The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.--In the South Pacific Ocean, at no great
distance from the eastern shores of Australia, lie
two splendid islands belonging to the British Crown.

Together they are more than twice the size of Eng-
land, one of them being only a little smaller than

this island, the other nearly half as large again. The
climate is delightful and salubrious ' • the soil fertile
and adapted to many varieties of industry ; the
mineral wealth of the country almost beyond calcu-
lation. Englishmen have colonised the attractive
territory. A government upon the English model
administers the affairs of the settlement, and the
names of Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, and Ply-
mouth perpetuate the traditions of the land from
which the colonists have sprung. Two years ago
the population amounted to about 116,000 souls, it
now probably exceeds 150,000. The area and re-
sources of the country would suffice to maintain
more than a hundred times that number, nor is there,

except in one particular, the least impediment to the
growth of the colony, But in New Zealand—for
it is of that country we are speaking—there was a
population, if it deserves the name, before our
arrival. Certain barbarous tribes, who may un-
doubtedly be called natives, but who certainly are
not aborigines, had hunted wild beasts and each other
through the thickets of th© land for, perhaps, a
century previous, and these savages have not only
kept the colonists in perpetual difficulties, but have
caused no slight embarrassment and charge to our
Government and taxpayers at home. The reader

will probably infer from this description that we
found New Zealandfully occupied, and were opposed
by tenants who could not afford us any room. No
idea could be more delusive. The native tribes

roaming over these enormous tracts were never, as
far as we know, equal in numbers to the population
of Brighton. They are now less numerous, men,
women, and children together, than the population
of Bath. Any one of our coast towns in the colony
might well expect to contain in a few years' time
more people than all the tribes of New Zealand
could show. Ten years ago the number of M aories,
as the savages call themselves, was between 50,000
and 60,000, of whom 30,000 were males. They have
since been decreasing, and it is scarcely possible
that they could put in the field 10,000 men of fight-
ing age. Nevertheless, this handful of natives, with
whose subsistence it might be thought we could not
materially interfere, and whose opposition it seems
almost impossible we should regard, have not not
only proved our implacable enemies, but have at
brief intervals waged war against us with practical

success. They have done so, although we sent
against them from this country to the Antipodes
considerable armies of the finest and best equipped

soldiers imaginable, provided with all the most for-
midable inventions of modern warfare. At this time

last year, over and above the population of the
colony, a force of 10,000 British troops was serving
in New Zealand—with what effect let our intelli-
gence of yesterday declare. We now learn that
whereas at the close of last summer we declared the

