E.—No. 7.

Native Department, and therefore under the control of the Imperial Government, was an object of complaint to the settlers, and that these complaints were particularly urgent in New Plymouth, and referred especially to the land in the neighbourhood of the Waiters. The decision to complete, by force if necessaiy, the purchase of that land, was adopted at the advice not of the Native Department, but of the Executive Council, and the proclamation of martial law was transmitted to the officer in command, under the signature of the chief responsible minister. It was under this pressure, with this advice and through this agency, that Governor Browne took the steps which led to the war—steps which, although I thought it my duty to sanction them, were in a direction opposite to that which a purely Imperial policy would have dictated. It is in tliis state of facts that the two legislative bodies of New Zealand, without alleging that Colonel Browne's acts were unwise, or that they were dictated by any Imperial policy or instructions, without denying that they arose, on the contrary, from a desire to promote colonial interests in a way which the colonists themselves demanded, and by proceedings which the Responsible Ministers formally advised, do not hesitate to repudiate all colonial responsibility in the matter, and to charge the Home Government with the authorship of their sufferings. I proceed to another point. My statement that the New Zealand Government have not yet shown an adequate apprehension of the duties of self-defence, is disputed by the legislative bodies. My own views on this subject I have already expressed. I will notice one or two passages from the papers before me which indicate theirs. The House of Representatives think it sufficient, in times of civil war, and while depending almost absolutely for their defence on the Home Government, that the " population of the colony" should be "at all times ready, if called upon by the military commanders" (not to undergo regular training for military service, or leave their homes to assist their neighbours, but) " for active support in their own districts." I have also observed that a member of your Ministiy alleges as a severe hardsliip that, in contending for their own and their neighbours' security, the colonists should have been compelled to pay almost as much per head towards the expenses of the struggle, and in compensation of the sufferers, as an average taxpayer of Great Britain contributed to secure the safety of the Turkish Empire. Finally, the Colonial Treasurer, writing with the concurrence of his colleagues, and therefore, it may be said, speaking the voice of the colony, expresses himself as follows :— " They," the Government, "do not regard either the payment of the militia, the reinstatement of the Province of Tarnnaki, or roads constructed for strategical purposes, as fair charges against the colony ; and they consider that any sums paid by the colony under these heads ought to be taken into consideration" (as not fairly chargeable against the colony) "in the final adjustment of account between the Imperial and Colonial Governments, whenever that adjustment shall take place." Considering that the colonists who compose this militia treat it as unreasonable that they should be called upon to move beyond their own districts, and that their service is thus confined to cases in which their personal interests are threatened ; that the war arose under the circumstances which I have already described at New Plymouth, and in the interests of its inhabitants ; and that the construction of roads, which has hitherto been confined to land over which the native title has been extinguished, cannot fail to be of the highest importance in increasing the material wealth of the Colony, and the value of its land; the fact that the leading politicians of New Zealand should have concurred in declaring that these expenses are properly chargeable against the Home Government, relieves me, I think, from the necessity of offering any further proof that the New Zealand Government have not hitherto sufficiently apprehended the obligation under which they and their fellowcolonists lie to exert themselves in their own defence. I now come perhaps to a more practical matter than any of which I have yet treated. It is complained that the power and duty of governing the natives is to be transferred to them in a time of war, and the Legislative Council add that the colonists will be ready to accept that transfer when " peace, tranquility, and the authority of the Law shall have been established throughout the Colony." Here I must first explain, that I have never indicated any such intention as the House of Representatives appear to discover in my words, when they speak of the duty of self-defence as one which it is proposed at once to " transfer wholly" to them, " without material aid." Her Majesty's Government, in sending a large body of troops to New Zealand, have fully recognised that degree of responsibility which their nominal control over Native Affairs imposed upon them, and have been further actuated by an earnest desire to save both races of Her Majesty's subjects from an internecine war, and to carry them, by a special exercise of Imperial power, through the present crisis of their history. They are well aware of the great difficulties which you, your Government, and the colonists have still to contend with, and they are prepared to treat New Zealand, for the present, with much consideration in the matter of military protection. But on this point I shall address you more specifically hereafter. What I wish now to say is this—that Her Majesty's Government do not recognise the obligation of supporting the burthen to which Great Britain is now subject, until " the authority of the Law is re-established." It is quite notorious, and the House of Representatives fully admit that " the allegiance of the natives has never been more than nominal." It is almost impossible that it should have been otherwise. I owe it, indeed, to the Home Government, to the successive Governors of New Zealand, and to the officers of the Native Department, to point out that under the system which has existed hitherto, the Maoris have made advances in intelligence and civilisation unparalleled (as far as I am aware) in the history of uncivilized tribes. I observe that in a recent colonial debate, an eminent colonist, not by any means friendly to that system, stated to the House of Representatives that he knew " of no race, at

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COLONIAL RESPONSIBILITY