THE MEMORIAL OF THE ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY AND SIR GEORGE GREY'S WAITARA DESPATCH.

Wellington Independent, Volume XIX, Issue 2052, 23 April 1864, Page 4

THE MEMORIAL OF THE ABORIGINES PROTECTION SOCIETY AND SIR GEORGE GREY'S WAITARA DESPATCH.

!*• (From The Times.) tfwo documents, side by side, in our yesterday's a columns, present one of these contrasts very fre- c quent in this country, where we possess at once, (] and in general accord, the highest develope- s ment of imperial rule and of public opinion. c From the same metropolis there issue official ;j directions for the conduct of a war between our c colonists and aborigines on tbe other side of the , world, and those utterances of mercy and of ( peace which undoubtedly represent the first ; feelings and last wishes of all onr educated . classes. A long list of well-known names, fore- , most, as the phrase is, in every good work, is ( appended to a Memorial addressed to the Go- , veruor of New Zealand. It is the highest praise of tbis appeal that it will find a response , in the heart of every Englishman worthy of the I name. The acts which it deprecates are j ust those whicb must always be unpopular here. ' England does not go into war until driven into it ; nordoes she continue war a day lunger than necessary. She. never declines honest and reasonable overtures. She does not want to dispossess a single savage of bis hut or his field, even though at home, under the pressure of social necessity,, she has seen immense classes of indigenous peasants ousted out of tbeir holdings, and hereditary landlords of their estates. Our extensive colonial literature, our great geographical ouriosity ; our missions, our churches rising up everywhere, in the remotest wilderness, all testify to tbe fact that it is not the territory, but the people whom we wish to call our own ; and that the interest ot the possession disappears wben the aboriginal race is either extinct or is reduced to a miserable renrnant. We read with delight of native chiefs, native ceremonies,' native councils, the eloquence ofl native orators and the wisdom of natives, ef native traditions and rules of State. Such are our feelings, and they spring from the same source as tbat varied benevolence which at home penetrates svery alley and every cottage in this country. We should all be rejoiced to hear that peace had been obtained upon terms which saved our honor and tbe British sovereignty, even though it added nothing to the soil in our possession. We should deem it a heaty item in any indictment against the Colonial Governor that he had neglected a fair opportunity of peace, or stood out for terms wbich the natives could not be expected to accept. As to confiscation, tbat is a question which, by the experience of all wars and treaties, cannot be dismissed in a breath. The expenses of the war must be paid; outrage and fraud must be mulcted ; but, no doubt, we should all of us be very glad to bear tbat order bad been restored without any violent interference with the former state of property and occupation. Why, then, might not everybody have added his signature to this Memorial ? Perhaps the Colonial Secretary's Despatch to tbe Governor of New Zea- ' land is a sufficient answer to this question. The Memorial, if not wholly unnecessary, wasnot required to temper the severity of our colonial rule. The Despatch which the Duke of Newcastle bad sent to Sir George Grey as long ago as August 25, shows bow the Biitish Government could be just and generous, and could withdraw what appeared to be a doubtful step even under the greatest provocation. It appears tbat the Government ef New Zealand about four years ago did what many a man has done to bis cost in this country. It purchased some land from a dishonest chief, who failed to inform it either as to the claims upon the land or his own complicity in those claims, or the actual occupation of parts ofthe land, or his own intended reserve. It is difficult to conceive how any Government could be so egregriously duped, and we must either suppose there is some unexplained mystery, or that -Teira — like many savages and many apparently stupid men among vs — was, under the guise of simplicity, a consummate rogue. However thia may be, tbe purchased land bad been occupied by our troops, and the supposed intruders dispossessed. Sir George Grey, even after a disaster and under circumstances too likely to lower the native opinion of our firmness and courage, bad agreed to throw up this untoward purchase and wipe bis hands of the quarrels thence arising. But neither this nor any other possible concession could touch the main difficulty. yW. King, the person who some years ago saw io these quarrells theprospect of founding a native sovereignty, and has bad some success, bas laid down laws limiting the powers of the natives to dispose of their own land, with tne avowed object of confining the British colonists to tbe immediate neighborhood of the ports. This man is simply a usurper ; his laws are simply usurpations ; and both he and tbey have no otber sanction than the support which he may happen lo receive. The best that can be said for bim is tbat, having a fair field, of enterprise,' be bas seized it and made tolerable use of it; but by all the laws that ever stood between man apd man, lie is an upstart rebel against our existing authority and rule, and bis power, snch as it is, be promises to use with no unsparing hand. It is against his rebellion that we are npw L in arms. The acts of violence attributed tdimrjicolomsts, as is explained in the Despatch, wereTnot interference with property or the assertions of a title under dispute, but military operations required for the progress of our army and the suppression of rebellion. Such acts cannot be withdrawn, and indeed, must be repeated as occasion requires ; unless, indeed, our colonists were to allow the natives to occupy tho whole country within the range ofmilitary occupation, and play, just as suits tbeir convenience, the part of peaceiul husbandmen or of murderous foes. Theconsideration thatmostimmediately affects usis that there we are in for it, and we mustmake the best of it. It is too late to ask how we came to find ourselves in New Zealand, or v whether England had tbe right to claim a sovereignty whicb, as a whole, no power had ever claimed before. As things are, for us to give way, and to allow the insurgent wave of half-educated and more than balf corrupted savagery to over flow all the territory we have reclaimed, and break against our very towns, would be the greatest conceivable misfortune to these poor creatures. W. King would speedily find other chiefs with pretensions at once more novel and more attractive than his own, and might finish his career, as many New Zealand chiefs before,, by supplying a meal to his successful rival. Sol we are consulting the interests of the natives, as well as the necessities of our own position, by making no peace with either him or any other chief so long as they attempt to lay down laws aimed against the British sovereignty. The struggle cannot last long, for the causes of dissolution which had for ages been at work in those islands have no doubt been quickened since the appearance of Europeans in tbat part of the world, lt is not we alone wbo have done the mischief; we found it at work*, and New Zealand may still have to thank us for postponing the fatal bonr when the Maori will be as extinct as the huge wingless birds and the strange marsupial animals that once occupied that last discovered region of the world. What we have now to do is plain enough ; we have to suppress a rebellion, and the memorialists themselves wil{ hardly quarrel with the way in which tbe Duke of Newcastle proposes to'do 66, apd to pave the way for a solid peace.