INTERNAL DEFENCE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 14, Issue 719, 20 September 1869, Page 3

INTERNAL DEFENCE.

COLONEL WHTTMORE'S SPEECH • [CONCLUDED.]

I wiUi now say something of the third, that is to say the one about which we have heard so much. I am disposed to think that is the particular branch of the forces against which hard words have been levelled elsewhere. I am not going to say much on the subject, as I do not know that I am justified in doing so, but I think a great deal of misconception has existed upon the subject. When the present Government came into office, there was that force of 400 or 500 men, who had been aJI tried, and were not afraid of the enemy, and who would have been glad to have the opportu nity of the excitement afforded by action. This force was at least three weeks within fifty miles of Te Kooti, on the open plains without moving to attack him, owing to the action of the Government. These are facts which cannot be denied or impeached; they are more economical at the moment. I doubt if it can be maintained that it is more economical in the long run. Certainly it resulted in Te Kooti's having marched in triumph to the King with Te Heu Heu in his train. That is the reason why the Government have done, not anything disastrous, not anything which in it | self will provoke aggression or drive away any of our allies, but why, from not going on when a singular chance existed, and when the Colony had borne great expense, it was wrong in not taking one step further a,nd turning it to account. That is the ground I have for saying that I think the war has been prolonged by the economy which is now considered to be preferable to the more strategical reasons I have given. What has become of the troops which have been brought away from the advanced posts?—whero are they stationed? The honorable gentleman said in his opening speech that they proposed to concentrate thtir resources, and 1 think he s*id, also, that they proposed to restrict the area of warfare. The Hon. Mr Gisborne.—l said that with the expenditure we found going on, and the probability of extending the area of warfare, the Colony might be ruined and its resources destroyed. The Hon. Colonel WhjtmOßE.—T thank tht) honorable gentleman for correcting me. 1 do not think we should have extended the area of warfare. I go upon the com inon sense principle that in an irregular figure such as New Zealund if your fore s are scattered upon so straggling a cireuin lorence, you require more of them, or else you will be everywhere too weak to do iinore than merely maintain the positions Now, if an audacious enemy like Te Kooii makes an attack, he has an infinity of places which he cm keep in a state worse than actual warfare. feuppose that Te Kooti were to come down to-morrow, through the iSgaruroro Yallcy, after destroying a number of homesteads, to the station of his Honor the Superintendent of Hawke's Bay, and then retire by that road to nowhere at all, for no one would know where he went to, how many places would there be in which there are Militia and Volunteers who must be put on pay? From Ohinemuri to Napier, every man would have to be under arms; they could not say where the next blow would be struck, and in no one place would they be able to bring a force of 500 trained men to bear. I give full credit to the honorable gentleman and his colleagues for having made a good disposition of the forces now, on a punciple which the small means at their disposal will make it difficult to carry out. I am sure I do not know what that principle is, although there must be some principle. Of course it would not be proper for them to explain their system, and it is very difficult to eomprehend what it is without fuller data; whether, for instai ce, under it a respectable force can be collected anywhere, or whether the means of communicaiion is now completed, so that within a limited number of days you could assemble a force at any given place. According to the public prints, it was not so recently, and there was no system by which a force could ba collected in the Waikato. They did assemble it is true, but if Te Kooti had come down when he was expected, he would have worked his will and been far beyond the scene of his massacres before those forces arrived there, though they were sent by coach. Even if they had Wen all mounted on horses, I should tiol blame the Government or say it lacked foresight, as well as a thorough knowledge of the subject, if they had not arrived in time. Unfortunately, however, if Te Kooti had made the attack, they would have been, not one, but several days too late, and therefore I infer the system was not then completed. The Hon. Mr Gisbokne : Whose fault was it that the Waikato was undefended ? The Hon. Colonel Whitmoee : As the lionorable gentleman presses me upon the point, I say that it was hi* fault—l speak of him as the Government of the country. If the force had been at Taupo, where it ought to have been, if the old principle had been carried out, Te Kooti dare not to have gone to Waikato. There they would We stood upon his flank and rear; he dare not to have gone, and it would Juave been impossible for him if he had done so. You cannot keep a force large enough to defeat the enemy in every part of the country, but you can so arrange your force that it can be available whenever any I particular place is threatened. I know l &e difficulties, but I know how far they w ere overcome, and I undertake to say tijat there was no difficulty at the time Te Eooti reached the King, in the troops bewg at Taupo. The chief principle of topdern warfare is to throw masses upon

small bodies —to use a large force to overWhe'ui a small one ; because, since one man is as good a 3 another at the other end of a gun, we do not assume that two equal forces will produce any definite result; but if one is larger than the other the reeult ought to be certain. How far we are in that position at this moment, now that we have had two months to organize our ays tern; how far we can at any place throw a large force upon a small one ; how, for instance, if 1,500 Waikatos come down to-morrow, we are prepared to make head until a sufficient force can be assembled, Ido not know; but I think, from the means adopted by the Government, that a proper force could be obtained in that !direction, as an officer has been sent up to put theMilit i i in order. But what other part of the Coionv is in the same nosition ?

