New Zealand Gazette – 1869 – No. 30

Page 267

✨ Parliament Opening Speech

Numb. 30.

267

DIEU ET MON DROIT
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE

THE
NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.
Published by Authority.

WELLINGTON, TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1869.

THE Fourth Session of the Fourth Parliament of New Zealand was this day
opened by Commission, when the following Speech was delivered.

SPEECH.

HONORABLE LEGISLATIVE COUNCILLORS, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES,-

The fulfilment of a promise given last Session, no less than the disturbed
state of the country, have required a recourse to your advice and assistance earlier
in the year than is usual.

That assistance you will no doubt freely give, for you will recognize that the
Colony can no longer endure those evils under which it has, with but temporary
intermission, long suffered, from the determined hostility of the turbulent portion
of the Native Race.

Since the close of last Session, that hostility has displayed itself in an
aggravated form. Murders and other atrocities, entirely unprovoked, have been
committed in cold blood on unarmed persons; another Missionary, whose life
had been devoted to their service, has fallen a victim; and neither age, nor sex,
nor race has been spared.

Every means at the disposal of the Colony have been employed in the pro-
secution of the war which has thus been forced upon us, and which has had
to be encountered on both sides of the North Island at the same time. Large
numbers of men have been raised and trained, and have been engaged in active
operations in the field; and defensive works have been erected for the protection
of places exposed to the attacks of the enemy. It will be your duty to consider
how the efforts hitherto made may be sustained and strengthened.

The thanks of the Colony are due to Colonel Whitmore and to the Officers
and Men of the Colonial Forces, European and Native, for the conspicuous courage
with which they have encountered the enemy wherever he presented himself, and
for the indomitable energy and zeal with which they have tracked and dispersed his
retreating forces; arduous and harassing duties, in the course of which they have
penetrated forests and inhospitable wilds hitherto unvisited by any European force,
and inaccessible to the ordinary means of transport. The difficulties they have
surmounted have had no parallel in the military history of this country. No troops
could have displayed a more gallant spirit—no officers could have conducted
campaigns with more enterprise, skill, and prudence.

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