PERILOUS POSITION OF TAURANGA.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 471, 18 April 1867, Page 3

PERILOUS POSITION OF TAURANGA.

(From the Tauranga Argus, April 6.) By the time these lines appear in print, in all probability the 12th Regiment will have left us for good. Their lively bugle calls will no louger ccho through the deserted camp announcing the dawn of day, and the approach of morning. The first and last posts will not he sounded by fife and drum, we shall he enlivened no more by the martial strains of the military band, many pleasant memories, and some sincere friendships, will have terminated with the departure of this fine regiment. But tlie matter has a serious as well as a sentimental aspect. In their departure we shall have lost nearly a third of our small commu nity. It is not too much to say that by their departure we shall have lost an expenditure of £20,000 a year. Some people will say that this is the goose that laid the golden eggs. Perhaps it is. How do we now stand ? Our industries are not progressing, and cannot progress till the Maori question is settled. Of course we expect the numerous substantial buildings rapidly beiug erected for speculative purposes, and which will be completed by the lime the trade for which they were intended has ceased to be. Settlers will not remain on their land. One has been fired at, and others have removed their families from farms which they consider no longer safe. Report says that the Hauhaus are still mustering, and are receiving accessions from several tribes hitherto passive. The Ngatimaru

tribe and Kennedy’s Bay natives are said to be packing up to join our foes. It has been asserted in print that all the Ngatirangis—amongst whom we may be said to live—are not loyal, that they are supplying the Hauhaus with provisions, and, though fighting in our ranks, are firing “ blank cartridges.” What do they do with the bullets ? Do they sell them to the Hauhaus ? Amongst our faithful allies, the Arawas, it is alleged that Kia Wi Maihi, a powerful chief, is disaffected, and informs the Hauhaus of all our movements, and that this is the reason why they manage so well to keep out of sight that we cau scarcely believe they are near us. Yet many

Maoris, whom we cau believe, positively assert that they are in force in our neighborhood. Our army for defence consists of about 50 Waikato men on pay, and certainly not more than 130 able-bodied civilians and militia off pay, ail told. Aggressive expeditions are out of the question. The Maoris have long ago said that the last great fight for supremacy would be in Tauranga. They were to drive the Pakehas into the sea, and the withdrawal of the Imperial troops was to be their opportunity. “ The hour has come, and the men.” It is

not reasonable to suppose that they will dislodge and destroy 180 resolute Englishmen who are fighting for their hearths and homes and worldly goods. But this is what they can do. They

can come in the dead of night and set fire to one or two of our great wooden buildings, which will burn like matches. The undisciplined civilians will start in alarm from their slumbers, and crowd together in one of the redoubts, while the exulting savages will plunder the stores.

With this prospect we cannot expect that trade can proceed. Every man will be wanted, and all together will not be enough to guard the scat tered township, approached as it is from so many points. The waters of Tipuna, the Wairoa, the ford opposite the Archdeacon’s point, that at Judea, even Tauranga harbor, communicating as it does with Hairini and Waimapu, are highways by which swarms of natives could approach our poor little town. Without heavy guns or a very numerous force we could not prevent canoes from landing on the Te Papa beach, which is something like two miles long. And that force we have not. It may be said, why try to alarm the population, and so drive them from th* place ? The answer is that it is better to anticipate the worst, than to be surprised by unlooked-for disaster. And the conclusions of those who know what Maories are, and what warfare is, are of a serious kind. In ignorance of what the Government intend doing, it may safely be said that they must not, and cannot abandon Tauranga to its own miserably inadequate means of defence. There are hundreds of unemployed men in Auck land, many of them would jump at the offer of militia pay and rations, and with them a force sufficiently nutneraus could be formed, not only to intimidate the rebels, but also to quell the rebellion, and restore peace to this disturbed district. Unless the Government raise such a corps, the costly surveys of land will go for nothing; valuable property will be abandoned or destroyed, and the splendid harbor, and surrounding country, offering as it does so many advantages for an important and prosperous settlement, might relapse into the comparative solitude in which Captain Cook found the Bay of Plenty (to which he gave name), navigated only by canoes of dusky inhabitants of a semi-barbarous land. This, of course, is an impossible view of the case. We have come here to colonise, expended treasure and many precious Jives to keep a footing in this place, and we cannot recede. To parody the metaphorical phrases of two generations ago —the shades of departed heroes, whose remains peacefully repose in the ceme tery of Te Papa, would frown with indignation on an event which proved that they had died in vain. This is now historic ground. Almost within sight from our doors are Pukehinahina and Tirangi, where gallant men fought and fell. Opotiki and Wbakatane, the scenes of Volkner and Fulloon’s atrocious murders, are not remote, and it would be a poor finish to the story if it should bo written hereafter that “ Tauranga was held for some time at great expense and with no small loss of life by the aid of Imperial troops, which were at last withdrawn, and the settlers, being unable to defend it from attacks of hostile natives, abandoned it in despair.”