The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIME —The present war in New Zealand will
be memorable in the annals of the British Empire
if it really arouses the attention of Parliament to
the very peculiar relations that exist between our.,
selves and our colonies. The old system of depen-
dence is gone, but it has left behind it many a bitter
legacy. We are at the present moment subjected
to the evils of the old and the new systems. We
find that we have raised up in the bosom of the em-
pire independent republics, with policy, feelings,
and interests entirely strange and uncongenial to
us. We have handed over to them our patronage,
which we do not regret ; and the power of burden-
ing our trade with heavy imposts, which we have
often reason to regret sincerely. 'We have sent out
the young people into the world, and they have not
been slow in showing us how entirely they feel
emancipated from parental control. For all these
sacrifices, for all these concessions, we naturally look
for our reward. It is not much that we ask. We
do not seek for contributions to our revenue ; we do
not require that the colonies should consider our
wishes in time of peace, or lend us the slightest aid
in time of war. We only ask that they should give
us no trouble and put us to no expense; that, as
they have undertaken the management of their own
affairs, they will he so good as to conduct them in
their own way, and trouble us neither for advice
nor assistance. Our wishes have not been granted.
In the far North-West, Canada draws off a large
proportion of our army to defend a frontier which
she is well able, if she were but willing, to defend
for herself.; and now New Zealand draws upon our
credit, demands 10,000 of our troops, and will not
allow us the miserable satisfaction of regulating the
policy for which we are to pay so dearly. General
Peel asks what power the Government of New Zea-
land has in directing the movement of the British
troops in that colony. He might have asked what
power the Government of England has in directing
the policy towards the natives which the troops
are sent to New Zealand to enforce. It
is certainly bad enough that our troops
in New Zealand should be under the command
of a General who must obey the orders of a
Governor himself virtually dependent on the Colo,
nial Government. But it is infinitely worse that
our troops should not only be employed and
directed by what is essentially a foreign Power,
but should be the blind instruments of a policy in
forming which the English Government has really
no voice. If we lend our military and naval assis-
tance to a European State, we at least know what
we are fighting for, and have deliberately espoused
that side of the quarrel. But in New Zealand we
are fighting, not because we believe the quarrel of
the colony to be just, but because we are reduced
tamely to follow in the wake of the Parliament and
Ministers of New Zealand ; and to employ our
troops, not as allies and partners in the war, but as
unreasoning instruments to execute a will which is
not the will of the country they serve. This is to
us the most mortifying and degrading part of the
whole transaction. It is bad enough to spend a
penny in the pound Income Tax on a war in which
we have no interest, and from which we cannot pos-
sibly derive the slightest advantage. It is worse to
have our army, which has so many claims on its
services, drawn off to a remote and ignoble field of
action, where victory is attended with no honour,
and defeat with unusual disgrace. But worse than
all these is the helpless feeling that we are not in
our own hands, but in the hands of others; that we
are no more masters of our own policy than we are
of our own troops ; and that Mr Fox and Mr Whit-
taker, and not Lord Palmerston or Lord Russell,
are the parsons to decide for what objects we are to
make war and on what terms we are to make peace.
With an empire that girdles the earth, with a mag-
nificent trade, with an enormous revenue, at a period
of our highest prosperity, we find ourselves reduced
to something like a state of subjection, our policy
thwarted, our credit commanded, our army cone
trolled and directed by a community the whole
population of which is not so large as a single
electoral district of 'this metropolis. This comes of
setting up independent Colonial Governments with-
out following the principle to its legitimate conclu-
sion, and lesving the colony to defend for itself the
rights which we have so cheerfully conceded. If it
be sound reasoning that every colony should be
intrusted with the management of its own affairs,
it is at least equally reasonable that it should defend
with its own hand the rights which it claims to
exercise. In the present instance we are not only
fighting and squandering our money for a policy
which is .not our own, but for a policy as contrary
to our own as anything can possibly be conceived.
