KAWHIA.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 16, 22 April 1867, Page 94

KAWHIA.

DESTRUCTION OP THE WESLEYAN -MISSION STATION BY NATIVES.“ .

The correspondent of the Daily Southern Cross, under date 2nd April, writes as fol-i lows:—

Intelligence has just been received-'ofun outrage which will, I regret to say, cause considerable uueasiness in this .settlement, but will, I trust, call the attention of the Government to the state of affairs in this part of the province. The natives residing at Kawhia, mostly refugees from W aikato and other places, have, broken into and ransacked, the Wesleyan mission station established as Kawhia, the inmates, however, escaping; and tam informed by one that, the miscreants, after driving away the cows and sheep (four cows and several sheep), destroyed all that was not portable or, in their idea, useful; and thi was effected in spite of and cont rary to the wishes of the Kawhia natives, to whom the Rev. Mr Schnackenburg, the Wesleyan missionary, has long been a father uud.. a friend. I have also to add the theft from a, settler of another horse by the same nativesand really, if some steps are not takeii—and that immediately—for our protection, the settlers will be forced to leave the-district. “ L'empire c'esl la paix”, is a..beautiful idea, but it is not truth. The settlers here are living—and they well know it—on a mine which may‘at any moment be sprung to their inevitable destruction ; and nothing, will secure their, safety, and. that of the, adjoining.settlements, b->t the oceu-. pat-ion of Kawhia., This must 'sooner or. iater be effected, and, for the'welfare of the province; tiie sooner.it is occupied the better. - The natives, I jam. informed,'.on very :goo.fl authority,. are_ fortifying them selves.near..Orakau.,*t a,pa which they, call the'M.*ngawau Pa,ana 1 _have'no .doubt that we shall, soon hear of the cornmbucenient of hostilities in the-Waikato^district.

i A igentleman; just arrived lVom.Kawhia, corroborates all that Iha^vp,written, -adding .that the .building.ls completely gutted, the floor**; ‘ wiailowe, a)i -fciivayQji