NATIVE AFFAIRS.

Colonist, Volume V, Issue 468, 18 April 1862, Page 3

NATIVE AFFAIRS.

We are glad to report that everything has been going on satisfactory in the past month, and that steady progress has been made in die introduction of the new institutions. We have previously stated that, in consequence of the extraordinary manner in which Commodore Seymour recalled the men-of-war from this station, Sir George Grey's plans for visiting the Southern natives had been thrown into confusion, and his Excellency competed to disappoint large numbers of natives who had gathered at Hawke's Bay, Taupo, Wellington, and elsewhere, to meet him; had he been able to make the tour contemplated, he would in all probability have effected much towards the final settlement of the native question in the South.

The astonishing manner in which Commodore Seymour acted is suggestive or gtave considerations as to the extent of power entrusted to naval commanders on colonial stations, and we have no doubt that the subject will be brought by his Excellency under the notice of her Majesty's Government. In the present instance, for anything that Commander Seymour could tell, war might have recommenced in the colony, and an engagement been going on in the city of Auckland itself. Yet we hear that the instructions sent by him to the officers of the ships at Auckland were such as would have compelled them to sheer off, re-embark their men, and sail for Sydney without an hour's delay ; and ail this on some vague report of a gossiping passenger by the overland route that war had been actually declared with America. It is to be hoped that the gallant Commodore will be taught a lesson by the Home authorities which may prevent the recurrence on any future occasion of such untimely interference with the wellarranged plans of the Governor of a colony. His Excellency's visit to the South having been thus forcibly postponed, the Colonial Secretary (who had started overland a few days before the Governor's intended departure) proceeded to arrange matters at Taupo, and found the natives at the north end and east side of the lake very ready to receive the new system. These natives, we understand, have already made considerable advance towards civilization ; have constructed many miles of good road towards Hawke's Bay, Waikato, and the Bay of Plenty; and have adopted European habits of life in many particulars. They were anxious to have a Magistrate sent to them and made a free donation of fifty acres of land, part of it fenced and laid down in English grasses, as a location for the Magistrate's house; and we hear that they have already nearly completed a substantial residence for his reception. The gentleman appointed to this office, Mr. George Law, who had previously spent two years in the Taupo country, and was well known to the natives, was received with acclamation ; he is now engaged in organising the district with every prospect of success. Its boundaries embrace the whole of the Taupo country around the lake, and it joins, on the east, the Rotorua district, already organised by Mr. T. 11. Smith, late Assistant Native Secretary, who has been appointed Commissioner there.

From thence Mr. Fox proceeded to Hawke's Bay, where he found more than a thousands natives assembled and expecting his Excellency the Governor. The result of his interview with them was very satisfactory ; the leading chiefs, Renata, Karaitiana, and others, who are among the ablest and most influential men o,f the Maori race, expressing their full approval of his Excellency's plans, and saying, ' all we want is to see it done; send your Commissioner, be quick and send him.' Colonel Russell, formerly of 11. M. 58th Regiment, has been appointed Commissioner, and Mr. George Sisson Cooper, formerly Assistant Land-purchase Commissioner, Resident Magistrate. The district is a large and very important one, and its organization may be considered as securing the peace of all that portion of the colony which it embraces. The establishment of amicable relations and the introduction of civil institutions into such a district, are equal to at least two regiments of soldiers in their bearing upon the question of the securing the peace of the country.

Pioceeding on to Wellington, Mr. Fok found a large number of natives assembled,, to meet Governor Grey. The disappointment was of courso great; but at a dinner given lo them by Dr. Featherston, Superintendent of that province, Mr. Foxexplained to them the cause of Sir George's absence, and gave them an account of what had been done in the North. On this occasion Manihara, the leading Chief of Wairarapa district, who has hitherto been a great supporter of the king, expressed his intention to give him up, and to adhere to the Queen's cause for the future. We understand that this chief, who was formerly most friendly to the Europeans and the Queen's Government, had been driven over to the King party by the conduct of ceitain parties connected with the old Land Purchase j Department, and the breach of old promises , made to him by its officers. His re-con- ] version is attributed to the present Government having taken his case in hand, and shewn an interest in getting him out of difficulties, in which he had become involved in consequence, as he alleges, of the late Government having neglected to I carry out its pledges. Other arrangements were made in reference to the Wairarapa, which it is hoped will secure that important clistiict, and enable Sic George Grey on his arrival in the South to complete what requires to be done.

