The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2253, 27 July 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 1870.

Kvnur the most inveterate opponents of the present Ministry must feel pleasure at the success of their measures for the pacification of the North Island. From one end to the other of it, there seems to be a desire on the part of the Natives to live in friendship with the Colonists, and in those districts, twelve months ago considered dangerous or disturbed, the settlers are beginning to recover their confidence, and to resume their pastoral and agricultural avocations. By the last mail we received a copy of a report by Major Noams, commanding the Wanganui and Patea districts, addressed to the Premier, under date June 18th, in which he statue that in October last, after the post had been (abandoned “ twelve months,” he had no-occupied it, and built “ blockhouses” at Hawera and Manutahi, for the protection of the settlers, who for the most part throughout the war had been lervjng in Volunteer Corps. “ Under I

** the improved aspect of affairs" they had been induced “to return to their “ properties, and assist in building the “ blockhouses and defences, lay off the “ ten-acre allotments, open up the line “of road,” <tc. The results are summarised as follow;

At Hawera, which is five miles south of Waihi, there is now a population of 25 settlers, 5 women, and 8 children. They have built already six houses, and many others are in contemplation; 500 acres have been sown with English glasses this seasou ; 80 acres are being ploughed for crops; they possess 350 head of cattle, besides horses, carts, and general agricultural implements ; they have several chains of fencing done, and contemplate electing, this season, about 800. What may be said of Hawera applies equally to Manutahi, which is situated halfway between Patea (or Carlyle) and Hawera, about ten miles from either place. The country north of Carlyle to Manutahi contains about 30 settlers, a few dwellinghouses, about 600 or 700 head of cattle; a great amount of fencing will be completed during this season. There is a largo proportion of land laid down in grass, and a considerable portion will be in crop this senson. Those who are not employed on their farms are engaged in contractJJfbrk on the roads, under road engineers. The Patea Flax Company has not made that progress expected of it. Although they have cleared a portion of their lands and have begun to fence, they have as yet no hnilding erected or machinery on the ground. Carlyle has improved and increased rapidly within the last few months ; it now contains many good substantial buildings, and its population will be about 150—including men, women, and children. At Wairoa, where a few months ago we had a garrison almost blockaded in its redoubt, thore is now a rapidly increasing population of industrious and enterprising .settlers, numbering about 140, who have erected 20 dwellings, hare 1,100 acres laid down in grass, about 700 fenced in, will have a considerable portion in crop, and several hundreds of chains of fencing completed this season. There are sawyers at work in the bush, and the material is used up fer building as fast os it can be cut. Since you visited this district, the inland road has been opened to enable the coach to carry passengers and the mails twice a week from Wanganui to Patea; and the telegraph has been established. No doubt the establishment of Sheppard’s coach and the telegraph have contributed in a great degree to the progress made. It needs but a railway now to open up the vast resources of these magnificent districts. I believe it conld be accomplished at comparitively little cost, as the country is well adapted naturally, having few engineering difficulties. From this slight sketch may be gathered the value of all the fighting that has taken place about this district. After years of war, the expenditure of an unknown sum of money, and the loss of scores of valuable lives, we have contrived in this district to locate some 350 or 400 people, who own some sixty or seventy shanties, a few horses and carts, ana luuu neaa oi cattle. We have no doubt that this pounds shillings and pence view of the matter will be scouted by many as being too utilitarian—a term which in such a case is usually intended to signify the contempt the person holding it has for such paltry considerations. There appears to be a vague notion that something more should be considered than the mere cost of territory in relation to the use to which jt can be put. We have no objection whatever to urge against anyone who chooses being as transcendental as he thinks right—at his own cost; but our theory is that it is a species of dishonesty to indulge in chivalry, or poetry, or transcendentalism, or dominion, at other people’s expense. The richer a country is, the better opportunity its people have to cultivate the higher gifts of their minds, and the less necessity is there for that grubbing for a living tbat knows no relaxation. On this ground the cost of every acquisition becomes a serious consideration, and the cost of the Patea district has been enormous. Even the very funds that provided the means of rebuilding their houses and stocking their farms, was advanced last year by the Government, though a lofin was refused to the rich and secure Province of Otago. However, since Otago was so largo a contributor to the expense of placing these Patea settlers in security, it cannot be wrong to indulge the thought that the money could hare been spent much more profitably in the Province itsolf. Sinco there is no possibility of allocating the exact cost of acquiring and defending the Patea district, no exact comparison can be made between what has been done and what might have been done : we are therefore reduced to general conclusions. But we are safe in saying that many times more people could have been settled in Otago with the amount expended by this Province on Patea ; that during the six years their labor would have been continuously profitable, instead of their having to commence afresh ; that in consequence the Province and the Colony would have become richer, and, of necessity, there would have been more widely-diffused comfort and happiness, and that there would have needed neither blockhouses, defences, nor the necessary occupants of these fortifications, the annual cost of whom will be scarcely Jeaa—perhaps greater—than the annual value of the produce of the district. Farther : the fact of defences being considered necessary implies possible danger —in fact, that those who live behind them would run loss risk of

life and property if they dwelt on the side of a volcano. It is to support such a risky system of colonisation that the resources of the Middle Island are crippled, and its people impoverished ; and yet there are those in Dunedin who characterise the demand for either Financial or Insular Separation as insane !