| | | | | At the close of his financial statement, Mr. | GLADSTONE read to the House an account of | England's war expenditure in the course of the last three | years, during which she has been at peace with all the | civilized world. The total amounted to some eight | millions sterling. Two countries ~~ China and New | Zealand ~~ divided between them, in unequal | proportions, the merit of having imposed upon us so | large an actual military outlay at a time of nominal | peace. Mr. GLADSTONE did not go on to trace the | causes to which this heavy burden was due. He seemed | to imply, by the admonitions with which he improved | his figures, that this expenditure was the result of a love | of taxation for its own sake, which had suddenly | possessed the nation and the House of Commons. It | was due, in reality, to a cause far less paradoxical. It | was simply the consequence of a theory prevailing | among our statesmen that Governorships in the | Colonies are convenient almshouses in which political | incapables may be cheaply boarded and lodged. From | the siege of Troy down to the Indian mutiny, great wars | have been engendered from little causes; and the China | war, which has wasted so many millions of treasure and | so many human lives, sprang from a cause pettier even | than greased cartridges. The bombardment of Canton, | and the carnage at the Taku Forts, and the burning of | the Summer Palace, and the execution of Captain | BRABAZON and Mr. BOWLBY all arose out of the | apparently unimportant circumstance that Lord JOHN | RUSSELL was bored by listening to Dr. BOWRING'S | speeches in the House of Commons. Hong Kong was a | place where it seemed that he could do no harm, and to | Hong Kong he was accordingly despatched. The rest is | told in the item of seven millions odd sterling, which | Mr. GLADSTONE brought in the other night as Dr. | BOWRING'S little bill for the various wars that trace | their pedigree from the affair, of the lorcha < | Arrow. The sins of New Zealand | against the national Exchequer are not so heavy. At | present their amount is indeterminate; but it is not | probable that they will leer equal the grand proportions | of our Chinese extravagance. Yet the cause to which | they were owing was exactly the same. They were due | to the appointment of an incompetent man to a | preeminently difficult post, either by reason of some | Colonial-office routine of promotion, or of the | inadequacy of the salary to attract a better man. The | best proof that Colonel BROWNE'S incompetence was | the source of the New Zealand troubles is the | marvelous change which the reversal of his policy, and | the substitution of an able Governor in his place, have | produced in the condition of affairs. | The policy called for by English settlers in dealing with | native tribes whose lands they occupy, has always | rested upon one great fundamental dogma. It is, that | the absolute submission of the natives must be | conquered by force of arms before any terms of | compromise or any redress of grievances can be offered. | Colonel BROWNE acted in scrupulous fidelity to this | policy. Far from abating, for the sake of peace, his | original demands, he enlarged them as soon as the | expeditions for England whose cost Mr. GLADSTONE | is now deploring had enabled him to do so with safety. | The primary cause of quarrel was the celebrated dispute | concerning the ownership of a piece of land at Waitara | in Taranaki. Colonel BROWNE had purchased it of the | ostensible owner; that owner's title to sell was | impeached by the chief of his tribe; and Colonel | BROWNE, without submitting the disputed point to | any tribunal, summarily settled it by ordering a party of | soldiers to occupy the land. The Taranaki war followed, | in which, after some reverses, the English arms were | ultimately victorious. But immediate peace did not | follow upon this result, as English taxpayers might have | hoped. It only gave the Governor an opportunity for | expanding his demands. He required of the natives that | they should further abandon the

"King"

| movement, which, in effect, was a movement for | organizing in the native districts a machinery for that | protection to life and property which the English law | did not practically assure to | anyone outside the English pale. If the demand | had been persisted in, nothing but a war of | extermination between the two races could have ensued. | Fortunately, at this juncture, the news arrived that the | Home Government had awoke to the costliness of | incompetence, and that Sir GEORGE GREY had been | appointed a second time to avert from New Zealand the | curse of civil war; and until his arrival all further action | was necessarily suspended. | When the new Governor arrived, a renewal of the war | was imminent. The danger is now believed to have | entirely passed away. This happy change in the course | of six months is due partly to Sir GEORGE GREY'S | influence with the natives, partly to his careful reversal | of his predecessor's policy. Governor BROWNE had | been either unable or unwilling to gain a sufficient | knowledge of the natives and their language to exercise | a personal influence over them. This was a fatal error. | Tribes whose civilization is at best but nascent can | never be governed by a mere administrative