Nothing can be worse than the accounts from New Zealand,
both military and political. The last telegram, dated Adelaide, August 12, says that the rebellion is spreading, and great alarm prevails. The more detailed news received from the colony, and dated about July 10, tell of a change of Ministry,—a change much for the worse, both in men and measures. The programme, indeed, of the Ministry of Mr. Fox is not only bad, it is ludicrous. He proposes to send two commissioners to England to negotiate for two regiments for the colony, for which New Zealand will consent to pay the £40 per man demanded by Great Britain, if it cannot persuade the Home Government to grant them on more favourable terms. In other words, the infatuated colony will promise to pay £80,000 a year for two regiments, in the military disposition and use of which it will have no voice, and which, whenever they are withdrawn, will leave the colony as helpless and unfit for self-reliance as before! Did any one ever hear of bitterer obstinacy in thus returning over and over again to a policy that has not only repeatedly failed, but failed so disastrously that half the burden now overwhelming the colony is duo to it? We suppose the Home Government will grant the request, if made, for though it absolutely refuses pecuniary aid in any useful shape, it seems almost anxious to tempt the colonies into borrowing regiments which are of no use to them, by offering them at not much above half-cost. Every soldier so sent out costs us, we believe, at least £70, besides transport, so that while our Colonial Office goes on asking indignantly, "Why tax the heavily-taxed British people for the richer colonists ? " it does tax them all along, but in a manner carefully adapted to secure that what the English- man loses the colonist shall not gain.
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