The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES.—It is so good a thing to hav,, done with a
little war that better news could hardly be desired
than was brought by the telegram from Cairo. The
war in New Zealand is at an end, or, at least, we
may assume as much from the substance of the de-

spalcti. At at interview held on the 6th of August
between the Governor of the colony and the natives

be latter tendered their submission to the autho-

rity of the Queen. Not only did they submit, but
they submitted unconditionally, and even " placed
their lands at the Governor's disposal." If, therefore,

as we trust, the surrender was made on behalf of the
insurgents generally, if no refractory tribe still
stands out, and if the whole Maori nation was repre.
seated in this act of submission, we may reasonably
persuade ourselves that we have seen the last of these
inglorious and expensive conflicts. The Maories
themselves did not conceal their belief that this

war expressed their last struggle against civilisa-
tion, and if it has now been terminated, not only

by absolute defeat, but by the forfeit of the very
lands for the sake of which it was undertaken, there

must be an end, we may hope, of such struggles for
the future. It is reported that the Government will
not be severe in the exaction of penalties. A " small

portion" only of the forfeited lands will be actually
confiscated, the rest being restored to the hands of
the occupiers. With this decision we have no desire
to quarrel, nor can we indeed express an opinion
upon proceedings of which the outline only is at
present known; but though we should deprecate
anything like vindictiveness or tyranny, it would
obviously be injudicious to invite a renewal of re-
bellion by an excess of leniency or indulgence. Mc
Gladstone has just expatiated to a Lancashire
audience on the prodigious and almost in.
supportable responsibilities entailed by our Co-
lonial Empire, and if a special example of these
embarrassments had to be selected it would be
found in our relations with New Zealand. In all

the 45 separate States, for the welfare of which we
have made ourselves accountable, there is not an-

other such crop of political anomalies. We cannot
consider the natives as entitled to our sympathies,
and yet we cannot acquiesce in the demands of the
colonists. The war, as far as it concerns its cause,
was a just war, but it was conducted at the expense
of one people for the benefit of another. lhe mother
country was called upon to expiate the errors or to
promote the interests of the colonists at its own
charge, while it had little influence over the political
system out of whieh wars arose. At the same time
it was almost to be expected, of course, that wars
would come. By whatever minor questions parti-

cular quarrels might have been complicated, there
was at bottom but one cause of war between the
Maories and the British. That cause was laud. The
Maories, though ostensibly disposed towards civi..
iisation,and caressed by a certain party as promising
converts from barbarism, claimed to live and move
after the true fashion of savages on the territory
which they occupied. Reclaimed as they were in
part from their original habits, and instructed, to
ell appearance, in pursuits of industry, they do-
mended the preservation of their hunting grounds
like genuine savages. There was probably some
cunning in all this. Itidevising so many obstacles
to the purchase of land the chiefs probably
wished to impede the progress of the settlement
which they felt to be encroaching upon them.
Every square mile of land added to the colony was
so much weight thrown into a scale already in-
clining in favour of a superior race, It the
growth of the settlement could be stopped at all, it
must be by rendering land unprocurable, and this
the Maories strenuously endeavoured to accom-
plish. They tried to enc:ose the colonists in little
strips or blocks of land, beyond which no extension
should be made, and thus to range at large them-
selves while they confined a more numerous as well
as a more civilised population to a corner of the
soil. We need not speak about the hopelessness of
such an e-,perirnent. That a handful of savages,
with a territorial title which itself depended oa con-
quest, and very recent conquest too, should think
to deprive a colony of Englishmen of the rightsof
even acquiring land by purchase, was a pretensio❑
quite outrageous in ifs absurdity, and one which
could never be sustained. When once we estas
blished ourselves on the soil of New Zealand the
course of events was inevitably marked out.
The two races were brought into contact with
interests necessarily antagonistic, and it was
certain that the superior race would prevail.

