the self-reliant policy in new zealand

The self-reliant policy in New ZealandAuthor(s): Fitzgerald, James EdwardSource: Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection, (1870)Published by: The University of Manchester, The John Rylands University LibraryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60231696 .

Accessed: 09/08/2013 09:00

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Digitization of this work funded by the JISC Digitisation Programme.

The University of Manchester, The John Rylands University Library and are collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 138.251.14.34 on Fri, 9 Aug 2013 09:00:50 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=manchester

http://www.jstor.org/stable/60231696?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


r^\

THE 2/

SELF-RELIANT POLICY

m

NEW ZEALAND.

A LETTEE

BY

JAMES EDWARD FITZGERALD.

LONDON:

EDWAED STANFOED, 6 aot 7, CHAEING CEOSS, S.W.

1870.

*d£Z4 <%»«M



6£iHS?

1



taaaumsaasaiaaBmmm

A few words only by way of introduction.

It can hardly be expected that the following letter

will carry conviction to the minds of those—if any such there be—who view the connection between

Great Britain and her Colonies solely as a matter of

pounds, shillings, and pence. But even such persons

may be reminded that compliance with the writer's

suggestion will cost Mother-country nothing. It was

not within the scope of Mr. Fitzgerald's argument to

state—as the fact is—that England never has been

called on, and in all reasonable probability never will

)L be called on, to pay a sixpence of interest on the New

Zealand Loan of 1,000,000/. guaranteed by the Im¬

perial Government in 1863. Is there any real reason

to fear that similar immunity from risk will not attend

a like guarantee in 1870 To lend a helping-hand to

a friend and kinsman struggling in deep water, with¬

out danger of being dragged in oneself, or even of

wetting one's feet, is not particularly chivalrous. It

is simply an act of humanity, with the additional re¬

commendation of being safe—cheap—and working no

injustice to others.

Granted, that such a guarantee as it suggested is,

in strict theory, undesirable, and that " he that hateth

b 2



4

suretyship is sure." But is this simply a question of

dry scientific theory—to be treated like a mathema¬

tical problem Is it not one which our hearts will

help our heads to solve more wisely than if we apply to it only the powers of a calculating machine

Despite the pitiless logic of his Official Dispatches, for which the noble Secretary for the Colonies good-

naturedly took credit in the debate on Lord Carnar¬

von's motion last month, Earl Granville, like the most

illustrious of his colleagues, is not insensible to argu¬ ments drawn from the fact that those who appeal to

us are our "flesh and blood." Surely, it will be matter

of regret if the present opportunity should be lost ol

proving our sympathy with them in their difficulties

by something more cordial than icy floods of good

advice, and of re-animating the chilled and waning "*M

affections of the thousands who—I can personally bear

witness—still look on England as their home, and

Englishmen as their elder brothers.

H. S. SELFE. Athen-EUM, 1th March, 1870.

"*



nalSXm^m^^^a^^a^^m^^^^^^

a-

THE

SELF-RELIANT POLICY IN NEW ZEALAND.

Wellington, New Zealand, My DEAR SELFE, December 26, 1869.

I am not perhaps quite up in all that has been

said of late in England on the subject of New Zealand.

But your last letter, Sewell's pamphlet, and some

articles I have read, have given me a general view of

the state of feeling. England no doubt looks on the

question as a whole, and on the voice of New Zealand

as it is expressed in her public acts and ministerial

declarations. I cannot but feel, however, that the

whole story is not appreciated, and as regards myself, I decline to be associated with any such expressions. I adhere to the policy of the Weld Cabinet, and not to

that expressed by Mr. Sewell or Major Atkinson—

equally with myself members of that Cabinet, but who

seem to have forgotten some features of the old pro¬

gramme—still less of Sir George Grey, who never

accepted it or assisted it.

I am not at all surprised at the tone taken by the

English Government, although I regret that it should

have found expression in somewhat hard and unfeeling

terms, and still more that that tone should have been

provoked by the language of Ministers in the Colony.



