HOME CALUMNIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

Colonist, Issue 1165, 4 December 1868, Page 7

HOME CALUMNIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

(From The Nelson Colonist, November 17.) " ExTEKJiKfatiko. Native?, " is the pleasant and suggests c title which the Pall If all Gazette has deemed it proper to give to an article on New Zealand, which disgraces its is3ue of 2nd September last. The article is full of errors, both of fact and of conclusion. Our renders can study it for themselves, as wo copy it in another column. The article is marked by much of that easy-going generalisation which is frequently adopted by English writers on Colonial topics, on which their experience and reading appear to have been much too limited. So long as they dwell in the region of generalities they deem themselves safe from contradiction, and it too often happens that, notwithstanding that both these and the facts are utterly erroneous, yet the British public usually accept as correct the fallacies and misstatements respecting the Colonies with which from time to time, and especially in the case of hapless New Zealand, the British Press teems. And even papers which ought, and profess to know something of the Australasian Colonies, whose speciality it is to treat of and for them —papers like the Home News for example—repeat the calumnies of the Pall Mall Gazette by reprinting the article without saying a single word in defence of the maligned colonists, or attempting to show the fallacies and reckless injustice which marks the article throughout. We are told that the New Zealand colonist is " happy," because the British taxpayer bore the expense of the troops engaged in the war of 1863 ; a war undertaken by Sir Grcorge Grey as the repi esentative of her Majesty, and with the sanction and concurrence of the Home Government! Reference is also made to the exploit of the present Duke of Malakhoff, whose troops in the war in Algeria some eighteen years ago, suffocated a body of Arabs who had taken to a cave, and from which they refused to be dislodged; and the colonists of New Zealand are accused of having long entertained a wish that the Maoris should be similarly dealt with. Until within the last lew days, we do not believe that any noteworthy number of persons in the Colony entertained such an opinion; and, although it has been the fashion to declaim in the most virtuously indignant tone against this action of Marshal Pelissier or rather of his troops—about the provocation which led to such an extreme measure nothing was said. The provocation consisted of an atrocious system of mutilation perpetrated by the Arabs on the bodies of soldiers who had been killed and wounded in an engagement; atrocities committed in the grossest and foulest spirit of savagery, and which aroused in the minds of the troops a spirit of vengeance for the wanton wickedne-ses perpetrated on the bodies of their comrades. Since receiving intelligence of the cruel massacres and the cannibalism which our hapless settlers have suffered at the hands of the rebels, perhaps not a few lave experienced—after the first grief has been overcome —the growth of. a fierce desire for vengeance against the cruel wretches who have been too much trusted and too kindly treated by the colonists, and who have murdered peaceful sleeping households, accompanying the murders with terrible tortures to helpless women and children. When the news of these horrid deeds shall reach England, v c should hope that those who have defended and praised the " noble savage," and traduced the colonists, those who like our high contemporary the Pall Mall Gazette most unjustly accuse the people of New Zealand of a desire to " exterminate the natives," will see the injustice they have done to the Colony by such calumnies. The continued accusations which have lasted for years ; the outcries of religious people with crotchets about the Christianity of the Maori; the fervent appeals of the pious Aborigines' Protectoin Society have had a most detrimental influence on the Colony of New Zealand. They have stayed the sword of righteous punishment; they have influenced the Government at Home, and swayed the officers and Governors here, until the Maori became convinced from the paternal care that was taken of him, from the manner his breaches of law, his threatenings, hia seizures, and his murders were condoned, that he could do as he chose ; and on that faith the Maori has been preparing to act ever since the troops were withdrawn. Native cunning saw the coining opportunity and has seized it. The absence of the Imperial troops, with the knowledge of how tenderly for years back rebels have been dealt with, has at length produced the fruitage of a long growing plot, and now the accusers of the colonists, the upholdei's of the New Zealander, will know the Maori by his works. His religion, as far as Christianity ia concerned, is to take the most bloody examples from the Old Testament. They read and understand how Samuel, the Prophet, " hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord," and they reduce to practice the deed on which, metaphorically we presume, is pronounced a blessing — " Blessed is he that takes their little ones and dashes their heads against a stone." This, coupled with cannibalism, is how the rebels have been acting towards men, women, and children of English birth and English blood; and, together with thedeclaration wrung from the Bishop of Lichfield, that Christianity had no hold on the Maori —proves that true Christianity is, as has been said, the product of a high civilisation. Among the Maoris we see some of it distorted into the wildest and bloodiest fanaticism.

There are three or four other charges or statements contained in the article we have been referring to, which we shall briefly notice. The first is that the colonists "are anxious to sweep the Maori race off the face of the earth." Let years of 'pensions, payments, and presents of provisions and clothing, years of endurance of their greed and cunning, testily to the injustice of the charge, a charge which, it is satisfactory to know that there are some men in England able to refute, and that Sir George Grey will himself bear indubitable evidence that the colonists have legislated and acted for the benefit and preservation of the race., and have striven to prevent not only wars between themselves and the Maoris, but also to stop fierce inter-tribal feuds. Then it is said that the colonist " drags down the aboriginal mind lower than it was before." This to the people who have made the Maori tongue a written language, and enabled the rebels to correspond with each other, to publish prophecies of Heavenpromised victories over the Pakeha, and to turn against us the peaceful arts wo have taught them, just as they are now shooting down our men with the regulation rifle and the regulation cartridge with which once friendly and trusted natives were armed!

Next we are told that the colonists compared with Englishmen "have had no experience whatever of taxation!" —that "they have the stalled ox, and if they are not contented it is not our fault. We hare set them on their legs." The Imperial G-ovemment management brought on a war which has cost us three millions of money to begin with, and about half-a-million a year besides, and if this is setting us on our legs, it would be difficult to explain what "prostration" means. No experience of taxation! Look at our diminished trade; see the money regularly pnid to British bondholders, and beholdourCustomsTuriff.ourStamp Duties,'our Suocession Tax, and men will then understand whether or not we have experience of taxation, Some 210,000 Europeans raise a Colonial revenue cf

a million a year, —about £5 a head for every ma.' j woman, and child in the Colony. Great Britain, with thirty millions of inhabitant?, is taxed to the amount of sixty-seven millions sterling, or only £2 ss. per head; and yet this sagacious writer must needs tell a credulous public in London that we have no experience in taxation. Further on, it is said we pay only £7000 a year for Militia and Toluuteers, and it is implied that that is all we pay for defence! Our expenditure las" year on Militia and Volunteers alone was some £26,000, and the Armed Constabulary cost last year about £110,000, and will cost far more in the year now current. Thus, in facts, in figures, and in knowledge of tlie people of this Colony, their endurance and their burdens, tho Pall Mall Gazette is entirely misinformed, and grievously misrepresents tho struggling colonists of Ne\v Zealand. Here is something which at the present juncture of our affairs comes hardest of all: —" There is no pretence, for calling upon us for further help at the present time." The answer to this is—POVBJOT Bay.