The Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, WEDNESDAY, 5th APRIL., 1865.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume V, Issue 248, 5 April 1865, Page 2

The Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, WEDNESDAY, sth APRIL., 1865.

Our intelligence from Wairoa is nut, to our mind, at all of a reassuring nature. As the leaven of the hau-hau doctrine has spread, throughout the mass at Poverty Bay,-so without doubt will it spread .further, and,’ as before said, reason is of no avail to check it, for reason is relinquished when the superstition is adopted. The slaughter by our military of hundreds of them will fail to convince the others that they are not invulnerable. Those who see it are readily put off with some plausible ex’cuse for the circumstance; those who do not, are deceived by false and lying accounts ; moreover they are all infatuated and given over to the priests to be used by them at their will. It seems, indeed, that the delusion is like a huge wave spreading over the land, and engulphiug the mind of the Maori as it meets with it; that it is almost "impossible for any of them to resist its influence, and potent as tribal feuds has hitherto been to divide between separate bodies of these people, even these are of no avail iu the present case; therefore, it is useless to speak of friendly natives when such a superstition is swallowing up all distinctions, and forming a more potent bond of anion than that of Kingism; the land league, or any other tie that has hitherto' united the Maori against the pakeha. ■ On undisciplined minds such as theirs, there is no influence of such power to work as terror, and the more vague and indefinite the fear, the greater is its power. This was illustrated lately at Poverty Bay. where . the Christian (?) natives evidently feared the ability of the deceivers to perform their threats, and.,the influence of the missionaries Was not sufficient to remove this fear, though . guccessful in vanquishing the hau-hau in disgrace for a time; yet as soon as terror is felt ghee more, they yield themselves victims to - |he delusion. This principle has beeen at the |pht of devil worship in all ages and amongst ||l people, a»d At . is vain to suppose that

half civilised natives—now to' all appearance friendly—will be more able to resist its ininfluence than others have been.

Id view of the above considerations, it is with feelings of the greatest disapprobation that we find the Government of the province supplying such natives with arms aud ammunition. Such a step has always had our strong disapproval, and now more than ever before. We greatly fear that the time o| trial for New Zealand is at baud, when tein.porising and vacillation must be cast aside if we would not succumb to the crafty priesthood of the pai marire fanaticism.

Even now, as we have before shown, the leaven is at work amongst the natives of this district, even those who are still going in and out in daily intercourse with the settlers ; and though the chiefs profess to repudiate their sanction as yet, it shows us that the general state of the Maori mind is peculiarly alive to its evil influence, apd will be most readily receptive of it as soon as a favorable opportunity for doing so shall airive, and none oi us can tell how soon this may be. ■