MR. FITZGERALD AND THE BRITISH TROOPS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 268, 22 November 1865, Page 3

MR. FITZGERALD AND THE BRITISH TROOPS.

The following reasons for the instant dismissal of the British Forces we extract from the above gentleman's speech as reported by the Canterbury 4 Press' It is with pain and grief that I am compelled to use one single expression which may seem derogatory to Her Majesty's forces, and of those who command the;n. Gentlemen, I have had too many iriends and relations in the British army who have fought for their country, to permit me to say any- ' thing derogatory of that service in whose greatness and glory we, in company with the home country, have a strong and deep interest. It is under a sense of duty and dealing with facts which I cannot conceal from myself, that I say what I now assert of the military transactions in this country. I say that the whole course of military events in this country has tended to persuade the natives that it takes ten Englishmen to fight one Maoii. (Laughter.) That is not a mere expression, but a fact. Major Atkinson told a very good story in the House, which you may have read, but which will bear repetition, and which I wish you to lay to heart, of a conversation he had with Hori Kingi, of W anganui, when he wanted to make the expedition to i take Pipiriki. He said to Hori Kingi, 44 How many men shall we want r" 44 400, was the reply." 44 400, that is a great number." 44 You will want them." 44 How many Maoris would you take r" 44 Oh ! I should take 100 Maoris; that has nothing to do with it; the General always takes 400. Now, gentlemen, that is a story which shows you how the natives look at us at the present moment; they look upon themselves as superior to us. I will ask you first to look at the Taranaki war. In that country there was a whole British array cooped up within the limits of the town for nearly a whole year, and not a man daring to go beyond it; the farms of the settlers being burnt before their eves for a whole year by an inferior force of Maoris; and there the whole British army was cooped up doing nothing. (Laughter.) Now you will allow me to say you have had to pay £150,000 to the Taranaki settlers for these farms, which the British army saw burning before their eyes. (Cheers and laughter.) Then we went to the \\ aikato. I am afraid to say how many thousand men General Cameron took iuto the W aikato, provided with implements of war, and a gigantic commissiarat establishment two or three times the strength of the whole army with which Sir Charles Napier conquered Scinde, the most warlike territojy of British India. First, there was Koheroa : General Cameron certainly behaved splendidly there ; but then conns Mere Mere, which was a remarkable affair, because on that occasion there were more Maoris under arras than ever before or since; for it is supposed that there were 1,500 men on the heights, and if they had been defeated the war would have been ended. There was a large swamp in front of the British army, and there were rifle pits round the heights opposite; there was no regular stockade, but it was a place that, looking at the history of British arms and what a British army is accustomed to do, ought to have been stormed and taken in three hours. There was nothing in that swamp to prevent the army from crossing it; but General Cameron lay opposite those heights for days and weeks, waiting for the steamer, because in storming the neights he thought he could surround them. At last he did surround them, but they got away over the swamp and he never saw any more of them—(laughter) to use an American phrase, they had all skedaddled. (Laughter.) Well, we went on to the other actions of the Waikato, of which you have read; but in every case the Maoris were fighting us with a few men, to a large army of Euglish. r lhen came the Tauranga expedition. In the Gate pah, it is said, there were 400 Maoris, although the natives themselves state the number to have been only 150; and we had 2,000 soldiers, seventeen pieces of artillery—one a Impounder Armstrong gun—and yet they beat us. Yet that was an almost undefended pah, at least there was no great parapet to get over. The ground was honey-combed underneath, but with all that force they beat us; and I speak of this, having heard it from the mouths of officers themselves who fought in that action. Then we come next to the Wanganui affair. The Government wanted a small flying column to run up to laranaki, establishing posts on the route, constructing bridges over the streams, and making roads in impracticable places. Mr Weld's object was that roads should be made and forts established. The General went with, I believe, 2,000 men. Now there were not 2,000 natives in the whole country. I am sure that the natives could not get together 600 men in the country from Wanganui to Taranaki. What was the first thing General Cameron did? Right in the way stood the Wereroa pah, and the General took his army down by the sea-shore and marched past it in the night at double quick time. (Laughter.) The Hau-hau prophet made a song upon this movement, in which he describes himself as Standing on the parapets of the pah waving his hands to the General and his army, which, being paralysed by supernatural power—(laughter) —had to skim along the shore like lea-gulls. (Loud laughter.) I wish to ask you whether if it is necessary to use ten soldiers to one Maori, it is the smallest use to

