SELECTED ARTICLES.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVIi, Issue 1714, 8 April 1862, Page 6

SELECTED ARTICLES.

THE RESIGNATION of MR. RICHMOND, M.H.R., FOR TARANAKI. From the Wellington Independent, April 1 . Not being able to deny the fact that the present native policy is progressing, and that by quiet and peaceable means steps are being taken one after another, which in Governor Browne's time would have involved Ihe country in war, the autimmisterial journals take refuge in the assumption that the policy is, both in its conception and carrying out, the work of Sir George Grey, and that the Ministry are nothing more nor less than tools in His Excellency's bands. To these journals the address of Mr. Richmond, in resigning his seat at Taranaki, must be the very essence of gall and wormwood. The public ground which induces Mr. Richmond to retire is the fact, which he has candour enough to admit, that not only is the present policy a Ministerial policy — one to which His Excellency is advised by his Executive — but that Sir George professes to desire that the irresponsibility of the Governor in native matters

should cease, and that in ihem, as well as iv questions affecting the settlers, the Governor should act on the advice of bis responsible advisers. It is not unnatural that Mr. Richmond should prefer the old system — a system which practically covered the Ministry with honor if native matters were pursued successfully, and reflected discredit mainlyon the Governor if they turned out unfavorably. At the present moment, Ministry and Governor unitedly have matured a policy, they are each alike interested in its progress, its success will redound to their mutual credit, and its failure — if such should eventually be the case — will be equally shared. Nor is it unnatural for Mr. Richmond to believe that the opposition which the Stafford Ministry encountered in the Assembly was productive of evil results in the minds of the Natives ; but the public can never forget how much evil was prevented by the opposition complained of. The Native Offender's Bill is sufficient illustration. It was withdrawn only after Mr. Richmond found it was impossible to force it into an Act — an Act which his own supporter, Mr. Bell, declared would set the island in a blaze from one end of it to the other. Few will be found to sanction the monstrous dogma which Mr: Richmond puts forth when he says : — " Whatever I might think of the Governor for the time being — however deep might be my distrust of the man — however thorough my disapproval of his measures— l deliberately say, that [ deem it better, in the present stale of the country, that he should pursue his course without the accompaniment of a parliamentary opposition in the Colony, barking as it were at bis heels." Had such a spirit animated the Assembly during the past two years, what, would Auckland, Napier, Wanganui, and Wellington now be. If Governorßrowne had carried the war into the Waikato at the time he desired to doit, Auckland would have become a mere garrison town, and with only a mere handful of troops, Napier, Wanganui, and Wellington would have been cooped up in a very reduced compass as Taranaki was. It was owing to the opposition in the Assembly and to the exertions in the same direction out of it, that Governorßrowne was recalled and' the policy of war changed for one of localised government and peace. The " irresponsible " theory, the standing idly by while the Governor does as he pleases, would be all very well if war between the Governor and the natives affected no one but himself and the troops, but as it is a matter of such vital concern to the Colonists, we must congratulate the Country that the ministry is to have a voice for the futuro in native matters. Mr. Richmond's sole objection to investing the ministry with responsible powers in native matters, appears to be the expense of military defence. He seems to think that the Imperial Government is imbued with the notion that the expenditure of British money during war makes the fortune of the colonists, and that, therefore, there is every temptation for them to encourage war. He puts the government of the natives as necessitating either irresponsible control by the Governor aud military defence to a limited extent at the cost of Britain, or the Governor controlled by the ministry and defence at the cost of the colony, This theory of Mr. Richmond's will not hold water, and we are persuaded that the Home Government will need but little educating by Sir George Grey to adopt a contrary practice. The truth which the Home Government will eventually see and act upon, under Sir George Grey's tuition, is that which Mr. Richmond and Mr. Sewell concisely stated in a joint memorandum to Governor Browne in 1856. " On the one hand, it must be admitted that the Imperial Government has a large direct interest in the preservation of peaceful relations with the aborigines ; but on the other it cannot be denied that the colonists, as a body, have a far greater interest in the same object, not only their own property but their lives are at stake. The obvious interests of both are identical" And because " the obvious interests of both (the Imperial Government and the Colonists) are identical," those gentlemen requested Governor Browne to do, what Mr. Richmond now puts forth as his political reason for retiring — to give, as soon as circumstances would permit, increased responsibility to the Ministry. Assuming, in the memorandum above quoted, that the arrangement defining the relative position in native matters of the Governor and Ministry which had been agreed upon, would be acceptable to the Imperial Government in exchange for its bearing the cost of Military defence — an arrangement which gave the Miuisters liberty to advise and the Governor to act upon it or not as he thought fit — Mr. Richmond and Mr. Sewell expressly " beg, at the same time, to state their present conviction that if any alteration be hereafter made, the peace welfare and good government of both races of Her Majesty's subjects in the colony, as well as the direct interests of the Imperial Government, will require rather an extension than a contraction of the powers entrusted to the Colonists." The period above conjectured has now arrived. The Governor, in 1862 is of the same opinion as Mr. Richmond was in 1856, that the " obvious interests of the home Government and Colonists are identical," and he has consequently clothed his Executive with responsible powers, without, as we are led to infer, weakening the admitted duty of the Imperial Government to provide largely the required means of defence. To say the least, it is not consistent in Mr. Richmond now to decry the introduction of ministerial responsibility in native matters, as a step in the wrong direction, and to adduce its being fraught with what

he CQnotiv s t<> bp such imminent danger, as a reason why he will no louger continue in political life. We presume Mr. Richmond's address will oblige tbe respectable portion of the anti- ministerial press to acknowledge the ministry in their true position, and to call them henceforth the advisers and coadjutors of Sir George Grey ; to ascribelo them both, that which we believe they mrUuulljr recognise in each other — fellow wi! kerf at a common object, animated by one spirit. striving only to attain one end ; that end being ihe peaceful settlement of the troubles Mr. Kichmond and his colleagues werepartlyinstrumental.in producing, and the like solution of the many other diffiJ o ulties that present themselves.