Page:Two speeches of Robert R. Torrens, Esq., M.P., on emigration, and the colonies.djvu/29

25 The New Zealand colonists saw in the policy thus attempted to be forced upon them consequences so disastrous that even the cruel necessity of separation from the mother country would be a preferable alternative. In the language of the Memorandum of the New Zealand Government, in replying to the despatch of the 2nd October —

"They claim that the Colony should be practically recognized as an integral portion of that Empire, and not be thrust out beyond its pale as of infinitely less consideration than a British subject in foreign lands. They ask England for no pecuniary sacrifice; they do not appeal to her compassion; but they do appeal to those eternal principles of justice, which are as much the duty of the strong as they are the heritage of the weak, and which even the most powerful nation should never withhold from the feeblest suppliant,"

That the stability of the Empire had received a severe shock through the harshness and the injustice of the course adopted towards New Zealand, was undeniable. What, it was asked, was the utility of union with Great Britain if it did not ensure mutual aid and sympathy in times of difficulty and trial? To affirm that whilst the Colonies remained obnoxious to hostile invasion, in consequence of their connection with Great Britain, they were to be refused succour and countenance in their danger and distress, was an untenable proposition. In the language of a right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Charles Adderley) —

"Such terms of intercourse compose no friendship, nor alliance, nor community, nor solid connection of any sort but a fool's paradise of mutual promises and expectations, equally visionary and evanescent. If the Colonies will undertake the duties as well as the privileges of British citizens, we may go on together as members of one great Empire, each part habitually maintaining itself, and the whole ready to rally round any threatened point."

The passage he had quoted described the true position as regarded the obligations of the Colonies, but the proposition was conversable. It was equally a condition of "our going on together as members of one great Empire," that the parent State should "undertake the duties as well as the privileges of" the head of that great Empire, and that she had not done so in the case of New Zealand was but too painfully manifested. The colonists neither desired nor expected to continue burdensome to the taxpayers of this country. To be self-supporting as well as self-governing was their normal condition; but this, like every other general rule, was subject to exceptions, of which the mutually reciprocal obligation to afford aid and sympathy in time of war, distress, or difficulty was the chief.

He believed that Her Majesty's Government recognized this obligation on the parent State, although the ill-advised course that had been pursued had induced a contrary opinion. He repeated