew Zsaland, backed by the power of the empire, the grave of the native race was dug; and had it been thrust into that grave at once, its swift extermination wouM, perhaps, have been really less shocking to humanity, and less demoralising to us, than this murder in twenty act?, with all it? hesitations and its interludes, the end of which, though long in coming, was always sure.

I am, &c, GounviN Smith,

Sir. —Few are able to cope with Mr Goldwin Smith in matters of argument; and I am not one of the few. But so far as he deals with mere matters of fa^t, he may be open to correction So far only, then, with your permission, I venture to criticise his letter on " The New Zealand War." published in the 'Daily News' of the 6th inst. Mr Smith's argument is very clear, ani may be stated shortly as follows :— 1. Her Majesty's force* are engaged in quelling a cisturbance in New Zealand. 2. This disturbance is the na'ural resistance of the aborigines to the encroachment of the colonists, who, " grasping the country with their out-settlements, bring themselve inevitably into hostile collision with the native tribes," and whose " inordinate rapacity for land" gives those tribe? " great and urgent cause to resist the further progress of their destroyers." and to that end to commit acts of savage violence and atrocity, which inevitably bring on war.". 3. Therefore, the force of Great Britain is employed, not only needlessjv in a purely colonial quarrel, but shamefully in " backing encroachment and crushing its struggling victims with the power of an empire." The second proposition is untrue in fact. Though the first outbreak commenced with a local -land dispute, the insurrection owes its strength and extent expressly to a desire for freedom from the English government; it is now in every sense a rebellion. Again, the Maoris have no ill-will against the settlers, either in towns or outsettlements; their hostility is to the form of government. Nor is the war an affair of mutual massacres between settler-i and natives ; the acts of violence and atrocity of which we hear have been committed by the natives as a part of their system of organised warfare. Further, the land has nob been seized, but bought from them in tracts, by bargain, through a public department, and not by the .settlers. In a few rare, cases only has the fairness of a land bargain been questionable. The territory remaining to the natives in the North Island is nearly thirty millions of acres for fifty thousand persons, r find exceeds fourfold all that they hive yet disposed of. Their land is a great source of wealth to them—and that by its sate, not by its retention. Lastly, the government, whether of England or of the colony, may have to reproach itseif with neglect towards the Maoris, but not with any act of. tyranny or oppression. . £nd the olotiists may claim, not,.perhaps, to be tree from blame of every kind,, but at least to have been reasonably considerate and self-denying in their dealings with the natives. I content myself with themere assertion of these facts in your columns, because they are patent and incontrovertible. It follows that the forces of Great Britain have not "been used to back encroachment, and to gratify an inordinate r&pacity for land. . Mr Goldwin'Smith seems in the interest of the Maori race to regret the colonisation of New Zealand. But the islands were fertile, pleasant, and but partially pedaled, tempting whalers and traders by sea, and close to convict settlements. Is it likely that in the absence of systematic colonisation the Maori race would have been "under happy auspices, and have borne to humanity good fruits after its kind V'; The French might have been, and nearly were, the colonising nation. Would the Maori race have been as well off under the masters of Algeria and Tahiti, as under the British crown % In short, to lock up the country from use was impossible. If the Maori was to be preserved, elevated, and Christianised, colonisation was a necessary part of the scheme, and that not by any country in the world but England. The British Government, in adopting the country as a colony, did the best that could be done for the aborigines That the duty has not been^performed with complete success and withoat trouble or cost, does not prove that it should not have been undertaken

I trust the time will come when Mr Goldwin Smith will no longer be able to talk of " the fleets and armies of England sent, to the other side of Ihe world;" when .colonies and dependencies will give their proportion -with the mo:her country, in war or in peace, to provide both men and money- for an imperial force; when the reciprocal duties of allegiance in the old practical sense of the word may be those which bind England to her colonies; when the old country may regain from her up-grown children more than the strength which she lent them when young ; and when the invidious distinction of taxpaying may no linger protipt English philosophers to unreasoning abuse of their absent fellow-subjects. —I am, &c, Crosbie Ward. 3, Adelaide place, London bridge^Nov. 9.

Fir— Mr Crosbie Ward, so far from correcting me, has not even contradicted me, a3 to any "matter of fact.'' ' ■' ' :". ■

' He partly contradicts me as to a matter of opinion He maintains that; the Maoris are fighting n-t fpr their land, but solely forfreedom from the English, Government; that their hostility is to the form of government alone ! and that they have no ill-will to the settlers, either in towns or outsettlements. •■'■"'

Suppose this to be true. Suppose the Maoris to be fighting only for freedom from a form of government which they dislike. I- leave Mr Ward himself to say whether the destruction of a race which only desires to be free is a satisfactory .employment for the troops and the treasure of this country. But Mr Donald M'Lean, the Native Secretary, states, in a memorandum endorsed by the Hon. P. Weld, the Native Minister, and transmitted by Governor ■ Sir George Browne, that " the ruling1 idea of the Maoris is the preservation of a distinct nationality, and the prevention ot the growth of English settlements." The latter part ot this statement will be found, I believe, to be abundantly confirmed by the general evidence on the subject. ,

