THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1881. AFFAIRS AT PARIHAKA.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2414, 30 December 1881, Page 2

THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1881. AFFAIRS AT PARIHAKA.

As might have been expected, the action taken by Mr. Bryce on the West Coast o£ the North Island has called down the wrath of that section of the press which has taken up the cudgels for theNativea out of pure hatred of the present regime. The “ Lyttelton Times” of this morning contains an arlicle in which, after endeavouring to show that all that has been done of late is in the highest illegal, it proceeds, on extremely inc—iclusive data, to suggest that the Native Minister is playing a “ lona hand,’’and that the remainder of the Ministry are standing aghast at his high-handed proceedings. Seeing that Mr- Bryce has all along acted in the most perfectly cordial manner with his colleagues, and that on tho only occasion on which he differed with thorn ho immediately resigned, it is rather amusing to seo our contemporary building up such a theory. But to & person bent on suspicion nothing is so easy as to extract confirmation out of nothing. The “ Lyttelton Times” has discovered ‘‘ a curious incompleteness in the very labored defence of the Native policy put forward by the Premier and Minister for Lands.” It did not say anything about this at the time the speeches ware delivered, probably from the highest State reasons.

’out now it sees the whole affair with the most perfect clearness. This labored incompleteness was a natural result of a split in the Cabinet! And again there has been a singular reticence of late in news •from official sources. Evidently there is another sign of King Bryce riding rough-shod over his fellow Ministers! Official reticence is a favorite peg on which our contemporary hangs any number of charges. Official garrulity would, on the other hand, he taken as a sign that the Ministers were anxiously endeavoring to hide the bickerings in their body. So that the Ministry are hit in either case, which is, of course, highly satisfactory. The ‘‘Lyttelton Times” divides its charges against Mr. Bryce’s action into two heads. First there is the illegality of levying a war indemnity in land, and secondly there is the matter of the destruction of the crops. As to the first charge, onr contemporary declares that there can he no war indemnity where there has been no war or even danger of war. It still clings to the old cry that Native affairs should have been left to go on in the same happy-go-lucky manner that rendered Sir George Grey’s administration of the Native Department so eminently disastrous, and that the idea of there being any chance of an outbreak was chimerical. Our contemporary is welcome to its singular hallucination, which grows npon it with time, like many other harmless manias. But when it argues that because no blood was shed therefore there is no case for an indemnity it shows a singular want of logical power. A bloodless war is not a contradiction in terras. In war the shedding of blood is only a detail; more or less of it may bo spilt or none at all. In the middle ages, when all the fighting was done by mercenaries, those astute soldiers often went manoeuvring over the country like chessmen, and if they found that they had got into a bad strategical position they simply threw up their hand without a drop of blood flowing. And that was a war in all material respects. Troops had been levied, large sums of money spent, and the victors made their terms as stringently as if the opposite aide had lost ten or twelve thousand men. To say that there is no war because no blood is shod is shallow in the extreme. The New Zealand Government, as has been pointed out dozens of times, levied troops and went to a large expense. The enemy did not show fight because it found itself, like the condotfieri of old, out-mancenvred. No blood was spilt because the Natives found that the white man was too active for him. But it was a small war, nevertheless, and the victors have every right too see that those who caused the expenditure should be taught that they will have to hear some of the incidental burdens. Te Whiti and his followers caused the crisis, and on their heads should some of the attendant loss fall. And, moreover, it is not as if the Natives bad been taken by surprise. Nothing can be clearer than the proclamation of October. In it we find the following :—“ Te Whiti and his people are now called upon to accept the proposals made to them, which would give large and ample reserves to the people. If they do this they alone will be responsible for the passing away from them for ever of the lands which are still reserved for them by the Government, and for the great evil which must fall on them.” With this proclamation before them the Natives can never complain that they have had a mine sprung upon them. The “Lyttelton Times ” would much like to see the proclamation a dead letter, when it could moralize on the futility of misdirected autocracy. For our own part, we think that the Natives are not hardly dealt with. Te Whiti’s followers are to lose 20 per cent, of the very abundant ■ reserves apportioned them. They will still he well off, but will have learnt a lesson, which it is to ha trusted will not ha forgotten. As for the destruction of a portion of the crops, it will he seen by a telegram in this issue that those which are thus dealt ■with do not belong to the Parihaka Natives at all, but to the strangers who have been sent homo. To have left them in the ground would have been a direct invitation to these Maoris to return and gather them when they were ripe. It is ridiculous to assert that the Government wish in any way to starve the Natives. The Parihaka Natives have plenty of food for themselves. If, on the other hand, the strangers sent homo were to make any representations that they were short of provisions, we may ha very certain that the Government would instantly supply their wants. And finally, as to the argument that the destruction of food is ipso facto a scandalous deed. Of course, food is only relatively valuable. If the taking of food is likely to be injurious, it had much better ho put away. So, if the gathering of crops is likely to be attended with danger, it is much better to destroy them. The Government are little likely to go in for the barbarous policy of starving the Natives. They are acting in the full blaze of publicity, and, oven if their hearts were of the nether-millstone, they would not be so idiotic as to commit such a greivous political blunder.