6

More harm has been done by unwise words than by imprudent actions. What it seems to me has not

been told, and ought to be understood, is what I will

now endeavour to explain. When Weld came into office in 1864 the Colony

was in a state of deep disgust at the failure of all the

predictions and all the policy of two successive minis¬ tries. We had been induced to enter upon operations of ruinous magnitude (financially) under the promise that General Cameron would complete the war, and

that the confiscated land would repay the principal

part of the Three Million loan. The war, however—

looking at the number of soldiers employed, at the

number of the enemy in arms, at the time it lasted, and the money spent, and finally at the land acquired —was the most unsatisfactory probably upon record. Then followed bitter and unseemly quarrels—first between the Governor and the Ministers, and secondly ^ between the Governor and the military authorities; and the result was a general response to the policy of the Weld Government: (1) that unity in the military and civil government was essential; (2) that no mode of conducting the war could cost us so much as that which we Ifad been made to spend by the military authorities over whom we had no control. Hence the

policy of sending away the troops and doing our own work was adopted. Sir George Grey, however, did not assist, but put every obstacle in the way of this

policy, as the correspondence with General Cameron

proves. So long as the troops remained, and the

Colony was subject to the large incidental charges

«i



~i

^^.^w^««»^e«Bamc»»m,w^,

attendant on the then mode of conducting military

operations, it was impossible to organize or pay for an

efficient Colonial force, or to commence operations in

our own way. It was made a charge against Weld's

Government that whilst requesting that the Imperial

troops should be removed, they did not make any

permanent provision for a force to take their place.

The fact, however, was, that so long as the troops

were in the country, the incidental expenditure by

their mode of conducting war eat up all our means.

And it was also the case that very heavy engagements

were still outstanding with the military settlers which

had to be satisfied before any new system could be

inaugurated. A commencement, however, was made

towards the establishment of a permanent force, which

should have been perfected as the troops were removed

and the settlers were placed on their lands instead of

*- on pay. It was the next (Stafford's) Government

which neglected to bring this force to perfection. In

one part of the island, on the east coast, a mere handful

of men, under Biggs and Fraser, and the townsfolk of

Napier, under Whitmore, showed what could be done

with a tithe of the machinery, both military and finan¬

cial, employed by the Imperial Government. It is,

however, obvious that the adoption of such a policy as

that put forward by the Government of 1864, which

has gained the name of the " self-reliant policy "—

required to be handled by men who had implicit faith

in it, and who were determined that it should succeed.

But just at this moment a conjunction of party

events threw Mr. Weld's Government out of office,

y-



8

and a government succeeded utterly hostile to the

whole policy which the Colony had resolved to adopt, and from which it did not retreat. Mr. Stafford had

from the very first opposed the departure of the troops, and together with Dr. Featherstone did his best to get rid of Mr. Weld's resolutions. But when he came into office he did not propose to alter that policy, and did not ask the House of Assembly to do so. He

chose, however, for his Defence Minister, Colonel

Haultain, who never concealed in public or in private his contempt for the whole idea. The Colony then was placed in this ridiculous position; it had formerly adopted a policy which appealed to all its most chival¬ rous feelings, which demanded all its energy, the suc¬ cess of which, as of all action in which sentiment is

involved, required a strong faith in its truth and its

possibility, and it placed the working of this policy in the hands of men who had denounced it as impossi¬ ble, and ridiculed it as absurd. It is needless to add that it failed. The position of the Government is

faithfully depicted in the correspondence with the Home Government. The Stafford Ministry seem to have thought that they were faithfully carrying out the policy to which they nominally adhered, by refus¬

ing to advise the Governor either to employ, retain, or send away the troops, whilst the whole tone of the Memoranda for the Home Government is—"Take the

troops away at your peril; you have brought us into this mess—you are very unjust and ungenerous to leave us to ourselves." The result was what might have been anticipated,—anarchy and inefficiency in



aasa°M"m-"

9

the Colonial Military department, and intense disgust on the part of the Home Authorities. I should have

been astonished had the Colonial Office acceded to

demands urged in such a spirit. But you say, and I see that it is the language held

in some public prints, that the Colony vaguely adopted the theory of self-defence, but refused the supplies

necessary to make it a reality. I demur to this.

