Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, MAY 18, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 116, 18 May 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, MAY 18, 1863.

It will, we make no doubt, be extremely gratifying to our readers to know that our contemporary the Herald is converted to our views, and that that enlightened journal has latterly publicly recanted all his long-cher-ished and heretofore carefully promulgated ideas in reference to the advantages—in fact to the positive necessity—of keeping the peace with the Maories, no matter at what cost —no matter at what sacrifice of justice. We, however, are not surprised at this change in the opinions of our friend over the way, for we always felt perfectly sure that sooner or later that paper would fall a victim to our eloquence, and become a convert to the true faith.

The long and short of the matter is, that the Hawke's Bay Herald, finding that it is useless to continue talking about the impolicy of thrashing the Maories into something like shape, since there remains not the ghost of a supporter of that cautious method of dealing with them, has, with that singular forethought and regard for public opinion for which he is remarkable, made a virtue of necessity and hacked himself into our views. We, however, repudiate our new disciple ; we will have none of him, for he will most probably turn round again in the course of a week or two, upon hearing that Sir George Grey has diplomatized the Maoris for the thousandth time, and say “ that’s what we always said, and we have no doubt but that it is the best course which under the circumstances can be persued.”

The news from Taranaki and Waikato up to this date is cheering in the extreme. It would seem that Sir George is at last brought face to face with the Maories, and views that people in a light which, if we may judge from his antecedent conduct, he never before saw them in. But yet, singularly enough, surrounded as he is at this moment by hostile natives in arms against his authority, and, in fact, in a perfect state of anarchy, for it is impossible to find any sort of government or control amongst them, he is endeavoring by every means in his power by the use of all the arts of diplomacy and chicanery to stave off our appeal to the only authority which the Maoris at this moment recognize, the authority of force. ■ If Sir George had begun where Browne left off, and had reduced the Maories to submission, and had then held out to them the hand of friendship and brotherly love, then the surrounding and admiring natives would have been rejoiced by seeing the sublime picture of the victorious Saint George, raising up his prostrate and repentant foe, and placing much-battered people on the

dignified position of the pedestal of their own legs. The Dragon being conquered, and led in chains made of the choicest flowers of speech culled from the most beautiful garden of literature, the bewildered philanthropist looking on would behold the invincible Sir George standing in that magnificent attitude only assumed by the consciously worthy,—of one who has vindicated the rights of man in the true sense, and has moreover well cultivated the minds of his children the Maories with the plough of war, that they are prepared to receive any amount of moral seed which that eminent political farmer is prepared to sow amongst them.

There can be no doubt but that, the Governor will find general support throughout the Colony in his attempts to reduce the Maories to submission by force of arms; and we cordially congratulate the country at large on the prospect of being relieved from the ignominious and disgraceful position ofbeing trampled under foot of the Maories ; and we at the same time receive in return, with due humility, the congratulations of the country at large upon seeing the views which we have so long and so strenuously maintained rise triumphant over all opposition, and soar away into the infinite space of things accomplished.

We feel pretty certain? that the army at the disposal of the Government will not prove equal to half the same number of men, properly handled, two years ago. We have to go over again step by step the well-fought ground upon which so much good English blood has already been shed, and we shall find in doing so that jive Natives of the past time would be only just equivalent to one of the present time. Two years of study and preparation, two years of calm contemplation of themselves in the light of the victors, and of us in the light of the vanquished, has so worked upon these people, and has so inflated their already large amount of selfconceit, that they will be found vastly more determined in their resistance than ever they were. We sincerely trust that this war will be the last of the kind with which the annals of these Colonies will be disgraced. Let the result of the fighting be what it may, whether we sustain a second defeat, and accept the terms of peace offered by the Natives, or whether we turn the tables and oblige them to accept terms of peace from us, it matters little, —we can expect to come out of the aftair with no credit and no new laurels. There is little national renown to be got by the most powerful nation in the world conquering a handful of savages cooped up in the extremely confined limits of this Island. Had these Maories been firmly governed from the first, we should never have heard of such a thing as a regular stand-up fight with them. There would no doubt have been numerous petty squabbles and disturbances, but never such a thing as a regularly organised system of revolt, or of open and defiant throwing down of the glove. Under the present aspect of affairs, it would be highly desirable for His Honor the Superintendent to use his powerful influence to set the Volunteer movement going in this Province, and put the people in fighting' trim. There is no knowing what may happen, and we feel sure that that intelligent gentleman will agree with us that prevention is better than cure. We ourselves will send him a draft (payable at sight) for fifty men ready to act as Foot, Horse, or Artillery, or all three together for the matter of that, and our youthful and intellectual devil shall act as trumpeter to the whole concern; while we, being of a non-combatant turn of mind, will lend our powerful aid in the applauding department from our study window, before which we make no doubt but that all the principal proceedings will be conducted for our special entertainment. If nothing else after all comes of the little “ turn up” between Saint George and the Dragon of Waikato, it will have the effect of making people cautious of receiving as gospel the prophecies of the Herald. In

short, that respectable journal has come to grief,— The Hawke's Say Herald eat on a wall, The Hawke's Say Herald had a great fall; Not all McLean’s horses nor all McLean’s men Will set the Herald on his legs again.