war at all end, rather because nobody saw how to
carry it on than because it was really finished, the
natives have contemptuously repudiated our assump-
tions of peace, and have deliberately murdered, after
the custom of their kind, the envoys who were sent,
at their own request, with the proclamations of the
Government. How events so incredible could ever
have occurred may easily be told, though it could
never have been imagined. The natural impulse of
all savages is to cling to the skirts of civilisation.
We found that out at the Cape, where there was
territory in abundance both for the Caffres and our-
selves, if they would but have but retired a little
from our front, as the Mormons did in America. In
New Zealand, even the smaller of the two islands
would supply ample room for a population ten times
as numerous as the Maories, even according to the
wants of savage nature; but the Maories, like the
Caffres, refused to move an inch, and in this disposition
they were confirmed by the influence of a certain
agency entering very deeply into the question. There
is a small but by no means silent party in this coun-
try which charges itself avowedly with the patron-
age of all natives or aborigines, whatsoever and
wheresoever, against the interests of the British colo-
nist, and the action of this party was especially pro-
moted in New Zealand. The Maories were taken
in hand more caressingly and indulgently than any
other savages, and not altogether without reason.
True, they, were fierce and truculent cannibals—
harbariane to the very badilisone but: they were of
fine physical and not bad- intellectual development ;
they were intelligent, apparently teachable and
amenable to persuasion. Over such seemingly con-
vertible material our missionaries and ministers
naturally exulted, and it was assumed that the na-
tive, savage as he was, need not, in this instance,
either disappear or retire before a superior race, but
might be received into the colonial population on
favourable and ultimately equal terms. This was
quite enough to keep the Maori where he was, and
sufficiently accounts for his behaviour in contesting
with us every acre of the settlement, instead of re-
cognising that the country contained land enough
for all. But, how was it that when the savage was
thus fastened on our necks, and showed himself in
the event a savage and nothing more, the superior
power of the whites could not at any rate restrain
him from disorder? How was it that, even if he
would conform to no other law, he did not conform
to the law of 10,000 bayonets ? To this also a reply
can be given. It was this very army which gave the
Maories their advantages. Had the savage been left
to. the settler alone, like the Red Indian to the back-
woodsman of America, the inevitable struggle, severe
as it might have been, would have had but one end
—the end which has been witnessed and accepted in
all countries and ages. But this was not agreeable
to the -patrons of the natives, or compatible with the
theory of Maori civilization. It was preferred to
garrison the colony, at a heavy charge to the tax-
payer at home, with imperial troops, who would be
less vindictive, more considerate, and better dis-
posed to moderate the severities of war. That ac-
counts for the establishment of a British army at
the Antipodes nearly as large as in some years we
have maintained for the protection of this island.
That it has answered its purpose in a philanthropi-
cal sense is plain enough from the evidence be-
fore us at this minute, which shows that the
Maories, after a succession of wars, by which, on
any other system, they would have been utterly
crushed, are still so safe, so confident, and so im-
pressed with the helplessness of our policy that they
are-fiercely and disdainfully provoking us to a new
campaign. In another sense, too, the system has
not been entirely unfavourable to the colony, for
the expenditure of English money involved by the
presence of an army has a pleasant and fertilising
effect. Still, the settlement has suffered grievously
upon the whole from these interminable contests,
while as to ourselves at home we have had simply
to pay our millions on the one hand and to pocket
the discredit of failure on the other. It will pro-
bably, therefore, be not disagreeable to the public
to understand that the end of this system is in sight
at last. Authorities at home have become heartily
tired of it, for it was impotent for good, though
powerful for harm. The Government of the colony
is equally tired of it, for the Imperial troops were
under Imperial orders, and all strength was lost, as
usual, through a divided command. Let the reader
look at the brief description of affairs in New Zea-
land last October, after insults which would not be
tolerated from the strongest Power in the world had
been offered us by a band of savages. One of the
military commanders thought his general " instruc-
tions' would not warrant any but defensive mea-
sures, though soldiers and envoys were shot down
in open day. Another hesitated to commence a
campaign without orders from the Governor. The
Governor, representing the Cabinet at home, de-
clined to act without the advice of his Ministers,
representing the colony, while the Ministry, which
had just been compelled to resign, naturally waited
for reappointment. So the Maories had their way,
though nobody in the colony doubted for an instant
that if the British army and its generals were but
embarked for England, and the settlers left to pro-
tect themselves in their own way, the difficulties of
New Zealand would be promptly terminated now
and for all time. " When the troops do go," says
our Wellingtonletter, " and the colonists are allowed
to fight as they please, short work will be made
with the rebels." In fact, to crown the absurdity of
our position, the Colonial Legislature has actually
begged that we would be good enough to spare our-
selves the expense which we undertake, and leave
them without an assistance which is of more harm
than use. This time, at any rate, the proposal is
not likely to be made in vain, and when it is ac-
cepted we shall neither hear nor feel much more of
New Zealand wars.
HERALD.—For nearly twenty years the " Great
Liberal Party" have had it all their own way in
Ireland, and their policy has brought that unhappy
country to a fearful pass. The more we read and
hear of the Fenian conspiracy, the more the convic-
tion is forced upon us that throughout all the
southern and western portions of the island her
Majesty's Government is not only hated, but also
despised, and that but for the immediate presence
of a considerable English army the administration
of the law would be an impossibility. It may be said
that the English Government has never been cor-
dially adopted by the lowest orders of the Irish
people ; but granting this, we must add that if our
laws have not been at all times loved, they have, at
least, been hitherto respected, and their adminis-
tration has not until now been brought into abso-
lute contempt by feebleness and failure. The cir-
cumstances that have attended the speeding of the
special commission to the south of Ireland, however
ludicrous they may seem to us at a distance, indicate
a state of affairs that must be very alarming to loyal