TARANAKI.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 106, 13 April 1863, Page 2

TARANAKI.

[From the (Canterbury) Press, 14th March.] We venture to assert that in the whole annals of the British Empire there cannot be found another instance of such pitiful imbecility as that which the history of Taranaki affords. Is it credible that in a British Colony with a population of 100,000 souls, a militia incorporated under local Acts of Parliament, volunteers who fill the newspapers with their achievements,:*a standing army of 6,000 or 7,000 men, and ships of war hanging about the coasts, —in a colony not impoverished or languishing under an impoverished’ exchequer, but with a treasury absolutely bursting its bonds with wealth paid ungrudgingly by a prosperous community—is it conceivable that in submission to the will of a few half civilized, half-clothed, ill-fed tribes, of whom the whole race is not half as numerous jas.the'settlers, and the whole of those in any way concerned in, the affair, men, women, and children, do not number more than 15,000 !!! —is it possible that we have submitted now for nearly three years to see a large country conquered from the dominion of Britisn law, its farms demolished, its settlers turned out and kept out, and the country held by a force in open hostility to British law ? Is all this possible ? It is absolutely incredible —yet it is true. The population of the Middle Island has no conception of the cruelty practised on the Taranaki settlers. When the war commenced the men were enrolled in the militia or volunteers. They were then brought under martial law and placed at the disposal of the military authorities. This step was practically equivalent to unmanning and disarming them. Will our readers believe that numbers of those gallan; men were compelled to witness the burning of their own farms, night after night, the destruction of their crops, the slaughter of their flocks and herds by small bodies of Maoris, whom a dozen or two resolute men could have instantly driven away ? and that they were compelled to witness these things in silent inaction, because, being under military discipline, the military authorities would not let them fight? We know one case in which a volunteer saw, from the top of the block house where he was posted, 800 head of his own splendid sheep driven off by an old woman and a little boy (the boy within a few months was employed as a baker’s boy in New Plymouth, and we believe is there still), and was prevented'from going out to save his property by the .military rule to which he was subjected. There are numbers of similar instances. The military authorities would not fight. They were cooped up like market fowls in the lines of New Plymouth for more than a year, and the country was ravaged and destroyed at will. ° The Tataraimaka Block was not occupied by the troops, and was occupied by the Maories? at the time hostilities came to an end. It has been so occupied ever since, and the settlers are still forbidden by martial law to go on their farms. Governor Gore Browne put an end to the war just when, if he had been originally right, he oimbt to have pursued it with the greatest vigor. When Sir George Grey came, he found Tataraimaka in the hands of the natives, and hostilities suspended, the Governor paralysed and wimpering for more troops, ignorant that it was not troops that were wanted, but the genius to use them. The new Governor naturally rested on his oars till he had mastered his position. But there is a limit to the period of contemplation, and there is a limit too to human endurance. Sir George Grey came to the colony in September 1861; in June 1862 the Assembly met. In the next two months the degradation of the colony had culminated. Fox, who was pursuing a distinct policy of reconciliation, was turned out of office before his policy could have had time to work. The leaders of the other side refused to accept the Government, and a Government of mediocrities was installed. Without the courage to proclaim the dominance of law at the cost of war, or the skill to indue its acceptance by conciliation, they drag on a paralysed existence, filling up a space in the history of the Government which will ever be recorded* as the ne j}his ultra of governmental inertness. But let us not be angry with them, poor men. We live under a representative Government, and if that means anything, it means that those in power should represent the majority. And Domett and Bell are the representatives of an Assembly which formally abandoned its functions, and refused to save the colony. Now during all this time the Taranaki settlers have received—now during two years —not one word of sympathy or consolation or encouragement. They begin to despair. The Governor retains a reticence worthy of Louis Napoleon. They write to Mr. Domett, and he answers in such a strain as our readers may read in another column. The letter of the 6th December is a model of the circumlocutory-how-not-to-do-it style. Mr. Domett tells the miserable settlers that he cannot answer their questions, because it is the Gov°rnor’s business and not his. Is this serious or a farce? Is there a Government at all? If the Taranaki men have written to the wrong office why was not their letter sent to the Governor, and why did not Mr. Domett—who procured a vote of the Assembly which degraded him from being a Minister of the Crown to the position of a clerk to the Governor—why did lie not write in the old style—“ Sir, I am commanded by his Excellency the Governor to acquaint you,” &c., &c. That would have been humiliating, though business-like—the position he has taken is equally humiliating though not at all business-like. Then there is to be a body of settlers introduced. In the name of common sense why are settlers to be sent to a place when the settlers already there are kept as pensioners on Government bounty in the town. The Taranaki men say “we can’t get on our farms, our population is kept idly in the town, our substance is being wasted, we

want simply to know if you are going to settle the Native question. If you can’t, say so ; and we will go elsewhere. If you can, we will get to work again, only tell us how soon.” And the answer they get is “We cannot tell you when the Native difficulty will be got over, but we are going to send some more colonists to you.” b The intimation is plain enough. The old folly of the pensioner villages is to be re-enacted ; and men are to be sent out at a cost of £l3O a man to colonize Taranaki, when we are importing immigrants at Canterbury at tne rate of £5. 6 Restore confidence in the Natives and settlers will flock to Taranaki. Send pensioners without confidence, and you will only have a large military settlement, an enormous incubus on the resources of the Colony for many years to come. It may be said that the minister could not help himself. The Assembly put him into that position, and his hands are tied—yes, but who helped to tie them ? He spoke and he voted for placing the minister in a position in which he could not act, and then he accepted the office which himself had made it degradation to hold. The opposition are amply avenged. He has brought the Government into utter contempt. Stafford fought a miserable mistake, but all events he had a policy and fought for it. Fox energetically negociated ; his conciliation was real and active. Do'mett neither fights nor negociates. Of all the adherants of the Stafford Ministry, none was more violent. His was the loudest rattle in the tail. He comes into office and tho Government machine seems to stand still. To use the language of Grattan : “In debate ho is a hero, every sentence is a challenge. In the field he is a diplomatist.” It may be said what has the Government done to call for this strong language ? Simply nothing. That is tho very charge. Six months have passed away since the Assembly broke up, and not one step, that we can see, has been taken towards the solution of tho difficulty. And yet, during all this time, a mountain of debt is accumulating, and a drain on the resources of the Colony is going on which is fast creating revolution ; for the dismemberment of the Colony is revolution, and the disorganization which used to exist amongst tho Maoris is spreading to the European population. Taranaki will endure reticence and the South will endure robbery no longer. There can be no use in concealing the truth. The truth is, Domett had a great work before him. He was called to the Governor’s counsels to heal party fends which were imperilling the safety of the Colony. He had it in his power to do this great work by uniting with Fox, and he would not do it. He preferred to stand alone. And the result is what every one expected. For some years Mr. Domett was what used to be termed the ment hack under Sir George Grey’s old Government. On him fell a good deal of the unpopularity which the long-continued refusal to introduce a civilized form of Government brought on the Governor in those days. On the introduction of a constitution, Domett retreated into his shell. It is a remarkable fact that his ascent to power again was coincident with a great retreat towards the old irresponsible form of administration. When the Assembly virtually restored ,to the Governor arbitrary power over three-fourths of the Northern Island, the old official crawls out of his retreat, and basks again in tho \ sunshine of Government House. It may be pleaded that the present Government ought to be spared, because it is only a stopgap Government.—But unfortunately it is not the gay it stops, but the whole highway. We had a Government by force, then a Government by concession, now we have a Government by ‘potter-