Page:Two speeches of Robert R. Torrens, Esq., M.P., on emigration, and the colonies.djvu/26

22 and oppressed by the unexampled taxation of £6 5s. per head, appealing in vain to the Government of this country not for money, but simply for a guarantee, which, without costing the taxpayers of this country one farthing, would have enabled them to raise a war loan at 4 per cent, instead of 6 or 7 per cent. When it was noted that the guarantee thus denied to New Zealand, under circumstances amounting to something like a life or death necessity, was at the same moment granted to the Canadian Government—not because of any such necessity, but in furtherance of an object which could not be deemed more than one of expediency—then this denial, grievous and unjust in itself, was aggravated by evident partiality.

The same partiality and absence of any guiding principle was exhibited in the allowance of military aid to the Dominion Government for the suppression of an emeute of a comparatively trifling character, whether they considered the relative forces or the issue at stake—whilst the assistance of a single regiment for which they offered to pay every farthing of expense, was refused to New Zealand, although the Secretary of State was in possession of the Governor's despatch assuring him that, after consultation with General Sir Trevor Chute, and with the Admiral on the station, he had reason to fear that—"the withdrawal of that regiment would lead to a general rising of the Native race, and tragedies as dreadful as those of Delhi and Cawnpore."

In defence of that conduct, it was alleged that the Secretary of State for the Colonies was only carrying out the policy of his predecessors. That statement, however, was not borne out by the facts as disclosed in the Papers before the House. They, on the contrary, exhibited a constantly shifting policy. For example, they found the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of State for "War, in 1866, and his successor Lord Carnarvon, in 1867, when Secretary for the Colonies, proposing to leave one regiment, on condition that a certain sum was contributed by the Colony—£50,000, he believed—for Native purposes, a condition which had been faithfully complied with. Next they found the noble Duke (the Duke of Buckingham)—in his despatch, dated 8th July, 1869—declaring that Her Majesty's Government had no intention of withdrawing the troops if the Colony would pay for them. And, finally, they had the present Secretary of State, in his despatch of the 21st May last, intimating—"that he would not have ordered the withdrawal of the troops had he been aware that the Colony was willing to make sacrifices;" and yet, in the