In the House of Commons on Tuesday Mr. A. Mills
raised a debate on the recent Act passed by the:Colonial Legislature for the confiscation of some of the land of the rebellious Maories, and the settlement thereon of settlers in military villages as a security against the powerful tribe of Waikatos. Neither Mr. Mills nor Mr. Buxton appeared to be in any wayevell acquainted with the state and temper of the colony they were criticizing, using much language which was exceedingly unjust and certain to give cause- less pain. Mr. Cardwell, however, made a sensible and temperate speech, in which he traced truly enough the causes of war, the great efforts of the Colonial Government to avoid it, the failure of those efforts in spite of a policy which has been cautious to the point of timidity, and the dilemma: in which the colonists are placed by the double reluctance of England either to pay for the war or to permit them to take the only feasible method of putting a final and decisive end to it.] (Mr. Cardwell proposes to press on the Colonial Government the:repeal of the confiscation law as soon as the war is at an end,—but to make a cession of territory by the warlike Maories sufficient for the proposed settle- ment, a condition of peace.
Previous page