Suppose Te Kooti, instead of going to the station of his Honor the Supo intendent of Hawke's Bay, were to take the other high road which passes the south of Taupo, and walked to Rangitikei, where another illustrious person has his residence, how far could a force be assembled there ? I know the honorable gentleman will say that defensive preparations should have been made by the late Government, but I believe that something of the kind was done. If the main body of the force had been at Taupo, Te Kooti could not have gone round to disturb the peace of the hfon. the Premier at Rangitikei, for we should have been after him, and I know that in two days we can march a distance for which he requires three days. I have mentioned those two gentlemen as the roads happen to lead the one to Rangitikei and the other by Patea to Napier. It is in this way that the new Governments upset the work of their predecessors, and putting an end to the rebellion has thus become the toil of Sisyphus. I know that it will be thrown in my face that in the resolution which I have moved, to put more strength in the hands of the Commissioners, I have driven a nail in the coffin of self reliance. I think the real nail that has been driven is to be found in the war of parties in this country. That is what is destroying our self reliance, and has abundantly proved that we have no nationality. That is tl e real truth. It is not that we are riot abla to carry out self reliance, but that we are unfit to do so. When we see propositions to add three-quarters of a million to the indebtedness of the Colony brought before a Parliament which says it can only afford £150,000 for the suppression of a rebellion, which will readily argue for days and hours as to erecting a bridge, or effecting an alteration in certain harbor works, when the flame is burning here in the middle of the country, I cannot believe that we are earnest, that we are national, in our views of the war; for if wo were, we would stop everything else, and those who could not go to fight would be content to undei'go some little privation until the rebellion was ex

tinguished. We have seen now, for the first time to such an extent, that the interests of the country have been made tbi sport of politics, and the shuttle cock to be driven about between the baltledores of party. Sir, there is another element in the politics of this country which has never been so strongly developed as ifc has been this session. Not only are the officers pursued by a series of personal and political persecutions, but even the poor men are not allowed to escape without a great deal of unmerited abuse. If the alternate were adopted by the Home Government to put an end to this war without reference to us, simply being reimbursed to a certain extent by the Colony, I. should rejoice to think that there was one obstacle removed which at this moment stands in the way of the pacification of the country. I know that honorable gentlemen who have always been advocates of the self reliance policy will dislike the proposal, and possiblj those who consider that in some way it injures the Goverment to move an amendment on this resolution, even though it proposes to put a greater power in their hands, so it may perhaps not find favor here ; but I think it my duty to propose it, because if it is adopted it will render the task of the Commissioners more beneficial to the ejuntry and more easy to themselves. I propose,— "(5). That the Commissioners be in structed to apply for Imperial assistance in raising, onrolment, and embarkation of a body of recruits suitable for the existing Colonial force, and that a sum of £ be paid over to the Commissioners by way of advance, to enable them to carry out their duties." The late Government intended to have recruited at home, and from all 1 could gather from the honorable gentleman, that is the real desire of this Government, only the haziness of this resolution leads many people to fear that we are to be pledged to an expenditure of £70,000 a year for three years for a force so organized that it will perhaps conflict with the one which we are given to understand is about to be perfected here, and may be of no use. Il the Government is satisfied with the force, it ought to have no objection to a course which will allow it to obtain recruits. 1 see not only an advantage to the force but an economy to the country, for the rates of pay which the men would be willing to accept would be a great deal leas than what we have been giving and what it is proposed to give. I do not say that we should get all the recruits from the Irish Constabulary. I think that a,few of those men might be useful, and that it is proper to look forward to what is to be done with the force after the war. I think that a reserve force might be always employed as the police of the country. The Irish Constabulary are highly paid in their own country, and I do not think that we could afflrd enough men at proportionate rates

