DESPATCHES FROM THE GOVERNOR OP NEW

A.—No. 1a

120

Sub-Enclosure 1 to Enclosure in No. 50. Extract from the Journals of the House of Bepresentatives. Resolved — I. That the thanks of this House are due to His Excellency the Governor for the prompt and decided manner in which His Excellency replied to certain Despatches from the Right Honourable the Secretary of State for the Colonies, conveying grave imputations against the Government of New Zealand, by Colonel Weare, C.8., which imputations this House deliberately repels, and declares to have been most unwarranted and calumnious. 11. That this House is of opinion that the course adopted by the Right Honourable the (late) Secretary of State for the Colonies of receiving and investing with official importance private communications, wholly unsupported by evidence, such as those of Colonel Weare, gravely reflecting upon the honour and Christian character of the people and Government of New Zealand, is calculated (notwithstanding that the charges themselves have been completely refuted, and have been acknowledged by Colonel Weare to be without foundation) injuriously to affect the reputation of the Colony, to embarrass the position of His Excellency the Governor, to impair the good understanding which ought to subsist between the Colonists and the Mother Country, and to prove hurtful in a high degree to the interests and relations of both races. Resolved that the following Address to Her Majesty be adopted: — To the Queen's Most Excellent Majestt, — Most Gracious Sovereign,— We, your Majesty's faithful subjects, the Representatives of New Zealand, in Parliament assembled, beg to approach Your Majesty with the expression of our loyalty and attachment to Your Majesty's Throne and Person, and of our hope that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to take into consideration the representation which wc humbly desire to make in relation to the accompanying Papers, presented by command of Your Majesty's Governor to both Houses of the General Assembly of New Zealand on the subject of certain statements made by Colonel Weare, C.8., commanding Your Majesty's 50th Regiment of Foot. These Papers contain correspondence during the years 1866 and 1867 between Your Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, and the Governor of this Colony, in which it is shown that Colonel Weare, in January, 1866, while commanding a Regiment in New Zealand, wrote to his brother, the Rev. T. W. Weare, M.A., a private letter containing statements accusing the Major-General commanding Your Majesty's Eorces in the Colony, and also accusing Your Majesty's Colonial Troops, of atrocious cruelties to the hostile Natives, and alleging, with respect to the Governor and the Colonial Government, that " since the leaving of " Sir Duncan" (Cameron), "the true sentiments of the Governor and his Government have " come out towards the Maoris in their urging General Chute on to all these atrocities of " killing, and no prisoners ■ " and further alleging, with respect to the Colonists, that the war was conducted by them in a " degrading and brutalizing manner," and that the troops were being " allowed to be demoralized by the Colonists for their own selfishness." This correspondence also shows that Your Majesty's Principal Secretaiy of State for the Colonics, to whom these statements of Colonel Weare were communicated by the Bev. T. W. Weare, forwarded them in a Despatch, marked " Confidential," and dated 26th April, 1866, to the Governor for his report, so far as the statements referred to his Government, and further wrote in that Despatch the following words : — .' I cannot for a moment suppose that such imputations, either upon General Chute or " upon your Government, can be made without meeting with such a complete reply as will " show Colonel Weare's statements to have been altogether founded in error; but, on the other " hand, I am not warranted in considering that they are made in bad faith, and must regard " them, therefore, as calling for immediate and most serious inquiry." We have no wish to animadvert harshly on the conduct of Colonel Weare, who has unreservedly apologized for and withdrawn his statements, but we cannot refrain from expressing our regret that the circumstances on which he has chiefly founded his apology and his retractation—namely, his hasty adoption of " certain camp rumours," and the private nature of his letter, written in " the freedom of family correspondence,"—did not preclude him from expressing in such a letter his hope that its general purport " may be known in England." We humbly desire to represent to Your Majesty our complaint that these calumnious imputations, unsupported by the slightest evidence, and emanating from a junior Officer in Your Majesty's service, against Your Majesty's Representative and Your loyal subjects in this Colony, reached the Secretary of State in a most irregular manner, and were so far entertained by him that he felt himself justified in referring them to the Governor for his report, and in regarding them as calling for most immediate and serious inquiry. We respectfully consider that it would only have been due to the dignity of the Crown, and only just to Your Majesty's Representative and to your Colony, that Colonel Weare should have been forthwith called on to make these charges through the proper channel, and in conformity with the rules of Your Majesty's service, and to explain why he had not at the time officially reported these alleged atrocities, and that the Secretary of State should have merely informed the Governor to that effect, and altogether abstained from any appearance of prejudging the case. We cannot but painfully feci that the course pursued by the Secretary of State has been a peremptory arraign-