NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16750, 4 January 1915, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

To-day, when native troops from India are fighting like heroes alongside their equally heroic white comrades against the German foe, and when native troops from Now Zealand nro being trained for the same service, it is particularly interesting to recall the fact that there was a time when it was proposed to use Sikhs against tho Maoris. This was in 1870, when To Kooti and his Hauhaus were being pursued by the Government forces, and when it looked as if the war would continue for several years longer. Tho resources of the colony were strained to their utmost in 1870, and although the services of Imperial troops had been discontinued for some years, it was proposed to again employ them if they were available. The Hon F. J). Bell and Dr J. E. Featheraton. the

New Zealand Commissioners, went to London and endoavoured to obtain Imperial troops, and thoy consulted Lord Napier of Magdala, who was Com-mander-in-Chief in India, on tho question of tho employment of an Indian force against tho Hauhaus.

Lord Napier informed tho New Zealand Commissioners at this interview that they could not hopo to induce the Indian authorities to allow of volunteering from the Ghurka regiments (of which thero were only four), nor could they succeed themselves in raising a true Ghurka force of trained men, in tho faco of the obstacles against their leaving India. As regarded a Sikh regiment, they might without difficulty raise a corps of two thousand trained men or even moro; for various reasons it would be expedient first to obtain tho concurrenco of tho Home Government in tho proposal. Though Lord Napier did not think obstacles would bo interposed by tho Indian Government, under fair conditions of servico, against tho enrolment of Sikhs, ho expressed great repugnance to the suggestion of employing the Indian race against the Maori, and strongly advised the Commissioners not to resort to enlistment in India at all, but to engage European soldiers, and these only in England, on tho ground that an Indian force would be found in every respect inferior to a European, and cost very nearly, if not quite, as much in the field, besides the ultimate expense of its return to India. The end of it all was that the New Zealand Government carried on the final campaign against Te Kooti with friendly Maori contingents and tho Armed Constabulary, without employing outside forces. The sons and grandsons of the Maoris on both Government and Hauhau sides are likely now to have a chance of fighting shoulder to shoulder with the descendants of tho war-loving Sikhs whom it was proposed to bring to New Zealand forty-five years ago

The prcsenco of nine-foot sharks in Lyttelton Harbour is « calculated to make bathers cautious, but it is not likely that these waters, even in midsummer, will become infested with these unpleasant creatures of the sea to the samo extent as is the Hanraki Gulf or the Bay of Plenty, the happy hunting ground for sharkcatchers. Very rarely is a man-killing shark reported in' these parts of the Pacific. Not more than two or throe instances, of. fatal attacks on human beings by sharks in New Zealand waters can be called to mind. One was at Napier a few years ago, when a bather was killed in the siirf a short distance out from the town esplanade, and there was another fatality at Moeraki, where a holiday-maker from Dunedin was bitten in two by a shark while he was bathing in one of tho bays usually considered quite safe. Many years ago an Auckland man had a piece bitten out of his leg while out swimming in the Waitcmata, and there is a Maori tradition which tolls of a Native who was eaten by a shark just off the headland which is now known as Point Jorningham, in Port Nicholson.

But most New Zealand fishermen and yachtsmen have grown to regard the shark as a comparatively harmless creature, as far as man is concerned, at any rate; and although occasional south-migrating visitors, such as the shark which killed tho bather at Moeraki, instil caution into summer bathers, wo are fortunately free from such ferocious tigers of the sea as tho "grey nurse," the terror of the Australian coast and the slayer of many a Sydney bather. The most formidable looking sharks on the New Zealand coast are the hammer-headed shark, which is sometimes seen about tho Bay of Islands and Whangaroa and Mangonui, and the mako, as it is called by the Maoris, the largo variety which haunts the Bay of Plenty and which is particularly plentiful around Mayor Island. The mako, which has been known to attack tho boats of fishermen hunting it for the sake of its teeth, fortunately doos not stray to these southern waters, and it is doubtful whether the hammer-headed shark, a fear-inspiring creature, has ever been seen as far south as Cook Strait.

A good deal was heard a score of years ago of Sir William MacGregor, Governor of Queensland, who has received a Privy Councillorship as his sharo of tho New Year honours. In tho 'seventies and 'eighties Dr MacGregor, as he then was, led an exceedingly strenuous life in Britain's Western Pacific possessions, and much adventure such as pioneers find in tropical lands where wild black men roam the forests and watch the coasts for incautious white voyagers fell to his lot. Dr MacGregor first cam© out to tho Pacific in 1875. Ho was an Aberdeen-schooled M.D., and after holding positions in the medical service under the Government at Seychelles and Mauritius ho was appointed Chief Medical Officer at Fiji, with his headquarters at Levuka. In Fiji he served on some expeditions into the interior when the islands of old King Thakombau wero little civilised, and ho also for a time was Acting High Commissioner for the Western Pacific.

It was in British New Guinea, however, that the athletic and adventureloving Scottish doctor found an opportunity to try his hand at nation-mak-ing. He was sent to Papua in 1888 in order to hoist tho British flag, and it was by him, on September 4 of that year, that tho southern portion of that vast island was declared to bo part of the Queen's dominions. From 1888 to 1899 he remained in control of British New Guinea, first under the title of' Administrator and then as Lieutenant-Governor, and in those eleven years ho helped to redeem a large part of tho coast population from utter barbarism, working in cordial co-operation with tho missionaries, of whom tho heroic James Chalmers was chief, and upon occasion he played tho soldier's part and led punitive expeditions to exact "utu" from some cannibal tribe of the inland parts, or pursued raiding canoe fleets along tho coast. Sir William MacGregor—he was knighted in 1889, in recognition of his pioneering workwas quito the strongest man and the man most sorely tried of all those who have served under the British flag in Papua. His pluck in emergency is indicated by the fact that he holds medals for lite-saving at sen, this in the course of his Western Pacific voyagings. Since his Papuan days Sir William MacGregor'e lines have been cast

in less exciting, and probably to him less interesting, places as Governor of various old-established and well-ordered British colonies.