Passing by the incidents of the struggle in the New

Zealand Parliament, I say that we did vote certain

large sums for defence purposes. Were they enough You will say "apparently not," for when the war

broke out in 1868 afresh, Ave could not for many months restrain the enemy, and whole districts were

ravaged and laid waste. But the question is not only, " Was the money voted enough ?" but, " How was the

y money spent which had been voted ?" It is an undis- *

puted fact that when the incursion of Titokowaru

took place in 1868, there was no force ready to assist

him. He had not, it is admitted, above eighty men

with him when he began; fifty men, such as we ought to have had, would have put an end to the affair at the

outset. But at this very moment we were disbanding old forces, and were compelled to enlist miserable

boys who were picked up in the streets and along the

quays. The slaughter at Ngatuote Manu was the

result. The army had to be reorganized in the face

0f a triumphant enemy. The head-quarters at Patea

^ were a scene of perpetual drunkenness and debauchery,

which would have destroyed the discipline of the best

soldiers in the world. Whether, then, the Parliament

b 3



io

voted enough, is not the question. It had better

have voted none, so far as the result went, for it got

nothing for its money. My own conviction has always been that the supplies voted and the sums expended were ample; and that had the years from 1865, when Mr. Weld left office, to 1868, when the war was

renewed, been used to create an efficient and per¬ manent force, such as we ought to have, and such as Mr. Weld's Government proposed, the miserable dis¬ asters of that most disgraceful year could not possibly have occurred. But the anarchy in our politics was reflected, as it ever will be in constitutional govern¬ ment, in anarchy in all branches of the public service. Men were sitting side by side in office who held the most opposite opinions, and who had only just before been denouncing each other as fools and criminals. All truth in party, all faith in public men, was utterly gone. Our finance was^ dictated by powers outside Government and Parliament; our troops were organ¬ ized and sent to battle under the auspices of a Minister who sneered at self-defence. This chapter in New Zealand history contains a great lesson, which may be read with instruction even in the heart of the Empire, in days when Tory Governments pass Reform Bills. The horrible calamities of 1868, the massacres, the burnt farms, the wasted country, the revival of the worst features of the old heathendom amongst the Natives—all these, and other results which I may not dwell on, flowed, it seems to me, naturally and neces¬

sarily, out of the paralysis of public life in the Colony. And such paralysis will ever occur, when a Minister

M



MHMN

it

"

pretends, for the sake of retaining office, to carry out

a policy in which he does not believe, and when men

whose principles are, if they have theretofore spoken their honest beliefs, utterly incompatible, consent to

sit at a Common Council Board.

As to the present aspect of the discussion between

New Zealand and England, I should like to say a few

words. I have no sympathy with Mr. Sewell's views, and I cannot conceive how he can hold them. It

seems to me a paltry piece of special pleading to

argue, as so many on our side do argue, that because

the Governor was the Agent of the Home Govern¬

ment, therefore England and not the Colony is re¬

sponsible for the war. As an honest Colonist, I am

somewhat ashamed of such a line of argument. As a

matter of fact, Governor Gore Browne's action in the

Waitara case, which was the fons et origo malorum, was

formally adopted by his Executive Council and by the Colonial Parliament. As a matter of fact, the

war was popular in every place where it broke out.

Taranaki, to a man almost, supported the Governor

in the Waitara case. Auckland was outspoken in

favour of the war in the Waikato. Wellington

applauded, with its after-dinner ovation, General

Chute's march through, the Patea and Taranaki

country. It is not enough to show that these things were done when the nominal power lay with the Home

Government. Were they done against the protest of

the Colony Certainly not, but with its assent. The

voices of such men as Sir William Martin and some

few others who tried to stem the tide of popular



12

feeling in favour of war, were drowned in the clamour.

With what sense of honour then can Colonists turn

round and throw on the Home Government the sole

responsibility for these actions? But whatever was

the share of the Home Government in the events

which have resulted in such disasters to the Colony, did they not all occur prior to the enunciation of the

self-reliant policy of 1864 I cannot understand how

we can have taken credit for that bold and, as I think, wise action, without perceiving that, following as it did

all the action of the Home Government upon which we now found a claim, it necessarily cancelled all such claims and condoned the policy upon which such claims are founded. It may be easy to prove, as Mr. Sewell does and as every one knows, that the Colony did very reluctantly accept the responsibility for the

management of Native affairs. In 1862, when Mr. Fox

proposed some very indefinite resolutions, virtually sanctioning the movement made by his Ministry and Sir George Grey during the recess, towards taking over the Native Department, he was beaten, and went out of office. In 1863, when the House met, it found that the thing had been done by the action of the Home Government, and it acquiesced, it may be

admitted, because it could not help itself. But in

1864, after the ruinous adventure of the war had

displayed itself, and the evils of a double Government were staring the Colony in the face in the indecent

triangular duel between the Governor, the General, and the Ministers, the Colony went farther than it had gone before, and said that it would defend itself.

