B.—No. 5a

20

PAPERS RRLATIVE TO THE IMPERIAL CLAIM

ferred on the Colony a most substantial benefit. It was when the Colony asked for the guarantee of her loan, and met with a denial. But the Colonists of New Zealand have never been able to understand wh it are; the speci d peculiarities which exclude them from participation in the benefits which the Mother Co tntry confers on her Colonies, though she is painfully alive, from sad experience, to the permanent claim they have on her moral and material sympathy. Not to go back far beyond the present, it might be asked wiiy the guarantee of Britain is given to loans when asked for by India and the newly Confederated Colony of North America, wliile she turns a deaf ear to the requirements of the youngest member of the dependencies of the Crown ? No one will dispute that the railway system is admirably adapted for promoting commerce and manufactures, and of facilitating the means of defence in case of aggression, and that both as regards India and Canada it is not only so viewed, but, as has been well said by a late writer on the proposed guarantee of four per cent, to a loan of £3,000,000 for Canada, " The railway is for strategic and military reasons an Imperial as well as a Colonial concern." And may it not be said that the suppression of a rebellion against Her Majesty is more an Imperial tlian a Colonial concern, instead of being now regarded, as evinced by the withdrawal of the troops and the denial of all assistance, practically as an affair in which the Empire has no concern and no responsibility? IS it be observed that the proposed railway may be viewed as a reproductive work, such an assertion a,- regards the shareholders would at least require proof, though it would be admitted if applied to the benefits resulting to the country through which it runs ; but, if reproductive, may not New Zealand claim the guarantee of Great Britain for such reproductive works, especially when military and strategic reasons are superadded to those which arise from the extension of commerce and the development of internal resources 1 But, if so entitled, are they not more so when, they find themselves the principals in the Imperial duty of upholding Her Majesty's supremacy, instead of being willing co-operators only 1 Has Great Britain any 'greater security for her guarantee to Canada than New Zealand can present ? The line which divides the 3,000,000 inhabitants of Canada from the more than 30,000,000 of the United States is no formidable obstacle in a military point of view. Does, the Canadian finance present any greater attractions than that of New Zealand '} The income of the Confederation is reckoned at about £2,5 0,000, while that ot New Zealand is indeed but one-half, exclusive of territorial revenue, but her resources are abundantly elastic, aud acre for acre the country is cajiable of bearing as dense a population as Great Britain bears, while its untold wealth in auriferous deposits, in the reefs and the made hills of the golden districts, in its beds of coal of every character, its undulating pastar;.-., its rich alluvial lands, its navigable streams, its abundant water power and supply, so admirably adapted for manufactures, and its excellent climate, point it out at once as a country where judicious investment may with safety be made. The actual loss to the Colony by the Imperial Government refusing to guarantee her loan of Three Millions can not be estimated at less than £320,540, in addition to an annual difference of £40,000 in the payments of interest for about twenty-six years to come, or about a million and a quarter in all. It is yet open to the Mother Country to do an act of justice, and extend her guarantee to a new loan, to replace the Three Million Loan, commonly known as the War Loan, aud thus enable the Colony to meet, as best she may, the consequences of a struggle in which she engaged relying upon the faith of the Empire; or if the Act does not admit of this, then by an annual Imperial contribution of equivalent value. 100. But while thus prominently bringing under review the exertions made by the Colony, and the circumstances under which they were made, I am reminded that the Governor and his Responsible Advisers have declared their conviction that " at no time was the great expenditure to which the Home Government and the Colony was put either necessary or desirable;" while they were of opinion that much more might have been " accomplished at a much less expense by means far more moderate and less costly." Their opinion is further supported by Your Excellency's Despatch of the Ist of January, 1866, in which you observe that "an altogether faulty system of warfare had been persued in the country which had unnecessarily entailed a great loss of fife, a vast amount of human suffering, an enormous and useless expenditure and waste of materials upon Great Britian and this Colony." It must not be forgotten that " the Colonial expenditure on military objects was necessarily dictated by the Imperial Expenditure on the same ; the one followed the other inevitably, and the Colony assisted loyally, and to the best of its, ability in an expenditure over which it exercised no control, and regarding which it was allowed to have little or no knowledge." An objection might be made to this statement by urging that the General Officer in command of Her Majesty's Troops, and the Commissary General were instructed to furnish Your Excellency with copies of the annual estimates of Military Expenditure before they went home with a view to your remarks being laid before the Government when its sanction was asked for the expenditure ; but, it may be replied that in one year only were these instructions complied with, and thus all control over the expenditure was denied to the Governor, and, his Ministers were compelled to follow blindfold an expenditure which they did not approve, but which they could not in any measure modify or control. 101. The Colonists of New Zealand can point with pride, in common with all the Colonies of Great Britain, to the gallant achievements of the Imperial Troops as recorded on the pages of their history ; and it is their wont to acknowledge with gratitude the devotion which has been evinced by these troops on many a New Zealand field ; but, while they thus gladly pay tribute to this gallantry, they do not feel that they are thereby debarred from unreservedly reviewing that system of warfare, which has achieved so little at so large an expense. 102. The annual average number of British Troops in New Zealand during the rebellion while Military operations on a large scale were being carried on after General Cameron had crossed ■ the Maungatawhiri, to the attack of the Waikatos, may be estimated at about 7000, to which may be added about 7000 Colonial Forces, forming an army of about 14,000 men, supplied with the finest Artillery in the world, with a Land Transport comprising more than 1,300 horses, with a Steam Flotilla bringing up commissariat supplies on both flanks of the advancing troops, and aided by a Naval Brigade eager for service; and 1 yet when an estimate is formed of the advance which has been made towards the pacification of the country from the employment of this force from July the 26th, 1863, to the close of February, 1865, it is impossible not to be struck with the meagreness of the results compared with the magnificence of the means ; a result which was owing solely to the adoption of a system not suited to the occasion.