OUR PRESENT POSITION.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 4, 10 July 1865, Page 1

OUR PRESENT POSITION.

[From the Southern Cross, July 4.] It would require a head of supernatural clearness to make anything worth speaking of of our situation at this moment. The Assembly will meet in three weeks more, and the question of how we actually do stand in our relations with the Maoris must b« the subject of discussion. Does anyone, from the Government downwards, know anything about it ? We are greatly inclined to question it, and on no questionable grounds. Some of our oracles on native affair are sure that, at all events, they know what Thompson’s attitude means, and that it is satisfactory. They are convinced that whatever blunders the Government may have made in not treating properly with Thompson, that chief is free from all blame and all suspicion of treachery, or a wish to overreach those with whom he deals. Others again are sure that Thompson is little better than a cunning savage whose sole wish is to get out of a scrape with as little loss as possible to himself and his people. A third party are the advocates of our East Coast natives, and swear by the Arawas and other natives who are in arms at Hawke’s Bay against Batara and his people. One peculiarity is that amongst all these Maori doctors of the new school there is hardly to be f uud one single man who is intimately acquainted with the people of whom he thinks so much. There is something suspicious, it must be confessed, in this," and it may, it properly dealt with, tend to elucidate the whole matter of our relation to the natives in rebellion. It is a fact which seems to Lave escaped notice in a wonderful.

manner, that in every part of the island where there are natives, and where Europeans have settled amongst them whether as missionaries or as traders, these strangers have gradually come to have a sort of faith more or less intense in the good feeling and good will of some particular section, and to look upon all outside that section as a thoroughly ill-conditioned lot of people. Such was the case again and again during the war, and we know it often led to fatal results. The reason was, not that the bad opinion of the resident European as to his neighbour’s character aud views was in any way falsified; but that he found that he had been resting upon a broken reed when he trusted to the good faith of any section at all. Such, we need scarcely say, was Mr. Armitage’s experience, such was that of a good many others, and, but for these examples, might have been the fate of a good many more. And the experience which properly belongs to the cases of ndividuais can be easily turned to a good account in the service of the community if only we are wise enough not to let ourselves be blinded by prejudice or fancy. The fact that everyone who knows the natives intimately scouts the idea of there being any loyalty of feeling, any friendliness ot disposition in the race towards us, ought to do more than counterbalance the crude mass of theory which we have received second-hand from second-hand sources of information. Thompson may regret the war into which he was certainly not in a hurry to plunge : if he does so we may depend upon it that it is not in the interest of the Europeans that he regrets it, and that his eflorts at peace-making will be made with a view to gaining all he can for the natives, — to taking all he can from the Europeans. The King and Rewi are less of negotiators than Thompson, and they show their sense of the fact by leaving him to manage the diplomacy. Aud he does manage it. He finds it no hard matter to cajole the peace-maker, and is careful to give the natives his own version of the matter, and that version is instructive to us, while it is evidently approved of by them. It amounts to this :—The naTtives and Europeans have fought: the Europeans have succeeded in wresting some territory from the natives, but in the effort they are exhausted. And now the natives are the stronger party, we want them to ratify peace; they will do so on our giving up all the lands we have conquered and confiscated. The cloud of words under which Thompson, and yet more Mr George Giaham, may think fit to hide this in no way alters the fact. The very veil of secrecy which the peace-maker has striven to throw over his proceedings is a sign of weakness and not of strength. If Thompson were desirous of submitting on the terms of one who had committed a great crime, aud wished, at all events, to escape the evil consequences by a hearty submission, there could he possible reason for concealment. This, we may be sure, is not the case. We have our own fears as to how the promises which we do not doubt Mr Graham has made to Thompson may affect the issue. But, in any case, it is perfectly clear that Thompson does not submit, but only treats; that he does not take the attitude of a suppliant, but of an equal. Kor can we think that it will be well to take too cheerful a view of things as they are on tne East Coast. Without saying one word agaiust the Az'awa natives, who have assuredly placed themselves in an awkward position through their hatred to their old enemies, the Kgatipous, which led them to embrace our cause, we bring ourselves to confound this with any feeling of sincere loyalty. It is not, we are convinced, that they love us more, but that they love their old enemies less. And again, in the Hawke’s Bay district, we cannot, without further proof, accept the accounts of the fighting there as satisfactory. We do not like the instant application for guns aud ammunition which invarably follows any success gained without these auxiliaries as supplied by us. It may be true that they are ueeded ; it may be true that these men are the sworn foes of Patara and all enemies of the Queen. It may be, we say, but we cannot feel very comfortably snre of it. There is something questionable to our mind in the account of such pa-slorming as that related by our

Hawke’s Bay contemporaries. Our own experience of this sort of assaults leads us to wonder what sort of pas the Pai Mariresof Hawke’s Bay are wont to build, and, yet more, in what way they are accustomed to defend them. We may of course do the brave chiefs and people an injustice, and, if so, we are sorry ; but the fact is, we have no faith in such a thing as Maori loyalty. We do not see, to begin with, why they should feel loyal; and we do see that whenever this thing which we are apt to mistake for it is put to a severe test it turns out to be something different. The subject, we are aware, is not a pleasant one. It would bo vastly more pleasant to cry. Peace ! peace|l and so please all parties with the expectation of better times at once. Onr difficulty is that we do not ourselves see these better times quite so near : at least not in the form of a peace ratified and confirmed by Thompson, Bewi, and the King. Peace, we are ready to admit, is an excellent thing, but security is an ingredient which we would not see left out of the commodity if we could help it. A false estimate of the attitude of the natives in any part of the colony may tend to bring about what Mr George Graham would call a peace ; it will not tend to bring about what we feel to be security.