The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The official despatches which appeared
in last night's Gazette reduce the recent pacification
in New Zealand to somewhat more moderate pro-
portions than we had been led to hope. The sub.
mission was not made by all the natives, but by
those of Tauranga, and it will be noticed that in his
first letter Col. Cameron cautions the Secretary of
State against concluding that the general pacifica.
tion of the country will necessarily follow. There
is a great want of adhesion among the many tribes
composing the native population, and the pacifica-
tion of the other tribes is, at all events, an indepen-
dent event, and had yet to take place at the date of
the despatches. At the same time we may draw
the best' auguries from the first step towards
peace. Tauranga is an important situation, and,
the tribes around it were powerful and danger.
ous. Their late leader, Rawiri, was a man
who had inflicted upon us the disastrous repulse at
Gate Pa, in the neighbourhood of Tauranga was
the scene of the sharp engagement in which Col.
Greer was• recently so successful. It will be re-
membered that the same Rawiri, about the end of
Jane, sent a challenge to Colonel Greer, and in con-
junction with W. Thompson organised an attack
upon the camp at Tauranga. The attempt, however,
was completely foiled, Colonel Greer attacked the
native force, and defeated them with heavy loss,
Rawiri himself being killed, while AV. Thompson,
upon the defeat of his allies, abstained from his
intended attack. This was on the 21st of June,
and Colonel Cameron's despatch informs us that
he undertook no active operations during July.
It is all the more satisfactory that it was at the
end of this interval of truce that these Eastern
tribes should have offered their submission. We
may reasonably conclude that they have done so
upon mature reflection, se that the peace, once
made, will not be so likely to be again disturbed.
The submission was not offered in any immediate
despair produced by the defeat at Tauranga, but
after nearly a month's rest. The situation of Tau-
range, too, is of importance, for the plan of opera-
tions, after the success of the 21st of June, was to
place troops at Tauranga, and in the heart of the
Waikato country to the west of it, and thus to cut
off the natives from their customary sources of sup-
ply. If therefore we are now surrounded by friendly
natives at Tauranga, half of this plan will be carried
out without opposition. We are not informed
whether, as Col. Cameron anticipated, W. Thomp.
son and his followers have also submitted. The
history of the matter is very short. The New Zea-
land savages are at least in advance of the diplo-
matists at Vienna in the directness and shortness of
their negotiations. On the 25th of July 133 natives,
with some chiefs of rank, came into the camp
and laid down their arms, signing a declaration of
allegiance to the Queen, and leaving their lands at
the disposal of the Governor and the General. Col.
Greer very wisely and properly made certain that
they each understood what they were doing by
having the document they were to sign read over
twice to them. Only two chiefs, with from ten to
twenty followers between them, abstained from this
act of submission. The proceedings were, at there.
quest of the natives, further ratified by their meet-
ing the Governor and General Cameron a few days
afterwards. The interview passed off very satisfac-
torily, the natives expressing themselves, we are
told, perfectly satisfied with the terms of peace
granted them. To jndgeby Col. Greer's despatch this
happy agreement was not made without obstruction
from two civilians, but this was the only difficulty in
the matter. It will be a significant fact if it should
appear that the only obstacle to peace was 'raised
by two of the colonial authorities. The satisfactory
result is that " hostilities are now at an end in
this part of the colony," not again, we may hope, to
be resumed by us. The terms granted to the natives
in Sir George Grey's address appear to fulfil the
conditions which we urged the other day. The lands
of these natives are all now the property of the
Crown, and the Governor therefore can dispose of
them as he sees fit. It was obviously necessary to
confiscate some of them as a punishment for the re.
hellion, and, at the same time, to give the natives
sufficient for their support and contentment. The
natives were also naturally anxious that this should
be done at once_ In fact, with their notions about
land, they would feel themselves homeless until
they had received some settlement. Sir George
Grey, therefore, assigns them settlements at once,
which he promises shall as far as possible be in
such localities as they shall choose, and these will be
secured by Crown grants to them and to their chili.
dren. Meanwhile steps will be taken to ascer-
tain the boundaries of the land hitherto possessed
by the tribes, and it will then be finally decided how
these are to be dealt with. Sir George Grey promises,
however, that the amount confiscated shall not ex-
ceed one-fourth of the whole land. This moderation
is exercised as a recognition of the honourable way
in which the natives have conducted the war, " nei-
ther robbing, nor murdering, but respecting the
wounded." The Maories have certainly earned a
generous treatment at our hands. They have been a
brave and gallant enemy, and we act only justly in
not taking advantage of their unconditional submis-
sion. With equal humanity the Governor promises,
as soon as the settlements are decided, to distribute
seed potatoes and the means of settling, so that the
natives may be able at once to maintain themselves.
We may reasonably hope with General Cameron
_ _