Y



13

V

k

When I remember the speeches made by Mr. Weld

and his colleagues in that Session, I am at a loss to

know what meaning attaches to words if the Parlia¬

ment did not at that time emphatically pronounce its

full acceptance, not only of the Civil Government of

the natives, which it had enjoyed for eighteen months, and which it never renounced or protested against; but also of the burden of such military operations as

might be necessary to enforce that Civil Government.

There were, it is true, individuals who differed from

these views; but Mr. Sewell, who was one of their

official exponents, is, I think, debarred from taking

advantage of arguments which he then repudiated.

•Standing wholly apart from all feeling which may influence the mother-country on the one hand, or the

Colony on the other, regarding the question as a by¬

stander, I should be unable to understand what inter¬

pretation the Colonial Office could possibly put on the

language of Ministers and the conduct of our Parlia¬

ment in 1864 other than this, that from henceforth the

Colony undertook its own internal defence.

Now I am far from saying that events may not

have arisen which induced the Colony to repent

that decision. But I do say that no events could

entitle the statesmen of New Zealand to revive claims

founded on transactions prior to that settlement. The

Colony has no doubt repented it. It could not be

otherwise after entrusting such a policy to hands

utterly incompetent to carry it out. Incompetent, I

say, because they wanted the first ingredient of com¬

petency, namely, a belief that it was desirable, or even



14

possible. It was only natural that the Colony, sick and irritated at the disasters of 1868, should throw the onus upon the self-reliant policy; and they were led to this conclusion by those who, having originally opposed it, were only too glad to crow over its failure, and by the friends of the then Ministers, who were

ready to attribute the shortcomings of administration to the policy they had to administer. Thence the

legislation of last Session and the Commissioners to

England to beg for Imperial troops. You will under¬ stand that in these views I am not speaking the views of the Colony, or of any party in the Colony; but

simply those of one taking no part in politics, but

observing, as a disinterested bystander, events as they pass.

I perceive that you, amongst others, have taken up a passage in the end of my letter to the '

Wellington Independent,' and say that we have all given up self-

reliance, only some think that the aid should be given in troops, whilst I think it should be given in money. But that is not a just way of putting it. There are two parties to the question, regarding it from two distinct points of view, and separate duties attaching to each. It is one thing what the Colony may have a right to demand; it is another what it may be

fitting that the Mother-country should afford. As a

general rule determining the relations which should subsist between England and her Colonies, I have seen no arguments which can get rid of the para¬ mount duty attaching to all States to provide for their own internal defence. I cannot comprehend

A



—"»—

V

•>'

15

why the taxpayers of England should be charged with the cost of protecting communities over whose

policy they have really no control, and whose con¬

duct is dictated by Governments, independent in all

but name. And let it be remembered, the question is not one, as is often so loosely said, between the

Empire and the Colony, but only between the Mother-

country and the Colony. The Empire has no con¬

cern in the matter and would pay no part of the cost; I mean of course the Empire at large, including all

the other Colonies. Canada and India would con¬

tribute nothing to aid to New Zealand, if granted, but

only Great Britain and Ireland. If indeed the whole

Empire were in some mode represented, and in some

mode contributed to the cost of defending the Empire in every part, as, for example, all the possessions of

> the United States do, as the Dutch and Spanish Colonies used to do, the case would be different.

But the Empire of Great Britain has never been so

organized. I cannot then see why England alone

should be called on to contribute as a general rule

to the internal defence of Colonies who have full

power of managing their own affairs, and have in¬

curred therefore the obligation which attaches to all

governments and all communities, of putting up with

the consequences of that management. Setting aside

all the past history of the relations between Great

Britain and New Zealand, which can only be ap¬

pealed to at the risk of mutual irritation, the question

now awaiting solution ought to be decided upon the

general principles of policy which should govern the



16

relations between the parent state and its offspring. The policy at present enunciated by the Home Go¬

vernment seems to me no new policy, but rather a

recurrence to the earlier maxims of Government

which prevailed before the conquest of the outlying

portions of other European States, and the establish¬

ment of convict settlements of our own raised the

Colonial Office into an important department of the

State. The New England plantations defended them¬

selves, and were proud of doing so. Those who argue that the result of that doctrine was that the Colonies

progressed slowly and suffered much, forget that what the New England settlements wanted was, not ex¬

ternal protection and defence, but population and

capital. England under the Stuarts had but five or six millions of inhabitants, and could spare but little

capital for colonizing purposes. Considering the colo¬

nizing power of Europe at that time, the progress of the New England States was very rapid. Every one must admit that in the cradle of those communities, and especially in the national vigour evoked by their

self-defence, lay the germs of their future strength. What I, at all events, meant by the self-reliant policy in New Zealand was, that as a general rule she should undertake her own defence.

