ARCHDEACON HADFIELD AND THE WELLINGTON MEMBERS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume IX, Issue 430, 27 October 1860, Page 4

ARCHDEACON HADFIELD AND THE WELLINGTON MEMBERS.

A coirespondent of the Nelson Examiner, evidently a member of the House of Representatives, and probably Mr Domett, thus graphically describes the conduct of Archdeacon Hadfield and that of the Wellington members with reference to the native difficulty: —

The pioceedings of Archdeacon Hadfield, and the attitude taken by most, if not all, of the clergymen of the Chinch ot England party in this matter, have produced a most painful impression on the minds of many people who have a sincere lcgard for religion, and wish to be able to look upon its ministers with respect and veneration. First, there was the production in the House of several letters from "Wiremu Kingi to Archdeacon Hadfield, letters of a most important character, in which that chief specially leqnesls that his views may be communicated to the Governor, but which are kept back by Mi Hadfield, and first produced in the House by Mr Foisaith, in condemnation of the Governor's proceedings. And yet the Governor had been relying upon receiving information fiom the reveiend gentleman ; had written to him for it, and had been promised that it should be given. These letters, if communicated to the Governor (so great was their importance), might have caused him to adopt different measures, might, indeed, have altered entirely the current of events. 13y keeping them back as he did, the reverend gentleman assumed to himself a most extraoidinary responsibility ; while their first production, made as it was apparently with a view to convict the Go. vcrnment of error, would seem to show an amount ot hostility, under the influence of which not only the true character of a minister of religion had been lost sight of, but even the loyalty of a British subject was gone. In the second place, if you will turn to the pages of the New Zealander of to-day, you will see certain documeuts relating to petitions from the natives ot Otaki, asking for the Governor's re. cal. Let any one read these documents, and ask himself if this is the sort of work that a minister of the Gospel should be engaged upon. It appears that he h.is been teaching the natives to look upon the Governor with distrust ; telling them that the Governor is a bad man, and encouraging them to get up petitions, which there is every leason to believe he writes himself, and then getting signatmes in tho most unscrupulous manner. You will see by these documents that a native chief declares that not only did he not sign the petition, but that he protested againbt his name being appended to it, and that the great majority of the signatures were put down by one or two hands without the owners being at all consulted in the matter. Excepting among the clergy of the Church of England themselves, and a few factious people, who sacrifice all sense of public duty to party politics or spite, there is but one opinion about these proceedings. They are universally deploied and condemned ; but, more than this, it is felt to he necessaiy that they should bo put a stop to. It is clearly seen that such acts as these ondangci the peace ot the colony, and lead to rebellion and bloodshed ; and it will not be tolerated that any man in such a crisis as the present should stir up the native mind in this way, least of all a minister of the Gospel, whose mission is to preach peace and brotherly love. What a contrast between such a firebrand — one might almost say maniac — as Archdeacon Hadfield and your excellent Bishop at Nelson ! The latter as mild and as gentle and full of chaiity, as the former overflows with bitterness.

A third escapade of the Church of England party has been perpetrated by a certain Rev. Mr Burrows. The native chiefs assembled in conference at Koliimarama before separating agreed to certain resolutions. In one of these they declared that the Governor was right, and William King in the wrong. Most loyal subjects rejoiced in this, but it was most painful to

the Anglican clergy party. Accordingly, a Rev. Mr Burrows wrote a letter in the Southern Cross, in which he sought to cast discredit upon the vote, alleging that only one-third of the chiefs had held up their hands for it, and that the dissentients had never been asked to hold up their hands at all. Let me ask you to look at the New Zealander of the 22nd August ; you will see thero a most complete refutation of the calumny of the Rev. Mr Burrows. You will find published there, on the authority of Mr Clarke, Resident Magistrate of the Bay of Plenty, the resolutions, with the signatures of all the chiefs appended to them, upwards of 100 in number, and a dissent from the resolution at the same time, with the names of three chiefs appended. So much for the Rev. Mr Burrows, whose mouth is shut for this time at all events, and who, with his colleagues, doubtless deeply deplores so much loyalty to the Government on the part of the natives. " Clergymen," said an old friend of mine the other day, " are not to be trusted in their conclusions upon secular matters j they become exceedingly dogmatic from preaching in the pulpit, and they live in an atmosphere and world of their own, in which they never see things as they really exist. The operations of their minds are like the freaks of the imagination dnring sleep ; they are inconclusive and inaccurate, because not corrected by the evidence of the senses."

But of all the remarkable phenomena of the present session, undoubtedly the most remarkable is the adhesion of the Wellington members to the parti prStre. Everyone in Nelson, at all events, recollects the way in which Mr Fox used to talk about the Treaty of Waitangi, and the proprietary rights of a handful of natives to millions of acres of territory; and I daresay many people have not forgotten the solution of the native question looked forward to by Dr Featherston in the gradual extinction of the race, and commented upon without any feelings of regret. But now, like Henry V., they have " put away their former selves;" and the most scrupulous adherence to the Treaty of Waitangi (which, by the way, nobody attacks), and the utmost and most morbid sen. sitiveness on every native question, now distinguish the talk of the well-known Wellington triumvirate. It is indeed a very remarkable change. One stares, and one rubs one's eyes, and almost doubts the evidence of one's senses. But theie stands the eloquent member for Wanganui, the former agent of the New Zealand Company, pouring forth a torrent of wellrounded sentences, and denouncing, with many a thump upon the statutes at large which lie under his fist, that man as anything but a gentleman, as worthy only of the name of a cannibal, who could think of requiring the natives to divide their lands, or infringe in any respect upon the provisions of the Treaty of WaitanKi. The member for the City of Wellington, Dr Feathcrston, follows suit; and Archdeacon Hadfield, behind the Speaker's chair, smiles approval. From all such unholy alliances send the colony a safe deliverance.