In the same memorandum Mr M'Lean says, '■' The threats, curses, and opprobrious epithets used by Europeans towards them (the natives) confirm their worst suspicions. The offensive terms "bloody Maoris," " Black Nigger," " treacherous sw age.' are frequently applied to them; and though uniformly kind and hospitable to all strangers, they are themselves often treated with cold indifference, and sometimes -with contempt, when they visit the English towns.'' Mr M'Lean. Mr Ward will observe, is not "an English philosopher," indulging in "unreasoning abuse of his absent fellow-subjects." . - The land of the natives, according to Mr Ward, is "the great source of wealth to them—and that by its sale, and not by its retention." When the sale i 3 complete, and the Maori 3 have not an inch of soil to subsist on. they will, according to this theory, be a wealthy and prosperous people. ■-,'■■■ % ■■

.That the land"has not been seized, tut bought," is a fact which I have never impugned. Oh the contrary, I expressed my conviction that every step of the disinheriting process had been carried on ' with:-, due legal formalities. I do not question that the purchases have been made "through a public department,'.' and I should think it is as little open to question in whose interest the proceedings of that department have been carritd.on I will not discuss Mr Ward's assertion, that " in a few rare cases only has the fairness of the land bargain been questionable," nor dispute his rather ominous defence of the colonists, who he avers, "have been reasonably considerate, and selfdenyi ig in their dealings with the natives." I wish to accuse no man nor body of men personally of tyranny or ot oppression. I only accuse the fatal system of government interference in the natural process of colonisation, which is the ultimate source of all these calamities and horrors.

Let me point out once more that the home Government had expressly renounced the duty of protecting native interests. "I am ready," the Colonial Secretary had said to the Governor of New Zealand, "to sanction the important step you have taken in placing the management of the natives under the control of the Assembly. Ido so partly in reliance on your own capacity to perceive, and your desire to do what is best for those in who.^e welfare I know you are so much interested. But I do it also because I cannot disguise from myself that the endeavour to keep the management of the natives under the control of the home Government has failed. It can only be mischievous to retain a shadow of responsibility when the beneficial exercise of power has become impossible. The natives are thus handed over to the management of an assembly elected by colo-

nists, who3e disposition towards them is de scribed in the extract above given from the memorandum of Mr M'Lean. The home government had formally renounced the. duties of a government towards tham, and it had thereby necessarily absolved them from their allegiance. To say, therefore, that this struggle is " in every sense a rebellion," is utterly unjust. It is in no real sense a rebellion. It is a struggle for existence of the weaker race agairst the stronger; and we having cast the weaker race loose to shift for itself, are, nevertheless, lending the stronger race the overwhelming assistance of our arms.

"If the Maori was to bs preserved, elevated, mnd christianised, colonisation wa3 a necessary part of the scheme, and that not by any country in the world but England." Ido pot doubt that this is Mr Ward's sincere conviction, as it is the sincere conviction of Englishmen in general. We seem to have thoroughly persuaded ourselves that in conqu^riGg, annexing, and slaughtering wherever our cupidity leads*us, we are preserving, elevating and christianising heathen nations. We shall exterminate the Maoris for their land, and then we shall come down to prayers. Let Mr Ward, or any other friend of humanity who re poses under this agreeable illusion, reckon up on the one side the number of people who have perished by oar wars, mutinies, and bombardments in India, Bnrmah, China, Affghanistan. Japan, the Australian, JVew Zealand, and Cape Colonies; let him add to this number the Chinese, whom we have poisoned body and soul by our opium, or who will perish in the confusion which our opium wars, by ruining the n tive government, have produce!. Let him throw in the hell of evil passions which, together with all this slaughter and physical misery, has been let loose over ther world. Let him then calculate how many of the heathen s have, according to any credible estimate, been converted to Christianity in the scenes of our conquests. He will, I think, see some reason to doubt, whether the conqueror's sword or the rifle of the exterminating colonist is the chosen instrument for Christianising the world.

But, says Mr Ward, if we had not seizsd the territory of the Maoris, the French would. Let the French, I answe'1, commit crimes if they will, and let the punishment, of their crimes be on their own head. The fact, however, is that, though the French Government, in its insane desire for extended empire, and its unreasoning emulation of this country, may pant settlements which it calls colonies, when, in fact, they are nothing but garrisons,'the French are not an emigrating people. They have no desire or tendency to take the land of others, for the simple reason that, unlike the English people, they are the possessors ot their own. That " whalers " would have found it worth their while to ej*ct the Maoris from their land I can scarcely believe. Nor do I see why the neighboring '' convict settlements " should have done so. But what I advocate in i his matter of colonisation is the free action of nature against the interference of Government; and convict settlements are not the wovk of nature.

That the Maoris are a-doomed race Mr Ward does notdeny, and I have not asserted that it is now possible to avert their doom. But it is possible both to speak of them in language which does not, like tbat of our great public instructors, outrage humanity, and perhaps to draw a useful leason from their fate.—l am. &c, Goldwin Smith.