The Taranaki Herald. NEW PLYMOUTH, JUNE 9, 1860.

Taranaki Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 410, 9 June 1860, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. NEW PLYMOUTH, JUNE 9, 1860.

The Victoria brings reports of the proceed*' ings at Ngaruawahia (which we shall reprint .from. ~ihe.. Southern Cr.oss An an Extra to be issued on Monday.) The meeting was, as is not uncommon to meetings white and Maori, destitute of definite result. A vast variety of shades of opinion were exhibited by the speakers and it was agreed to do nothing in Wi Kingi's affair : but a resolution to erect a Maori flag and establish an independent sovereignty was carried by the ministry of Potatau in spite of all opposition. We are justified in stating that the policy of His Excellency in the war is not altered by the events of the meeting and that any hesitation about attacking Wi Kingi is not to be attributed to supineness on the part of the commander of the forces.

Various reasons suggest themselves for the great anxiety manifested not to confront the King movement boldly and at once. The movement is evidently far from uniting the whole Maori population, and to precipitate a collision might involve many who would be our friends in the ranks of the enemy. It is on their account fair to leave opportunity and give aid to some counterorganization on their part. General blockade is talked of and has begun at Kawhia. Justice requires that our friends among the natives should have time and encouragement to escape the hardships of this measure. If the Government shew by their activity and definitiveness of their action that they steadily contemplate a satisfactory settlement, the people of Taranaki will not bo found to grumble or sneer. The only fear that depresses or irritates us here is, that we may still he floating on the tide of circumstances. Shew us that we have an energetic will ruling at the helm, that the King movement is confronted though not attacked, and we can patiently submit to special plans of action very different from what our own observations and experience may suggest, — or even to more protracted delay. The Ngaiuawahia meeting is a fresh example of the capability of the natives for order, and how far, at the same time, they are from any hopeful organization. Our friends of the Native department, and his Lordship the Bishop must have had a rough lesson on'this head. We hnrdly look for a recantation from either quarter, certainly not immediately. We are content if we see these gentlemen in full retreat to furnish a golden bridge for them to retire over.

In another part of this impression the reader will find a paper by a gentleman whose information respecting Native customs and history is the result of many years' residence among the Maori. The statements are very interesting and curious in themselves ; and, as vindicating the Governor and Mr Commissioner Parris from the charges of carelessness or ignorance insinuated with as little regard to truth as seasonableness, we feel it is due to call attention to them. A more complete answer to the claim of the senior chief to be sole arbiter of a sale than is furnished by the proceedings under the penny an acre proclamation, in which Mr Davis was so largely concerned, need not be wished, and the documentary proofs are accessible.

We must, however, not be understood to rest on this sort of fact. It suited the intemperate advocacy of a dream to picture the existence of exact laws respecting useless lands among a race whose summa lex was the strong arm. It may have been justifiable and laudable in Governors, one after another, to maintain, or, at least, not to overthrow the delusive notion. But the dream has passed through the ordeal of experience, and is found unsubstantial ; and the conflicting opinions of those to whom we look for information on Maori custom evidences at least this (which we might have almost proved a priori), — that Maori custom has been ill-defined and inconsistent ; that boundaries varied with the varying strength of tribes ; that a Maori estate was so much land as its owners could prevent others from enjoying ; and that a senior chief was, within very vague limits, the chief who, by any means, could get the ascendancy in his tribe.

Deeply convinced of this, and of the danger that attends employing blind guides, we cannot consent for a single moment to rest our views of a policy for the present time on any Maori custom or Maori view of right and wrong. It is true that we have but to wait a few years for the sick man's shoes, but the attitude is dangerous when the sick man has fits of delirium, and has advisers in a state of chronic lunacy ; and we wish better to the Maori race than to stand by at its extinction whilst courage and sacrifice on our part will earn it a chance of escape. For the honor_qf Great Britain, the jsafetyof the (JoJony, andTlieTTop'e ot the "IVlaon, it fs time tint Government should utterly change the tactics of preceding years. It is not self-evident that the steering by the wind is. good indisputably and universally, where other and more calculable motivepower is available. The clanger of the present crisis, the impossibility of a return to the status qtio ante, must awaken the energy of the Government. The policy of tiding must cease. A force within itself must henceforth move the administration in its action towards the Native.

Most unsatisfactory, then, is the recent letter of His Excellency the Governor to some chiefs near Wellington, which is going the round of the Southern papers. Not that it describes a bad or, indeed, any policy, but because it betrays in tone and manner the same studiousness of Maori opinion which has confessedly ruled the counsels of all pieceding Governors, including the energetic but deceitful Sir G. Grey. It is hedging and hesitating in character, and illustrates the action of a close diplomatic system, which seeks to manipulate individuals instead of grappling with broad principles. It is one of the expiring efforts, we ti ust, of the anomalous Native Office, the department that deals in land and soft sawder.