But no one will argue that exceptional circum¬ stances do not require exceptional treatment; and,

admitting to the full the obligation of the Colony to

protect herself, I may ask, without any inconsistency, whether it is befitting the greatness and dignity of a

power, the first amongst nations, to see one of its

\



17

s

dependencies crushed in a struggle either with a foreign

power or by internal savage inhabitants I say

nothing about what it may pay England to do, because

if there be a National duty, it must pay to do it; and

a nation will lose in pocket as well as in every other

way by its neglect. Put the extreme case, that the

Colonists were totally extirpated or driven out by the

Maories, would it, I ask, be consistent with the duty of England, or add to her prestige and power, that she

should stand as a spectator with folded arms contem¬

plating such a catastrophe We all know that such

conduct would be a proclamation to the world that

England had descended into the rank of an inferior

power. As such only would her voice be listened to

in the councils of Europe. She would have aban¬

doned her mission as the guardian of liberty and the

promoter of civilization in the world. If then there

might arise circumstances in which England would be

compelled, in virtue of her own station in the world, to

afford aid to a Colony in an internal struggle, the

question is reduced to one of degree, and we have only to ask whether these circumstances have arisen in this

Colony. I am now claiming nothing as of right on

the part of the Colony, still less asking for anything as of favour; I am regarding the question as an

Englishman, and as affecting the duties which attach

to the position of-a first-rate power in the world.

But if England were persuaded that it became her

to aid the New Zealand Government to bring the war

to a conclusion, the question would still have to be

settled in what form that aid should be given. Not



18

only in theory, but by fatal experience in this Colony, I should be led to the conclusion that to set up within the Colony a military authority separate from the

Queen's Local Government, would be a most unwise

plan, leading, as it has led before, to conflict in

authority, paralysis in action, ruinous and ill-directed

expenditure. Anything which tends to relieve the Government and inhabitants of the Colony from the sense of personal responsibility for their own conduct, must vitiate the whole action of what we call re¬

sponsible Government, and must tend to corrupt and

deprave the character of the people. For the chief value of free institutions lies in this, that the people who finally determine the action of the Government must suffer the consequences of that action for better or for worse. Freedom in States, as in individuals, involves its correlative responsibility. If free institu¬ tions did not, by the reaction of the consequences of a

popular policy upon the people, tend to educate and to elevate the national character, I really do not know what they are worth. I greatly hope, therefore, that we shall see no step taken by the Home Government which may remove from the Colonists one particle of the responsibility for the conduct of the Government in these native difficulties.

At the same time I am bound to say that I believe the Colony is now in a crisis in which it has almost, if not quite, exhausted its power of carrying on war. There are, indeed, at this moment fair prospects of a termination of hostilities. Should they be realized, we may scrape through; but should they prove, as

1

\ <



19

they have before proved, to be fallacious, and should

the numbers of those in arms be increased—for ex¬

ample, were the Waikato tribes again to rush to arms—

I can see nothing but very wide spread disaster. The

question is one of money, and if money could not be

procured, and the settlers were compelled to go en

masse into the field, the only possible event would be

the extermination of the Native race, some even think

—I don't—of the European race. Humanity demands

that matters shall not come to this pass; that the war, if war be necessary, shall be carried on, not by the

whole people, but by limited organized forces under

the rules of civilized war, not personal ferocity; and

for this purpose money is necessary. The Colony is

paying at present the utmost amount of taxation

which it can bear, and I do not believe that any

imposition of fresh taxes would greatly, if at all, add to

M the revenue. Even with the present limited military

operations, the Colony is not paying its annual ex¬

penses out of its income. It is compelled every year to borrow, by Treasury Bills, in order to meet its

engagements. Even if the war were to cease alto¬

gether, and our military operations were to be reduced

to the smallest safe limits, the expenditure would be so

great, that all the operations of the Government which

are so needful in a new country—the power of colo¬

nizing the country, of settling an increasing population on wild land, the public works necessary for these pur¬

poses—all these must for some years be crippled, and

the progress of the Colony delayed, equally to its own

loss and to that of England. If, on the other hand,

*

\:S



20

the war continues, or extends for a fresh period its

dimensions, I for one cannot contemplate the position of the Colony in a financial point of view without serious uneasiness. I therefore come to the conclusion that we have arrived at a point in which it woud be a sound and wise policy on the part of the Home Government to extend some temporary aid to the

