The Taranaki Herald. NEW PLYMOUTH, JANUARY 12, 1861.

Taranaki Herald, Volume IX, Issue 441, 12 January 1861, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. NEW PLYMOUTH, JANUARY 12, 1861.

By the Victoria, just arrived, we learn that all is perfectly quiet as regards the natives in the North. Oreat excitement prevails on the war question in connection with the elections ; a letter from Mr T. King of this place, reporting some extraordinary proceedings at a meeting of the Northern memhers the colony discussed the subject and declared unequivocally in favor of the Governor. The election for the West City was going on when the Victoria tailed. It is almost certain that Mr Forsaith of the i peace-at-any-price party will be replaced by Mr Russell. In the West City Messrs. Daldy and Williamson will be close run by Mr Firth and Mr O'Neil, and the return of Mr Firth is almost certain.

A long pamphlet by Sir W. Martin, late Chief Justice of New Zealand, on " the Taranaki question " has just issued from the Melanesian Press, Auckland. It is the most temperate and able statement of the Missionary view, on the subject of the war, that has appeared or is likely to appear, and requires the fullest attention in these columns. Sir W. Martin is not a friend, but an enthusiastic lover of the Maori. He has no eyes for their failings ; and his long judicial experience of the looseness and rashness of the views and conceptions of fact which prevail among uneducated minds, seems to be treated by him as quite foreign where the Maori is the deponent. The inconsistent, ignorant, and rambling statements of the Rev. Riwai Te Abu and others, are preferred to the clear evidence of Messrs Bell, McLean, and Parris. Such obvious iniquity and insolence as the interference by the Waikato tribes, after selling Ngatiawa lands to the Crown, and offering again and again to clear off all encumbrances from the estate ■with the strong hand, seems to be invisible to the late Chief Justice. Equally invisible to his mind is the base ingratitude of that part of the Ngatiawa, who, having returned to their old homes under shelter of the British Government, and having been allowed to retain all beneficial interest whatsoever in their former territory, have systematically opposed the spread of colonisation in order to restore a savage anarchical communism in its old perfection. And his passionate affection equally incapacitates him to take a somewhat narrower view, or to embrace within his rather cramped notion of justice the claims which the industrious European settler makes that at least his Maori neigh, bour should keep the manger inoffensive and harmless.

Such is the writer's tone in approaching the great question of New Zealand ; but it must not be confounded with that of Archdeacon Hadfield, or even of that much wiser and greater man Bishop Selwyn. In both of the latter the love of the Maori is