Humanity would teach us to mitigate as far as pos-
sible the lot of the natives, but that the natives
should claim to put arbitrary limitations to our
natural progress was an idea too preposterous to be
maintained. It has been exploded, we hope, at last.
The Maories are not to be hardly dealt with, but
they will not, we suppose, be permitted to declare
that the lands over which they range aro for ever
inalienable. We have met, however, with no such
people as these Maoriea in all our wide experience.
Let the reader understand that these savages, who
have kept a strong colony and a British army at
bay in this marvellous fashion, and who have in-
flicted defeats on British troops in the field, are ass
tually fewer in number than the settlers themselves.
They are not a swarming nation of barbarians en-
compassing a little colony of strangers. Their claim
to the land of the country is like the claim of a
feudal aristocracy. Measuring by population, our
wan's are greater than theirs already, and are
rapidly becoming greater still. We believe it is
seldom that a native army has comprised a thousand
men. Generally we have found that the force op-
posed to us have been less than half that strength.
These little bands, too, have been scantily supplied
with arms and munitions. The Maories manufac-
tured percussion caps out of button tops, and second-
hand bullets, and extemporised a variety of substi-
tutes in their needs with an astonishing amount of
ingenuity. In the art of fortification they were ab-
sa'ute masters, and to this gift, probably, more than
to any other cause, we may attribute their long and
often successful resistance to our arms. With an
unerring instinct in the selection of ground, and en
almost incredible skill in design, they would con-
struct in a short time a "pah," or fort, which it
taxed all oar resources to capture. They discovered
the value of rifle-pits, and would leave the ground
in front of their defences literally honey-combed
with burrows. They could even adapt the defence
to the attack. When first an Armstrong gun was
brought against them, the new weapon disconcerted
their tactics and demolished their fort, but when
the next pah was attacked it was found that they
had calculated the effect of the piece, and had pro-
vided against it with the utmost cleverness. That
all these wonderful aptitudes, combined as they
were with a true martial spirit, have availed them
nothing in the end is only what might have been
expected from a comparison of their resources with
with ours, but probably so small a nation never
gave a great people so much trouble. Let us hope
this trouble is now over once and for all, and that
what appears to be an absolute and decisive victory
will be improved to the utmost by a judicious and
well-tempered policy. We wish for no vindictive
reprisals, but it is of real importance that the
Maories should be deterred from thinking again
of war, and that the colonists should have such fair
opportunities of progress as are required for the
enterprises and pursuits of peace.
PosT.—A strange story comes from India. The
mail informs us of a singular inversion in the rela-
tions of a Governor with a Secretary of State, It
appears, according to this statement, that Madras
and the India-office are at issue, and that the India-
office cannot command the obedience of Madras.
Sir William Denison, the Governor of the Presie
dency, in a word, refuses, it is said, to give effect to
the instructions of Sir Charles Wood regarding that
portion of the old Company's service known as their
permanent European army. For the sake of argu-
ment, the story may be assumed to be more or less
true, although it probably contains a fair amount of
exaggeration. We will not, therefore, be understood
to prejudge Sir William Denison in passing judg-
ment on the story as it reaches us from India. The
principal question at issue appears to be, whether
the officers of the permanent European corps of the
East India Company, in accepting their transfer to
the military service of the Crown, were to receive
precisely the same pay and allowances under the
new system as they had experienced under the old
one. It is not the first time that either the Govern-
ment of Madras or the European force of the old
Company have been at loggerheads with their supe-
riors. Both have already been in open rebellion
against the Indian Government. The differences,
however, between Sir Charles Trevelyan, when he
held the Government of Madras, and Lord Canning
are now forgotten; and the untoward event of the
mutiny of the European troops of the Company is
an event, we hope, never to happen again. But by
a curious combination of both the elements in the
former differences, the Government of Madras is
now represented as the supporters of the wrongs of
the permanent European troops. If, however, we
were to criticise this information by the light of its
own internal evidence, we should be additionally
disposed to question its accuracy, at any rate in
point of detail. Two grounds are stated for Sir Wil-
liam D-niaon's alleged refusal to carry out the order
of Sir Charles Wood. These instructions are de-
scribed as being " contrary to the royal wishes, and
as a &grant violation of the guarantees granted
by the Imperial Parliament to the officers of the
" army of the late Company." Those who are in-
clined to give credence to the literal truth of the
whole assertion would be curious no doubt to learn
how Sir William Denison, at Madras, becomes a
better expositor of the "royal wishes" on this sub-
ject than the Secretary of State whose despatches
ore written in the name of his Sovereign. We
may be permitted to doubt whether Sir William
Denison has had the temerity to set himself up as
an expositor of the views of her Majesty in oppo.

