THE TIMES ON NEW ZEALAND.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3111, 31 January 1871, Page 3

THE TIMES ON NEW ZEALAND.

« (From the London Times, 2nd Dec, 1870.) It is really quite refreshing in these j time* of alarm and trouble to turn to a j subject of unqualified and even marvel- j lous pleasantness. The Now Zealand I question, but a few months ago so full of embarrassment, is no longer any " question" at all. It has been removed from the list of our national difficulties, and the home country and the colony have now before them an unruffled prospect of amity and progress. What renders the event no less surprising than agreeable is that there is really nothing on the surface of things to account for the change. Better thoughts have come over the colonists, and that is about all we can cay. They fancied themselves in danger from native insurrection, and upon looking the mischief in the face they have found it vanish altogether. They imagined the mother country was indifferent to them, and they must have learnt that we desire nothing more than to live on the best terms with them and their Australian neighbours. They resented the withdrawal of the Imperial garrison, and they have discovered that the garrison was, to say the least, a complete superfluity. With a revulsion of feeling, therefore, which if predicted last Christmas would have been incredible, they have hurried in oblivion all recent controversies, and devoted their attention to national advancement. " For the first time these ten years," says our correspondence, " native topics scarcely occupied an hour" during the session of the Assembly. This means that wars and rebellions have been put aside and forgotten, •while the topics substituted for such ugly matters are promising in the extreme. To those, indeed, who remember the usual purport of intelligence from New Zealand during the last few years, the contents of the mail just received will appear most extraordinary. Leaving native wars out of the question, as troubles never likely, under good government to occur again, the colonists have been addressing themselves to works of public enterprise with a vigor approaching to audacity. They are not content with ordinary prospects of colonial progress. Of course the settlement must needs increase in wealth, population, power, and all that transforms a small country into a great one, but the advancement would be by gradual and "comparatively tedious, stages. The colonists want more than this. They cannot afford, they say, to grow by mere "lapse of time." They desire to "overleap the interval" naturally interposed between youth and maturity, so as ly "escape years of rugged backwoods' lif<-\ and attain a position which would otherwise be hardly reached by their grand-children." The secret for vaulting over two generations is con-

tained in a couple of words— money and railroads. The Colonial Government proposes to spend £800,000 upon public works— principally railways, and £1,500,000 in tha promotion and assistance of immigration. It is curious to see how widely these schemes are expected to operate. A short time since we observed in some remarks upon this subject that the Maoris, who had shown themselves so singularly ingenious in the construction of forts and" rifle pits, might be di. verted from military to civil engineering with infinite advantage to themselves and others. The idea seems to have seized all parties in the colony. Already the natives are looked upon as born contractors, and the prospect of profits from now lines is confidently expected to overpower all other considerations in the savage breast. " Friendlies" and " rebels are bidding against each other forengagemmntsand concessions. "The friendly natives are clamorous for employmentonroads, and the Huuhaus have already shown that they cannot stand by and we their loynl countrymen get both the praise and the pudding. Contracts for embankments, for levelling, for sleepers, and the like, are baits which they cannot resist, and they will subdue the savage breast much more quickly than sniders or chassepots." Thus the very people who have hitherto kept the colony in hot water will be turned into active instruments of peace and progress. Instead of objecting, as with suspicious jealousy they did, to the. cDnstruction of roads, they will now make these roads themselves, and it is reasonably anticipated that when the railways are completed third class travelling will obliterate distinctions of race in New Zealand, exactly as it is effacing caste differences in India. All this is exceedingly probable, but also exceedingly marvellous. What the Maoris may come to in the end we cannot venture to guess, for the development of a race which all of a sudden takes to railway contracts and public meetings instead of bushfi»hting and massacres is a problem beyond calculation. " Demonstrations," however, . of a highly civilised pattern have been the order of the day in the Northern Island. One chief observed to a meeting which he had convoked, and over whish he presided, that " he didn't soo anybody that Was good, except himself" —a sentiment occasionally entertained, perhaps, by European orators, though not so candidly expressed. Before, however, this mealing had been dissolved, in walked no. less a person than Tito Kowaru himself. The appearance of Gambetta or Count Moltke at a Discussion Forum in the Strand could not produce a greater sensation. In the train of the rebel chieftain followed eighty gigantic savages with rifles and tomahawks, but their proceedings were profoundly peaceful, and they " took it out" in talk. Here, however, they were somewhat unconscionable. A Government Commissioner was present, who encountered Titokownm with entire success. ' But he was a day and a half, it is said, in putting him down In the end the chief retired, declaring thuf he should meddle with nobody if nobody meddled with him, but our correspondent calculates that in another year or two he and his body guard will be •• cutting flax for the Opunake Mills." The immigration subject is of equal importance, and will possess, indeed, even greater interest for the people of this country. The mere enunciation of the proposition is enough to show its purport . — " A scattered population no larger than that of a third-rate English town occupies a territory as large as Great Britain and Ireland. We may add that this territory is fertile and the climate pleasant, and though the distance is great, it is practically lessened year after year by the miracles of enterprise and science. Before long we shall probably learn the direction tuken by the schemes of the colonial authorities, and it will be a real gratification to find a project in which the mother country and the colony can cordially co-operate. At present the prospect is most encouraging, and we refer to it with the more satisfaction as an example of the completeness with which troubles' may disappear and ease be substituted for embarassment. It is not our part to reopen old grievances, nor have ws any wish, indeed, to pretend that in the complications of past years we have been always in the wright, and the colonists in the wrong. We need only sny this, that affairs are looking well enough now, end that the Imperial policy, though it might have been open to misinterpretation, could not have been ill-conceived. Our proceedings have left the New Zealanders perfectly satisfied with themselves, and we trust that a brief interval of experience and reflection will make them equally satisfied with us. The best garrison we can send them is a garrison of permanent settlers ; the best aid we can give them against the natives is assistance in the work, which will turn prowling savages into industrious subjects. These will be engagements of mutual advantage, and will serve effectually to link the old country and its colony together.