quite secondary to an irritable craving for power. Indeed, in Mr Hadfield's share in the present discussion it is difficult to dis- j cover any traces of love at all. But Sir j W. Martin's pamphlet is moderate in expression. His enthusiasm for the natives is a one-sided development of genuine philanthropy. He is too really benevolent, as well as too gentlemanly to imitate Archdeacon Hadfield in railing at the Governor and at men with whom he has little or no acquaintance. He is not seduced as Bishop Selwyn is by his clerical position into forgetting that a more than human insight is necessary to justify the broad flourishing of the crook over one's fellow countrymen in the mass, and rebuking them as a generation of vipers. The tone of the pamphlet is, on the whole, v quiet and impersonal. But generally where feeling is the rudder as well as the impulse, the keel will grate on the shallows if no worse betide : and Sir W. Martin is no exception to the rule. He occasionally forgets himself, as where (at p. 25) he disposes of the real views of a large part of his fellow-citizens, comprising at least some men of education, conscience and reflection, by a sneer. Pretending to sum up the newspaper comments on the " new policy" initiated at Waitara, he makes the writers say — " It was noble and chivalrous — a deliverance of the oppressor, — suppression of a sort of feudal tyranny. Moreover, it was profitable^ &c." In the Ministerial Memorandum of May, 1857, on the disposition to organise among the natives in Waikato, His Excellency's advisers in recommending that the movement should be seconded and guided, say, with much generosity but questionable accuracy, — " No such opportunity for an advance as now seems to be opened has been presented to any former administration." And the Government exerted itself to use the opportunity, struggling long against gathering difficulties. Sir W. Martin does not imitate their generosity, — never acknowledges their efforts. He forgets that his own influential position has not been used to bring abdut any practical social advance of the Maori. He forgets that the present Ministry were the original and able propagators of the present ideas for Maori Government at a time when the heads of the Missionary party, and the Native office had fallen asleep, and before the reckless Ipnrters, whnm Tir nnotesasauthorities, had ever awakened to the advantage that they as political partisans might gain from a tardy assumption of the vestments of the Maori Protectorate. Sir William is " encouraged" by the report of the Waikato committee of 1860, but forgets to say that it did not contain one vestige of an idea that had not been before promulgated in the Memorandum of 1857, before quoted, and the Ministerial policy and speeches of 1858. Such want of candour is in startling contrast to his enthusiasm for every seeming or real good quality of the Native race, and ought to need only pointing out to Sir W. Mai tin to make him pause. It would excite no surprise were the pamphlet an emanation from his allies of Wellington — from him it causes not only surprise, but great regret. We have thought right thus to indicate to the reader the impression left on our mind by the tone of the pamphlet before us, that any further observations may not be misunderstood as implying that we confound Sir W. Martin's spirit with that either of his natural or chance allies. It is, after every deduction, the best spirit that has yet been shown on this side. We must, however, look to the errors in its tone to interpret another aspect of the pamphlet as a whole. In the tenth month of a struggle which can have but one healthy and safe conclusion, the supremacy, namely, of a Government, which, put it even lower than our author does, is yet surely better than an anarchy decorated with texts from the Hebrew Scriptures, — at such an hour, and when the British Government has practically as well as in terms approved of the course of the Governor, and declared that the war must be conclusive, — the late Chief Justice of the Colony thinks it right to publish an elaborate work, to demonstrate that the course of the Government has been rash and unjust, and to justify the resistance, assert the rights, and sound the praises of those who are in arms against his Government. The pamphlet is ostensibly addressed to the General Assembly and the British Parliament, and cannot, therefore, take the practical effect its author professes to aim at until four months have passed, if ever ; during which time the war must he persevered in, unless ended by the unqualified submission of the insurgents. !For four months, then, it must work, as

far as it works at all, to encourage resist- p ance and embitter animosity. It cannot f be confined, as its author indicates his de- 1 sire to confine it, to the Imperial and Colonial Legislatures ; already it has found v its way to every corner of this island. *j What, then, is the possible fruit for which c such a price is paid by so high-minded a v man ? The design is not to convince £ those who have already taken a view in the * matter. Even if Sir W. Martn's know- * ledge of the facts were as complete as , theirs, he does not conciliate his leading t opponents by candor. He does not aspire j to effect a present self-abnegation by the . Government ; and on a careful and repeated perusal of its pages, it will be diffi- i cult to point to anything resembling a practical conclusion aimed at, which could | justify its publication at this time, and in the Colony. In a man situated as the author, that becomes an absolute crime which, in a person less instructed and with less weight, would be but an indiscretion. Sir W. Martin was bound, unless on some urgent practical ground such as he does not indicate, to keep his feelings pent up for a. longer time, and not to liberate his spirit till he could do so without stimulating the fires of discord. Happily the successes at Waitara will render his most reprehensible self-indulgence nearly harmless ; and the restoration of peace after signal exhibitions of power may place the statesmen and colonists whom this pamphlet carelessly libels in a position to prove incontestably that the truisms about justice which ornament many of its pages are at least as familiar to their practice as to that of the late Chief Justice of New Zealand, or any of his associates. The publication now, and here is another exhibition of feeling, which", coming from a gentleman of high character and eminent judicial position, is of itself extremely disappointing. There is much show of logical order in the tract, and perhaps as much real order as the subject admits. " The present is a land quarrel" — thus it opens ; a broad assertion, which somewhat stuns the reader at the present hour. For though the matter out of which the debate arose was certainly land, the issue really joined was on the question, " Shall there or shall there not be a British Government in New I Zealand V To the right discussion of this

