MR. FOX ON NATIVE AFFAIRS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 15, Issue 794, 9 June 1870, Page 3

MR. FOX ON NATIVE AFFAIRS.

[From tlie Evening Post.J We aud other journals have often, regretted the reluctance displayed by the Government to afford information 0.1 native and other important affairs; and these regrets so far as we are concerned, are intensified by learning what a vast fund of information the Premier has bestowed upon our neighbors in Canterbury, entirely new to us. Mr Fox told the people of Christchurch, "During the year we have been in office we have never had one single reverse before the enemy. 1 believe lam strictly accurate in saying that whether the enemy was attacked by native allies or ourselves, we have always had a signal victory. We have had a great, marked, crushing, conclusive

success. Now, lam lain to think, and hopeful to believe, and it is my firm conviction,that we have actually struck the last blow that will have to be struck in New Zealand. •* * * * * If it pleases God this week will see a final termination to Te Kooti ,by the entire discomfiture of his ■ party, even if Te Kooti be not dead." This week to finish the wasting weary war, which has so long been our curse? Not another blow to be struck? Kooti annihilitated without even paying the £SOOO for him ? Our army of colonels and majors white and brown—to be disbanded, and our quarter of a million war expenditure left free for other purposes? Why did not Mr Fox tell us all this before he went away' We would have cheered him on his path with triumphant poeans. And we imagining all the time that the King natives were still likely to give trouble; that Kooti was at large, with his usual following; that the friendly natives had accomplished nothing beyond spending money, and that the sole result of the year's warlike operations was the capture of the 30 prisoners —young or old, fat or lean, as the case may be—now in Mount Cook Barracks? It might be thought cruel of Mr Fox to leave us in such suspense, but he most likely deemed us deaf to his charming, " charm he never so wisely;" it has been tried on us before. Yes; the romance of the last year's operations, which so charmed the citizens of Christchurch, and " beguiled them of their cheers" is a brilliant one, and worthy of its. author's fame. What a pity that it is no;t reality,