MR. FOX’S. SPEECH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 4, Issue 209, 20 September 1860, Page 4

MR. FOX’S. SPEECH

On, Mr. Carlelon's motion for the appointment of a Committee, oj Inquiry into the Causes, of the Tarapalci War.

Mf. Fox said, that the question had hitherto bpen. improperly narrowed to the mere purchase of the disputed land. As an old colonist, and one who had almost from the very commencement taken an active part in public affairs, the house would perhaps favour him with its.attention while he took a more discursive view of the subject, and endeavoured to trace the present war, and the disaffection of the Native mind, to their true and radical causes. At, the. period of,-the foundation of the colony there existed in the mind of the native race a great respect for British power, and a belief in the unquestionable superiority of our military force. These feelings received their first blow from, the wretched and vacilating conduct of Governor Fitzroy. /#s successor, Governor Grey, contributed to destroy the allegiance of the natives by three chief features of his policy. First, the feeble and wavering conduct of .the, wars of 1845-6, in which on no occasion did our troops ever gain a single advantage. 2ndly, Governor Grey weakened the authority of the British Government by personally Ingratiating himself with the natives, while he neglected to

1 provide the means for attaching; them, to opr y institutions, our laws, and our people. No I d.oubt, iu one aspect, his personal influence * had been immensely useful; but he left no peimarient or stable bond; of union established t between the native race and British authority. 5 He sacrificed the. British power tp the ag--3 grandisement of hjs. individual position, and t when he quitted the colony he left the natives 1 without helm or pilot, And thirdly, he was : compelled to attribute much of the, dissatisfaction which had been growing in the native , mind, for five years past, to. an idea instilled - into them by Governor Grey, that if representative government were introduced into the colony,, the native interests, would he-jeopard-, it ised— >tlieir property, welfare, nay, very lives, s placed in imminent peril. Pie did not charge I, Sir George. Grey, with personally going about i’ to inpcuiate the native mind with this idea ; j bu.t he references to numerous docu-

ments printed in the English parliamentary papers, .Goyjgfmu?' Grey’s own despatches, native letter?, : And others, which clearly established that Governor Grey left behind him, as a legacy to the.future of New Zealand, a distrust, created by himself, in the native mind, of those institutions under which it was about to be governed; and to this distrust he attributed much—very much—of the evils of the present crisis. The result of all this was, that as early as the close of Sir George Grey’s administration, and before that date, the elements of distrust and disaffection with British power were seething in the native mind. Sir George Crey’s despatches, of course, reveal nothing of it. No man knew better than Sir George Grey how to whiten a sepulchre ; and we are now discovering and suffering from that rottenness of the bones which he left behind him. (Loud cheers.) He trusted, inapproaching the part of the subject oh which he must now touch, that he would be-chargedwith no want of respect if he made occasional reference to his Excellency the Governor-—a departure from the usual practice of the House which was rendered absolutely unavoidable by the fact that his Excellency had assumed “ the entire and sole responsibility,of the administration of native affairs,” and it would be therefore impossible to criticise the acts of that administration otherwise than as the acts of the Governor. (Hear, hear.) He certainly thought that his Excellency would have been entitled to claim great allowance on account of the deceptive condition in which Sir George Grey had handed over the colony to him, and be would have made such allowance to the full had he endeavoured by. energetic action to meet and obviate, as far as lie could, the difficulties of his position! But, had he done so ? The hon. member was compelled to deny it. Qn the contrary, byth.e policy or course pursued by him, he aggravated and accelerated the progress of the evil. If Sir George Grey unduly acquired .personal influence over the native mind, Governor Bro.wne had utterly neglected this means of conciliation. What part of the island had he familiarly traversed ? Where was his person known among the natives ? How much time had he devoted to personal intercourse with them ? Whole districts—nay, by far the larger part of the native territory—had never been visited by him, and the inhabitants (the hon. member regretted to say) not only were ignorant of the person of the Governor, but even friendly natives treated his name with insult and contempt. He had utterly neglected this most important means of influencing the native mind —means which, legitimately exercised, could not fail to have been, attended with the-very best results; but to the neglect of which much of the- bitterness of the native feeling towards us was attributable.

