THE PATRIOT. It was roses, roses, all the way, The air broke into a mist with bells, The old walls rocked with the crowds and cries. But give me your sun from yonder skies; " They had answered, " And afterwards, what else?" Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun To give it my loving friends to keep. There's nobody on the house-tops now, By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. I go in the rain, and more than needs, A rope cuts both my wrists behind, And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, For they fling, whoever has a mind, Stones at me, for my year's misdeeds. Thus I entered Brescia, and thus I go! In such triumphs, people have dropped down dead, R. BROWNING. OUR COLONIZATION AND ITS ETHICS. THE old comparison of colonial politics to the agitations of a vestry, is one which we at all events can afford to receive with a calm smile of superiority, and with a feeling of invulnerability to any such sarcasm. The present state of things in this Colony shows that the importance and interest of public events, of political complications, or of financial schemes, do not depend entirely upon the territorial extent of their influence, or upon the masses of population affected by them. These of course are elements by no means to be ignored in estimating the importance of public transactions; and questions which are in themselves perfectly simple may acquire an interest which absorbs public attention on account of the magnitude of the results involved. In an old established country scarcely any question is considered trifling, partly by reason of the extent of population which may be affected by it, and partly by reason of the powerful machinery of discussion and debate which is brought to bear in its consideration. A battery of Armstrong guns in full operation is sure to make a great noise, and the bystanders will become interested in the practice, even though the object of the attack is nothing but a whare which might be demolished with a hatchet. In the same way a matter in dispute assumes a factitious importance when it is discussed by the leading orators of the British Parliament, and advocated on either side with all the power of the British press. The uneasy movements of Enceladus and his stertorous breathings may cause the earth to quake, the mountain to heave aud groan, and the nations to be filled with consternation; yet the physiological interest of his acts is no greater than that of an ordinary mortal's. On the other hand it is often difficult for a colonial question to receive the consideration and attention which it deserves at the hands of the people of the older countries. Appealing only to the interests of a small scattered population, shown in a light which presents nothing but the coarsest possible view of those interests, and debated with the ludicrous oratory of combined selfishness and ignorance, these questions seldom do more than bring a smile of contempt to the lips of those who know that the restraining influence of the mother country is ready to prevent those evils which the folly and turbulence of a young community might entail. We cannot therefore recognize with too much seriousness the fact that this Colony is now called upon to act for itself in circumstances which place it face to face with questions whose importance and interest is exciting the attention of the whole world, or what is to us much the same thing, of the British race. It would perhaps be difficult to point out any session of the British parliament for a considerable number of years in which affairs of greater interest to be debated, measures of more practical importance to be proposed, or statesmanship of more genuine quality to be employed, than in the present session of the New Zealand General Assembly. The question of free trade was undoubtedly of vital importance to the country, but the real merits of that question had been settled long before by the concurrent voices of the profoundest thinkers and political economists; and to carry out the simple measure required for the relief of the great evils which existed required rather moral courage than refined statesmanship. The attitude to be assumed by England in relation to the exciting events going on in foreign countries, and the embarrassing complications arising from them, has perhaps deserved and received more attention than any other topic for some time past. Yet in this case the course to be pursued has generally been pretty plain. To maintain a dignified neutrality, and at the same time in cases where grand principles are involved to show unhesitatingly which way her sympathies incline, to avoid being led by those sympathies into unjustifiable interference, or moved by insult and ingratitude from the position once taken up; these are the things which England has had to do, and to do which she has not been obliged to look for consummate statesmanship or profound policy, but rather for the firmness of Englishmen and the honourable feeling of gentlemen. The questions with which we in New Zealand have found ourselves compelled to grapple are of a more subtle and complicated character. We have to reconcile conflicting elements. We have to encroach upon the possessions of others without committing injustice, to seize by fores that which we most require for our own uses without exhibiting a spirit of rapacity, to rescind treaty engagements without breaking faith, to civilize with the edge of the sword, to secure the interests of humanity and progress by a process of war, conquest, and confiscation, to induce a race of men who always suspected our friendship while our swords were sheathed, to believe in it now when we press upon them with increasing forces, drive them from their habitations, and occupy their land; and all this we have to do in consequence of difficulties into which we have been led either by others than ourselves, or by the inevitable course of events, and out of which we have to get by conduct of which the responsibility has been suddenly and unceremoniously thrown upon us. To do these things seems to require a combination of high qualities. Unflinching courage, judicial impartiality, administrative skill, the calmness of the philosopher, the knowledge of the political economist, the benevolence of the philanthropist, and the practical skill of the financier, seem to be all necessary in order to steer us safely through our present maze of difficulties, and if we can find these qualities in our community, we need not blush to submit our policy to the scrutiny and the criticisms of the leading nations of the world. To meet these pressing difficulties, the late Government of New Zealand has put forth a scheme, and the present Government, composed partly of the same members, has adopted that scheme, so far as its fundamental principles are concerned. It is a scheme which at once and for ever subverts the footing on which we have hitherto stood with the Maori race, and alters irrevocably the relations existing between ourselves and them. It is a scheme in short, for swamping the Maori by numbers, and for colonizing the land by force. To accept this scheme, as it has been accepted almost universally throughout the colony, and as we for our part are prepared to accept it, is a step which at once confronts