SIR GEORGE BOWEN ON THE MAORI WAR.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1907, 16 June 1869, Page 3

SIR GEORGE BOWEN ON THE MAORI WAR.

The followin "postscript was appended to a despatch transmitted to Earl Granville by His Excellency the Governor, under date, March 15th : p.S,—ls th March. I regret to state that since the above despatch was written, a report has reached ton of fresh murders having been perpetrated by the rebel Maoris —this time near Cpotiki, on the East Coast of the North island. The details will not be known here until arxer the departure on this day of the monthly Suez mail. In my “ Confidential ” Despatch of the 7th December ulfmo (paragraph 14), I wrote as follows : “ It may appear strange to superficial or ill-informed observers, that the English settlers in the North Island are unable of themselves to subdue the Maoris, seeing that their numbers are as two to one, —about bO,OOO Colonists to 40,000 Maoris. But it will be remembered that the Maoris were not subjugated du.iug the yea’’s when the English army of nearly ten thousand (10,000) regular soldiers, in addition to the Colonial forces, was employed in this ishmd. Moreover, the great majority of the set decs in New Zealand are emigrants from the laboring classes in England, and had probably never carried arms of any kind until they found themselves enrolled in the Colonial Militia. On the other hand, every Maori is a born soldier, strong, fleet, and intrepid, accustomed from Ids infancy to the use of weapons and to the sight of blood, and trained to great skill in bush-fighting by the guerilla warfare of the last eight years. Again, the Colonists occupy settlements placed along and near the sea shore—they occupy, as it were, the circumference of a circle, whereas the Maoris are entrenched in the most impenetrable mountains and forests in the centre, whence they can send fo’-th forays in every direction. It will be further recollected that in 1745, 4,000 Highlanders easily coucpiered all Scotland, except the few fortified posts garrisoned by English troops, although the Lowhmders were infinitely more numerous in comparison to the Celts than the British Colonists m New Zealand are in comparison to the Maoris, and though the Lowhmders also were exerted against their assailants by the animosities which sprang from differences of race, language, and religion. # » ■»

So British authority would have, been practically annihilated if the British troops had been removed from Scotland during the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, and if the Hanoverians had joined the Jacobite clans. So, too, the English would have been driven out of all India (except, perhaps, the Presidency cities) in 1857, if the European army had been withdrawn, and if the Sikhs,

together with the Nizam and the other loyal Native princes, had joined the Sepoy mutineers. The Bishop of Lichfield (Dr Selwyn) has remarked on more than one occasion, that there is, in the present condition of this Colony, nothing which is new to the student of the history of other countries where formidable aborigines had recently been brought into contact with alien invaders or settlers.”

To the above remarks it may be added that very much depends during the present crisis on the personal action of the so-called Maori King. There is a comparatively small number of women and children among the Maoris ; but it is estimated that if Tawhiao were to put himself at the head of the general rising of his race, he could bring from 10.000 to 15,000 practised guerilla soldiers from the central highlands against the European settlements. Now of the 80,000 Europeans of both sexes and all ages in the North Island, about 30,000 live in the five principal towns of Wellington, Auckland, Napier, Taranaki, and Wanganui, of which the four last are still garrisoned by detachments of the 18th Regiment. The remaining 50,000 Europeans are dispersed in solitary farms or small hamlets, chiefly near a coast line as long as that of Ireland. The enrolled Militia and Volunteers (embracing the bulk of the adult European population capable of bearing arms, but practically available only for the defence of their respective districts), number about 9,000 officers and men. After diligent recruiting throughout New Zealand and in Australia, the Colonial Government has been unable to raise its permanent force of Armed Constabulary to above 2.000 men. It will be recollected that the army of 10,000 regular troops, recently maintained in New Zealand, in addition to the Colonial forces, failed to reduce the hostile Maoris to submission. It cannot, of course, be expected that the raw and ill-provided Colonial levies should succeed in accomplishing the work which was not achieved by a much larger number of regular troops, amply furnished with all the means and appliances of modern warfare. “ Personally, I am inclined to agree with those who argue that an army of 10.000 Imperial troops should not have been sent to New Zealand; but that, having been sent, it should not have been removed before the Queen’s authority had been established throughout the country. It is believed that the invasion of the Waikato in 1863 by General Cameron’s army aroused the national hatred of the Maoris, while the withdrawal of that army, before a single leading chief or tribe that had been in arms against the Crown had formally tendered submission, went far to excite the national contempt of the Mamas. To refer to a somewhat analogous example : it has been asked what would have been the result in India, if Lord Clyde’s army had been finally withdrawn from Oude before any one of the Talookdars or Native chiefs, who besieged our garrison at Lucknow, had been reduced to submiission 1”