sition to his own official chief at the India-0-
made
If, however, on the other hand, pledges were
by Parliament, at the time of the incorporation
India into the British empire, hich have been Beet.
at naught by the Secretary of St ate, in God's nal%
let the pledges be fulfilled. Sir William Denis
is reported to declare that the manner in whien thed
permanent European regiments have been ofaoeir.t'a.
has been unjust, illegal, and contrary to rade leg
mentary guarantee. It is quite possible, in eel
probable, that some diappointment may exist among
probable, that some diappointmeflt ma exist
ctjoO
those who have put too favourable a construo!lu,_
upon the arrangements entered into in regardsv7
their :own claims. But, at the same -timer,
,as
should be slow to believe that Sir William DeC)'i
had taken up the claims of discontented officers
bace
the manner in which he is here reported to
done. If the decision of Sir Charles Wood ha
edt
conveyed the palpable injustice that is convey
such words as these, other Governors would l;?„70
bably have entertained similar sentiments. ..'e
Governor of Bombay would have come to the old
conclusion, whatever might be the course hew neve
have actually taken. The Viceroy of India, abeer
all, would have had his own opinion in them a,ttill
and if any well-grounded dissatisfaction es
ter
upon the subject, it would have been much bet
expressed by the Viceroy than by the Governor vs.
Madras. It would be tedious, and even preinatuv.et.
to enter at length into the subject of the uncle.%
standings arrived at between the Home Goveriei,
ment and the European corps transferred, original 5(
in 1858, from the service of the Company to that a'
the Crown. But we have certainly not seen any e 2:
of bad faith in the carrying out of that arras
ment by any means substantiated, If it is %
opinion of one of the Indian Government either at
the terms agreed upon have not been'carried Otte
that justice in the abstract has not been done to tue
officers of the regiments transferred to the servife
of the Crown, it is competent to them to bring t."
qaestion again under the consideration of thelothire
office. But it would be inconceivable that t
Governor of a distant province, the immediate
re
presentative of his Sovereign there, should
publiChl
and officially hold up to indignation the terms P,
forward by the Imperial Government as a violatio.!
both of faith and justice. Sir William Denison anti
a civil functionary on whose temper and judglnene
great reliance has been placed by those who .a
bac
been thrown into communication with him. It Will
be remembered that when Lord Elgin found On%
obliged to relinquish the responsibilities of go'ier",:t
ment, be chose Sir William Denison as the reciPe"t
of his authority until a new Viceroy should be 0..
out from England. Such a tribute offered to 111.'
prudence and wisdom, apart from his general ante.
nedents, ought to preclude him from a hasty eon;
damnation on the authority of intelligence even ace
character commonly found to be accurate. 1f,b,°;,,":
ever, the state of affairs announced by the 10u1.-it
mail should prove in any degree to be accurate. '
will become an important practical question to de'
termine whether the Governors of the difrent pro:
F:
sidencies do nut possess too much power indePe-'
dently of the Governor-General. We should 01
have to consider whether every functionary ouggibl
not to be liable to removal at the will of the Arici.r":o
and Council of India. Since the system of the tur;a-
Presidencies was manufactured, a century sge,te'
c,ji
administrative centralisation has sprung up viu
renders the old scheme of government obsole
retr
Railway and telegraph communication have -0
dered it easy to transact all government, except 00
mere details of local administration, from a comet
centre. If this facility were carried out in practice;
we should hear no more of these differences betvefa;
Madras and the other centres of political autbor'ti.

SOS'