ANOTHER NEW ZEALAND WAR.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 292, 27 July 1865, Page 1

ANOTHER NEW ZEALAND WAR.

(From tiie Saturday Review, April 23.)

There is no controversy so difficult of adjustment as that which occasionally arises between those who are desireus of eating, and those who had rather not be eaten. It is one in which the ingenuity of mediators is hopelessly at fault. There is no possible device of compromise which there is any chance of inducing both parties to accept cheerfully. No modifications of form, no contrivances for saving honour, can effect the question at issue. The inconvenience of being masticated upon one side, or of going dinnerless on the other, is an inconvenience of a substantial and genuine kind, and is totally free from all admixture of pedantry or punctilio. Nor, again, is it easy to induce either party to meet the other half-way. It would be no use, for instance, to attempt to mediate iu the standing quarrel upon this subject that exists between the cat and the mouse, by proposing that the cat should, in a spirit of compromise, be satisfied with half the subject matter of dispute—two legs, say, and three ribsf Such a settlement of the question would not be satisfactory to the mouse, and would leave the cat very hungry still. The most earnest peacemaker cannot do much to bring such a contest to an amicable termination. It must he fought out. There is no middle point for the cat between entire failure and complete success, and spectators of a humane temperament must make up their minds to see the chase continue until either the cat has finished her meal or the mouse is in a place of safety. These reflections may console us for the depressing intelligence that we have begun another New Zealand war, upon an entirely new battle-field, and in a skirmish in which apparently our troops have been, to make the best of it, incompletely unsuccessful. It is difficult to say that anybody is to blame except the Governor, long since removed, who, to gratify a strong an urgent public feeling, committed the act which began this never-ending quarrel. The New Zealand Government has discovered that the interior of the country is impenetrable except by a much larger military force than any that we should care to expend iu such a service. The cause of this impenetrability is the absence of roads ; and it was calculated that, if roads were made, the natives might be kept in subjugation even by so small a number of troops as the colonists themselves could afford to bring into the field. Unfortunately the justice of this obvious theory.was us evident to the natives as it was to the Europeans; and, from the colonists’ previous experience of their sagacity in.such matters, there could be little doubt that they w uld not sit quietly by and see the forest fastnesses made untenable which had heretofore proved their only efficient defence. They did not in effect forsake the vigilance they have hitherto prac-

tised. A road was commenced by the English troops from Wanganui to Taranaki, through the heart of the territory of the most hostile tribes. The natives warned the Government that any such attempt to break through their defences would be regarded as a hostile act, and they kept their word. The result does not appear to have been decisive; but the loss, considering the number of men engaged and the entire absence of artillery, was certainly heavy. The kind of spirit engendered by this sort of desultory warfare with an enemy who, however patriotic and brave, is fearfully barbarous in his mode of fighting, may be judged of from the following brief notice of an incident which occurred after the engagement was over : —“ A wounded Maori was making his escape from the field of battle, when a toy ten or twelve years of age, who came from Auckland with the 50tb, knocked him down and killed him with a piece of stick. He was rewarded by a gift of 20s. from one officer, and 10s. from another.”

This road-making battle, which will probably lead to other affairs of the same land, is a good illustration of the hopelessness of arranging a peaceful settlement of a quarrel where the two 'contending parties have learned to look upon the national extinction of one of them as the matter at stake between them. The New Zealand Government has a perfect right to make the road; it is a power with which no Government can consent to part. But, on the other side, the uatives cannot be expected to submit quietly to an operation which amounts to the dismantling of their fortifications. Peace, in other words, is impossible between a Government and those whom it claims to govern, until either the resistance of the latter is crushed, or they have learned to trust the Government. If a Government is to be efficient, its power must be sufficient to make armed resistance to its authority impossible; but no race will trust a Government With such authority if it believes that that authority will be used for its own extinction. The affair of the Waitara has left a distrust upon the native unud which mere words will not rub out. They have seen a “ Chancery suit settled by a guard of infantry,” and a piece of land occupied Ly English soldiers in the Crown’s name, which the Grown had bought from a fictitious owner. This false step has vitiated the whole course of subsequent policy. The uatives cannot be persuaded that land is not the object of the war. The quarrel was begun . y an act of confiscation iu time of profound peace; as it continues, measures of confiscation are passed, including in their scope the property of loyal, as well as of rebellious natives; and the scheme of confiscation widens and widens in proportion to the success of the English army. If the course of the war tends to create this impression. it is not weakened by the language of the settlers themselves. The demands of the colonial press go as far beyond the action of the Government as the Government itself has, in some points, exceeded the limits of reprisal which would have been traced by public opinion hi England. The case of the Northern Island of New Zealand sufficiently establishes the impossibility of popular government in a country wnich includes a large proportion of an alien race too little civilized to bear a pait iu it. Such a race may obey and trust iu a single ruler, who measures with care every word he publicly utters: but it never can submit with confidence to the authority of a self-governed multitude. A community is never discreet ami reserved in the expression of its opinions or its wishes. The very machinery of popular government, the outspoken agitation by which public opinion is swayed and the votes of Legislatures influenced, is inconsistent with prudent reticence. Statements and phrases iu abundance are sure to appear in newspapers, which, even if they do not represent the dominant feeling of the colony, will be sufficient to alarm a nation or race jealous of its rights, and irritated at its own decaying importance. Such phrases would have little importance were not those who utter them themselves part of the governing body which is able to Carry them into effect. The clamour of a Calcutta newspaper for some act of injustice towards the native proprietors'is ■ comparatively harmless, because it represents

no political power. But a New Zealand newspaper, demanding land or extermination, speaks to the New Zealand native as the voice of the power of which New Zealand Governments are set up or overthrown. The present aspect of the internal politics of New Zealand is not cheerful to the inhabitants, but it is even more disheartening for the English taxpayer. For bin. there can be no possible result of the new war, except that of having a long bill to pay Perhaps his gloomy prospects are all the more’ depressing that a gleam of delusive hope was vouchsafed to him a month or two ago, The startling but delightful intelligence reached England that a New Zealand Prime Minister bad taken office with the avowed policy of rejecting all Imperial military aid, and with it, of course, all Imperial interference. The news seemed too good to be true. If the proposal had merely made its appearance in Parliament speech, or in the manifesto of some New Zealand agent in England, it would have been received distrustfully. But it was one of the formal conditions submitted by Mr Weld to Sir George Grey before he took office, and “ presented by command” to the New Zealand Assembly. Perhaps the observations in Parliament upon that state paper, and the comments of the newspapers upon it, have by this time reached Mr Weld. If so, he must be laughing heartily at our simplicity. We English people actually took him at his word, and flattered ourselves that the chroicn burden of New Zealand wars was on the point of being taken off for ever. But the Parliament has separated ; the Ministry have established themselves at one end of the island, and the Governor has settled down at the other ; and while the Governor is making peace at his end, the Ministers are getting up another war at their end, and lighting it, as of old. with English troops, at the cost of the English Treasu y. There is one remedy that would certainly put a stop to this long series of New Zealand wars, so far as England is concerned ; but whether any other plan of equal efficacy could be found is, after these last events, open to considerable doubt.