ARMS AND AMMUNITION QUESTION.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 305, 11 September 1865, Page 2

ARMS AND AMMUNITION QUESTION.

[ COMMUNICATED.] The expose of the illegal practice of certain Auckland merchants in supplying articles contraband of war to the aboriginal natives, which was made some mouths since through the medium of the Times, has occasioned no little sensation throughout the Colony, the disclosures there made are generally regarded as being well founded, authenticated as they are by the circumstantial evidence of history. In relation to this matter at least. Sir George Grey has shown proofs of wisdom, although on other questions this may or may not be the case. He may be vacillating. He may be, doubtless lie is, biassed toward the aboriginals o{ these islands, but he did his best to keep warlike stores from their possession. His embargo on the importation and sale of such stores was amongst the wisest acts that ever emanated from a Colonial Governor. To put anus in their hands, he has said, with their savage nature, will be to make them almost unconquerable. That this is beyond controversy true is fully borne out by the history of the Colony during the rebellion. The importunities of both white and black Maories were alike disregarded by him when the relaxing of this measure was desired, as be foresaw the present struggle and the means whereby it has been prolonged. Turn next to the Missionaries. Great as has been their efforts to retard the progres of colonisation, they have never been charged with having been accessory to the supply of arms and ammunition to the natives. Seldom, indeed, have such things been seen on mission premises. Some of them, the late lamented Mr Volkner amongst others, have deplored the existence of the practice, and traced to it the falling off of the East Coast natives from their acquired habits of industry, and their return to a semi-heathen and barbarous state. It was the war material on the one hand, and the drink on the other, both contraband of war, and both supplied in quantities almost unlimited, that produced this sad result, and made a lawless people still more lawless. By the same means their inter-tribal wars were fostered and encouraged, so that the whole of the East Coast from Tauranga to Opotiki, was for a series of years in a state of warfare; the natives of Maketu alone, as they were but ill supplied, remaining passive. Can it be supposed, said puor Mr Volkner, that these people can be Christianised, while I our own countrymen place these obstacles in our .path? We have, in addition to the inherent difficulties of our calling, to contend against those super-added by unprincipled merchants ami traders. And who were the traders referred to? They were men who obtained their supplies, not from other Colonies, nor from Wellington, but from Auckland the late capital of this Colony. The missionaries who engaged in land speculating, used neither war materials nor rum, as the means of acquiring laud. The whalers, who have borne the blame of furnishing these supplies,

are equally guiltless, for it is doubtful if any whalers from other Colonial, or American ports, have had communication-with that shore doling theiast twenty years, for it is. a noted fact that the East Coast of the Northern -Island has been deserted by such whalers for 'that period, while in the day of their visits, double percussion guns were too rare as well as too expensive for the New Zealand trade.... With regard to these guns, it is jiot generally known, but it is nevertheless true that they'are manufactured expressly for the New Zealand trade, being of stdiit substance fitted to 'carry ball, not mere shot guns for sporting purposes. As then, the Maories did not get thensupplies of warlike stores from either the Governor, the Missionaries, or the whalers; neither direct from England, Wellington, nor the other Colonies :—where ? in the name of truth and justice—of the scenes of desolation brought about by the traffic—of the working population of the Colony, who have home and must bear the brunt of the evils occasioned by the traffic ;—a working man asks: Where did the natives get that, which made them, as .'they thought, so powerful? The warlike stores that has enabled them to hold an Imperial army at defiance for years, and spread havoc and desolation throughout a Colony ? Merchants of Auckland ! You are challenged to prove that they have procured such supplies from any other source than from that City that was at the same time the Capital of the Colony. These thoughts are not penned on the spur of the moment but are the result of observations carried on through a series of years, by one who knows the maories as they should be known, and the merchants and traders as they will yet be known. And journalists of tbe City of so tarnished an escutcheon, know that these are not tbe scribblings of a hired writer, but tbe words of a man whose daily bread depends on his daily labor; yethechallengesyou tocleanse your City from so foul a stain, to disprove the charaLjp under which you lie ; —if you are abiellotbervvLse. they will prove to your City as a girdle of lead to the wearer, be being cast with it into the sea.