- for numbers are to a certain extent necbai sary in this warfare, and although you I may say that one man will do the work of t ten, you cannot do without the other nine. ; If you suppose that a force of 300 is cap-. ■ able of doing as much work as 1,000 audi both parties start to make a long march into the interior—jf you look at the num her of men who get sick, and whom you have to leave to guard your ammunition and food, you would only have 150 men while there would be perhaps 850 men on one side against 150 on tho other, the advantage being in favor of the 850. Numbers are continually wanted in the war, and must be wanted until the enemy is destroyed Moreover, I do not think we want a swarm of detectives in the country, and I think that the Irish police are not good detectives, or have the police knowledge which is attributed to them. They are practically high-class soldiers j they have little knowledge of detectives' duty, and are not successful in finding murderers in any part of the country. What is valuabla

about them is thier military discipline, and I think we could get it cheaper. Whether we get it by volunteers from the line, or recruited for ourselves with the assistance of the Home Government, we might obtain it at a less cost. The high personal character of the Irish Constabulary is one great element. It is the result of selection in a very wide field, and their having everything to lose by dismissal, which is their chief punishment. A few noncommissioned officers from that force would be a most judicious addition to our Con- ; stabulary. We have just demilitarized our own'force, which means that we have , removed the officer commanding, who was a military man, and have put a man in his place who is not military ; that is what is called demilitarizing our constabulary. It is curious that while the Government protests that the Irish police is the very model of what we require in this , country—except in bush training, which is the hardest thing to learn—they are j certainly the most military body in the i known world. In discipline, in appearance, in the constitution of their force, they are entirely military ; and while we place our Armed Conatabulaiy under a , civilian, the peculiarity of the Irish Police is that an officer from the Q/ een's service ia invariably placed in command. I have myself known several officers who were taken out of the regular service, and placed in command of the Irish Constabu lary; therefore, in journeying towards this desirable object, we find we are de

militarizing our torce upon the model ot a most military force. Except in a few oi their duties the Irish Constabulary are never employed as proper police. If you were to see them ?=t a review in the Phoenix Park, alongside of the regulars, you would say you never saw a finer body of troops in your.life. Whether you have recruits sent from England, or chawbacons from the country, or you: g men from the line, I feel sure that with proper selection, ana an ascending scale of pay, for the rate of 35s a week we should obtain precisely the same result that is arrived at in the Irish Constabulary, probable before the opera-ions against the enemy were complete I say that the Irish constable must shake off a great deal of his pipeclay, and a great deal of his military bearing, before he learns to be of use in the New Zealand jungle. I doubt whether he would have much less to learn than the young soldiet from the line or the young chawbacon from the country. I am sure that hon. membeis are not led away by the abuse so lavishly, so urjustly, so unpatriotically heaped upon the troops who have fought and bled for this country. True, Sir, they have never had the time nor the opportunities to render themselves pleasant objects to the vulgar gaze or to the superficial eye, but it is not fine feathers that make fine birds, and if they are not yet so smart in their dress, if thoy have not got pretty clothes, if their garments are a little torn and destroyed, that is rather evidence that they have done good service than they have been unfit to serve. If they have not yet reached the kid gloves of the Otago police, or the state in which it is desirable to issue kid gloves to them that time will not come until the war is over. It reminds me of what an Austrian General said to me at Orsova, when I was on my way up the Danube, and apologized to him for my appearance in undress uniform, "il riy a pas de tenue plus belle pour un soldat que la tenae de campagne." I think the torn uniforms of our brave men arc more honorable than the spotless tunic and the pipeclay of the city policemen. I am aware that these men have been wrecked on the rock of party strife ; there are persons who give no credit to our soldiers for all they have ondured j but I have no respect for such persons. It has been a stern crisis, and we should judge of the men we employ not by the same standard as wo would judge of a bullock or a horse, by the bulk or beauty of the aniranl. I think their fellow-settlers, some of the members of another branch of this Legislature, have not done justice when they allowed themselves to begrudge a good word to these men, and still harder do I think it that they should have fastened upon those few occasions when the soldiers, coming from the field, first got into the town, and perhaps indulged in a glass too much. Old soldiers, and I dare say others who are not soldiers at all, are in the habit of doing the same, and I think it was unfair that this, which has not been excessive, should have been made the handle for an attack upon our Colonial forces. That which is seen by everybody is supposed to be the continual practice, and a charge of continual drunkenness has, in consequence, been unjustly brought against these men j but there is no regiment of the Queeen's service, ana I undertake to say no part of