us with the question whether the whole of our former dealings with the Macri have not been based upon a false theory and a mistaken view of our rights and obligations; our rights, with respect to occupation of land, and our obligations, with respect to the elevation and preservation of a savage race. The right of the Maori to the whole land of this country, and the duty of the colonist to save a number of savages from the extinction to which they were hastening, have been, at all events practically, the fundamental principles upon which the British Government has caused the colonization of this country to be conducted. Both positions however appear to us, by the new light which recent events have thrown upon the subject, to be of more than doubtful validity. The advocate of the right of the Maori to the possession of all the land in this country for which he has not received cash, has always appeared to content himself with the statement of his proposition as an axiom, not, we fear, because it is self-evident, but on account of the other characteristic which goes to constitute an axiom,-that it is incapable of proof. It seems almost incredible that so monstrous a delusion should ever have held its ground, and we incline to the belief that this principle was acted on, not on account of its clearness, but because in the early days of the Colony it was found more convenient to fight with "silver lances" than with steel ones. It is difficult to understand what law of providence or of nature permits men to retain by force large tracts of land which is useless to themselves, and required for the sustenance of others. It does not seem necessary to go into any very refined disquisition upon nature of property, or the grounds upon which the right of it is based. We will for the present adopt the philosophy which takes "the fitness of things" as the basis of all rights and obligations, and this principle will lead us to the opinion that while it is just and reasonable that a man's right to the land which he holds and cultivates, or means to cultivate, should be respected, there is no fitness or propriety whatever in allowing him, like the dog in the manger, to retain in a barren state the land which is the gift of providence to the human race. The philanthrophy which adopts a different principle, is, we believe, a fallacious philanthrophy, and we unhesitatingly affirm that we might at the commencement of our colonization here, have taken and held by force any land not actually occupied by the natives, without violating any law of justice or humanity. We have on the contrary, by abdicating the rights which were ours, placed ourselves in an essentially false position, and laid up for ourselves a heritage of embarrassments and perplexity from which we are now compelled to free ourselves by a practical renunciation of our former principles. the The second point which we took for discussion is the supposed obligation under which we lie to save and elevate the Maori race. This obligation we look upon as at least doubtful. It is doubless our duty to treat the Maori with justice and humanity, and to impart to him whatever he may be willing to receive of our superior cultivation, but to preserve the Maori race from extinction is not in our opinion a thing to be set before us as a definite object. Our meaning will at once become clear by putting the question whether it is on the whole best that a country should be peopled and occupied by men of English race, or by an equal number of men of whom a portion should be Maori. The answer to this question depends entirely on the consideration,-which is the superior race?—which presents the highest perfection of human organization? If the answer is in favor of the English race, then it is better they should inhabit the land, and if we find that by the operation of natural laws the decline and extinction of the inferior race is being effected, we are not to assist the process but admire the result. This may be looked upon as the frigid conclusion of men who look upon the problems of human society, with the scientific curicsity of zoologists or political economists, yet it seems to us a conclusion as consistent with an enlightened benevolence as it is with sound reason. We are not called upon to prop by artificial means a declining race; all that we are bound to do is to give it fair play, and the question of preponderance for one, or extinction for either race, will be settled by laws which will be wiser than we or our philanthrophy. If the Maori will not avail himself of the means which are placed at his disposal by contact with a superior race, he must take the consequences; and there is no fear but that his place will be properly supplied. The two principles therefore, on which our former dealings with the Maori have been based, appear to fail. Acting upon the first, we made the Treaty of Waitangi; and now, finding that worthless, we have annulled with it the principle upon which it relied. Acting upon the second, we subsidized the Maori to enable him to taste something of a civilization which he was not prepared to win, and bribed him into conformity with laws whose excellence he could not understand; and now we have resolved to let him take his own course, and to leave him to the operation of those natural laws which over-rule so calmly and sternly our inaccurate conclusions and our crude schemes. The Treaty of Waitangi is done with. Whatever may be alleged for or against it as a measure of some utility at the time of its construction, it is now well out of our road. No longer upon its clauses can we rest our claim to sovereignty, or the Maori his title to land. The artificial relations between us and him are at length swept away, and we are reduced to the necessity of falling back upon fundamental principles, which fortunately are clear and simple enough. We have first to establish ourselves as the dominant power, and then to maintain justice, law, and order. The present war is a war of colonization. Whatever may have been the immediate or proximate cause, this is what it essentially is, and in this point of view we maintain it to be a profitable war. We care not who struck the first blow; we are satisfied that it was sure to be struck by one party or the other. With the conduct of the war we have nothing now to do; we rest satified in the statesman-like scheme which follows up the military operations, by establishing a chain of military settlements to secure the peace of the country. We wish now briefly to consider the two questions :-How are we to treat the enemy during the war? and how are we to treat him after the war? In considering the first point, we are met at the outset by the doubt whether we are to look upon the Maori as a rebel or a belligerent. So far as the matter can be decided by the law of the country, there is, we suppose, no further room for discussion. The Chief Justice of New Zealand has ruled that in the eye of the law every human being within the limit of these Islands is a subject of Queen Victoria, and in the decision of the Chief Justice we readily acquiesce. Yet it is unfortunate when the legal view of an important matter is at variance with that which must be taken by those who wish to look at the subject fairly, and according to its intrinsic |