k?ep these troops in the colony any longer ? (Loud and prolonged cheers ) But besides that, which only goes to this extent, that they are of no use, I assert that they are a positive mischief and injury to the colony, because the army is commanded by a General who holds an independent authority from the War Office at llome, who does not consider himself subordinate to the Government here, except in the mere general outline of the operations to be undertaken ; therefore the very existence of one single regiment in this colony provides for that which has been our enrso since the beginning of the Constitution—double government — (hear, hear) two authorities comivjr into collision, and constantly quarrelling You know the story of the taking of the Wereroa pah, and how \vc had to take it with colonial forces, the Imperial army standing idly by. But there was an affair the other day of greater gravity, a calamity of which you have all heard, and which you deplore. Mr Broughton, carrying the proclamation of peace from General NVaddy, the commander of the forces, to the Karakaramea pah, which is two miles and a-halffrom the Patea redoubt, where there were 150 scldiers, commanded by an officer—Mr Broughton went to the pah, and was barbarously tomahawked ; and not one British soldier stirred his foot to inquire for him if alive, or revenge him if dead. (Groans.) I say that was a disgrace to the British army. (Loud cheers.) 1 cannot tell you how it occurred, whether the instructions of the officer in command were such that he felt himself unable to act; or whether the instructions left with General Waddy curtailed his powers, but I know the result is the army is paralysed for instantaneous action Now I think his Excellency j would have no objection to my telling you what occurred when I took the letters to him apprising us of the murder, lie said, 4k If there is a steamer in the harbor, I am ready to go down to Wanganui to-day to take steps for punishing these criminals." I said, " That, sir, is the advice I came to give you." (Cheers.) And we should have started then and there, but it occurred to his Excellency that Brigadier-General Chute was expected the day after, and the Governor thought he had better wait for the new commander. lie did not arrive, however, until two or three days had passed, after which there were negotiations to be carried on. Ministers declined to ask that the troops should be employed to avenge the murder; nothing was done until a day or so after, when we resigned. That was, however, no fault of ours; our advice was that that very day steps ought to have been taken to avenge Mr Broughton's fate. (Cheers.)

The 'Press' of the 7th inst says:—" Yesterday

morning a sample of black scind, through which specks of gold were very clearly discernible, was exhibited in Christchureh. The sample was said to have been obtained at the head of a creek running into the Waimakniriri, about six ini'es above Bealey Town. By Cobb's coach, which arrived last evening, another sample was received similar in appearance to the former, and report stated that several men had left the Bealey Township to examine the spot from which the prospect had been obtained. On Sit in day we published authentic information of gold having been found on the Tuipo, between the Saddles, and this discovery leads to a supposition that gold wiil yet be found in payable quantities on this 6ide of the ranges."

From the 'Hokitika Advertiser' we learn that the black sand found on the beach, and which contains very fine gold, has been made to pay about 15s a man per day, by a method invented by a Mr Collett. The usual sluice-box is used with a plate of iron prepared by chemical means with a thin coating of quicksilver, like the back of a looking-glass, over which is placed a perforated square of zinc. The sand is shovelled on this and the water from the sluice-mouth wash it on to the quicksilver plate below. The plates are sold for 20s, and they will remain good for a month, when they can be renewed at half the cost.

Mr Fenwick has handed to us (says the 'Oamaru Times') a specimen of slate lately discovered on his lands. It is a piice taken from the surface, but j idges to whom it has been submitted think highly of it, and believe the discovery likely to turn out one of considerable importance should the material be found to exist in quantity. We learn from the ' Dunstan Times' of the completion of another valuable water-race. Our contemporary states that:—" The great waterrace of the Scandinavian company at Dunstan Creek was opened with much ceremony on the 7th inst. It was named by Mrs Longlev, one of the shareholders, who acquitted herself in a manner highly satisfactory. The proceedings wound up with a banquet at the Montezuma Hotel. The race carries between 30 and 40 heads of water, and when quite finished will cost about £10,000." The ' Walkouaiti Herald' says *' The reception which Mr Vogel met with at the hands of his constituents on the occasion of his addressing them on Monday evening last was a mcst flattering and enthusiastic one. In the course of his speech he was frequently applauded, and at the conclusion of the meeting Mr Vogel received a perfect ovation. We are inclined to think that in the opinion of the good folks of Waikouaiti, Mr Vogei is the 'right man in the right place,' and that the reception given to him must have been very gratifying."