Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, JUNE 29, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 128, 29 June 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, JUNE 29, 1863.

It is very evident that the present Ministry have got into such a wretched state of bewilderment and panic that they do not know which way to turn. The nervous agitation of mind which is but too plainly discernible in all their acts indicates that poor old Domett and garrulous and self-sufficient Bell have struck their Ministerial barque upon a rock, and that it has become a total wreck. It is, therefore, high time that the General Assembly meet to relieve our panic-stricken governors of the helm. We don’t expect much good to come out of a meeting of the General Assembly, because, when that august body of representatives does get itself together, the members do nothing else but squabble and fight and abuse one another, just for all the world like the Provincial Council of Hawke’s Bay, or a party of irascible and ancient ladies. But still, bad as the remedy is, it appears to be the better one of the two evils. There is not now the most remote hope of the Domett Ministry pulling through the present critical state of affairs, therefore it would be as well to put them quietly out of their misery. Under these circumstances, then, we demand the immediate calling together of the Parliament, as the only hope—in short, the last chance left us—of salvation from the pending ruin. It is but too evident that the present Ministry is drifting rapidly into a state of helpless despair, and that they will presently get the country into the same state. These are most certainly not the men to hold the reins of power at this time, when the very existence of this Island as a British Colony is threatened. These, we say, are not the men, whose palsied shaking hands denote the utter consternation of their minds, to carry on the Government at this time, when each hour brings with it some new, urgent, and most stirring event, which requires to be met with promptitude. It is no use for those members of a cowardly and selfish class who have rough ridden poor Hawke’s Bay into a state of poverty and disgrace to snarl and frown at us ; we know but too well what stuff they are made of, and we snap our fingers at such paltry fellows. We have accepted the duty of expressing the opinions entertained of public matters by the mass of the people, and we will not be deterred from performing that duty by that combination of corruption and jobbery which has so long surrounded us, and which has threatened to engulf in its horrible pit of abomination the entire Island. It is our hard but agreeable duty to attach, expose, and to demolish that miserable clique of imbeciles who are the cause of the present deplorable state of this Island, and we will not shrink from it. Therefore, we again repeat, in the name of the people, that the present Ministry must and shall be dismissed. A little time ago, to the delight of every

right-thinking man, it was understood that that block of land upon which our unhappy countrymen were barbarously slaughtered was to be confiscated "as a just and righteous sacrifice to their manes ; but it would seem that such is the oscillating and uncertain state of the Governmental mind, that no sooner have they to all appearance determined on any line of action tending to a decisive course than they bolt off from it as though frightened with even the shadow of anything like an act of resolution. The time for action, stern, determined, and unmistakeable action, has arrived, and nothing less will check the wide-spread and deeply-rooted disaffection of the Maories. We have now no option in the matter of peace or war. The Maories are so thoroughly convinced of their superiority over us that nothing will satisfy them but a trial of strength. Whether this state of feeling is owing to their extreme bravery and scorn of the idea of danger, or whether it is to be attributed to their extreme ignorance and presumption is rather hard to say with certainty. We.are, however, strongly of opinion that the last is the real state of the case. If the Maories had for years been groaning under a tyrannical and cruel oppression, if their lands, their women, and the fruits of their labor had been violently and remorselessly seized ; if their children had been taken from them and ruthlessly subjected to a life of slavery and degradation, then we should look with admiration upon that bandful of oppressed and persecuted people who so bravely, so nobly struggle for their freedom and their rights against their powerful and cruel oppressors, and they would be deserving of the highest applause that a freedomloving people could bestow upon them. But the ease is just the opposite to that. These Maories, so far from having been injured in

person or in property, even in the very smallest particular. Lave been favored to sncb a degree that they are actually paid to bring any case of grievance which they may have to make out before the law-constituted tribunals. And not only that ; we have shown ourselves ever in such a cringing attitude to them that they cannot for the life of them believe that a people who are to be frightened by the mere mention of the word “ ivhaei ’ into the most extravagant concessions,—a people who, upon the mere sound of that small but significant word, will give up everything, even the very first principles of justice, are a people who can shew fight, and fight, too, with a bravery equal to their own, and with a determination and scorn of danger and of privation which would he impossible to them, and which is the admiration and wonder of the whole world. We say they will not believe this, and therefore they treat us with contempt and scorn. That they will presently become painfully convinced of their error we make no doubt, but that that will rather he the result of accident than design is evident, from the fact that Sir George Grey, even now when the blood of Ids countrymen has been shed like water, and is yet warm anil reeking on the earth, —when the flag which he is specially deputed to support and represent is dishonored and disgraced,—■when his own authority is treated with contempt and his power laughed at and ridiculed, even now that unhappy man is ready to pluck the olive branch, bury the hatchet, and smoke with those ruthless ruf. flans the calumet of peace. It is hardly possible to believe it, hut it is nevertheless but too true.

The Natives of Hawke’s Bay are iii a very unenviable position ; they hate and fear the Waikatos, but they are not satisfied but that those “ eaters of mountains and drinkers of rivers” will yet prove too many for us, and come down upon them for not rendering help in the general attack upon the pakeha which is in contemplation. There is to be found amongst our Natives the clement of dissatisfaction with the Government; but it would be difficult to get a clear explanation of that feeling from them. They can giv6

no more clear reason why they are dissatisfied than that they are dissatisfied. The fact is, until the Maories are forcibly obliged to accept [certain institutions, and a certain [form of Government, they will be always in a state of discontent and dissatisfied- They are a cunning and[ a knowing race, and they have a strong hankering after the flesh-pots of Egypt, worthy of a better object. Until the Natives are, throughout the whole Island, disarmed and reduced to a state of perfect helplessness, they will always be in a state, more or less, of hostile restlessness, and there can he no douht but that wars with them, or disturbances of the peace of somesort or other caused by them, will occur periodically like any other national affliction until not a hundred of them are left to carry on the game. Up to this time every fight they have had with us has proved advantageous to them, and they very naturally take delight in fighting in consequence of the success of that line of action.

We hope to hear of some very decisive steps being taken at Taranaki; and we sincerely hope to[hear that Cameron has moved a force into the country of the Waikatos, so as to bring that troublesome people to a reckoning. It is better by far that the whole Native race should rise at once, ami so let us know the full extent of the danger which threatens us, than that we should he kept in our present state of uncertainty. The energies of the country are paralysed, capital is locked up, and a general stagnation and lifelessness is rapidly taking hold ox all classes.

We have, unfortunately, very little confidence in the authorities placed over us in this Province, —they are all men of talk — chips of Sir George Grey’s block —mere portions of the shadow of that pitiable man ; so that in the event of matters coming to the worst, we should be like a flock of sheep without a shepherd.