The Evening Star TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2139, 15 March 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1870.

Our Dunedin contemporary, and some of the up-country papers who follow like lap-dogs in his wake, are endeavoring to hatch an opposition to the Fox Ministry on most flimsy and unreasonable assumptions. We have always pointed out the danger that may arise from a change of Ministry, and on that ground urged that the relation between North and South should be definitely and permanently settled. Whatever reasons existed tor confining the war expenditure to the North when money was lavishly squandered on wild goose schemes of conquest, conceived and prosecuted by incapable pien, they remain in full force up to the present hour. However ably the Fox Ministry may have conducted Colonial affairs, a time must come when they must give way to the opposition that, on one ground or another, will be organised against them. But while this must necessarily be the case, as an invariable accompaniment to representative governments, there is something dishonest as well as foolish in closing our eyes to those facts which are plainly to be seen. Of some features in the Fox administration we never approved. It always seemed absurd to feel such intense alarm concerning Maori insurrection, as to deem it necessary to have the moral support of a thousand British soldiers doing garrison duty, and not even firing a shot in defence of the Colony. Our estimate of savages like the Maoris may be below their merits, but it lias certainly never risen high enough to believe that physically or morally they are able to make a successful stand against the Colonists in a fair field. They have never proved themselves so, when the colonists have been properly equipped and skilfully led, nor do we believe they ever will. And when we are told that there is no difference in the war policy of the present as compared with the last administration, it is only necessary to refute it by pointing out that under the Fox war policy colonial forces are not allowed to fall into ambush as was the case when Vox Tbmpsky and other brave men fell, nor are they ordered to attack pahs where the risk is all on their side and the safety on the other ; nor are they placed under commanders who in order to give them employment assume certain Maori tribes to be enemies, for tliQ jjplpjl.snre of linving u bi-noli wiili them. With the Fox Ministry there has not been that recklessness which is often the accompaniment of imbecility in government. There is ample evidence of care, watchfulness, and preparation. The single instance in which it is assumed they have followed in the -wake of the Stafford Ministry, is in their determination to capture or destroy Te Kooti —a legacy left them by Mr Stafford. But even in this there are marked differences. Under the Stafford rule immense preparations were made, at enormous cost. The sums proposed to be expended bore no proportion whatever to the advantage to be gained. A large Colonial force w*as recklessly thrust into the bush, where they suffered more from exposure and fatigue than from the enemy. A flotilla was planned, heavy Commissariat charges were incurred, with all the labor and expense of a ccstly line of communication. Had they continued in office a short time longer, another half-million would have been added to the Colonial debt, and in all probability peace would have been nearly as far off as ever, for it must never be forgotten that fighting often renders more fighting necessary. But, rightly estimating the value of the capture, the Fox Ministry treat Te Kooti as a rebel whom they are bound to secure, if possible, as a matter of police. They treat him as equally dangerous to the welfare of the Natives as to the Colonists, and have placed such a price upon his capture, alive or dead, as is sufficipnt to induce tho Natives themselves to attempt it. Then as to discipline, it has been complained that M ‘Don NELL is dismissed. Civilians are very apt to judge of soldiers by one or two transactions. No one ever doubts that there is sufficient dare-devilism in M‘Donnell to distinguish him as a brave leader ; but that is not all that is required in a commander. Those who remember the progress of this dragging war, know that had M‘Donnell been a strict disciplinarian and skilful leader, in all probability numbers of valuable lives would have been saved, and, it may be, the war ended long since. A few weeks ago, he had Te Kooti in his clutches, and through negligence; let him go. For far less than that, a British admiral was tiled by courtmartial and shot. It was impossible for any Government to overlook so gross a breach of duty as was evinced in Te Kooti’s last breaking through M‘Donnell’s line; and however one may regret it, there should bo no attempt

to palliate it. Thou as to the expense of the wav, it is asserted that it is enormous. This must be a mere assumption ; ami from what we, in common with others, see of the Fox policy, wo should think a most unfounded one. There is no evidence of extraordinary expenditure, and on this, as on the other grounds alluded to, we feel justified in pronouncing the opposition senseless. Holding as we do, that whatever the war expenditure may be the North Island alone should bear it, in the absence of definite arrangements to that effect, no man except he be fit for the asylum, can say otherwise than that it is to the interest of the South Island to support the Fox Ministry, rather than allow the Colony to fall under the misgovernment of Mr Stafford, or those of his school.