TARANAKI.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 453, 7 March 1857, Page 7

TARANAKI.

We have no papers to the latest dates from Tai'anaki. The ' Wan^anui Chronicle' says,— From the ' Taranaki Herald'it appears that the late elections to the Provincial Council may have been invalid ; in consequence of the delay or neglect of the late Superintendent to' publish a certain, said to be necessary, proclamation. The matter has been referred to the AttorneyGeneral ; whose decision, we hope, will be sensible, riot quibblingj and not set aside the elections on a doubtful question of form, .

Last Saturday's '■' Herald' contains a brfef announcement of the death of the Chief Aram.a Karakai' On that day his remains were consigned to the-grave.. By the Rev.. John Whitely, in the-presence of'a few natives, the slight attendance arising from the jealousy with which the presence of natives now favouring peace with Katatore would have been viewed on the occasion. The fitting spr>t appointed for Arama Karaka's resting place was outside the celebrated Ninia Pa, in which he died, and side by side with some of his comrades who have fallen in fight and been buried there. He himself died from natural causes, after a long and lingering illness—in the prime of life—his death accelerated by the harassing struggle in which he was so principally and actively engaged It is impossible to speak of the deceased Chief (as we have known him during his residence in this Province) without respect and admiration. As a New Zealand warrior, he had been a terror to his countrymen, but he changed his habits with his Maori name of Mitikakau, and became a Christian, taking the name of the celebrated Dr. Adam Clarke. As such'his life was exemplary to the last. He engaged in arms, on his arrival from the south with the greatest reluctance, and as a last alternative. When the news of the massacre of his kinsman Rawiri reached him, he entertained then, and for some months after, the most perfect reliance that the New Zealand Government would put the criminal natives on their trial In this he was doomed to be disappointed, and this feeling of British law having been withheld affected him to the grave. "It is needless to .relate the horrible tragedy, for it is too well known. Suffice it to observe, that the Government shunned their duty bychoosing to view it as a mere family quarrel,and leaving the natives to fight it out amongst themselves. Numbers of them have been killed and wounded in this modern ' Wager of Battle,' and after a desultory struggle, reaching its third year,the fortune of war is not on the side of justice and right.— Herald, Jan. 24. , .