Then a great political machinery, one which was not a,t Sir George Grey’s disposal, but was at Goverrnor Browne’s, had been also entirely disregarded. He alluded to the 71st section of the Constitution act, which enabled the Governor to establish native districts within which, as between natives, native laws should prevail. Here was a machinery which, if judiciously used, might years ago have effectually stopped the formidable kiug movement, have diverted its course into favourable chan*, nels, aud made it a bond of union with British power, instead of a movement full of peril to the peace—nay, the very existence of the colony. The Governor had thought nothing of this king movement. Then, having? neglected all personal influence—having failed to use the political machinery at hfs. disposal—his Excellency next told the natives, by acts; far more convincing than words, that ..they were an independent nation, sand/owed no -allegiance'to British .power.'’. Foi\\yliat else, could they think when he allowed them unchecked to carry on long and bloody<wars’ among themselves? The causes of the wars, and the wars themselves, both originated after his Excellency’s arrival, and yet he allowed them to be waged without interference. What other conclusion could the natives draw than that British Government cared not for them—that its functions were limited to the affairs of the white men, and that they were free to govern themselves? Had his Excellency interfered in these cases—which were all disputes about land-*-the probability is, that the lands in dispute would have been offered to Government for sale by both contending parties. We 11, then, haying neglected the machinery of friendly influence,. and of political institutions—having taught-the natives, that they were guarded as separate- and independent people—his Excellency next invited them to arm themselves ; for the impending struggle! In 1857, long'after the king movement was in full progress—long after the signs of disaffection were manifest to every eye—his Excellency, for no assignable or conceivable reason, repealed, by prociamaripn» those wise restrictions on the sale of atid ammunition which his predecessor bad imposed; and thp?, not only invited, but enabled the natives to do what they had since most effectually done —arm, themselves to the teeth from one end of the island to the other !

And. now, having prepared them, for the struggle, he .took, steps to bring it on; be effected, this .unfortunate, this ill-judged, this ill-timed, this. jncomplete purchase of that miserable 600-acres, of which we have heard so much, tfQs y.did he,.at such a criticallime, add tjns cause of war to the others less’ threatening - Was it necessary to buy—why necessary, to. necessary to take possession at this particular crisis ? If his Excellency acted from a chivalrous.and humane desire to stop the native feuds, where was his humanity, where was his forethought

tfor those unfortunate European settlers whom Re involved, by his act, in wide-spread ruin at the seat of war, and in imminent peril yet impending—from Taranaki to \Y ellington, nay, through the length and breadth of the land?

