THE POLICY OF THE WELD MINISTRY

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 299, 21 August 1865, Page 1

THE POLICY OF THE WELD MINISTRY

[From. the T>mes, ApvU 14.] Our correspondence from New Zealand describes exactly such a state of affairs as might have been anticipated from the policy of the Colonial Government as prefiguied in the last despatches. Sir Weld, the new Premier, on assuming office, announced bis intention of opening up the country of the rebel Maoris by roads cut ihiough the bush. This design constituted substantially the whole programme of his Ministry. He did not profess to desire war with the natives, nor did be exactly proclaim it, but be said that they should no longer be protected by their natural thickets from the arm of the law. Their woods should be cut through and through, their fastnesses should be laid open, and their retreats should be rendered accessible by broad military roads, maintained by military stations. If they would consent to this, well and good; no harm should happen to them, and they should even be paid for their labour, if they would join in the work; but if they resisted the Queen’s authority, or interfered with the Queen’s troops, they would be summarily chastised. That was the policy proclaimed, and its execution has now be; n commenced with what we may regard as the natural results. Of course the Maoris know very well that road-making means conquest, and that if their wilderness were opened to the easy march of the Queen’s forces, they could rise in rebellion no more. Half their strength lies in the strength of the positions they cun occupy, and if they are stripped of this advantage they can no longer set the Government at deliance. They naturally, therefore, resist the road-making. As they have not the least idea of becoming peaceable subjects or renouncing the privilige of chronic rebellion,.they are making a stand lor the jungles which protect them. They have tired upon our troops from ambuscades, and have begun to murder even their own countrymen suspected of being friendly to the Government. In fact it is a New Zealand war of the old kind, with just this difference, that if we succeed in making the roads as well as repulsing the rebels, there will be more to show for our victory than iu times past. Otherwffe it is the same story over again, and it is plain, indeed, from the nature of the proceedings, that nothing less w t us anticipated. The country selected for this experiment is one of the most difficult and dangerous districts in the Northern Island. It lies ou the west coast between Taranaki and Wanganui, the distance liom one of these points to another being about 100 or 120 miles. The intervening territory—Ngati ruanui—-is the seat one of the most barbarous and

ungovernable tribes in the whole island, and we may recognise the handiwork of the savages in the massacres now reported. To drive a road through such a country is tantamount to invading it, and the Government has so understood the work before it. The preparations, though probably none too extensive, are characteristically disproportioned to the apparent object. We are assured that the natives could not possibly bring into the field more than 600 fighting men; indeed the suggestion that nearly I,ooo.were engaged in a certain attack upon our camp is treated with incredulity and derision. Nevertheless, General Cameron, a resolute and intelligent officer, well qualified for the conduct of such a campaign, has taken with him to Wanganui a force of 4,500 men provided with all the appliances of war. He has three strong battalions of British troops, and portions of other regiments, bringing up his regular infantty alone to a strength of 2,917 officers and men. He has an artillery force with its Arms!tong guns, an effective division of Royal Engineers, and strong detachments of the Military Train and Transport Corps. But besides these be has ordered out the Militia, and Rifle Volunteers have already joined him. This is the guise in which the Queen’s representatives are forced to set about road-making in the Queen’s own dominions, and with nobody near them hut the Queen’s own subjects. To complete the anomalies of the spectacle, the British General is actually playing a cautious game, and is as circumspect iu his tactics as if he we;e moving against a vastly superior force. There is a lion in his path. Within twenty miles of the coast the natives have thrown up a pa, au.', having been allowed a month or so to complete it, have rendered it, after their fashion, a strong fortification. The redoubt contains perhaps 500 Maoris, but though General Cameron advanced at the beginning of February with more than twice the number of British troops, he declined, and with no doubt excellent judgment, to attack the pa. He treated his enemy exactly as Sherman treated Johnston, in the march upon Atlanta. He hfft him unmolested in his entrenchments, turned the position by a flank march, and proceeded on his expedition as if no enemy was in his rear at all. By these tactics he has probably saved much and lost nothing. An attack upon a Maori pa means the sacrifice of a score of British soldiers, and the ultimate escape of nineteen-twentieths of the garrison in a species of triumph after the post has become utenable. Even Armstrong shells, though in our experiments we seem able to pitch them into any conceivable place, do little harm inside a pa. A Maori seems very hard to hit. Eve ain the attack which they made upon our camp in open day they left but eighteen of their number on the field, though they wounded twice that number of our troops. Of course in this road-making business they will enjoy the full advantage of their natural tactics. We are penetrating their country, and they can lay iu wait for us where they please, hue every mile of advance and every acre of clearing will diminish their chances for the future.

We are not disposed at such a moment to revive the political question or to balance the respective obligations of the mother country and the colony. According to Mr Weld’s own program me, an end of our liabilities is in prospect, and, indeed, well within view. By-and-by the colony is to dispense ■with the army so long maintained at the Imperial charge, but in the meant ime the troops are there, and we do not tee how they could be better employed than in ibis military road-making. A good, broad well-guarded road, cut right tinough the country, from Taranaki to Wanganui, would be worth a dozen treaties of peace or professions of surrender. If we succeed this time we shall at last get a substantial result from a New Zealand war, and the object happens to he one to which even the strongest partisan of the Maori race can take no exception. Thes natives, as we are perpetually reminded, are the Queen’s subjects inhabiting the Queen’s territory, and it is obviously most desirable that in their country as well as all others good roads should be constructed and maintained. It is not competent to any sec tiuu of the population to say that their abodi a

shall be kept inaccessible to the authorities of the laud. Whatever may be the property of any iribe in this territory, we have a perfect right to take a portion of it for the Queen’s highway. We take such property unhesitatingly enough at home, and, indeed, if land is forfeited by treason, these Maoris have lost their rights many times over. It is a pity they were not informed years ago that though their freeholds w T ere reserved to them, these rights might be lost by rebellion. Their offence is not that they quarrelled with the settlers, but that they habitually rose in arms against the Government which was most anxious to do them justice even as against its own native-born subjects. Very strange and very unfortunate it is that the good men who for the last twenty years have been cultivating and civilizing the Maori mind to the best of their power should never have taught these savages that the first duty of a subject is to respect the Government, and his worst mime to rise in rebellion against it. What terms are the Queen’s representatives to keep with a class of her Majesty’s “ subjects” who not only refuse to submit to authority, hut who claim to inhabit inaccessible thickets, and look upon roadmaking as an act of war ? How are we to regard the Maori ? Is he a British subject amenable to the law, or is he a savage, beyond the category of civilized and responsible citizens? Hitherto, thanks to prejudiced and enthusiastic patrons, he has had the benefit of both these characters. He has been held the white man’s equal in any corfliot of civil lights, and an irresponsible savage whenever he chose to go to war. He lias rebelled just when he pleased, and has been allowed to terminate his rebellion with impunity by coming forward to say that he had had enough of it for the time. He is now lighting with the hope of maintaining ibe.-e very convenient privileges, but we trust this campaign may make an end of them once and for al'.