The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Wednesday, July 26, 1865.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 234, 26 July 1865, Page 2

The Lake Wakatip Mail. Queenstown, Wednesday, July 26, 1865.

Fortunately the English news brings one valuable and important item of intelligence. The Home Government insist again upon the early withdrawal of five regiment of troops. The war will thus be drawn into a narrower circle and be more of a colonial affair. We must also be prepared to sacrifice lands not worth retaining at such an enormous cost. This is evidently the opinion of tho Government at home, who charge us with endeavoring still to acquire more Native land. We are further called upon to pay £4O for every soldier retained in the colony since January Ist of this year. For 12,000 soldiers this, to the end of the present month, would entail upon the colony the payment of a sum of £280,000 under this head alone. This is an item not hitherto taken into calculation. An article that we take the liberty of publishing from the Canterbury ' Press,' and to be found in another portion of our columns, shows only partially what the war is costing us.

Better, under such circumstances, that the holdings and belongings of a few thousand settlers should be sacrificed and compenation paid them at once, than that tens of thousands of colonists should suffer for what the ' Daily News' styles " the objects on which a small but influential class of the colonists have set their minds on attaining." Better that an abstract principle of Maori Kingism be forgotten. We would also recommend the perusal of this well informed and well written article, which is reprinted in the 'Home News' brought by the last mail. The premises from which it starts are not entirely correct, but the arguments adduced are, without exception,, those enunciated by a large number of the best wishers and residents of the colony. The Home Government twit us very justly, and put the professed intentions of the present administration to the test, when they

simply ask us to ca.iry out a policy that we informed tliern had long ago received the sanction of the colonists through the Assembly, and commnnicated to them by the Weld Cabinet. What could be expected or be more fair ? The colonists of the Middle Island would not, if they could, separate from the North Island, though the burden of the war falls principally upon its population, but they do justly and reasonably demand the drawing of the war within such limits as either the strength or the revenues of the colony will be able to support without increasing these burdens. It is therefore right to speak out boldly on such a subject. It has been too long conceded to " a small but influential class of colonists who set their minds on attaining an object," the power of conducting this war, and thereby ruinously plunging the Middle Island into liabilities of a most onerous nature. These will take years to extinguish. In the meantime the goldfields and others interested must pay the piper in the shape of heavy duties and taxes, and labor, moreover, under an impaired credit in the money market, preventing any beneficial use of a borrowing power. Under such circumstances anything that tends to close the war is a matter of great interest to the residents in the Middle Island, and especially to the goldfields, and we hail, as a source of congratulation, the news brought by the present mail. It may be a death knell to the hopes of those who desire the war to extend, to see the Maoris exterminated and a white population settled on their lands. If such a policy is right it may be remitted to a future period, when population shall have occupied and turned to more useful purposes than mere sheep tracks the vast wilderness of waste lands already obtained from the Native race of New Zealand. We might when that time arrives—which i s not likely to be the case for many years—as witness the Provincial Government of Otago driving population away —be prepared to support such views from an abstract point of principle. In the meantime let us colonise the lands we have, and when we have wealth and population—and by this time a great portion of the Maoris may have degenerated—it will be time enough to talk of erecting fresh land marks. At present prudence and honor tell us to comply with our promises, and to send away the troops, and the sooner we look the war face to face, without extraneous assistance, the greater meed of justice will be done to those who have borne the burdens of the day, until lately, uncomplainingly.