Known chiefly to the outside world as the sudden birthplace
of those tremendous polemical missiles which battered so fiercely,
some few years ago, against the walls of the English Church, it is now
attracting attention to the shape and proportion of that unsolved riddle
of the future, the Native Question. In those former days of rude and
hand-to-mouth legislation, when the certain evil of the day had to be
met and dealt with before the possible evil of the morrow, the seeds of
great political trouble were planted in the young colony, seeds whose
fruit is fast ripening before our eyes.
When the strong aggressive hand of England has grasped some fresh
portion of the earth's surface, there is yet a spirit of justice in
her heart and head which prompts the question, among the first of such
demands, as to how best and most fairly to deal by the natives of
the newly-acquired land. In earlier times, when steam was not, and
telegraphs and special correspondents were equally unknown agencies for
getting at the truth of things, this question was more easily answered
across a width of dividing ocean or continent.
Pages:
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536