•■the Irish Constabulary, in which, with i £4,000 in' arrears of pay distributed 'jamongat 250 men, you would not have , found more men drunk and misconducting themselves. I have it on the authority of the officer commanding her Majesty's troops at Napier, that when the men came back from tha "Waikari Moana expedition there were fewer men drunk amongst them than would have been the case amongst his own men. I regret that I have been obliged thus to protest against the political tirades made against these men, and I regret that they are oa record. I feel little personally on account of what has happened to myself, because I know I had a right to look for it, and why should I complain when my comrades, who have gone through this campaign with me, are abused wholesale by persons who have never seen one of them, on the authority of newspapers which write as people speak here, without knowing anything of what they are speaking about? Why should I complain, who have offered a certain provocation, perhaps, that such terms should be used towards me, when the poor men, Sir, are turned out of the force without a character ? Those who now leave will find no other character than that which is recorded in the pages of Hansard, from the country they served. The Colony will look to those p>ges and see the character these men have got, when turned out, without their services being requited in any manner. I look back to the many miles I have marched with these men—and these are the best men out of 2,000 who were enrolled —and I think of the comrades we have lo3t, the hardships, the hunger we have endured, the cold and rain from which our blankets barely sheltered us, and when I think of all that, I sav those men are unfairly treated. lam exposed to such treatment from my position in this Council, and from the course I deem it my duty to take, but why reve ge . upon these men ? We are told they are j inefficient and unfit for the service, and ' that they acv liable to mutiny ; but I ask, ( where will you find soldiora who would march into the Urewera mountains, with ( their feet almost shoeless and bleeding;

amidst cold and rain, and with four mouths . pay in arrears, ond who would do better, or as well as our men did ? It is true that a small portion of them, for a few days, refused to do labor on tho roads, but that was because they absolutely did not get 1 food enough, and their objection ceased i when they got more ; and I can affirm < that never while I was in command of those men did they refuse to obey orders. I can go further and venture to state that : no regiment of tho linp, no, nor the Guards themselves, if they were taken and , exposed to the same trials and kept so long without pay, would behave themselves so well. I will say nothing about the dim culty of gettting a vote of this Assemblv for the. pay of these men, in June, but of i the ordinary course of two or three • months' arrears, and try how a regiment of the Guards, who get their pay every lay and complain if they ae a week in arrears, would stand that. I say that our men had a great deal more to complain of ■ than that, and they never complained until flesh weakness corapolled them to do so, when they could work no longer. According to the regulations a man is liable to dismissal from the service, and upon the judgment of a board of three officers he may lose the whole of his arrears of pay ; therefore, it was very material to these men whether it was a case of one month or more in arrears. I heard no grumbling until thoir strength faded, and only then as regarded hard labor. A reign of terror i 3 now being inaugurated in New Zealand as regurds the private soldier and ' his officer, and 1 appeal to the honorable gentleman not to carry the sword too far or we shall fall into the American system. There has been, to a very large extent, this treatment towards subordinate officers throughout the Colony —at least as regards those who have been sufficiently tall poppios to attract attention in political circles. There has been sufficient to show that the present Government punishes them for having been appointed by their predecessors on the Treasury Benches. I appeal

to tho Lcmorable gentleman to stay the sword. I appeal to hiin on national grounds not to introduce that system. This one thing the American (rovernment never does; they never carried that system into the army, although they carried it to great lengths in the civil service, and are now struggling hard to get out of it. Many works have been written against it, and nothing can be more absurd thau what I have myself seen—the Ambassador of Vienna changing places with his Secretary. I cannot conceive that this sort of thing can go much further without entailing reprisals. It is not in human nature that it should. Sir, I think that these amendments which I propose to the resolutions, and which I shall move in their proper place, will not be found to weaken the hands of the Commissioners, but will rather strengthen them. I hope they will, at all events, have this element, that they will place tho Commissioners in a proper position at homo when they go there, being able to pay for the troops we are getting. The country ought to know exactly how far it is likely to be pledged by the action of the Commissioners; and with regard to Dhe troops which they will bring out here, those troops will not come out under a new organization, but as recruits to Mr Branigan, who, by-the-bye, was the right person to have sent home to obtain these men, as he is particularly adapted for that duty. These men, when sent out, will be an efficient body of constabulary, and there will be no antagonism of organization. At the proper time I shall move my amendments, and I have now only to thank the Council for ithe patience with which it has listened to me.

