Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 121, 5 June 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1863.

The late cold-blooded and atrocious massacre of our unfortunate countrymen at Taranaki has filled every heart with indignation and horror, and the news of it has very naturally been received with one loud and prolonged cry of execration echoing from one end of the country to the other, vented alike on the dastardly murderers and on the miserable Government and Governor whose imbecile policy and evil councils have culminated in such a horrible catastrophe. The cup of Grey’s policy is filled now to the brim, and the last drop of weakness which it is possible for him to put into it has fallen with that crowning act of cowardice the giving up of Waitara. This last piece of imbecility stamps him, both in the eyes of the colonists and in the eyes of the Natives of New Zealand, as beyond hope and not worthy of further trust. It is utterly impossible, in the present state of the Native mind, to conceive how Grey could possibly give up that Waitara block. Has he not been engaged for two years in talking about it, and in examining the proceedings of his predecessors in reference to it ? Does Governor Grey dare to give the lie to all the careful enquiry made by Governor Browne into the validity of this purchase, after having endeavored to cajole W. King into a belief that Browne was right, and that he (King) was wrong, and had, therefore, better peaceably give the land up without further talk, while in his heart he felt secretly sure that the land was King’s by every equitable right, and by every fair title ? The whole Native race, from one end of the Island to the other, look upon the giving up Waitara as a declaration and confession on the part of Grey that for two years he has been actively engaged in trying to do them a gross injustice, and to cover by chicanery and what he calls diplomacy, an act which he had not courage to defend at the point of the sword. Bell’s drivelling letter, written and sent to the Waikatos immediately after the perpetration of the foul murder, at once puts that man on a level with Grey, and we fear it is impossible to go down lower than that.

It is very ranch to be deplored that there are to be found men amongst ourselves in this Province, who desire that the foul deed of blood, and the equally foul policy of Grey, which led to the doing of that deed, should be looked upon, the one as merely an ordinary murder, and the other as a very just and righteous course. Nay, more, these people look upon the giving up of the disputed Waitara block, about which so much blood and treasure had been expended, and which has led to so much misery, wretchedness, and desolation in the Province of Taranaki, as the pinnacle of wisdom, and the acme of bravery. These miserable men, supporters of Grey, heap coals of fire upon their own and their master’s head by the folly of their conduct. Not content with upholding this dastardly conduct of Grey’s, they seek to sow divisions amongst the people, by holding up to scorn those honest men who, having greater respect for the honor of their country than for their own private interests, wish to see the whole Native race brought into a proper state of subjection, and the question of the Mastership in this country settled in such a way as to place the probability of its being re-opened as without the range of possibilities. Because some of these cowardly supporters of a cowardly Govern-

ment happen to have succeeded in accumulating wealth out of the corruption of the country, they must needs look upon that class of men whose little all is their own, honestly and hardly got, and honestly and hardly kept, as a class not worthy, in the present unsettled state of matters, of a moment’s consideration. And because there are brave and honest men, who are willing in the cause of their adopted country, and because the blood of our barbarously-slaugh-tered countrymen may not go unavenged, to stake all the results of years of hard and ill-requited toil, they are stigmatized with having nothing to lose. Is not the cottage as dear to the peasant as is the palace to the peer ? Are not the small results of long long years of rising up early and going down late and eating the bread of carefulness, as precious to the owner as are the accumulated an d ill-gotten gains of a life of corruption and injustice, to the owner of them ? We say that if their he any difference at all between these two classes of proprietors, the loss, in the event of war here, would fall heaviest upon the honest but small holder, because his little wealth is the result of his prudence, and was dearly earned by the sweat of Lis brow; while the loss which might fall upon some of our large holders would but deprive them of wealth which they have not earned, and do not, in consequence deserve, and of the position they hold in the eyes of some of the money-worship-ping fellows, and which position is to them as is the dew of Hermou.

The whole race of Natives, from one end of the island to the other, either openly or secretly look upon the horrible and brutal murder of those men of the 57th who fell the other day at Taranaki as an act which places the perpetrators of it in the first ranks of the bravest of the brave, and they moreover look upon it as giving further evidence of their own courage and of our cowardice, and upon the murderous actors as the saviours of their race. In their secret hearts and in their secret councils the whole Native race view the blood of those shun men as blood shed by the hand of the Avenger, and as a just and righteous sacrifice upon the altar of their country and of their nation. They cousider this act, a parallel to which in ferocious atrocity cannot be found in the annals of even the most depraved and ignorant savages, as an act which was justified by all the rules of war, and by all the rules of bravery and heroism known to and recognized by them. We have no apprehension of the rising of the Maories of this Province, but for all that we shall most strongly reprehend any laxity on the part of the authorities in arming the people. The avarice and love of gain keeps the balance even with that innate contempt, if not hatred, with which the whole race look upon us. Upon their fears we may rest in peace, but upon their love, never. That anything that can be said or written will be likely in the smallest degree to influence the minds of the natives is ridiculous; their plans, either for evil or for good are laid, and they will not depart from those plans unless under the influence of extraordinary and un-looked-for pressure. It is clearly not their interest to do so.

The following gentlemen have been gazetted as Registrars of Births, Deaths, an;l Marriages. Edward Catchpool, Napier; William Rathbone, Waipukurau; William Hunter, Porangahau ; Henry Gason, Mohaka. The Waieoa Natives. — A correspondent writing from this district on the 28th May, says:—“ It may not be out of place to remark (as the whole country is in such a disaffected state) that the Natives of Te Wairoa are quite loyal and peaceable in every respect, take them as a body; especially now Mr. Hamlin has arrived, whom they are very fond of, and to whose Gospel teaching may be attributed their present peaceful disposition.”