THE QUEEN'S PEACE BILL.

Colonist, Volume VIII, Issue 817, 29 August 1865, Page 2

THE QUEEN'S PEACE BILL.

The native policy of the New Zealand Ministry has ever a far more extended influence than any other department of the Government. North and South are alike deeply interested in its proper control, aud alike must desire to see a wise course pursued. The financial embarrassment under wlp"ch New Zealand has long labored is traceable to the native difficulty ; and the many and varied experimental tinkeriugs to which the native question has been _ subjected have proved too often the direful 'spring of our financial woes, being the case, we make no apology for again referring to the speech of fche Native Minister, and touchingon a few points therein and in the measures that speech introduced which lack of space prevented us from noticing in our last. The ""more we examine Mr. Fitzgerald's address, and the policy it describes, the less do we see in either to admire. What we chiefly regret to witness in a Minister having an office of such great responsibility, is a self contradiction which is all the more deplorable because he does not observe its existence. He propounds the most palpable and world-old truisms, which he appears to look upon as statesmanlike inventions. For example, he tells us with all the frankness of a man who has made a new discovery ingovernmental science, that " we could not govern a nation as if it were composed of burglars, nor as if it consisted wholly of good men, philosophers, and statesmen." What can any man gather from s* proposition like this ? Simply nothing at all; for there never was a nation of burglars, any more than there ever was a nation of philosophers and statesmen. It is true that a famous traveller named Lemuel G-ulliver discovered a people cbvoted to pure science and unmixed philosophy, dwelling' in an admantine floating island called Laputa; but even there the veracious historian tells of occurrences which would slightly alter the conditions necessary to a nation of good philosophers. The social system of Sparta inculcated habitual theft as a laudable national practice ; but even in Sparta Mr. Fitzgerald would fail to find the typical nai ion, fbr Spartan law punished the thief if he were discovered; not for the theft, but for being found out! Yet for all this declaration he proposes to treat the Maoris almost as if they were really a nation of burglars. He makes much of the injustice of telling the natives that though English subjects they are to have none of the rights due to the modern civis Bom anus. Acting on this impulse Mr. Fitzgerald tables a bill declaring that all Maoris in New Zealand shall be deemed natural born subjects of the Queen, and shall have the same rights and liabilities as men of English birth. In the same breath the Native Minister says he shall make the Maoris submit to a system which no man or minister would dare apply to a community of British subjects. The bill for maintaining the Queen's peace, and whose short title is the " Outlying Districts Police Act" (said "police," as in the Opotiki expedition, to consist it may be of 1000 fighting men and a ship of war), is intended to punish entire districts for the crime of an individual. Clause 3of this bill provides that if any murder, rape, burglary, arson, or attempts at these crimes, or armed resistance to an officer of the law, iv any district ofthe colony, shall have been committed, and the perpetrators or suspected perpetra-

tors shall be " harbored or protected by the inhabitants of such district, or of any other district, so that the perpetrators of such offences cannot be arrested and committed for trial," the Governor is empowered to "issue a proclamation calling upon the chiefs and other inhabitants of any or every such district to aid in the arrest of such criminals, and giving warning that in case such criminals shall not be arrested on or before a certain day specified in such proclamation, the district in which the crime was committed, and every district in which such criminal, or suspected criminal, shall have been concealed, harbored, or protected, is liable to be brought under the operation of this Act." If, after such proclamation, "the chiefs and other inhabitants of any such district shall persist in refusing or neglecting to deliver up such criminals, or suspected criminals, to justice, or to aid iri their arrest; and if such criminals shall not have been arrested within fourteen days after such proclamation shall have been published in the district, it shall be lawful for the Governor, by an Order in Council, to declare that such district is brought under the operation of the Act, and to declare the boundaries of such district." And a further power is given of a most arbitrary kind, for by clause 4 the Governor is empowered to take "so much .of the land within the proclaimed districts as he shall think necessary." We should like to know Avhat the Home G-overument would sayto such a bill. Sections 5 and 6we quote entire from the bill. "In taking any such land regard shall be.had so far as possible to the several degrees in which the owners thereof shall have been implicated in the said crimes, or in concealing or protecting the perpetrators of the same from justice, so that the land of the principals in any such crime shall be taken first, and before taking any such land the Governor shall appoint one or more Commissioners, being competent persons, who shall enquire ancl report to the Governor what lands are the property of each person concerned in such crime, or in concealing or protecting such criminals." "It shall not be lawful for the Governor to take under the authority of this Act any land, being the sole property of any person who was absent from the district and was not concerned in such crime, or in concealing such criminals, or who may have endeavored, by giving information or otherwise, to aid in giving up such° criminals or suspected criminals to justice. And if any such person shall have any joint interest, or interest in common, in any land which shall be taken under the authority of this Act, he shall be entitled to compensation for the loss of such interest, to be assessed by the Native Land Court." Here are contained two most objectionable principles, one of political oppression, aud the other of further official expenditure. It seems to be a settled thing with New Zealand Ministries, that every possible scheme shall be adopted by which new offices shall be created. New commissionerships, extra ministers, comfortable life-corners for political "hacks" (the word is a disagreeable one to use, but it is the right word, and therefore we print it), little work and plenty of pay for it, no matter how the money is to be found, —these are prominent features in our General G-overnments. Aud so for this peace establishment scheme a body of commissioners is to be chosen. And year after year this is the practice. During the recess, new offices, necessitating great additional outlay, are created by Ministers, and uo one takes them to task. The sums are voted, as if the people's representatives were but a body of men to vote supplies ; and the compassionate phrase, "Oh, poor fellow, what could so-and-so do if we did not provide for him ?" seems to close the mouths of the members. This new Native Commission will prove a tedious, costly'affair. It seems as if the days of ancient Continental absolutism were about to visit New Zealand. By a word whole districts (and the letter of the clauses does not except