Isr the Supremo Court, Aueklaad, tha three natives Moses, Pries, and Richards, charged with removing flre-oraia from oaa part of the Colony 10 another, were sea* fenced to 12 months' imprisonment, and, in addition, fined £5 each. :

Tub MAJSAWATtr Case is now virtually closed. The Chief Judge left yesterday afternoon for Auckland. The Court stands adjourned to the 17th instant, when Judga Manning will take the Bench and hear any further evidence in support of rejected claims. But it is understood that this k simply a formality and that no fresh evidence will be adduced. The Court, at itssitting on Tuesday, refused to go into tlu> Ngatiapa list of claimants, stating that having declared the dominion to be in thfc Ngatiapa, it would be for that tribe to mark off a portion of laud for the forty or more members of the three Raukawa hapua who have not signed the deed of cession. The Chief Judge expressed hi 3 belief that the natives would have no difficulty in arranging this among themselves without the interference of the Court. Tha At-tomey-Greneral, on behalf of the Crown, assented to this. The court was then ordered to stand adjourned. —Wellington, Independent, September 9.

Mb. Whaihi's Attack upon the XL « max Catholic Clergy.—The Wellington Indepent says it is a matter of deep regret that the conduct and character of thia body should be impugned by a member of Parliament speaking in his place in the House of Commons, evidently without tha slightest foundation in fact for his assertions. When we.remember the devotiou of one of the members of that body ac Motuoa, which coat him bis life, but was the salvation of Wanganuij when we recull the heroism of .Father Roland assisting and consoling the wounded and dving ac that terrible disaster atTe Ngutuotemuau ; and having a long experience of the constant unassuming efforts of the Roman, Catholic priests in the out of the way corners of New Zealand to preserve peace ai:d uphold constituted authorities, we cannot refrain from rhe expression of deep grief that men to whom the population of this l land of all deuominati-iisi owe so much should be so c uelly maligned.

Another Great Yield from tub Long Dhive Claim. —The ihamea Times, Ith September, contains the following: —A specimen crushing lor the above celebrated, claim touk place at the Kuranui Company's battery cm Thursday. Ttiree hundred pounds of stone were put through tho single-stainptr, and the amalgam was retorted yesterday, resulting in 12060z3 of gold. The fine parcel was melted during the afternoon by Mess.a Smith and Quint, afc the melting-house of the Bank of New Zealand, Graham s Town, and turned out in five splendid ingots weighing 11550 zs # showing a loss of 61ozs only or less than 4£ per cent., which is below the average loss. Before crushing the stone did not appear to be above the U3ual quality, but the result, averaging nearly four ounces to the pounJ, proves ihat it must hare been exceedingly rich. The magnificent specimen which was taken out last week and exbibi* ted for some time, has not been crushed. The value of the gold, at £2 10s an ounce, is £2,887 10s, which will give a dividend of £2 8s per scrip of tue company's capital. Tricker's Case.—The Wellington and Wanganui papers unanimously complain of the inaction of the Government in this case. The Evening Post of the 9th says: —The session has closed, and not a word has been said about the unfortunate convict, Walter Tricker, now languishing in jail The report of the last commission of inquiry into the circumstances attending Kayner's murder did not recommend any interference with the sentence; but it appears to us as if the commission had stultified itself by not doing so. The report states that, from the evidence brought before the commissioners, they had arrived

at the conclusion that the murder was not committed on the Friday morning; and consequently the evidence adduced at the trial, which directly affirmed that Trieker shot ltayner at a particular hour that morning, must have been false. The question of Tricker's guilt or innocence is not the one to be dealt witli now—that has been so often agitated that nothing new remains to be brought forward—the matter to be considered is the legality of the conviction. Granting even that Trieker did murder Bayner, he certainly did not murder him at the time sworn to by witnesses whose testimony has since beeu proved to be utterly valueless, and he was therefore wrongfully convicted. It waa comonly understood that the hon. gentleman at the head of the Government wsa himself favorably impressed towards Tricker, and would urge his emancipation in the Legislature and to his Excellency ; but time is passiug away—dreary enough to the victim of hope deferred —and nothing is done. If the present Ministry, like their predecessors, have made up their minds not to interfere in the matter, they should express their opinion to that effeot, and end the suspense in which those who still advocate Tricker's cause are kept. Perhaps, in such a.case, the best thing to do would be to convene a public meeting to consider the matter, and if all other plans failed,-to represent it to her Majesty, and petition her interference. There is no doubt whatever that an injustice has been done, and is still persisted in, to which the people of Wellington are extremely apathetic; a strong decided expression of popular opinion would do mucn to bring matters to a crisis, and this it is the duty of the inhabitants of Wellington—if they really cherish the jealous cure of their liberties common to .Englishmen—to giye at once.