that such liberal and considerate terms will induce
other tribes to make their submission. It is certain

that these alone could even yet give us a great deal
of trouble, but it is equally certain that they would
inflict infinitely more trouble and suffering on them-
selves, and the submission of this district in the
manner we have deseribed seems to show that the
natives are becoming alive to this fact. If we can
only make them believe that we have no vindictive
or avaricious designs upon them, and that if they
will but submit to the Queen's authority they will
receive lands in secure possession, they are suffi-
ciently acute to know that it is their interest to
place themselves under our protection. There is, in-
deed, we fear, little hope for them ultimately. The
greater energy, the enterprise, and we must add we
are afraid, the unscrupulousness, of the colonists
cannot but eventually supplant them, and gra.
dually to dwindle before the advance of the
Europeans will probably be their happiest
fate. But while an irresistible law of na-
ture is producing this melancholy result, the
only tolerable condition for the Maories will be
to live in peace under the equal protection of our
Government. If they revolted again, it would not
only be necessary to treat them with greater seve-
rity, but it may be doubted whether the struggle
would be carried on by troops equally held in re-
straint with those they have just yielded to. Lord
Stanley expressed a very strong and gradually
strengthening feeling in the public mind when he
stated it as his opinion that, after having once more
reduced the natives to submission, we should dis-
tinctly tell the colonists that they must look after
their own interests for the future. But the Maories
would fare badly if they were left to the tender
mercies of the settlers. The war between the two
races would be one of extermination, and would
only end with the destruction of the weaker race.
It was to prevent such a miserable struggle that we
have taken matters so much into our own hands,
much against the opinion of some experienced
persons, who believed that the old plan would have
proved the most merciful in the end. However,
we have but endeavoured to do our daty ; but if
neither natives nor colonists will be reasonable and
patient, if our interference between the two parties
is as unfortunate as similar interferences in private
life—if it only involves us in constant quarrels with
the colonists and incessant wars with natives, and
does nothing to harmonise the two, we shall have
nothing to do but to wash our hands of the affair,
and let them fight it out between them as best they
may. We will hope, however, that the present news
is an inauguration of a happier state of things, that
the other tribes will follow the example of those of •
Tauranga, and that the troops now to be recalled
will be the last who will have to be employed in
this unequal and unwelcome warfare.

HERALD.-Sir Robert Collier, her Majesty's So-
licitor.Lieneral, has been addressing his constituents,
the electors and non-electors of Plymouth. He put
his status very plainly before them at starting.
Formerly, he said, he had addressed them as the
representative of all ,England, that is to say, as a
private member of Parliament. To-day he comes
before them as the representative of her Majesty's
Government. If he ever was is any sense the re•
presentative of the nation, it is pretty certain that
he can aspire to that quality no longer. It is as the
spokesman of a party, the advocate of a cause, the
retained special pleader for a clique of men who are
now dragged before the bar of public opinion, that
Sir It. Collier puts in in appearance. It would be
difficult to conceive anything more partisan,
more un.English, more thoroughly one-sided
altogether, than this laboured defence of an
unpopular and blundering Foreign Minister,
of a veteran Premier, on whose eightieth birthday
this tribute, not altogether disinterested, was paid
to the traseendant merits which for seven years
have bolstered up a wornaoiat Whig dynasty. The
quondam advocate of the American Government

came out very stronglwy7a;;;;;be—imagined, on
the question of neutrality. It is pleasant to hear
him expressing his conviction that this neutrality
has been so impartially maintained. It is gratifying
to obtain from one of her Majesty's Ministers the
assurance that the Government, in the question of
the rams, did not submit to dictation from Mr.
Adams. It would be re-assuring, could we only
believe it, to hear that the American prize,•coarts
have been actuated in all their decisions by an un•
swerving respect for the law. Perhaps there we' e
some, even among his complacent hearers, who felt
that the provisions of the I' orelgu Enlistment Act, I

