The Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY 22ND MAY, 1865.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 5, Issue 268, 22 May 1865, Page 2

The Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY 22ND MAY, 1865.

Fbom the Ministerial memoranda that have recently occupied a portion of our attention, onr readers will doubtless ha,ve arrived at conclusions similar to those we have deduced, and these may be briefly stated as follows :

That the time has arrived in which Ministers regard with serious alarm the enormous burthens the war is placing upon the shoulders of the colony,.compared with the trifling tangible results it has produced. That consequently Ministers are resolved to withdraw from its prosecution in as brief a period as possible, consistent with an appearance of decency, to dispense with the Imperial troops, and to carry on purely defensive operations, and this only where absolutely necessary, against aggressive rebellion by means of a small colonial force.

That both Governor and Ministers stand confessed as unable to cope with the difficulties of the native question, as this retreat from active operations plainly shows they have found themselves unable to conquer the rebels and suppress the insurrection, unless at a cost that the colony «an by no means bear. That the Ministers have given up tlie idea of defraying the war bill from the proceeds of land confiscated or to be confiscated from the Wbels, Which, it will be remembered. Was

the intention of the General Assembly ; and this it would seem, from the fear of a misconstruction of their motived, did they adopt any extensive plan of confiscation, to say nothing about the’ manifest opposition both of the Governor and the General, in whose hands the Home Government have practically left the operation of.the measure.

, The present aspect of our position in relation to the rebels is, that after a five years’ struggle with them, we leave them in a more defiant and more threatening position than they have ever before assumed, for whereas through the campaign their demand has been merely to be left alone, they have recently resolved upon the of the white settler, and there is no doubt of their intentention to use every effort to carry their resolution into effect.

.They are slowly but surely; we are retreating and giving them renewed courage in their resistance to the progress of European institutions and law.

But feeble in the work of quelling the rebellion as the Ministry show themselves, even their mild intentions and endeavors are frustrated by the General, to whom is assigned the conduct of military operations. Now for the first time it has been disclosed to us that he has scruples of conscience on the subject of the war he has undertaken to conduct, and surely no more than this is needed to account for his miserably small success.

All this tends to but one result—-as before said, our retreat gives the enemy courage. Their commissariat has just been recruited by some <£sooo from the Colonial Treasury, obtained through the Compensation Court We hear also that the, votaries of the new fanaticism are engaged in planting extensive crops in the most secret recesses of their impregnable country. The results they perceive effected on our part gives them reason to hope for ultimate success against us; the withdrawal of our troops, and the contemptible v appearance of that with which it is proposed to supply their place, will all conspire to give them confidence, and to render the obtaining the adhesion of those tribes that for a time refuses to join them, a w jrk of ease —a work, too, to which all their energies are now directed. Notwithstanding the calm aspect they have assumed, those who are best acquainted with them bear their testimony to this fact, that they are quietly, but not less surely, working their way and gaining an ascendancy over the minds even of the well-disposed natives all over the country. We have always been opposed to a temporising policy. We have no doubt of the truth that it is to such a policy we are to lay the blame of all the evils under which the colony is now groaning ; but if ever the result of such a policy threatened evil, certainly never more than now. Yet it is that which is too plainly marked out by all parties concerned, from the Colonial Ministry to the Colonial Office, which, in the most recent of its despatches, has distinctly stated that the Home Government has no intention of effectually conquering the rebels, not even so far as to enforce the universal recognition °f British law, but only so far as will enable both Maori and European to cultivate their land and pursue their own interests in such security as the nature of the case admits of, and shall remove any immediate occasion (by concession, we presume] of quarrel. On this point we quote from the Southern Cross : “ Were we the unprincipled set of wretches in Auckland that we are generally reputed to be in England and elsewhere, we should rejoice at this declaration. There will be no limit to commissariat expenditure wo promise our traducers, if this is to be the Imperial policy. The Maori need not submit ; why should he ? Does not Mr, Cardwell expressly tell the Governor that he is no? to give the natives such a thrashing as will disable them from fighting again? Does not the same high official tell them that they need not recognise European laws unless

they like ? And has not the Governor the power to do just a& be pleases, without reference to anything bis responsible advisers iday say? William Thompson will soon light upon this passage in the despatch ; and he will act upon it. One would almost suppose, from his letter to Colonel Greer, that he had been in private communication with Mr. Cardwell, he anticipates the instructions from home'so accurately. For our part we are deeply sorry at the tone of the despatch. It is undoing what has been done. It is discouraging the loyal natives and the Englishborn subjects of the Queen, and encouraging rebellion and lawlessness. What the end will be, it is not hard to fortell; what the miseries in store for this unhappy country before the end comes, no man can fairly anticipate. One thing is certain; the New Zealand war is not well begun, and it never will be ended satisfactorily under instructions similar to those just received from England.”

We have remarked that all this tends to one end. Deserted by the mother country, after being impoverished by a five years’ mockery of a war in whom there seems to have been never any sincere intention of conquering the rebels. The colonists themselves have to prepare for a struggle perhaps as severe as any recorded in history, in which the stakes will be our hearths and homes and the lives of all dear to us, as well as our own, in which the Maori will infallibly meet the fate his short-sighted advocates would last of all hope to see. The struggle will become one between the races in which the natives will not be as they are at present, divided into two classes v turbulent and quiet, but will all be fees, and 'all have to be conquered by the white settler, unless indeed we sacrifice our all and leave New Zealand to the Maori—a consummation, we believe, the very last upon the list of probable events.