^M ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Crap. XVII. 
the Latin protest of Mr. Ward against the decision of 
the Convocation, to his undivided attention ; a second 
should talk to him of currency and railway legisla- 
tion ; a third of the agricultural and commercial in- 
terests, reciprocity duties and the sliding-scale ; another 
of Poor-law Bastilles, vote by ballot, annual Parlia- 
ments, and universal suffrage ; and some preposterous 
preserver of pheasants should preach of the promotion 
of the national weal by the prosecution of poachers ! 
Would not the poor child take them all for madmen 
or knaves ; and rush from the squabbling candidates 
with a determination not even to learn his ABC, but 
to stick to his old rocking-horse and humming-top ? 
It was clear that the Saxon blood of the settlers 
would not forbear many years longer under the griev- 
ances endured by them through this misnamed pro- 
tection of the aborigines. Under such a system of 
acrimonious and cankering jealousy fostered between 
the races, it was certain that at least the sturdy White 
children, who were daily taunted on the outskirts of 
the pas by their dark playmates with the weakness 
.ind cowardice of their fathers, would grow up with 
a confirmed hatred of their puny tormentors, instead 
of a generous eagerness to befriend and cherish them 
as feeble brothers. And the leading settlers, who had 
fondly hoped to afford real protection to the inferior 
race, shuddered lest even in their day the law respecting 
forbearance of the Englishmen should be exhausted, 
and the mutual distrust of the races should break forth 
into a general warfare ; which could only end in the 
more or less speedy extermination of the natives, 
crushed like a wasp in the iron gauntlet of armed civi- 
lization. 
Sanguine as ever, they based their hopes in the 
appointment of some master-mind as the new Governor. 