We have no quarrel with the aboriginal race of New
Zealand. 'We pride ourselves, and not unjestly, on
being superior to the prejudices of caste and colour,
and of being the friends—in theory at least—of the
whole human race. We have quarrelled with half
the nations of the earth for the sake of the negro,
yet we find ourselves employing our choicest troops,
with very indifferent success, as the agents in a war
of extermination. We are shedding our blood to
add one more to the long list of nationalities which
the gentle and pious Anglo-Saxon race have swept
off the face of the earth. And this we do at the
bidding of a small colony, for whose selfish purposes
we arc content to assume the ignoble effice of exe-
cutioner upon a race fighting for all that makes life
worth having. It' the colonists of New Zealand
have determined to exterminate its aboriginal in-
habitants and take their land for a spoil, can no
other arm than ours be found to fight the ignoble
battle and execute the execrable sentence ? Let
the colonists of New Zealand make peace or wage
war at their pleasure with their native neighbours,
but do not let us, by the loan of our credit and our
army, relieve them from the legitimate responsi-
bility for their own acts. if they are to divide the
game among themselves, let us leave to them the
honours and the petits of the chase. As it is, we
have contrived to make it the interest of the whole
colony to carry on upon as large a scale and for as
long a period as possible a war which is to them a
mine of wealth. The revenue flourishes, lucrative
contracts abound, every department of industry re-
ceives an unwonted stimulus by the profuse expen-
dituve of British money that the war has occasioned.
We, who have wise:y refused to give our colonies
the assistance of Imperial credit for the purpose of
works of reproductive industry—for the making of
roads, tie() building of bridges, and the construction
of railways—are lavish of oar credit when the pur-
pose is war and destruction, the waste of the re-
sources of the present, and the anticipations of the
hopes of the future. Who can wonder that, with
such encouragement, little hopes arc held out by the
Now Zealand Government to induce the natives to
surrender ? In a recent proclamation the lands of
the Waikatoes are declared forfeited, and those who
were concerned with toe King movement—that is,
the most influential chiefs of New Zealand—are
threatened with death. It seems as if capitulation
and surrender were not desired,—as if the object
were to prolong the conflict for the purpose of
making it more complete a means not of conquest,
bat of extermination,
POST.—The season has arrived when the heat of
the weather usually produces a peculiar effect on the
brain and nerves of organised beings generally, ex-
cept perhaps those which live in the water. Notices
are posted about to the effect that (Rigs found at
largo without muzzles will be summarily dealt with
on the spot by the police. In fact, the days at this
season have been named after the canine animal. It
is the period of the year when they are most likely
to exhibit a very dangerous aberration from the
awns sana its corpora sand. The heat just now is
intense, water is more scarce, and what there is to
be found accessible to these animals is almost luke•
warm. Whether the comet that has been announced
is to be considered as the cause of the great heat and
drought which prevail at the present time, is a point
which may be left to experts to determine, But of
the fact of the heat itself there can be no question.
We are all painfully conscious of it. It was only the
other day that there were complaints of the cold;
the complaints are now equally loud and general,
but this time it is the heat which is complained of.
We hope then that proper precautions will be taken
in reference to the dogs. But, as we said, it is not
merely the canine but the human species which
seems to be just now suffering in this direction from
the effects of the intense heat on the brain and nerves.
We do not merely allude to the number of suicides,
attempted or accomplished, the chief actors in which
are believed to have been -suffering from mental
derangement, but to cases whore the tendencies
manifested were homicidal, and not merely suicidal.
One of these, which formed the subject of a police
case at Bow-street, is of a very peculiar nature.
The unfortunate maniac was brought before the
magistrate for writing and sending threatening
letters of the moat extraordinary and outrageous
character. These were so numerous that he may
really be said to have sown them broadcast, and so
truculent and sanguinary, that he appears to be a
patient of the most dangerous tendencies, But the
most curious hallucination of this unfortunate per-
son, whose name appears to be Edward Pope, and
who is described as a man of good education, and
acquainted with several languages, is that ho fancies
himself the Prince of Wales, and that the Prince
of Wales is not the Prince of Wales, but somebody
else. He has
also contracted a violent hostility
against Sir George Grey, ,Dr. Begley, a medical
gentleman connected with the institution at Han-
well, and other persons besides. One of the most
curious phenomena in the letters which this poor
man has made the medium for conveying his extra-
vagant sentiments is the repeated and emphatic
assertion that nobody shall know of his vengeance
until it has been executed. "No note of warning,"
t‘
oe
he say warnings; " no foolish scrawl warning
coming fate DeF;die ! silent as h et
mh
e grave;'
These letters appseia to hay:: been addressed to the

Al e emememmommem..lllll.l
Prince of Wales, Sir George Grey, Dr Begley, and
others. The English Consul at Boulogne is aug
dressed in this style—" English Consul at Boa
logne, your doom is sealed I" Her Majesty's Sore'
tary is bluntly informed—" Sir George Grey, rev;
fate is now at hand. You have but hours to liv e •
To these extraordinary epistles the author signs
himself sometimes by his real name, sometimes by
the title of " The Avenger," and sometimes he sP'
ponds the signature of " Beware !" In one of these,
wild and savage compositions he brings together al;
his imaginary enemies in a batch—the Prince 01
Wales, Sir George Grey, the British Consul et
Boulogne, Dr Begley, &c. Here are some extracts
from these epistles—" You, 0 ! incarnate imposter
and chief of liars and usurpers ! a horrible vengeance
is waiting for you. The measure that is meted to
your servant Grey shall bo meted to you. And you,
vile agent of a wicked Government, shall receive
your share of in the reward of those who aro condo
demned by their acts." " Beware, for your tern °`
life is short indeed—it is in my hands. The taking
of it will be a meritorious execution, and no ma,r'
der. You, with your master, that vile impostor Will
usurps my station, shall fall by my hand. I she'
give you no warning. I am commanded by a bigger
Power to say no more.—Your,, in eternal hatred,
"The Avenger!" This is addressed to Sir Georg?