Colony. But I am equally convinced that such aid

may be most beneficially given in a form which shall not interfere with the higher principle of throwing on the Government and inhabitants of the Colony the whole responsibility of managing and conducting its

affairs, both military and civil, and even of applying whatever aid England may think it wise to afford. If the Colonists are anxious for the presence of British

troops, I see no objection to their employment, under one condition, namely, that they are placed absolutely under the control of the Queen's Government in the

Colony, and are entirely disconnected from the Horse Guards except through the Governor. You may say that is not possible under the present organization of the army. It may be so. But this is the main reason

why the employment of any forces except those under the absolute control of the Civil Government is

impolitic. One plan, however, is open by which all the aid

really wanted can be afforded without loss to England, and with vast gain to the Colony; I mean by a guarantee of the Imperial Government to the New Zealand loans. It is a matter which can never be

sufficiently regretted that the consolidation of the New

1



21

Zealand loans should have been attempted before the

consent of England had been obtained to this guarantee of her liabilities. The guarantee on the total debt of

nearly 7 millions, and the contingent advantages in

the consolidation, would have been worth 2 per cent,

to the Colony, and would have produced an annual

saving in the debt expenditure which would have gone

far to cover the whole of the annual outlay on military services. New Zealand cannot long go on without a

fresh loan, and it seems to me the duty of England,

looking at the question from an Imperial point of

view, to aid her in raising it. But looking to the

perfectly obvious fact, that the only possible means by which any substantial and permanent relief can be

obtained are to be found in the enlargement—the

great and rapid enlargement—of the producing powers

of the Colony, I should be glad to see the Imperial

guarantee to a new loan coupled with the condition

that a large portion of it should be applied to the work

of colonization. By such a policy England would be

taking a guarantee from the Colony that wealth would

be created far more than enough to meet the liability

which she had endorsed. The Colony has for some

years past been neglectful of this first duty of every

new country ; she has devoted all her energies to the

war. But the very drain on the resources of the

Colony occasioned by the war seems to me only an

additional reason for extraordinary exertion being

made to increase the resources which have to sus¬

tain such a burden. And those resources are prac¬

tically inexhaustible; they want only an industrious



22

population to develop them; and until we have a Government sufficiently far-seeing to adopt this as the

keystone of its policy, I see no future for this Colony other than a long period of depression, until, in the slow course of time, the wealth of the country shall have increased somewhat in proportion to the burdens which have been laid upon it in the last eight or ten

years. So long, however, as we continue to indulge in a miserable squabble about the special claims of the Colony arising out of mismanagement in which we have all equally shared, we shall remain impove¬ rished here and despised in England.

But what I wish you to understand is, that it is not the case that I give up the theory of self-reliance, and only differ from others in thinking that the aid should be afforded in money instead of in troops. I think that ordinarily, and so long as we are able, we should provide for our own defence in money as well as by troops. But that when a Colony has really clone all it can, and the question stares it in the face whether it can continue to protect the life and pro¬ perty of the Queen's subjects, and pay the interest on its debt at the same time, then, as a temporary and exceptional measure, the Mother-country being satisfied of the temporary exigency, ought to step in

to arrest national disaster. The case is similar to

that of a great merchant in a time of public panic,

really solvent, but unable to meet temporary engage¬ ments. The Bank of England has frequently in such

cases come forward with assistance to an extent far

exceeding that which it would afford under ordinary



23

circumstances, and has not lost by doing so. That is

J really our case: the drafts made on us by the war are

too heavy to be borne; but if assisted to meet them

now, the whole debts of the Colony will be a mere *"

bagatelle compared with its enormous latent resources.

I cannot see how it can be argued that if a Colony is really in that position, aid from the resources or

rather from the credit of the Mother-country is not

both right and politic. Nor do I see how assistance

in such an emergency can be construed into any

departure from the general principle of the duty of

self-defence on the part of the Colony.

Yours truly,

JAMES EDWARD FITZGERALD.

V



•—•~~^^^—«~^^^~^^~~~^^BrlImamKBamMlmalMIKlfKal



the self-reliant policy in new zealand

Documents