The news from New . Zealand is still, we are happy
to say, for the time couleur de rose, the most powerful Maori tribes were talking of peace,—but Lord Granville's despatch had not yet reached New Zealand at the last advices, and so gravely were its contents thought of in Melbourne,—which it had just reached,— that the bills of the New Zealand Government, before floating easily, became quite unsaleable. We are assured that the natives, though for the moment peaceably disposed, were watching narrowly the chances of our colonists getting military help.
Relays of natives had been organized to carry inland the news like that in the Cathedral of Santiago. whether or not military help had been obtained from Victoria, and there is no New Zealand colonist in this country who is not full of alarm for the issue when Lord Grauville's pro-Maori despatch is published. We hope most profoundly that our fears may prove to be unfounded, and that the peaceable dispositions reported by the last mail may survive the expression of the Colonial Office's wish for the recognition of Maori independence. But there is no sort of doubt about the peril.
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