WAR EXPENDITURE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 805, 18 July 1870, Page 3

WAR EXPENDITURE.

[Evening Post, July 7. J Our contemporary has pressed with a tender touch the weak point of the Ministerial case, but we are disposed to think more vigorous treatment is

; d required. Mr Stafford may if li ie chooses, grant absolution to his opp( to nents* but the country has been i served, has been systematically dt > ceived, acd to condone offences s n grave is to be to a certain exten ~ equally guilty. The Oovernmen ~ had but one 1 excuse for a violen a and factious opposition to their prede f, cessors, and that may be summed u] in one short sentence. All the leader of their party agreed in the impeach ment, and it amounted to a professioi of their own intentions if they wen allowed to supplaut them. Mr Staf- , ford, they urged, had committed a series of faults they thought might have been avoided. The same course 3 they have themselves still more re- ' markably repeated. Mr Stafford had spent about .£25,000 per month on the war, they have admittedly spent ? as much. But it must be borne in mind that the total expenditure of the late Government has been calculated , by political enemies, whose direct

interest it was to qualify as an arrear every payment which they made on defence capable of bearing a doubtful construction. Mr Vogel admits he has still unpaid arrears to meet, and this is really almost unavoidable; but if a hostile scrutiny was applied to each item as it came to charge, in all likelihood the gross expenditure on defence would be found to exceed that of the late Administration. But there is an enormous disproportion in the grounds of the expenditure. Last year Titokowaru had to be subdued, and the largest item of the bill, the war on the West Coast, does not appear in the accounts of this year at all. Last year, Te Kooti, though second to Titokowaru, was still in his greatest force, and occasioned a very large expenditure. If we grant that after a series of expeditions and attacks against a small body of insurgents some impression seems to be made, we confidently assert that none equal to that of last year has been effected, or remained to be effected, against Te Kooti during this year. We are in a better position, but less from anything achieved during the last twelve than in the pre ceding six months. This i 3 now apparent. Wherever the present Government has carried on war in a maiden district the results have been trum pery, if not discreditable. Whether we look at the six months wasted at Taupo in the vicinity of Te Kooti, who could neither be pursued nor molested, owing chiefly to the break down of the supply, which it seems Colonel M'Donnell was assumed to be unable to manage, and the incompetence of those who attempted to do it for him; or whether we glance at the miserable muddle at Patetere, which caused the interference of Mr M'Lean with the command, and the consequent non-arrival of the forces under Colonels Moule and Fraser till too late to help Kemp and M'Donnell, the same story of ultimate failure pervades the whole history of the year. But from the moment the insurgents triumphantly extricated themselves from our forces, and regained the old refuge of the Uriweras, the effect of last year's operations began to tell. In every place where our forces, whether Euro-

pean or Maori, have actually approached any of this heretofore unconquerable tribe the result has been immediate and bloodless submission. In fact, Mr Stafford had left their tribe in such a condition as neither to be able nor desirous to continue the struggle. Everywhere the same story. Lately at Waikarimoana —notably in the unmolested use of the Taupo track through their country by our commissariat convoys, where half-a-dozen Uriweras, had they had heart left to do so, could have at any moment cut of communication with the Front. Te Kooti may have escaped, but his stronghold is a safe retreat no longer; his allies whom he left last } ear cowed by the Euatahuna expedition, have not regained their courageiu the meantime, if by bad management all the money, spent this year has produced a tardy result, at least there is now no duubt that that of last year die 1 3ecure the complete conquest of the Ngatiruauui who when worse armed and les3 nu merous, defied General Pratt, General

Cameron, and General Chute; aiK profiting by our unpreparedness, ha< at the close of the session of 186£ gained the whole West Coast to th< Kai-Iwi. The military campaign, if no very creditable to our anna, has, how

e ever presented two features it has beea ~ the most costly ever undertaken ia [1 proportion to its dimensions, and it ~ leaves us with no reliable force in the 0 country. Mr Branigan's force cont tains promising material, but in spite (.of twelve months' training at great t expense it has not yet smelt gun-pow- . der. Moreover, it is numerically j small, and too expensive to be extended 3on a sufficient scale. The old force . Mr Branigan states has been weeded , of its bad and weakly men and a large , number of its good men who would not remain. Those now on pay, have, to some extent, lost the prestige they once possessed, for the fighting has been entrusted to the Maoris and not to them. If any of the friendlies should hereafter revolt where are we to look for our fighting men ? But this is not the worst. The expenditure was really incurred between July and February, at the rate of about .£33,000 per mensem. During the latter month Government alarmed at i some complaints in Southern journals, altered its system and its policy. The no-pay system, or as it might be more aptly styled, the deferred-pay system, was then inaugurated, and as it produced no real result by April, it too, was abandoned. Thus, at the very moment when the enemy should have been energetically followed up and the rebellion stamped out, we have seen a retreat general of ail the army to its home, and Te Kooti left for the second time since Mr Fox took office to recruit his force at leisure. This is the " wretched past." It is very wretched, but what guarantee have we that it will not be repeated in future ? We shall revert to this subject on a future occasion.