The Star. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1869.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 346, 23 June 1869, Page 2

The Star. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1869.

It appears that considerable indignation is felt in Wellington at the tone of a recent dispatch from Lord Granville, Secretary of State for the Colonies, to Sir George Bowen. His Lordship, it seems, had his attention drawn — by some Exeter Hall booby, we presume — to a letter in the Hawke's Bay Serald of January 12. The writer of the letter had stated that Mr Richmond had offered certain rewards for the heads of two Natives in particular — Nikora and Te Kooti — and £1 per Lead for any others. Lord Granville Is dreadfully shocked, and at once proceeds to read the Governor a lecture about the enormity of such conduct. Two or three things have to be considered in dealing with this subject. In the first place, is it trice that any rewards at all were offered ? Lord Granville, though he persists in his lecture, is not quite satisfied with the truth of the statement. Such being the case, it will be generally acknowledged that the proper course for him to have pursued was, to ask the Governor whether such and such a statement was correct. We can all remember how indignantly Sir George Grey treated a despatch from the Home Government, in which the colony was charged with terrible atrocities in the Wanganui district during the last war. It turned out then that the charge against the colony was founded on some very imaginative stories sent home by a Colonel Weare to his brother, a clergyman in England. Eventually Colonel Weare had to apologise and retract in the most abject manner — to acknowledge, in fact, that he had been telling stories. Then, as now, the Secretary of State for the Colonies read the Governor a lecture ; but he got as good as he gave, and was glad to let the matter drop. Lord Granville might have taken warning from the fate of his predecessor. Perhaps, though, he remembered that Sir George Grey was no longer Governor of the colony, and came to the conclusion that he might do a little unwarrantable bullying with impunity. At all events, he has done it. The worst feature of the case — the " £1 per Bead for any of the others " — is not stated as a fact by the writer of the letter to the Hawke's Bay Herald, and it is probably untrue. Similarly, it is not probable that prisoners were shot as soon as they arrived at the head-quarters of the officer in command. y^Ln the case of Nikora and Te Kooti, it is quite likely that the Government offered rewards for their heads. And who will say that they did wrong? Who will blame them? Te Kooti especially was, and is, if he be now alive, nothing more or less than a wild beast, and the Government, in our opinion, were quite justified in offering a reward for his head. Is Britain's scutcheon so very clean that Lord Granville can afford to '-preach to the colony about this matter ? We advise his Lordship to read the history of British rule in India. He will find there, if we mistake not, lots of parallels for the conduct of the ■ New Zealand Government. It may "te said that two wrongs c do. not make a right, and that though the rule of Great Britain in India may furnish plenty of .examples in extenuation, the New • Zealand^ Government is not thereby justified! Perhaps not ; but, with that f history^)efore him, Lord Granville's X mouth, ought at least to have been shut, ?«nd the despatch complained of never V jtekned. There ' is, however, another viewer tife case. The English Govern-

ment, having failed in their attempts to rule the Natives, and having led the colony into debt on that account, handed over the government of the Maoris to the colony absolutely. When we ask for assistance they give us a barren sympathy, but resolutely refuse to contribute sixpence, or to guarantee a loan. And yet, on what may turn out to be a cock-and-bull story, the Secretary of State for the Colonies presumes — we use the word deliberately — to lecture us about our mode of dealing with the Natives! Suppose we offer his Lordship a little advice about the Eenians. That is the only way in which his despatch deserves to be answered.