DR FEATHERSTON ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AFFAIRS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 117, 28 September 1868, Page 3

DR FEATHERSTON ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AFFAIRS.

The following letter was read by Mr Fox in the House of .Representatives on Friday evening, just before the conclusion of the debate on the " Alarm" motion : — " Wellington, 35th September, 186 S. My Dear Fox. — I am afraid that I shall not he able to come down to the House, but I wish that you should state to it what I should tell it myself, were I well enough to be in my place. I look on the present crisis as a very serious one, and all the more serious because we cannot see to what end the policy of the Government is leading us. The chief features of the Constitution Act arc being obliterated, while no information is vouchsafed as to what is to be substituted in their place. The country is asked to give up a great part of the Constitution bestowed upon it by the Imperial Parliament, with the genera! assetit of the colony at the time, and to trust to the wisdom of the four or five gentlemen who occupy the Government benches, to provide them with something better. But what this " something better " is to be, they do not tell the country. All they tell it is of a negative character. It is not to be anything like Provincialism, and it is not to be that county system which was tentatively introduced at Westlaud last year, and already requires to be remodelled in all its principal features. What is it to be ? Surely the country will insist on knowing, before it abolishes a machinery of government which has worked at least as well as any that is likely to take its place. But a question of far more serious importance than constitutional change, grave as the latter is, demands the attention of the colony. It is fast being hurried into a war which bids fair to assume proportions more formidable than any which has preceded it. The hostilities on the East (..'oast might, I am confident, bare been avoided by the commonest prudence. The Government has deliberately " thrown the torch into the fern," by acts so rash and ill-considered as to admit of no excuse and palliation. There was no sorb of necessity for inflicting the horrors of war on that part of the country, by an attempt to recapture the prisoners. If the state of the East Csast was such as to nmke their presence dangerous, they were certain to be much more dangerous when exasperated by futile attempts to recapture or destroy them, than they would have been, if suffered to escape into their fastnesses, wiser and sadder men by their past experience. And now that the Government haR driven uieiw to desperation, has shed their blood, and allowed them to taste ours, it abandons the exposed population of the district and rei:o- es the small defence force which might serve na a nucleus of protection for the colonists. This last crowning act of folly at onto proclaims our weakness to all the disaffected natives iv the island, and inviti s aggression on that part of it which is denuded of protectiou. And when 1 reflect th-st this state of things has been brought about, I might say deliberately, on the East Coast, at the very moment when our utmost energies wore required to quell disturbances on the West Coast, originating in a different sort of mismanagement for which the Government is equally responsible ; I cannot help looking forward with the gloomiest presentiments to the probable fate of the Northern Island, if the government of the colony be left in the hands in which it is. And Jure I have no hesitation in saying that had the assistance of the friendly tribes on the \V\-st Coast beer, sought and obtained, immediately after the murder of Cahill and others, the chances are that there would have been no occasion for commencing the preset campaign, which, carried on as it must necessarily be with untrained, undisciplined forces will inevitably involve the colony in frightful d sasters ; but unfortunately there is nut a man in the Ministry who either understands natire affairs or enjoys the confidence of or possesses the slightest influence with any of the tribes in this island. I would above all things ask the Middle Island members to consider tKeir position. Though their constituencies may escape the personal hardships, disaster, and ruin in which the Northern Island must be involved by war, they will not escape the financial burdens of war, nor the general depression whioh must affect every part of the colony. With the Middle Island it rests to cast the weight into the

scale which shall determine the lot of the North ; but decide which way it may, it cannot but ihare, and that in no small degree, ' in the good or evil consequences of the decision. If the Middle Island supports the Native policy of the Government, let it not think to escape the certain results which that policy will bring in its train.— Believe me, &C.j I. E. FsATHEESTON."