FALSE AND TRUE HELP FOE NEW ZEALAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 2256, 29 April 1869, Page 3

FALSE AND TRUE HELP FOE NEW ZEALAND.

( The SiM-cMlar.) It ia moat melancholy to read of the blundenfof ouir countrymen in New Zealand, and of the awful price they are paying for thorn in tho blood of valiant men and women and innocent children who woro not responsible for thoao blunders. It ia almost more melancholy to read tho advice which is tendered by tho press in this country an to the proper tnodo of repairing these disaster*-advice which cannot l>ut tend to multiply them m future, and to foster the central evil to which they are due. The defence adminustration of New Zealand has beea very bad lately where it might have teea xery good, (and would have been good if it had gone on m it was doing on three or four years ago), because it has teen from hand to mouth ; because Mr Stafford, the Minuter, succeeded ia pereuading an Aim-in-bly which—consisting aa t did iv large measure of mem' ere from the Southern Island only too willing to behove smooth things, and thoroughly reluctant to contribute to- ! wards the cost of defending the Northern inland efficiently from a danger which threatened only the Northern inland, and not the Southern at all,— was but too willing to try to teHeve him, that arrongementa for tho defence were needed only for a year, and that even for that time there wns no serious peril. But it ia not to New Zealand, discreditable and inefficient aB the defence measures thcro have been, that the evil of tho band to-mouth system is to bo in the firs); instance traced. Oar own imparial relations to that unfortunate colony have been one long Bories of acts of vacillation, depending on no intelligible principle, and erring as much in tho way of haughty censure one year as they erred in that of indiscriminate help the previous year or tho subsequent year. The story of onr so-called help—it was almost all positive injury—uuring Goneral Cameron's quarrels with Sir G, Grey, and of tho manner in which both before awl Hince that time England made tho Governor sensible that ho must 'recently snub and overrule the wishes of bis "rosponsiWe" advisors if ho wished for favour from home, —the story of bow wo scolded thoao " responsible advisers," through him, for not having effected more than tnoy did with the military help we had co generou ly given them, and assured them that they must either do without it or pay for it in future, — i<:., pny for help over which they had not even any adequate control,—is one which might have been written expressly to teach a diatnnt colony the danger of leaning upon the mother country for help, and the mother country the way in which it can most effectually cripple a colony while wasting upon it money and resources such as, if honestly placed at its disposal in the b»st form, would have liberated it twice or tbrico from its troubles. And now ill-advihed English journals are crying out that we ought to begin the old, old confuidon over again, send out more military help, which would on'y prevent the eolo:ists from doing for themselves what no <ne eho can efficiently do for them —more military help which they will have no power to control—more military ; help which is not the sort of military help they really want, and would prove to be a mere temporary maki shift, pistponng tho organisation of a poTiißcont defecce,, and certain to be withdrawn, we suppose, directly the immediate prfesuro was over, and the only occasion which c> uld awaken tho colonists into proper measures of telf-defcnce had passed away. Tina try for sending a new army to New Zeilaad iv consequence of the horrors at Poverty Bay is blind aud ignorant counsel. It is like throwing money indiscriminately into the streets in tirno of distress, in order to teach the poor self reliance and thrift. No military garrison can ever help the coi mist* of New Zealand t-ffec tually ai»iinst the Maori reels. Until they adopt a pcrman i;t f-ystem of selfdefence, with its pivot within tho Northern island, nothing <ffeotualcan ever bo done. 1 hia massacre of the thirty-five English aud twenty loyal natives a^ Poverty Bay may in all probability be the occasion of salvation to the Northern island, if we ke«p our medd'ing fingers out of this sad business. The English settlers capable of bearing arms in the Northern island alone, though they do not outnumber the armed Maoris (whose ; women light almost aa well as their men), are yet their real superiors in military power. If we teach them that they must rely on themselves, they will r?ly on themselves. Nothing could be better than the beginning they made aomo years ago, when thegreat quarrel between the colonists and the commander of the Queen's troops occurred. Had the defence system been as well keptupas it was then commenced, —had not a shifty administration prophesied smooth t'-iiugs in the vaia hope of reconciling the Southern island to the expense of a defence system iv which it was not interested, —had even common vigilance been maintained in recruiting tho volunteers, neev g after their discipline ami sobriety, and giving them officers whom they ciuld trust, we should not havn had the recent humiliating defeats, and their awful C'nsefjucncea in th« shape of the masjtacrn of tho 10th of November. Bit the truth is that tho New Zealand Co'onial Government has not been phying a straightforwid game in this defence matter. It his been counting on the chap'erof accidents to favour its polic , instead of providing against a chapter of accidents that it ought to have assumed as more likely to be unfavourable; and has relied on the one regiment still left in New Zealand in case the worst comes to tho worst. Thia is the policy which has brought upon the colony this terrible catastrophe. And we do not hesitate to say thatitia the fickle and hesitating conduct of onr own Colonial Office' which has in very great degree led the colon:sts into this foolish and shortsighted coarse. If we want to begin the same disastrous cycle of mistakes over again, wo cannot do better than send hoivy reinforcements of troops to