We mean no disrespect to His Excellency, nor to individuals of the Native Office ; circumstances have built up the precedents they follow, and no man is quite superior to his circumstances. The British Government slipped in a helpless unwilling way into the colonisation of these islands. No Colony of the same age has engaged more attention or caused a greater consumption of foolscap ; respecting none has honourable feeling so run riot; but nowhere has less of courageous thought or action by Government been seen, or the difficulty of ruling a distant country been exhibited more fully. When the influx of settlers under the administration of the invalid Governor Hobson, and incompetent Acting- Governor Shortland, had aroused the fears and suspicions of the Maori, the British Government gave the Colony into tho hands of Governor Fitzßoy, without troops, without money, and without discretion. Confusion and war came on, and he was superseded by Capt. Grey, already known as Lieut. - Governor in South Australia.

Capt. Grey's views on the proper treatment of savage races had already met the approbation of the Colonial Office, and had been pointed out as a text-book to Capt. Fitzßoy. The leading idea of his system was to obtain what he called " the confidence of the Native race," and if he hardly attained success, it must be admitted, on all hands, that few but himself could have come so near the result with the means he employed.

He entered on his Governorship with an unlimited credit and two regiments, besides the aid of the Australian Squadron, and, by his active use of this force, he succeeded in quieting the outbreaks when they had run the established course of Maori warfare, and were flickering in the socket ; as yet nothing approaching national combination was possible among the Natives.

The prestige of the British name was not, however, retrived by his operations ; and in administering punishment to the leading offenders, he consulted the feelings of the Maori as the clue to the justice or expediency of the case. With great skill he amused his Maori charge with a variety of playthings, — mills, ploughs, ships, eagerly taken up and quickly put down ; for which purposes he devised loans. He introduced an Ordinance for legalising the compounding, in open Court, of felonies committed by Natives ; and as Natives, even on such terms, could not always he got into court, he laid down a scale for himself for estimating Native offences, which, by putting those it was inconvenient to take up in the category of " Ordinary Maori Outrages," softened the color of his despatches, whilst the sufferers' compensation was obtained by mysterious ceremonies in the Native Department, attended with some expense. At any rate, quiet was on the whole maintained, and seven years of the period were passed over in which peril to the Colony was to be dreaded, and though we could not respect this clever officer, we should have gladly let his memory rest but for the fact that his despatches to the Colonial Office constantly painted affairs here in falsely favorable colours. The progress of the Maori 'in civilisation was, he asserted, so rapid that peace might be regarded as assured, and the presence of military force was shortly to be dispensed with altogether.

Unwilling to" remain with reduced powers, Sir G. Grey returned to England, having rather tossed in than introduced the present Constitution ; and leaving to his successor the difficulty -which he had done nothing really to solve, with all the odium that must attach to the ultimate discovery of such a fact, and with means shortened for meeting the difficulty.

The Colony has advanced with rapid strides, the Native race has declined, their toys cease to please, their old jealousy revives, they seek for the injury — the greased cartridge — that may serve as a pretext for rising, and we are on the eve of an extensive war.

And how has Governor Browne met this problem ? With something less than his predecessor's activity, with a less absolute command of the revenue, and other difficulties added, he follows exactly in Sir G. Grey's steps. lie endeavours to localise the war, and to put it on the narrowest grounds ; seeking to square his acts as far as possible by the feelings of the chiefs not yet directly implicated in the revolt, rather than by his own better information and better view of the position of affairs : he addresses letters of a deprecatory character, into which he timidly drops a hazy tlueat, to be construed as events may turn out. Still, it is the diplomatic bait for the confidence of the Maori. This, we humbly conceive, has not, and never will prove the way to get confidence. The nettle must be grasped with a firm hand. Boldness, promptness, candour, are qualities that are instinctively appreciated, whilst the Maori, himself a born diplomatist, no less surely suspects anything obscure or ambiguous. We regret sincerely the appearance of this letter. With an honorable anxiety to give time for reflection and cool counsels to prevail among the Natives, we had hoped that there was united a resolve to end at once the old vicious system, and we should have calculated that any address to the Maori would, at this moment, have put the resolution of the Government to assert its authority, and the fatal consequence of resistance, in as plain a light as the desire for peace and order, and the reluctance to use harsh measures. We have said no policy is described in this letter to the Southern chiefs, but there is indicated what is elsewheie put more clearly, — an intention to pursue with especial vengeance or justice

the tribes from which came the Omata murderers. We have already intimated our opinion that the chiefs who professedly lead an atmed force of Natives oughLto be held responsible for the acts of their men. The jjsjfflion in Waikato thatjjhese murders wex^but " incidents of war"is borne out ]rjrall we know of savage'warfare. Every iiriberih these islands can produce its Ma•phi, andja^fgapable of its Omata murders. TfufiT^OTvingi and his supporters, who let looUj the cold-blooded demon, are more responsible for its atrocities than half the men of Taranaki and Ngatiruanui. Standing alone, then, and without operations against the original rebels and authors of mischief, the threatened vengeance on the Southern tribes fails to meet, and even grates upon our sense of justice. " Hit him hard, he has no friends," is a-proverb which we hardly like our Governors to act on as a precept. If we have not strength or courage to take the bull by the horns, let us honestly admit it, and wait till we get more. Our Cerberus growls at inaction, but he is not a merely bloodthirsty animal, and a vigorous honorable attitude on the general question is what he seeks, not the extermination of one or two devoted tribes by permission of Waikato. The insanity of the Maori will probably render all diplomacy void, but we could have wished the latest words of the Government to be equal to the position that must be taken.