jj m.. r n..^ | tir^ nr- fall of Governor Browne and his Ministers is quite secondary. This misconception of the issue makes the pamphlet of no practical utility, j though it does not lessen its mischievous tendencies. Hereafter, by way of bill of attainder, what merits the pamphlet has, may be available ; but it does not even come near the real question, which must be decided the same way, — whether Governor Browne has been just or unjust, whether " tribal right" be a dream or a re- ! ality, and applicable or inapplicable in the special case. Then follows an exposition of what the writer declares to be " the main principle of the tenure of land." Quoting from the Report of the Board to enquire into the state of Native Affairs, 1856, our • author corroborates and italicises the state- ! ment that -r " Generally there is no such thing as an individual claim clear and independent of tribal right." This, he states, is •• the normal condition of a primitive society." Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors knew of two tenures — " Folclaml and Bocland." The former was, as its name implies, land of the people, the other held by " book" or grant. " Folcland corresponded to the Native tenure, Bookland to tenure under Crown Grant." Assuming the author's statements thus epitomised we may, not dimly, conjecture that inconveniences like those of the last six years at Taranaki led to the gradual severance of the Bocland " by an act of Government from the Folcland." At all events Folcland tenure is all but extinct in civilised communities, and better reason never was, for such acts of government as may abolish the tenure, than the blood which manures, and the thistle which overruns the commons of Waitara, to the ruin of the communistic tenants themselves and their laborious neighbours, who hold under " Bocland" tenure in the settlement of Taranaki. But without attempting to oppose our own authority to that of our author, we must say that, looking at the state of New Zealand when first colonised, the view taken by Mr Busby, the first representative of the British Government here, has 'much more an air of reality than any of the professional visions of Sir W. Martin ; or his parallels drawn from a condition of society really far in advance of the Mao* ries in 1840. We quote from a tract by Mr Busby containing " Remarks" on the

>amphlet under consideration. With reerence to our Author's views on the Native and tenure question Mr Busby says — In New Zealand, law had no existence, and there vas an equal absence of authority. No man admited the right of another to interfere with his conluct. We are accustomed to speak of the " chiefs" )f New Zealand, in terms which to our minds conveys the idea of authority. But the chiefs had no authority. Those were " principal chiefs" who, being free men, had acquired that ascendancy which superior ability and strength of mind always obtain iver the less gifted and more timid majority, as tvell as those who stood nearest in lineal descent to the original progenitor from whom they all traced their descent. But, however naturally gifted, or lineally descended, no man claimed a right to subject another to his will. The power exerted by Hongi and other leaders of the people, was only the influence of superior intelligence and bravery. They had no power but that of violence. Who ever beard of a Manri chief punishing a murder unless by the commission of another, or of many more murders (when the pa was taken, a hundred died for the sin of one man"*); or of his punishing a theft, unless by digging up the potatoes of the tribe to which the thief belonged? It followed from such a state of things not only, as Sir W. Martin states, that " in many cases might overcame right." But that might, not right, waa the rule of conduct. Before the natives had acquired the ideas which arose in their minds from their dealings with our countrymen in the sale of their lands, there was not a New Zealander who had boldness enough to make the attempt, who would not by himself, or associated with others of the tribe, have engaged not only to sell the lands of their tribe, but to maintain the purchaser in possession. He knew of no title superior to his own. When this was done by a person whose character made him feared, there was nothing for the weaker, or more timid portion of the tribe but submission. When the sale was determined upon, those who made the sale encouraged those who had no part in it, to make an additional claim upon the purchaser, which was generally satisfied. Another mode in which an acquiescence in a sale of land by parties whose titles had been ignored was brought about, was the suggestion, often acted upon, that the latter should, in their turn, sell another portion of land in which the former had an interest, and thus restore the sense of equality which the former sale had disturbed. In fine, the result of my experience during the seven years in which I held office, was a conviction that the native had no idea of property in land such as exists in the minds of people where it has been tne subject of legislation. And that the rules which Sir W. Martin lays down, were not rules established by natives, but suggested by the precautions adopted by our own countrymen in order to obtain a ti. tie which could not be justly disputed. Passing to the next chapter of the pamphlet we find a short account of the Waikato invasion of the Ngatiawa lands. This is colored in the mildest terms, in order to give the impression that the affair was of trifling and transitory importance. But the accounts of the taking of Pukerangiora, as we may read them in writers who had no purpose in view (see Polack's " New Zealand"), do not bear the color our author gives. The migration of W. King's father, Reretawhangawhanga, was partly induced by dread of the flood which shortly after overwhelmed the largest part of his tribe. No war recorded in New Zealand was more sanguinary and decisive ; the Ngatiawa were utterly prostrate ; a few wretched stragglers remained on the ground ; and at the time of the visit of the Tory, Dr Dieffenbach records that his guide in the ascent of Mt. Egmont had, in the depths of the bush, a refuge and cultivations to fly to on the return of the enemy. Those of us who have had to do with the Ngatiawa during the last ten years may remember that, up to a recent date, the tribute and deference of the conquered was paid by our resident natives to any Waikato men who chose, for work or pleasure, to visit this district. In a letter from Ihaia, not long since printed in these columns, is the liveliest picture of their state. All was quite deserted ; the land, the sea, the streams and lakes, the forest, the rocks, were deserted ; the food, the property, the work were deserted ; the dead and the sick were deserted, the