mechanism. | They soon lost faith in a Governor with whom they had | no personal dealings; and they hailed the return of | Governor GREY, who had always pursued the opposite | system, as the return of an old friend. As far as he has | at present gone, his measures have not belied their | hopes. They show that he has thoroughly unlearnt the | pernicious maxim, too prevalent with Englishmen | abroad, that fear is the only motive which can be relied | upon to influence men of darker skins than their own. | Though he has retreated from the untenable positions | Colonel BROWNE had taken up, he has done so | without exhibiting any sign of weakness. He has | insisted on the compensation of plundered settlers, and | has declared his resolution to compel, if necessary by a | military force, the reopening of the roads through the | interior, and the permission of a free passage to | travelers and the mails. But he has not been satisfied | with the re-establishment of his authority. He has | proceeded at once to the redress of the grievances out of | which armed resistance to it originally arose. The | grievances were two. One was that, while the British | Government had destroyed the authority of the chiefs, it | had substituted no authority of its own. In the purely | native regions there was no law, no protection for life | and property, and no punishment for crime. The other | grievance was that the Government, to please the | settlers, had organized a fraudulent system of | land-purchase, to which the natives gave the name of | land-stealing. Under the disguise of a colourable purchase | from a fictitious owner, tribes whose consent had never | been asked were driven without compensation from the | lands they had inherited. To both these grievances Sir | GEORGE GREY has applied a simple remedy, by | conceding to the Maoris the self-government which is | the right of their white fellow-subjects. The Maori | region is to be mapped out into districts; and in each | district a council is to be elected by the Maoris, to | whose decision all questions of local legislation will be | committed. It will be entrusted with the determination | of all disputed points that shall arise in reference to the | sale of land. All the intricate discussions concerning | the mana of the chief, and the | rights that have accrued by conquest, and the rights that | have ceased by emigration, will be simply settled by | | a reference to the Maori Council of the district. A | European Chief Commissioner will be appointed by the | Governor to preside over it, and all its decisions will be | subject to the Government's veto. | A native court, consisting of elected assessors | presided over by a European chairman, will administer | justice in every hundred, in both ~~ civil and criminal | cases. The decrees pronounced by it will be left to | Maori officers to enforce. Thus the want of an internal | police, which has driven the Maoris to the King | movement, will be remedied by a machinery which the | most ill-humoured Maroi will not be able to suspect of | any tendency hostile to his race. For the wretched | dispute at Waitara, over which so much blood has been | shed, it is to be settled, as it ought to have been settled | originally, by a court of arbitration, named half by the | natives, and half by the Governor. The new institutions | proclaimed by Sir GEORGE GREY in a manifesto of | singular ability, have met with a very favourable | reception from the natives, and have scarcely | experienced any formidable resistance even from the | whites most opposed to his policy. There seems a fair | ground for hoping that they will avert from England the | terrible reproach of adding, in the full light of the | nineteenth century, yet another to the list of races whom | the growth of her empire has exterminated. | The contrast between the statesmanlike sagacity of the | new Governor, and the dull, aimless stubbornness of the | old, is too striking to be ignored. But there is a more | useful lesson to be drawn from it than the barren | condemnation of the errors of Colonel BROWNE. | Though perhaps it may not be possible always to | command a special aptitude, such as that with which Sir | GEORGE GREY is endowed, yet still ability is in the | market, if the necessary price for it is given. There is | no necessity for being content with such representatives | of the QUEEN as the two of whose blunders our | Exchequer is feeling the results. But while we are | prodigal in armaments for the defence of our colonies, | we are conscientiously economical in the salaries of the | Governors, who might, if they were equal to their posts, | make those armaments superfluous. Whether we | consider the interests of which they dispose or the | fearful expenditure which their mismanagement may | cause, those colonial Governors who have native races | to deal with should be selected from among the ablest | servants of the English Crown. It would be a cheap | investment to multiply their salaries tenfold, if by such | an expenditure we could avert the exhausting drain of | these little wars. But so long as we scarcely give them | enough to cover the expenses of their position, we must | expect occasionally to pay the penalty of our economy | in such a bill of costs as that on which Mr. | GLADSTONE commented the other night.