Grey. It is a providential circumstance that this
unfortunate lunatic did not carry out his allegeu
designs with that secrecy and stealth which he e,,,°
loudly proclaimed—with the curious inconsistaanJ
and self-contradiction of madness—should one;
racterise and pervade them. It appears that
this outrageously homicidal maniac is labouring
under delusions the natural effect of which would
be to impel him to the commission of the most frigw;
ful murders. When insanity takes the direction ei
murder and destructiveness of this sort, the patient
is more dangerous than a mad dog. The man OP
without being really a lunatic, was temporarily
maddened in a railway carriage the other dt
through morbid fear, arising from a overwrote:
brain, the result of too great mental labour and es
citement, was very nearly murdering his fellow'
,
passengers. Had there only been a single traveller
in the carriage with him there would have be/
murder without a doubt. But, violent as he was, lid
was unable to do more against his several intended
victims than to cut and wound them in a way th,,
was within an ace of crippling them for life. A CO,":,„°
firmed and dangerous maniac, however, like °—
unfortunate Mr. Pepe, might go about destroying t
numbers of lives. But perhaps the most signifieee„„
point in the case is that which relates to the (Pt
tion how far a madman is responsible for his 0.01::
in the sense of being amezable to the fear ()Spann%
ment. How far is a man like this maniac P°P.,
capable of understanding and feeling the connectloyi
of cause and effect which subsists between crimeano
its penalties ? It is quite clear that though thisr,e6
is as thoroughly mad as mad can be, there is still
good deal of method in his madness. Of courenei
like all persons in that unfortunate condition "fa
mind, he believes he is perfectly sane. " Say ail
mad !" he writes in one of his letters. "No ono t
believe you. Can a madman speak as I speakfgehee
as I act, think as I think, write as I write ?"
main question therefore for the legislator is wbetL'",
or not such a man as this, notwithstanding his ills
sanity, knows the relation between the acts he 10
templates and the punishment annexed to them. yes
confess that it appears to us that many mad be,
know and understand full well the connection
at
tween crime and the penalties it deserves, and this
therefore they are fit objects of punishment. It at
only when a man's insanity is of such a nature tb
he is lost to all sense of the relation between hise'c's
and their consequences, in the shape of punishniebe
to himself, that he should be allowed to escape .t h.
penalties of the law. To render him liable to puinleao
meat it may not be snffieient that the raangce„-io
should understand merely the consequences of '"„g
acts
.to his victims. He may know that runol",,,
a knife into a man will kill him, and he may nef;fo
knife in this way with the express object and In°"„i
of destroying life ; but, at the same time, he 'b
not understand that hanging is the lot of thosorDe
do such acts. He may not, in the state of rainu,bo
is in, be able to comprehend and appreciate leb,
connection between these two things, and, in °t it.
a case, he may not be a fit object of pnnishnies:,,
But where he does know and understand this Tie
nection, it is against public policy and inconspatl
with the safety of society that he should esnaPeres
for the obvious reason in this case, that the
ventive effect of the punishment would be the 13.iff,
i,eo
0.
as in that of a person not mad at all. The cones
ations which would exempt such a criminal 'toy
punishment would be equally valid to exempt.
and every criminal whatever; because all critnieeos
in committing crime are impelled by the strong is
motives, and are therefore just as much as tsot
kind of maniacs, in a position to have it said .t" 0.
they are not masters of themselves or their Ballo
Bat, for all that, they both equally understood tre
connection between crime and punishment, and of
therefore equally fit subjects for the operation -
our penal ordinances.