A SPECIAL NOTION,

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 14, Issue 723, 4 October 1869, Page 4

A SPECIAL NOTION,

*?EITTEN AT THE EtTlli QE THE MOON. TO THE EDITOR 0? TT£E H.VWKE's EAY TIMES. g; IB} —It has bßen seriously asked in England —"Why do not 200,000 colonists in New Zealand put down forty or fifty thousand Maoris, of whom less than half are hostile ? " It is often easier to ask a question than to answer it, but Hawke's Bay heing the seat of war, the answer would csem to devolve upon this Province. Men of Otago, in the cold South, ye ore only divided from Hawke's Bay by eight degrees of latitude and a channel between the islands, why should geographical difficulties separate us ? Ye have no Maoris in your land. Men of Canterbury, wherefore do ye tarry ? Ye are not so far off. Men of Nelson, why do Cook's Straits divide ye from us ? Men of Wellington, ye are nearest, should the want of roads keep your militia from us, or are ye too busy and too rich ? Men of Auckland, and the warm North, ■wharefore are ye backward ? Why pause yo ere marching through the stronghold of the Waikatus ? Yo men of the Island Poenamu across the iSiraits are said to number 140 000, while on the length of seven degress from North Cape to Wellington we of the North are counted less than sixty thousand, and the Maoris with us number as many. Men of Taranaki and Wanganui, wherefore are ye cooped up in towns? Behold us on the 39th parallel, why come yo not from the 34th and 48th parallels, with arms in your hands, and powder and money in your pouches ? Let not mountains and forests hinder ye. Noi having replies for these questions, we are compelled to adopt the tu quoque, and plead excuses from other cases. Why do not the two or three millions in London put down the thieves and robbers whom they outnumber ? Do they wait for the Shetlanders or Orkney men to go to their rescue ? Why do not the sober men put down the drunkards ? Why do not the Magistrates, and police, and other women sufiiee to put down the 200,000 who disgrace the city of London ? Why arß a portion of the people of Ireland permitted to offer a determined oppo sition to the British Government? Are not the odds as six to one against them ? Where are the Channel Islanders ? Italians, why catch ye not your brigands in the Abruzzi ? The law decrees it—ye have only to obey. Do ye count the cost? The delivery of a few persons from the hands of the Abyseiuians cost eight millions of pounds sterling. Wait not then till ye hear that the Tartars have conquered the Ching dynasty. BtriK.