THE NATIVE DIFFICULTY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IV, Issue 186, 5 August 1864, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE NATIVE DIFFICULTY.

(From the Canterbury Standard), Eveby paper that we read now-a-days teems with criticisms on native affairs, dire laments over military incapacity, and bitter prognostications of future evil. Describing the frightful and dangerous state offhepatient, not one offers a remedy or a cure for the disease, or if it should do so, it is some absurd nostrum worse than the actual evil itself. English and Colonial news-sheets all swell the doleful ditty and join in a chorus in condemnation of New Zealand warfare. Hero we have a splendid soldiery, commanded by an able General, led by officers of experience and skill in military tactics, men who have served in every quarter of the globe, and who have in a hundred fights fought and bled for the Queen, injthe Crimea, India and Africa. They have striven and do now strive to uphold the honour of England and gallantly they do their duty in every struggle here in New Zealand. The foe{they contend with, half civilized and desperate risks his all, and with arms in his hands, stakes his life in the venture. Despairing of success he will chaunt his death song, and in his half mad and mistaken enthusiasm will rush out on certein destruction. The Maori is not now what he once was. Each year he is rapidly advancing in knowledge, of both good and evil. Every day adds to his acquaintance with and practice of our mode of warfare, and each day he presents a more formidable front to his pakeha opponent. Building fortified places in a style hitherto unheard of among half civilized nations, he, copying our tactics, is a match for his white foe, though supplied with all {the appliances of modern warfare. But the Maori is not invincible. Years ago wo advocated the guerilla system of warfare, and our views, then formed from practical experience, have since often : provcd correct. We must have men acquainted with their work if we would succeed. It is not a mere question of gallantry, or military experience. In a warfare such as the present, fighting in a wild country, with a half civilized aud rudely equipped but brave enemy, it becomes a question of practical knowledge, not of the art of tear, but of the country, native habits, locations aud places of resort, and the minutiae of native modes of warfare. Through want of this knowledge many of our best and bravest have fallen without striking a blow in self defence. Others entangled and betrayed,fought, fell and died. Who ‘can question courage like this ? Who dare to criticise ? Yet it is done, generally winding up with a lament. In place of such criticisms after the event , which we consider worse than useless, why not boldly and fearlessly speak as we have done, and state “ what may be done for the future ” in our opinion at least. Never will the Maori be conquered under the late or present system of fighting. No! do away with the past! Lightly-armed and well-provisioned troops, by quick and rapid movements, will soon give a good account of themselves, and do more by this harrassing mode of attack to strike fear and dismay into the Maori mind than all the big guns and storming of pas. This has already been proved, and fshould this plan be followed up, these repeated surprises and reprisals, would foon wear out the unfortunate and reckless Maori. 1 We write in mercy to both pakeha aud Maori. In winter weather, and in wet and swampy, or at least fiat and damp, low lying countrv, dysentery will prove to a stationery body of troops more merciless in its lingering death and lonely soldier’s grave than the rifle ball or tomahawk. The Maoris, too,-in equal proportion perish from scarcity of food, and exposure in procuring the bare means of subsistence ; and so passes awav the gloomy winter and wet spring. On the advance of mild weather, encounters t ake place and the old game of war is played over again—hundreds are added to the list of killed and wounded, and wc see pakeha and Maori as far off as ever from a termination of the war. Then, what has all this cost? How long will it be likely to continue ? If there was a probability of this state of affairs being brought to a speedy conclusion, the cost, although large, would not trouble us so much. But we see no signs of a near settlement of the war question ; and at the same rate the six millions will vanish, leaving nothing to toll of what has been, save the rattle of the coin in the speculators’ pockets, and some hundreds, if not thousands of brave men’s graves. No .vender that some like to see the war drag on its weary and tortuous length when they are the very agents of native protection societies. To save the Natives from these foolish and mistaken friends, we prav for a speedy end to the war. To save this island ruin we trust to see a new order of things. Let us at least not show by ” false sympathy” that we want “ Maori extermination.” Wc have striven and will continue to do so, for a mutual understanding and a thorough acquaintance with the speediest way of terminating the present misery of New Zealand. There are good men in this and in the other island who understand the question. Can nothing be proposed by them ? If people who know nothing about the matter at home can memorialize our Government and find plenty to back their petitions even now can nothing stay the storm of ruin and death ? We say “ it is possible! ” In pity to New Zealand, wo say shun the wire-drawn, lachrymose and sadly mistaken views of the Maori sympathisers of England. We sympathise heartily with the Maori, misguided and misled thought he be. But after every engagement our heart bleeds to see the list of our brave and gallant countrymen killed, wounded, or missing, for what ? In defending the honour of England ! God bless them all and every one, gallant follows, they deserve a nobler death! In his true and gallant devotion, the death of every British soldier is honorable aud and glorious. But why should such things be P The Commander-in-cannot help it. His officers receive and execute their respective orders, officers and men rush on, fight, and fall. Each and all have done their duty. Who then are to blame for the present mode of conducting the Native question ? Is it the real voice of the Maori people ? Or is it the voice of New Zealand as held by the pakeha. No! It is.the voice, the cry of sympathizing Christian England, headed by a party of our officious zealots, who, (and we do not excuse their

ofilciousness, because of their ignorance of New Zealand affairs) press and urge on the people of England to false and mistaken shews of sympathy, with they know not what. Does such absurd interference not add to the horrors of the daily struggle ? The sooner the Maori comes to his senses the happier will his future bo. He must learn to respect the pakeha. Otherwise, all the Waikato and Taranaki settlements will only prove hotbeds of future misery. Our own opinion we know to correspond with that of many of our ablest men—men with large hearts who would not harm a worm needlessly, but who can see nothing but the absurdest folly in false sympathy movements. When the time comes for active and zealous co-opcration with the efforts of the Maori themselves for peace, then the ranks will swell. But they are bent on fighting. They will not listen to the voice of reproof or warning. They say, “it is too late,” and go on slaughtering our countrymen in so-called self-defence. We dare not stop our fighting with them; “it is too late,” to quote their own words. Whilst they defy us in armed bands, and will not yield to reason or the voice of mercy and pity, what can we do ? Aid, by hand aud voice, the Governor, our gallant commander, his bravo officers and soldiery—condemn all rash and weakheaded sympathisers—and by every means in our power let every man, of whatever party, join in wishing and striving for a speedy'’close to'the present hard-fought, though inglorious, war. The sharper the fighting, the speedier the cure. By this we do not mean such wholesome and useless murder as the Rangariri or Gate 'pas, but sharp little harrassing actions of all classes of soldiery, led by hardy and resolute bushmen. Harrassed out and weary, the Maori must eventually break, scatter, and succumb, not to big guns, nor large bodies of men, but to small bodies of soldiery led in the'way we have mentioned. The question is then—Can this be done? It can—and our earnest wish for the speedy adoption, at once, of some such plan, comes from our heart, because we feel convinced that it is for the speedier prosperity of New Zealand.