The Sun.
London, England, 1838-05-18 00:00:00

NEW ZEALAND.

The attention of the Committee has been anxiously directed to the
subject, already before the British public, of the colonization of New
Zealand. And so far as the interests of the natives of that country are
concerned, they cannot but watch with intense interest and vigilant jea-
lousy the result of the Committee of Inquiry in the House of Lords.
The Committee cannot but express their satisfaction that such measures
of inquiry have been adopted. Anxious that the utmost information
should be obtained on the subject, they deprecate any thing like a pre-
cipitate eagerness to close the investigation—to frame a report—or to in-
troduce measures for immediate appliCation. In the report of the Par-
liamentary Committee on Aborigines, dated June, 1837, it was strongly
advised that the Executive Government should not give its countenance
to any of the schemes for colonizing New Zealand till an opportunity
should have been olfsred to both Houses of Parliament of laying before
her Majesty their humble advice as to the policy of such an enlargement
of her Maresty's dominions.

The investigation made by the present Committee of Inquiry and the
information they will elicit, will all materially tend, it is hoped, not
merely to guide her Majesty's Government in the adoption of measures
affecting this particular case, but in awakening the attention of many of
our most enlightened Statesmen to the subject of the coloured races ge-
nerally, and of the colonization by British subjects of territories more or
less occupied by the coloured races.
The New Zealand cage appears to your Committee attended with
many difficulties, for the question is not now whether any Colony at all
shall be attempted there, for that question is settled by the fact of such
large numbers of British subjects being already there, as to demand
some legislative interference in the way of controul. It will not ba
friendship to the Aborigines to leave them a prey to the unprincipled and
lawless, under the plea of the injustice that might be done them by the
establishment of a British colony among them. The non-interference
has now gone on too long, not to justify and demand immediate interfe-
rence. Too many wrongs have been connived at, not to enforce the itYl.
perative necessity of immediately interposing some power that may check
them for the futnre, even though it should prove inadequate to indem-
nify- the sufferers for the past. The remark made by the Parliamentary
Committee, already noticed in reference to the South Sea Islands, ap-
pear to your Committee exceedingly just and appropriate. " Hitherto
the various Governments of Christendom hove respected the rights of
the native Chieftains; and no attempt has been made to subject the
Islanders to the dominion of any European state. It is impossible not to
approve this forbearance. Great Britain will not, it is hoped, ever exert
her power to destroy the political rights of these comparatively feeble and
defenceless people; yet it cannot be denied that their National Independ.
once cannot be consulted without seine immediate injury to their social
welfare. British merchants, seamen, and runaway convicts from our
Australian colonies, are enabled to commit crimes with impunity in the
South Sea Islands, because we regard them as foreign states; while
yet they are destitute of the rysources by which other independent
powers defend themselves end their people against outrage and wrong.
e whose
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The u:timate consequences are readily foreseen. A new race of bucca-
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necrs apappearr in the sou,stililel ink
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taitvleasr\gvii%i,l,sink, while they
All these remarks apply with the utmost force to New Zealand;.
which, from its extent, its population, the character of its inhabitants,
its productiveness, and the number of Europeans already irregularly
settled there, offers a theatre of dangers which no Blend to the Abell-
gives can overlook, and no Minister of the British Crown can safely
despise.

Still, however, to afford protection to the natives while forming colonies
I mong them, without compromising their independence, and involving
their ultimate depression, poverty, and ruin, appears to your Committee a
problem of vast difficulty yet to be solved. In no part of the world can it be
expected that the Aborigines should be able to compete, in agriculture,
trade, or commerce, with their intelligent and enterprising visitors and
settlers. The soil and the power, the wealth and the authority, will in-
evitably pass into the hands of the more industricus, when the two races
come so immediately in contact. Laws may be framed with the most
benevolent intentions to protect the Aborigines, amidst such perilous
_ _

circumstances, from violence, and ill-usage, while they would yet become
the victims of the crafty, the designing, and the unprincipled, whose in-
tercourse with them would be so studiously managed, that, while the
perpetrators of wrong might elude the vigilance, or escape the penalties
of the law, the Aborigines, in the language of a celebrated Miami
Cacique, quoted by Sir F. Head, in reference to the red inhabitants of
North America," would melt like snow before the sun."
Such a view of the subject does not arise out of any obviously essential
defects in the proposals and suggestions of those who have originated the
scheme, or are conducting the arrangements of the New Zealand Associa-
tion at home. The Aborigines' Protection Society is satisfied that
there is much in the known public character of the members of that As-
sociation, as a body, to guarantee the honour and the integrity of their
professions. The ground of their apprehensions and distrust is, the past
history of colonial establishments, combined with a conviction that the
spirit of competition and enterprise that must be created to insure suc-
cess cannot but effect the speedy deterioration, diminution, and final de.
struction of the Aborigines. _ _ _

It is not the object of this Society to create difficulties in the way of
emigration and colonization. They cannot contemplate without satis-
faction the extension, on just and liberal principles, of Colonial Establish-
ments, under the paternal sway of an enlightened British Government,
as a means of relief to the unemployed portion of our home community,
and offering new sources of industry, trade, and commerce. At the same
time, the Society cannot look without deep anxiety on the fate of the
Aborigines in countries which, although but thinly occupied with a
native population, may be yet intended to be made the seats of British
colonization.