Wellington Independent TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1871.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3153, 21 March 1871, Page 2

Wellington Independent TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1871.

In no department of the Government of New Zealand are there re- | quired so much tact and so much reticence as in that of native affairs. In none, it may be added, is hasty generalisation, or a " willow pattern" policy so liable to lead to danger. So much depends, too, on minute knowledge of tacts, and on an accurate estimaie of their relative importance and correlation, that a critic, who in his remarks on the subject, betrays his ignorance of what is actually being done, is sure to cover himself with ridicule. To refuse credence to native rumors, and to all stories emanating, not from " a man in the street," but " a man in the bush," is the very first lesson one learns in dealing with the question. Journalists who accept every telpgrarn from native districts as an accurate description of facts have iv consequence of late been reduced to very awkward dilemmas. The reported murder of a telegraphist and sixty settlers at Alexandra (with a horribfe circumstantiality) led certain of our contemporaries into sensational leaders, more resembling a stray chapter from a iove-and- murder serial than an editorial comment on passing events. In particular the " Olago Daily Times" served up a veritable " chapter of horrors.'' The innocent women and

children murdered (telegraphically only) at Alexandra were made " to ope, The purple testament of bleeding war," and in districts where the natives have betaken themselves assiduously to the making of roads, and the cultivation of flax, and declared that they are Queen's men for ever, it is still confidently pre dieted that " Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny, Shall hero inhabit." Of course these gloomy vaticinations are soon dispelled, like sick men's dreams, by the awakening light of facts. It must have been truly provoking to our contemporary, that that telegraphist at Alexandra should live to •' wire" his protest against his being thus " untimely sent to Orcus," and that those helpless women and children should survive to curl their hair with a newspaper extract on " a massacre far greater than that of Poverty Bay ! " In vain do we search the files, however, for any apology or retractation. Nay, more, the next rumor, however apparently untrustworthy, is seized upon with avidity, and another Jeremiad on the native policy is sung, garnished, it is true, with horrors so obviously impossible and self-contradic-tory, that we wonder not at its having as little impression on the shrewd people of that part of the colony as the battle of Chevy Chase, or the story of Blue Beard. We cannot but suppose that our contemporary believes he is doing good service in, as lie expresses it, " raising his voice in warning," but we can assure him his well-meant endeavors are only provocative of laughter, in those who know the facts. We cannot be edified, for instance, by being told, as we are on Tuesday last, that " Mr. M'Lean has visited the Waikato, and returned and done nothing," when we know on the best of till authority that he has not returned and that he has done a very great deal. We cannot for our life be frightened at the gloomy pictures of the present compared with a brighter pnbt, when, as often as business or inclination leads us, we can mount Cobb's coach and traverse in perfect security the whole country which was two years ago, under the Stafford administration, the scene of unutterable atrocities. We do not believe any Ministry is capable of conduct thatcan be truly characterised '• as heaping honors and wealth on treacherous ullies," although we believe ; that it is rather commendable than otherwise in anyone to honor the native ' chieftain who, as *' a friendly ally," takes charge as conductor of the coach, nor should he be suspected of " truckling to a barbarous race " by tipping i him half a crown ! From our family ■ circles, during the Stafford administration of native affairs, we lost many of our nearest and dearest, and if the pictures I of our southern contemporary had only a faint presumption of being •' drawn from the life" assuredly the settlers in this province and in the Northern [ Island generally would be of all men ! most miserable. Under the late ad- • ministration, our industrious settlers were driven back almost into the very town of Wanganui, their farms aban- . doned, the labor of years perishing before , their eyes, and a smiling country given over by an imbecile administration to ra--1 pine and barbarous cruelty. No sooner did the present Ministry succeed them, : than confidence was restored, and peace and progress began their happy sway. Traveller after traveller reports that the progress of settlement' since , " the hasty work of 1809" (an ? elegant periphrasis for the downfall i of the Stafford Ministry) is truly asto- ■ nishing ; the settlers returning to their farms have recommenced their operations with a confidence never known before, and the only thing that ever troubles them in their peaceful pursuits is some idle rumor of a pro bability of a change of Ministry. Should our contemporary be so malicious as to take pleasure in inspiring terror into these peaceful settlements, we may inform him on certain knowledge that it can assume no form more terrible than that of Stafford vice Fox and Richmond vice M'Lean. From ' such a calamity the general cry of both races is . a fervent Libera nos ! That our contemporary is ignorant of facts on which to generalise on native ' questions, is apparent in every sentence. But what is more lamentable than his ignorance of facts is his ignorance of the proper sources of information. He assumes, for iustance, that Mr M'Lean ! has been unsuccessful in the Waikato. Be knows nothing, and can know nothing, of the industry and consummate ability now put forth by the Native Minister, because forsooth he does not, a la Whitmore, write long and glowing despatches. The time must soon come : when all the facts will be known, and an opinion expressed meanwhile — ; founded on hasty generalisation from " Our Own Correspondent's" letters and telegrams, or a strained interpretation . put upon the words of an opposition statesman — is entitled to no weight as arrived at without any reliable data. i The native question, our contemporary gravely tells us, "is asubject about which no one in New Zealand can be better in- ' formed" than the Hon. Mr Stafford .' Can the force of absurdity any further go? If when in office Mr Stafford showed so little acquaintance with the subject as to- put into the Royal speeches declarations opposed to all the facts and probabilities, accepted by almost everybody else, and which the stern logic of events showed when too late to be utterly baseless, how is he likely to be better informed, when in all this lime of delicate complications he has been tnnelling, as he tells us, through pathless wilds and moovs in the Middle Island, " remote, unfriended," and if not "solitary" at least " slow," Ub wu find him quoting from newspapcis reports on this and other subjects which have been long ago officially contradicted ? If " no one in New Zealand can be better informed about the native question than the Hon. Mr Stafford," or given " the details more careful and ' anxious investigation," then indeed it is time " the hasty work of 18GU is undone

again," and Mr Stafford installed in room of Mr M'Lean as Native Minister ! We should be doing Mr Stafford an injustice to suppose that he can derive any satisfaction from the adulation of so foolish an admirer. We are quite sure, on the contrary, that he will be ready to own, as he has already done in the House, that "no one in New Zealand can be better informed about the Native question than the present Native Minister ;" and no one will be readier to accept the assurance that Native affairs are in a far more hopeful state than his gloomy forebodings at Timaru would appear to indicate. He has, moreover, too great a knowledge of the difficulties of the question, and too great a sense of the responsibilities of office, to mistake a wise reticence for inaction, or to desire fuller departmental explanations than are deemed advisable by those charged with its administration.