During the same week a counter demonstration was made at Otaki in the Wellington province by the adherents of the King party, on the anniversary of the hoisting of the King flag in that place, 12th March. The meeting was pretty numerously attended, many natives having come from Upper Wanganui, the Taranaki country, arid the Manavvatu river. A discussion was raised as to the re-hoisting ofthe flag, which was opposed by Nepia Ta Taratoa, the leading chief of the coast between Wanganui and Wellington, he forseeing, as he said, trouble from its presence in that quarter, and recommending its removal beyond the boundaries of the European settlement. The sagacious advice ofthe old chief, however, was overruled chiefly by the 'bounce' of a deputation of Ngatiruanuis (irom the Taranaki country), and the formality of the re-hoisting was gone through. The meeting was an exceedingly tame one, and waß considered by Europeans present as a failure, there being 'no enthusiasm whatever! general dissatisfaction was expressed by the natives as to the character of the feast and in the hospitality of their reception. The natives on that coast may, we believe, be considered about equally divided. Nepia Te Taratoa gives in his adherence, but very cautiously, ior the King, Martin Te Whiwhi and Tamihana Te Rauparaha going zealously for the Queen. A visit from his Excellency and the arrival of Mr. Walter Buller, daily expected as Resident Magistrate for that district, will probably result in detaching the bulk of the population from the, King's cause. At Taranaki nothing has yet been done directly towards taking the native question in hand. There are obvious reasons why this district should be cautiously dealt with. A first step, however, has been taken, and one of no slight signification, in turning the hitherto unemployed militia force into a public works corps, which is now engaged in the construction of military roads towards the boundaries of the purchased lands, on the same principle, apparently, as the great Waikato road is being constructed in this province by the troops. The friendly natives have, we hear, offered to construct four miles of road to Tataraimaka, the southern boundary of the province, working by day work at 3s 6d a day; the offer has, we believe, been accepted. The conversion of the militia into a works corps, reduces the expenditure from somewhere about £35,000 a year to about £16,000, and gives an additional result of several miles of road, instead of 300 or 400 idle militia men hanging about the streets of Taranaki. This change, we understand, is generally approved at Taranaki.

Such is a summary of the progress of the last two months, as far as we have been able to gather it from authentic sources. We regret to see the organs of the old war party, both in this colony and Australia, still doing the little they can to induce the public to believe that Sir George Grey has undertaken more than he can perform; that his mission has resulted in failure, and that nothing has yet been achieved.

It is perhaps natural for the organs of a defeated party in the colony to strive to show that those who have ousted that party have themselves failed to achieve success. But though the strictures of the section of the press to which we allude are very severe and their cry very loud, the facts on which their case rests make but a miserable basis for their conclusions. It is amusing to see how their snowball rolls, and, rolling, grows. Our contemporary, the Southern CVosSjfopens the ball by inserting a letter from a ' correspondent at Waipa," or an ' Old Settler on the East Coast,' or some other PakehaMaori, whose ' facts' are usually hoaxes, and whose opinions are precisely worth the paper they are written on. The Wellington Advertiser and the Nelson Examiner immediately transfer the statements of their 'correspondent' to their columns as undoubted ' facts,' given on the best authority. By and by they reach the Otago Times, where they are worked up into a leading article; and, finally, the Sydncij Herald and Melbourne Argus pass them on with their own comments (comments undeniably of a character most hostile to Sir George Grey's plans), for the benefit of their Australian and European readers.

The original fount from which these subordinates draw their supplies has no original or peculiar sources of information, and the readiness with which our contemporary gives insertion to the gobcmoucherie of his up-country informants ought to satisfy every person of the scantiness of his resources. We are not suiprised at the desperate effort of two or three papers in this colony— organs, as we have said, oi a defeated party —to make out a case ; but the course pursued by the Argus and Jlerald is not quite so intelligible.

It is trne we all know what has been done with the ' blackfellows' of New South Wales and Tasmania, and it might be too much to expect to find the sympathies of Australian editors on the side of an experiment which has for its object the rescue of an aboriginal race, and its elevation to a higher social level. But what particular claim the editors of the Argus and Herald can have to pronounce so emphatically, ex eaihedra, on a question of which they can know so little; and why their tempers should have got into such a state of excitement about our New Zealand difficulty, we are at a loss to discover. We take the liberty to recommend to these guitlemen the exercise of a little more moderation and discretion, and to advise them, if they really wish to know how Sir George Grey's mission is prospering, to resort to some more authentic source of information than the partisan organs of the defeated ' war party' in this colony.

We confess that when we carry back our recollections for eight months, and contrast the state of the colony at that period with its present position, we are very well satisfied with what has been done in the interval. At that date it was the intention of Govenor

Browne to have made a military attack on Waikato. He told the Wellington deputation that he did not doubt that his doing so would be the signal for a general rising of the natives throughout the colony and that if he had even 20,000 men, he could not defend the southern provinces of this island. Had his Excellency's plan been carried out, those provinces, and probably all of this, ten miles south of the town, would by this time have been as Taranaki is;—desolated hearths, an abandoned colony, and a Maroon population driven to the hills, would have illustrated the census returns of the year. The Maori race was exasperated to the highest degree, their confidence in the Government uttely destroyed ; a war of races was on the eve of commencement, and the annihilation of the fruit of twenty years' labor in colonization was imminent. There was a general panic, and no man would invest a shilling. What is our position now at the end of the first six months of Sir George Grey's administration ? We are in a state of profound peace ; the confidence of the natives in our Government is being gradually restored ; they are fast losing faith in the king movement; large sections have been actually detached, and have put themselves in direct relation to the Government by accepting our Magistrates and avowing themself adherents of the Queen. The colonists pursue their pastoral and agricultural avocations, without fear or hindrance—the revenue is rapidly increasing,—property of every sort has risen in value and goes on rising;—military roads are being constructed, which will not only make any military operations comparatively easy, but will in all probability render them unnecessary-—and a position has been attained without striking a blow, which ten years of fighting could not have secured. But then ' our correspondent at Waipa' has been told that Wiremu Toi Toi is going to be appointed an Assessor ; and ' our correspondent on the East Coast' thinks that the natives are humbugs—and that, on the whole, the British Lion has been baulked of his bone, and so we must pronounce Sir George JGrey's mission to be a dead failure, and his Ministers to be 'ruining the country.'— hew Zealander.