which Sir R. Collier admits to be so lax that you
can " sail a fleet through them," had been some-
what hardly pressed against a nation which, even
if it had sought the co-operation of British ship*
builders, could not have found in their aid any
adequate counterbalance to the enforcement and
public recognition of an illegal blockade. Perhaps
there were some who recollected that Lord Russell,
who at first would do nothing in the case of the
rams, sent a hurried order for their detention im-
mediately after receiving a threatening letter from
Mr. Adams. It is well, too, for the American an'
vernment, that it has the voice of one English lawyer
in high place for the monstrous decisions of Judge
Betts and others in the prize-courts. With such an
adviser near the Throne we cease to wonder that nO
reparation has been exacted for the attack upon an
English ship on the coast of the Bahamas—for the,.
murder of an unoffendiug seaman in the waters or
the Cape—for the seizure and confiscation of vess
sels laden with neutral cargoes, and bound for th°
neutral port of Matamoras. Acting on the advice,
probably, of Sir R. Collier, our Government has
submitted to these outrages. Acting on his advice!
it has winked at a fictitious blockade which has
ruined our American trade and impoverished thou-
sands of our people. It has carried out the Foreigas
Enlistment Act against the Confederates. It bast
suffered its infringement in the grossest and Ile
systematic manner, in allowing Irishmen t° be
shipped off by thousands and kidnapped into r a
Federal service at New York and Boston. 11.%
this neutrality. Sir R. Collier must favour us lir!'
a new definition of the word. The utmost severity
to the weaker, the furthest stretch of limits in the
interpretation of law when it may bear hard against
the stronger side, are conditions which enter into
what the Whigs call neutrality, the leading ali°n3he
of the policy of Lords Russell and Palmerston, t"..
ugly facts which their apologists seek to gloss over
with oily phrases. Sir It. Collier, after premising
that he did not intend to go into the Danish Vet'
tion, kept his promise by going into it at lengt,
and with a vengeance. As is usual with advocate!
of a weak cause, he set up a man of straw, attuekeu
him furiously, and gloried in his supposed disc are
fiture. A certain class of politicians, he said, sic
°of opinion that when any complication arises "e
Europe only two courses are open to us. The IL
is to fight, the other is to hold our peace. Sir pe
Collier thinks that we have a right to prolloull-d
our opinion and protest against a great wrong, .0%).
as nobody denies him he has the field all to 1314
self. What is objected to is that we should 13.'4
as if we were going to fight, and then back out
ref
it ; that we shouleencourage a weak people to •
~istance, and then betray them. In the Polis,lllll
surrection and in the Dano-German war our states„
men did something more than pronounce an 013.1tra
Is is necessary to remind Sir R. Collier that 'of
Palmerston stated in his place in the Ngusheiee.
Commons that if Denmark were attacked in PC' 13e,0e
wig Germany might find that Denmark Would
stand alone ? Is it necessary to recall to his sh
mory the threat of Lord Russell that the &g. 148
fleet was in the Channel, ready for any work isms
hours? This system of blatant announcerillier
and pusillanimous reculades is what Sir 11.
calls " forming the public opinion of Eur°r•ou
Lord Russell, we suppose, forms public opinthis
on much the same plan as an Irishman gets „.
pig on board ship, by pulling it the other den'
His intervention has resulted thus far in the rk,
slavement of Poland and the spoliation of Dennill's..
Woe betide the people on whose behalf Earl 11,11,
sell intervenes, for his friendly salute is as faal;
the death-giving kiss of the Valkyrii of the Norse
mythology. We utterly despair of reducing fiat
R. Collier to anything like reason when we „led
that the panacea with which he would have ,
ie to"
the Danish difficulty is none other than the 0,°.,h,
rious proposition of Lord Russell in 1862, 'Wu.%
created a storm of indignation everywhere he' uo
Germany, and which has found an apologist
living statesman but her Majesty's Solicitor en
to
rah Did the simple people of Plymouth haPPellh of
know that Lord Russell proposed to give to eac
e;,,,
the Duchies of Holstein, Schleswig, and Laneyb ale
"
an equal voice in the Government with the "/h t
people of Denmark ? Can any man wonder tore.
Germany should have accepted, and Denmark
jetted, this utterly insane proposition ? tea
Collier plumes himself on being well aequallibigo
with his subject, and boasts of having the
med
book at his fingers' ends. He certainly Pre°,4o
' upon the happy ignorance of his audience. " 00,
we meet with a politician wild ingeniously c
trives to take exactly the wrong view en evehog
foreign question we are not surprised to find t
we have to differ from him toto crlo dohlest_'.
subjects. We should begin to doubt our sanity,
feel as if the world were turnip upside down, if "(
found that we could agree with Sir R. Collier upon
,
anything. When we learn that he is in favour 0A
abolishing church rates, of ousting the Establish
went from her own ancient foundations, of lege,
~—:
ing vote by ballot and the six-pound suffrage, 7;
congratulate ourselves that he is, as he says, °l3'-'
the legal, not the political, adviser of the Crown;
and we wish Lord Palmerston joy on this aPPeitlori
ante on his 80th birthday of a Solicitor-Geaersgr
such advanced views. It is very hard upon a
Bright that he has not yet been called to take
place in her Majesty's councils.

IRE NORTHERN ASSAM TEA COMPANY

(Limited?.

•
"OTICE.—No application for Shares in this Company will
received after AIUIsIDAY, the 31st inst.

By order,
C. H. FIELDER, Secretary, pro tem.
'emporary Offices-35, Bucklersbury, London, E.C.,
20th October, 1861.