NEW ZEALAND WAR

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IV, Issue 193, 23 September 1864, Page 2 (Supplement)

NEW ZEALAND WAR

(From the I'imes , July 15.) Imeee is a Zealand in the northern hemisphere, and a Zealand in the southern ; New Zealand we call it, but no doubt it is a namesake of the northern. Doth are islands and both are occupied by brave aud proud races, apt to take a high ground, and well able to defend a moderate one. The mention oi the former just now is painfully suggestive. V\ e have had to leave it in the lurch. We have made a good defence, it is true. They were wilful and obstinate. Finding a difficulty iu their way, they attempted to ride through it, and break the fence that would not part or bend. I3ut unfortunately the small people that were to reap all this glory could only hope to succeed by our assistance, at our risk and cost, and in a cause upon which we had tendered our counsels in vain. So, upon counting the cost, we declined to enter into an interminable and unprofitable struggle that did not even promise us the pleasure of doing things as we might think best. Not altogether without loss of credit, wo backed out of this affair. W e have not been so fortunate in the other sphere with the other Zealand. There, too, we have to play second fiddle to a Colonial Legislature ; there, too, we have to find all the ships, all the men, all the money—everything, in fact, with the single reserve that we are not to be allowed, a voice in the management of affairs. Wc are to maintain an army, which we have seen put at ton thousand men, and a fleet, provided with the best new rifled guns and muskets, and subsisted at the cost of several thousand pounds a day, without having even the chance of being listened to a moment either as to the conduct of the war or as to our dealings with tha natives. All that we know and that we learn, especially from the last mail, is that, we are driving the savages from one resting point to another, that we are doing our work with that weapon which strikes down women and children before even it touches the fighting men—starvation, and that meanwhile we are acquiring no glory, not even the very small glory to bo picked up by clearing off savages with courage and skill. We are ont-generallcd ; we are surprised ; we fall into ambuscades; we are beaten at a stand-up fight; a whole regiment is put to the rout, and its officers shot down while trying in vain to rally their men ; after thundering for hours against wooden stockades, our men are scared and paralyzed by “ terrific yells.” We are not even allowed to retreive our disgrace, for the enemy escape in the night. Upon counting heads, with more than a hundred killed and wounded on our side, we cannot hope to have disabled more than torty of tlie too. So we have to content ourselves with the beggarly consolation that, though wo arc killing the natives slowly, they are only 60,000 ; and though we don’t shoot many, yet famine and disease are doing our work, we will eventually succeed in exterminating a brave and high-spirited race. The disaster at Gate Pah tells its own story. All went on well till the troops, having forced several lines of defence, and fancying resistance was at an end, suddenly found themselves exposed to a deadly fire from all sides, and from toe very ground beneath their feet, besides a hand-to-hand encounter, in which they had to meet tomahawks as well as they could with the bayonet. Even when (bey had recovered from flic first surprise, they were still at a disadvantage in their firearms, the Maories having double-barrelled smooth-bores, and the Uritish soldier the Enfield rifle, certainly not intended for close quarters. As every inch of the ground was very cleverly laid out for this occasion, and the defenders had probably fallen back only to draw the assailants into this fiery furnace, we must not be too hard on the soldiers, who only did what the bravest and best have done before—retreat trom a position in which they could only fall. If the 43rd Kegiinent retired too soon —and it certainly did retire without waiting for orders or consulting the safety of its olficcrs—it did not retire without first suffering terrible loss. The officers fell, because no doubt they were picked off from loopholes; and while they were doing their best to rally and re-animate their men, their fate added to the general discouragement. We must not, then, be hard ou men who did their duty up to tlie very loophole of the hidden foe, the very mouth of the rifle-pit, and the very swing of several hundred tomahawks. One thing, however, is too evident. While the officers did their duty as they will always do, almost equally in the best and worst of causes, the soldiers had not the enthusiasm which drives a man into the very jaws of death and keeps linn there. Hiey had no wish to be shot down riddled, or hacked and hewn to pieces—for what ? For the glory of Old England? For the protection of their altars and hearths and wives and families? F’or vengeance? For justice and mercy ? No, for none of those things, but just to clear off some poor fellows from their own native land, and obtain the title clear of incumbrances for the speculators at Auckland. That the case of those speculators, and of the color nists, who want land and can’t get it, is very hard we doubt not; but hard as their case is, it is still harder to die for it themselves, or even to pay other people to die for it. The disaster betrays, what we have other means of knowing, that the soldiers we laud in New Zealand are in one respect seriously “ demoralized,” as a military critic would express it. They have their own opinion upon the war, and they have lost all faith in its justice aud wisdom. They don't like shoot ing down savages upon their own land. It has been repeatedly stated by soldiers, that the most hateful work they were ever employed on was collecting tithes, levying distresses, and supporting other legal processes upon the Irish Peasantry. That is the feeling which now pervades the ilrithh F’orces in New Zealand. They don’t like the work, and therefore they don’t do it as well as they would if their hearts were in it. It may be something to fight for what is not p—but it is not a thing to die for. If the colonists want the land, let them fight for it and die for it. They can do so with some reason. Their blood is up. They have lost houses and land, cattle and everything. Many, we fear, have lost relatives and servants. It is a

good cause in their case, and to the colonial apprehension. But it is a sordid, a very coldblooded affair for the British soldier, who knows only what he sees. If, then, the war is to proceed with any hopes of success, the colonists must take it more in hand than they have done hitherto, both by risking their own persons, and by dividing the cost.