DESPATCHES EROM THE SECRETARY OE STATE

A.—No. Ia

12

districts on the East Coast is that in which Te Eooti maintains himself. In Taranaki your own officer states that " the larger and more generally operative " incitement to rebellion is the hope of recovering land and status; " while the restoration of the large extent of land confiscated in the Waikato is unequivocally put forward by the advisers of the so-called Maori King as the condition of pacification. These being the sources of the danger to which the Colony is exposed from the Natives, it is pressed upon Her Majesty's Government that the task of reducing tho Natives is beyond the strength of the Colony; and this is conclusively shown, both by the experience of the last war, —in which, as you have frequently observed, the Colonial Eorces had the assistance of nearly 10,000 regular troops, —and by the present state of the North Island, where a few hundred insurgents suffice to impose a ruinous insecurity on large numbers of settlers, and a ruinous expenditure on the Colony. Meanwhile, I perceive that the average strength of the Colonial Eorces on foot during the year preceding the commencement of these disturbances, hardly exceeded 700 men, having in the month of March been allowed to fall to 496, and although, it has been of late greatly increased and improved, yet that your present Ministry, on its accession to office, contemplated its speedy reduction. Large concessions, therefore, are unavoidable to appease a pervading discontent with which the Colony is otherwise unable to cope, and still larger concessions will be required unless a force is kept on foot capable of commanding the respect of the Natives when the Queen's Troops are withdrawn. But the abandonment of land, the recognition of Maori authority, and the maintenance of an expensive force, however indispensable some or all of these may be, are distasteful remedies, which will not be resorted to While the Colony continues to expect assistance from this country; and a decision to supply the Colony even with the prestige of British Troops, objectionable as I have shown it to be on grounds of practical principle, would, in my view, be also immediately injurious to the settlers themselves, as tending to delay their adoption of those prudent counsels on which, as I think, the restoration of the Northern Island depends. It is in no spirit of controversy that I make these remarks. I should not gratuitously have criticised the proceedings of the Colonial Government, who are entitled to the entire management of their own affairs ; but this country is asked for assistance. It is asked for assistance to sustain a policy which it does not direct, and which it is not able to foresee. Upon such a state of facts many questions arise, and among them it becomes material to inquire whether that assistance is for the real advantage of those who seek it. Judging from, the best materials at my command, I am satisfied that it is not so, and that it is not the part of a true friend of the colonists, by continuing a delusive shadow of support, to divert their attention from that course in which their real safety lies, —the course of deliberately measuring their own resources, and, at whatever immediate sacrifice, adjusting their policy to them. It is not, then, without a full sense of the responsibility which attaches to Her Majesty's Government in deciding on this important question, nor without a firm belief that they are discharging that responsibility in the manner most conducive to the interests of this country and of the inhabitants of New Zealand, that they will instruct Sir T. Chute, in terms which shall preclude the continuance of any I such doubts and surmises as you report to exist in some quarters, not further to delay the execution of the orders which he lias received for the removal of the 18th Regiment from New Zealand. If those orders are now promptly executed, Her Majesty's Government will not exercise the power vested in them by the recent Act, of charging against the Colony the cost of the delay which has been incurred. I have, &c, Governor Sir G. E. Bowen, G.C.M.G. GRANVILLE.