PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Tuesday, November 8, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 996, 8 November 1881, Page 2

PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Tuesday, November 8, 1881.

The news to hand in our extra of Saturday last to the effect that Te » Whiti, Tohu, and Hiroki —the murderer whom the Government have allowed,to go free for months—had been arrested, was received with one general acclaim of rejoicing. At any rate it was so in Poverty Bay, and we doubt not throughout the Colony. It is a pity that our telegram was so meagre, for what between the social—for we can hardly call it the political—aspect, as represented by Te W hiti, and Tohu, and the criminal, as represented by Hiroki, we ought to expect a continuous flow of information calculated to satisfy the most morbid desire for sensatioual news. Pending any further receipts, however, on these heads, we may say a word or two on the political side of the question, by way of preliminary. There can be no doubt that it is a most fortunate circumstance, or combination of circumstances, that have led to the arrest of these three men. It may be that the Government did not see their way to apprehend them by the ordinary process of the police force. To the minds of the great thinking crowds of the Colony, the matter lay in a nutshell, and did not require anything in the shape of an armed battalion, to deprive, at any rate two of these men, of their liberty. But our contention is that the lucky circumstance of Te Whitt’s too faithful belief in the supremacy of an impotent God, has contributed more than our forces towards his incarceration. When the celebrated proclamation was issued, giving these outlaws fourteen days more grace than would have

been granted to one of our own color, we expressed a doubt that the Government werp prepared to fight it out if Te Whiti chose to set up a determined opposition. Events have, subsequently, proved lhat this is so, for we find Major Atkineon deliberately stating in his later speech at Patea that the “ Government have been compelled to call upon the Volunteers for aid.” Now when it is considered that our Volunteers cannot he “ compelled to go such distances from their homes ; and that the idea of falling back on the local forces emanated from a display of that patriotic spirit so characteristic of the settlers, it cannot be said that the Government were prepared, in any military sense, to undertake offensive operations against Te Whiti and his followers, with the force at their disposal —minus the lay Volunteers. As an instance, amongst others, of how glibly some people talk of war with the Natives, we clip the following from the Auckland Star : —

When the Waitara trouble arose, Governor Gore Browne sent for the late Sir Donald (then Mr.) McLean, and asked what military force would be required to coerce the Natives into submission. Mr. McLean renlied, “ Five thousand troops.” Governor Browne ridiculed the estimate, and said 1000 would do it easily. Sir Donald, in speaking of the interview subsequently, observed, “ I thought 5000 would have all their work before them ; but I did not dream then that it would take 15,000, the number actually engaged, before peace was finally restored.” An officer of long experience in Native warfare, being questioned the other day relative to the force that would be necessary in case of a rupture with Te Whiti, said 10,000 men. On being pressed to explain how he arrived at this total, lie said : “ There would at the beginning be about 600 Natives in arms, aud the number would probably be increased to 1000. To hold our long frontier, protecting the settlers, supplying our commissariat and prosecuting an aggressive war against the enemy posted in an almost inaccessible country, we should require ten men to their one. A Native has no settlements to defend ; he can choose his own point of attack j move with facility and secrecy; we have to be prepared for his appearance anywhere.” If four desperadoes — the Kelly gang —kept the whole of Victoria in a fever of excitement for more than a year, and cost the Government £47,000, what is a fair estimate to make of tho cost of putting down 1000 more reckless armed men, haunting a worse country, and bent on the indiscriminate slaughter of European settlers ? We have, unhappily, only too conclusive material in our past experience for the solution of the problem.

We refrain from extending our remarks on this subject, pending the receipt of further advices ; but, accordas matters stand at present, it looks very much as if the military ardour and fighting proclivities of Mr. New Minister Bryce have been taken advantage of by the Hall Cabinet to raise a popular cry, in virtue of which they hope to carry the elections of their party.