A.—No 1

32

DESPATCHES FROM THE GOVERNOR OF NEW

That many complications have arisen from the settlement of tlie North Island having heen carried on amidst an unsubjugated Native race, and from the Imperial and Colonial authorities having both undertaken responsibilities in the war. Under these circumstances, your petitioners humbly pray that the present war may bo considered an Imperial one ; that the Constitution may be for a while suspended in the North Island ; and that some military ruler may be appointed who shall have full power to use all necessary measures for the complete subjugation of hostile Maoris, that the disgrace maybe taken away that we are at present under from our countrymen having suffered such horrible cruelties.

Enclosure 3 in jSTo. 13. Mr. Macandrkw to His Excellency the Governoh. (No. 9,55G-:j.) Superintendent's Office, Sir, — Dunedin, Otago, 22nd December, 1868. I have delayed taking upon myself a painful duty until I feel that, in justice to the Province which has done me the honor to elect me as its Superintendent, [ can no longer defer doing so. I beg your Excellency to observe liiat the Superintendents of Provinces owe their position to the direct legislation of the Imperial Parliament, whilst the system of Executive General Government has grown up out of regulations and Colonial legislation. The Constitution Act devolves on the Superintendents of Provinces important functions; and. it is evident from the general tenor of the Act, that it is contemplated the Superintendent may place himself in direct communication with the Governor. I think it my duty to avail myself of what I conceive to be my oflicial right to represent to your Excellency the imperative necessity for adopting other measures for extirpating the existing rebellion than those which are being employed. Without entering into the merits of the Native difficulty, or the best mode of dealing with it, it will not be denied that during the past few months the Colony has been subjected to enormous losses, both of life and property, while the policy which is now being pursued is every day sinking the Colony deeper and deeper into financial embarrassment, involving an expenditure utterly ruinous and beyond its means ; and when those means shall have been absolutely exhausted, the chances are that the result will be fruitless in as far as quelling the rebellion is concerned. I hold that, as British subjects in a British Colony, we have a prescribed right to the assistance of the British troops. It is well known that your Excellency has only to express a wish in order to bring to the immediate aid of the Colony several hundreds of trained soldiers; and I venture respectfully to submit that no political consideration should interfere with what seems to me be the highest duty at the present moment, namely, that of procuring the utmost possible assistance to protect the lives and properties of Her Majesty's subjects from the atrocities of savages avowedly in rebellion against Her Majesty's sovereignty. The fact of the rebels declaring that they resist the Queen's supremacy makes the rebellion one of Imperial moment: the prestige of the Empire is concerned in giving the death-blow to all revolts against the Imperial power. The fact that the services of British sailors are being used is an argument in favour of making use of the British troops : the failure to do so is an insult to the armv, and will doubtless be felt to mean such. I can conceive of no greater slight towards the soldiers of the nation than to decline their aid when British subjects are being slaughtered, and the fairest districts in a British Colony laid waste. The allegation that the self-reliance policy adopted by the Colony shuts it out from the aid of Imperial troops, may be at once set aside by the fact that the self-reliance policy has failed. It was never anticipated that the occurrences of the past few months could occur, and the House of Representatives virtually abandoned the self-reliance policy when it approved of the retention of one regiment, seeing that the leading principle upon which self-reliance was based, that there should not be a single British soldier left in the Colony to entitle the Imperial Government to interfere in the internal affairs of the Colony. A condition precedent to such an arrangement was, that the Colonial Government should afford adequate protection to the lives and properties of Her Majesty's .subjects ; this it has failed to do, and therefore Imperial responsibility remains behind. It is impossible for any nation on the one hand to divest itself of the right of protecting its own subjects, or on the other hand to deprive those subjects of the right to demand protection at its hands. Any expedient by which a nation delegates the duty of protecting its subjects to a Colonial authority becomes null and void the moment that authority proves itself inadequate to fulfil the dutv devolved upon it. It may also bo remarked that the self-reliance policy has never really taken root in the minds of the Colonists. It depends upon the assumption that there exists in New Zealand a Colonial nationality to some extent distinct from the nationalitv from the Empire. Such a feeling exists only in the minds of the few sentimentalists. The Colonists for the most part regard themselves as British Colonists, just as much entitled in case of need to the aid of the military power as do the inhabitants of any town in Great. Britain deem themselves- entitled to military aid when the civil power is inadequate. The Colonists, moreover, regard the wars with the Maoris as matters of Imperial concern ; they did not come to New Zealand to fight the Maoris: they look upon it that they were invited to regard New Zealand as a British Colony within which the Queen had determined to uphold her sovereignty : they had no notion but that the rebellious Maoris must be subdued by paid soldiers, supplemented by the local Militia. The truth of the correctness of what I state is to be found in the fact, that there is no volunteering on national grounds. Not a single recruit who has left this island, or the chief centres of population in the Northern Island has done so, in as far as I am aware, for any other reason than because the terms of the employment suited him. If the alleged national feeling was really aught but a mvth, men of independent means, instead of comparatively poor men would flock as volunteers to the front. It remains for mo to show vour Excellency the manner in which the Province is affected, in order to justify my addressing you. Already recruiting has been going on within the Province —that is to