WAITOTARA.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3212, 15 October 1881, Page 3

WAITOTARA.

(PROM A CORRESPONDENT.) I have been holding back for the last three weeks on purpose to have something startling to send you from this coast, but there will be about as much gore spilled here as. there was at tbe last capture of Naboth's Vineyard in Hawke's Bay. There was some excitement here a fortnight ago. A traveller coming down the coast then, before he could get Into the township, was met with the Juestion, " What news from the front P" f he was a young man he would pull up and describe to his hearers how Daniels lad knocked the Maori down and run for dear life, and how some families had come in from the Plains, and that it was his own firm belief that the impending war would burst out in all its fury before many days. If the questioned one happened to be an elderly man, he mostly answered in the two words, "Pooh, pooh," and rode on. The majority of settlers on the coast blame the Government for releasing the Maori prisoners. But what was to be done with them ? There were two courses open to tbe Government with regard to the Maori prisoners. One was to feed and look after them in the South Island at a time when retrenchment was tbe order of the day ; the other was to send them home, and send the volunteers after to shoot them. The Maoris have been sent home, and now that there is a sufficient force here to crush them, they won't come to the scratch. They will bounce and fence, but won't fight, and a Standing army is required on the coast to watch them. Nineteen settlers out of twenty between Wanganui and New Plymouth endorse Mr Bryce's policy in making Bhort work of Te Whiti. There J is something ridiculous in the amount of importance which was attached to this j gentleman's last speech at Parlhaka. There was no end of contradictory reports in the papers about the meaning of certain phrases which fell from bis inspired lips, and many were the canstrnctions put upon that mysterious speech. That it should be necessary to notice him at all is what beats me, but then I don't belong to this part of the country. One-half of the male population on the West Coast are newspaper correspondents and interpreters; the other half are military, with a few settlers. The man who has never been alone; this coast is deficient in his knowledge of New Zealand. I doubted the assertion of a member who, some years ago, said in the House that fifty acres here was sufficient to keep a family. lam not so incredulous now. The Land Court is holding its sitting in this township, and the place swarms with Maoris. There •was every promise of a pugilistic encounter this afternoon opposite the door of a pub. The efforts of a hundred Maoris of all ages and sexes seemed unavailing in keeping apart the two wouldbe combatants, who were stripped and ready. When the commotion got to its highest pitch, I of course sprung off my Beat to have a look on aB well as others. " They won't fight," quietly remarked the storeman as he struck a match to light another lamp, "it will end in smoke." It was as he said. In a few minutes tbe whites who rolled up went in again, Maoris dispersed and squatted, and play once more was resumed on the jew's-harps. No chance of a squabble on this coast. I must Mri.