land marks (or divisions of property) were deserted.

Then came the pakeha hither by sea from other dwellings, — they came to this land and the Maoris allowed them, — they came by chance to this place, — they came to a place whose inhabitants had left it. There were few men here, — the men were s remnant, a handful returned from slavery. From this desolation and banishment the coming of the Europeans redeemed the land an d the men . A portion of the tribe — among whom was Ihaia, whose wrongs for 12 years have stimulated him to the conspicuous savageness on which the admirers of W. King and communism love to dwell, — aportion of the tribe treated the settlers with gratitude and friendly welcome. The mass have, it must be confessed, been much disposed to strain every advantage to the utmost, and without the aid which their distinguished counsel now affords, have succeeded too well in their attempts to maintain the mana of desolation over the plain of Taranaki. The Waikato occupation was, however, in a native sense, complete. When it is desired by the advocates of Maori independence to palliate the resistance to a survey.

. * Speech of Te Kihirini at the Kohimaram* Conference, July 13tb, ISOO,

orsnch a slaughter as that of Rawiri Waiaua, we are told that the marking out of lines is an act of ownership by Maori custom, and undoubtedly this act, and others even more conspicuous, were performed by the Waikatos, and at least one Governor has had the offer of Waikato aid to put him in possession of the Taranaki country in fulfilment of the sale by Potatau, (Te Wherowhero.) That transaction was not as Sir W. Martin artfully insinuates, a mere abandonment of the claims of Waikato, and a restoration of the status quo nnte. It was a sale, and in the benevolent concession to the exiles of a certain payment for their former interests, the Government was in no way pledged to restore ** their own again as of old." The following view by Sir W. Martin of their position is then simply preposterous : — The right or might of the conqueror or successful invader was wholly outside of the tribe. If it prevailed at all, it prevailed absolutely, displacing the tribe altogether, and sweeping away all lights of the tribe, of the chief, and of the clansmen alike. If it was withdrawn, and the tribe returned, they returned of course to all the rights tbey possessed before the invasion, and in the same measure and manner as before ; the individuals to their rights, the tribe to their right, the chief to his. They enjoyed their own again as of old. Their old rights and their own relations to one another were necessarily resumed. They knew of none other. With respect to that portion of the district included in Mr Spain's award, Sir George Grey in a despatch to Earl Grey in 1847 says That the most ample reserves for their present and future wants should be marked off for the reBident natives, as well as for those who were likely to return to Taranaki ; but that the remaining portion of the country, in that district, should be resumed for the Crown, and for the use of the Europeans. The claim of the Government was never abandoned ; and the anarchy and wrong to both races which the communism Sir W. Martin contends for must necessarily bring and has brought, has at all times been the reason for enforcing it, and is especially so now.