I greatly fear, sir, the hon. member con tinned, that other motives operated in producing the inconsiderate rashness with which this purchase was effected —unconsciously, perhaps, to his Excellency, but nevertheless influencing his mind. When I reflect on the fact that ever since the reversal of Mr. Spain’s award the settlers of Taranaki have looked with a longing eye on the fat and fertile fields of JFaitera, when I remember that the Native minister is a representative of the province of Taranaki, which proposes to the Governor to compel a dissentient minority, or even majority of the natives to divide their common lands with a view to a sale, and which assures his Excellency that he need not fear to attempt such compulsion,'** because the dissentients would be few in number and incapable of offering any resistance,” I cannot help fearing that his Excellency has been influenced by a pressure from without, which has forced him into a course from which the least foresight ought to have withheld him. The hon. member for Omata bad already attempted to defend this Taranaki petition, and adopted its seutiraents. He (Mr. F.) could only regard its concluding suggestion, ** that we should compel the natives to do certain acts, and that we might safely, compel them, because they were few and could offer no resistance,” as a sentiment worthy of those who had been called in this house by his Excellency’s advisers, “ hoary cannibals living in a state of beastly communism.” And it appeared, now, that the Governor had adopted this theory of compulsion; for when his advisers were told that there were a number of natives at Waikauae, Otaki, and Wellington, joint owners with E Teira of the disputed laud, who had never been consulted about the sale, they replied, “ Oh, they will be compensated when we find them out.” But how if they refuse your compensation ? • How if they refuse to complete yonr title to that land for which you are now fighting ? If you don’t compel them, then the land for which you are shedding blood will never be lawfully yours ; and if you do compel them, let us know how you are prepared to justify the act. The hon. member then oalied the attention of the house to the fact that the purchase of the disputed land was altogether incomplete to this hour, and demanded where was the title deed. [He was here interrupted by the hon. Mr. Richmond, and a running fight occurred between the two members, Mr. R. at first asserting that the government had the deed—-thus admitting that it was not executed; then asserting that it was partly executed, but after the war began ; then giving as a reason why it was not executed before that they waited till the survey was complete.; and then being reminded that the survey was not completed to this day.] Mr. Fox continued—-The house now had the important facts before it that the purchase of the land for which we were fighting was yet entirely incomplete. We had neither paid for it, nor got a deed of sale, nor even treated with a large number of natives who claimed to be joint owners of the disputed land. But the real question which this house had to consider under Mr. Carleton’s motion was not whether E Teira’s title was good, or W. Kingi’s title was good—it was whether we had not been dragged into a war by the purchase of land the title to which was not only disputable but actually disputed ? and here he could have no doubt. He rested the case on the single letter of W. Kingi at p. 6 of the papers. He was very much struck with the fact that the Native Secretary, in laying the case of the Government before the house, entirely omitted alt allusion to this most important letter- —the first received from Kingi—one to which it appeared no reply had ever been given, either by his Excellency or his advisers, and yet on which the whole case turned. There can be no reasonable doubt that by this letter King did assert a title on bebalf of himself and tribe, and that claim was never investigated * nay, the letter in which it w;as advanced was never replied to ; and, in short, that the pledge given by his .Excellency that he would buy no land to which the title was disputed has not been redeemed. The title had never even, as it appeared, been investigated at all. We had heard much of Mr. McLean’s and. Mr. Parris’s reports upon it; but when we came to lcok at them (kept back from, this house till long after the less important; papers were before it), it turned out that they w.ere. both reports of July, 1860, long after the war had been commenced, and; that no official report whatever on the sufficiency of the title appeared to have been made by either functionary previously to the commencement- of actual hostilities. The omission seems never to have occurred to the government till some three or four weeks ago, when they endeavoured to supplement their case in this lame and impotent manner. As regards the peculiar nature of Wm. King’s claim—-whether it were a mana and what a mana, was—be would not go over the grounds so ably traversed by his friend Dr. Featherston, but; those, who, like the Native minister, concluded that it was a matter to be “ poohpoohed,” ■ he. would remind that the Governor did nqt “-pooh-pooh ” it when he made it the basis of his argument against King,—“the mana. is not, with W*h. ..Kjng.” If the mana were nothing, why use thtis.argumont;?- Again, to those who said that nobody, knew what the m,ana, was, and ridiculed, the.idea of drawing analogies from feudal times, he.begged.again to oppose.the authority of, his Excellency, wb° had very, well, defined mana, to, m,ean, ” a feudal superiority without proprietary right to the land;” a definition perfectly intelligible, and which acknowledged a substantial right,

much more recent probably than that of a lord of the manor at home, but at. all events one the extinction of which must form an in - gredieut in any perfect purchase. But setting aside any claim made by King (who he admitted had no right on his own account to be heard in that house), there wero other claimants who, as had been stated, had never been treated with. Mr. /Feld had asserted that Mr. McLean had searched for outlying claimants —that he had gone to Queen Charlotte’s Sound for that purpose ; but why did he limit his visit to that locality, and to one chief who was known to be the personal enemy of King, and why did he never go near to Waikanao and Otaki, where Kiug and a large party of the Ngatiawa tribe had resided for twenty years, where nearly all the outside claimants were actually living, and where of all other places one would think inquiry ought to have been made. In conclusion Mr. Fox considered that if ever there was a cause and a time ior inquiry it was this. As a representative of the pebple, as a citizen, and as a man,, he considered-it his duty to vote for it, and he should certainly support the motion of the member for the Bay.