tide the colon iota over the season whoa they would otherwise initiate a new and wiser era— and then withdraw them again directly our spasm of sympathy is past, and their happiest moment for & long pull, and strong pull, and pull altogether ia past also. A year or two ago, the plan for tßtabliahing strong military frontkrn of BeUiern, trained for native warfare, on all the bordera of the donbtful and hostile native tribes, and especially a'ong tbc Upper Waikato, was determined upon, and never carried out, for financial reasons. Since then even the first essentials of eafety —the training of the militia and the organisation of a good Volunteer force under skilled officers—havo been neglected ; and in September la«t it waa discovered that the Volunteers, though far outnumbering the hoatilo natives, were nearly valueless, so bad wa3 their discipline, co intemperate their habits, and so untrustworthy their leaders. The natural result ensued. The germ of tho Maori rebellion was at first not eighty strong. By tbo successes of the force which escaped from tho Chatham Islanda on tho East Coast, and of Tito Kow&ru on the Weat Coast, tho Maori hopes havo been raised high, and tho Maori forces swvlled till they are nearly equal to those of tUo eettlera. Bat even now the Battlers, if they could only act with energy and could got good leaders, are far more th»n their match, though undoubtedly it will take some time and many victories to undo the prestige tho Maori leaders havo acquired in tho laat few months. Even that a not enough. When tho settlers have recovered thoir prestige and disheartened the Maoris, they must not rehpse into tho hand to-mouth system. They must keep op a steady defenco organisation, at whatever coat to themselves, —and even though the force be organized by a gpccal tax on tho Northern island, and though tbo Southerners, who seem—somewhat selfishly, as wo think—to threaten secession rather than pay their share of tho cost of defence, should bo exempted from the burden.

In the meantime, tho very worst and most mischievous thing wo can do ia to «end out moro soldiers to take tho weight of wh >lesome responsibility off the coionista' shoulders. It will cost us much to do no, it will coat New Zoa'and more—both in blood and money —in the future. If we really arc wi ling to take our fair share of the present calamity and disgrace fairly upon us, —»nd wo believe in onr heart* that our Colonial Office in more deeply responsible for it than tho Colonial Administration itself, —it is easy for us to do so, and in a manner that will bo really effectivo, and tho npteflt compensation we could give for the bungling of our imperial politicians. The true difficulty in New Zealand is financial. The islands arc dreadfully indebted and consequently overtaxed. The Southern and richer island, which contains no natives, is sick of bearing tho lmrd"n of tho defence of the English tettlern in tho Northern. This result ia in a very largo degree indeed—we fear to say how Urge—duo to tho vacillating instructions, the now petting, and now again imperious, policy of our own Cilomal Office. Had we never taken the responsi bility of their defence, and not sent out troops which tho colonial Parliament had no power to dispose of, tho groat probability in that tho rebellion would no longer eiisi. We can relievo the colonists from one overpowering difficulty by either guaranteeing their debt, so as to enable them to reduce tho interest, or by paying them down a lump sum to aid them in tho negotiation between the Southern and Northern settlers, and to compensate them for our admirable initiative bungling, and instructions in bungling. Either tho guarautea or the lump sum would bo most gratefully received in New Zealand, and would bo tho appropriate cloto of tho era of meddling in their system of defence. It would coat its far less, and give infinitely moro real aid to them, saving them the difference between the interest on an unguaranteed and guaranteed loan at tho worst—than a now commencement of the miserable policy of sending unfit, troops only to prevent the ctjlonists from organising fit troops — temporary troops only to prevent tho colonists from organising permanent troops. If wo must do something by way of expiation for our great and disastrous blunder, by all moans let us .lo this. But at any rate, let us not initiate a new era of false relations with New Zealand. Let us not try to entrap the colonists once more into leaning on a support which is sure to fail them in tho hour of need, and to blind them to thoir own shortcomings, their own wants, and above all, to their own

powers,