PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Thursday, November 10, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 997, 10 November 1881, Page 2

PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Thursday, November 10, 1881.

Now that the Government have, after an overwhelming display of military power, captured Te Whiti, Tohu, and Hiroki, the question absorbing the minds of everyone is: What are “ they going to do with them ?” So far as Hiroki the Moumahaki murderer is concerned, the question could be readily answered. For a cool deliberate crime sueh as his, without one spark of political incentive to lead to its perpetration, there is but one punishment adequate, and that is the last dread penalty of the law. But the great difficulty with respect to Hiroki will be to obtain, at this lapse of time, sufficient evidence to fix the guilt upon him. Te Whiti’s and Tohu’s offence when viewed with a strict legal eye, will simply amount to

a breach of the Riot Act. The trial of these men upon that charge will still leave the solution of the Waimate Plains difficulty as far off as ever. For, if the physical (to say nothing of the moral) force, which costs the country over a thousand pounds a day, at Parihaka, be removed, what guarantee has the Colony at large that some prophet, other than Te Whiti, will not arise, and with equal doggedness pursue a somewhat similar line of action to that of his predecessor ? In some quarters it was doubted whether the Natives at Parihaka, under their High Priest, Te Whiti, ever really contemplated war. This idea was strengthened by the fact that no hostile movements, in the way of erecting fortresses, had, so far as could be gathered, been adopted by them. Be that as it may, the attitude assumed by Te Whiti during the past three years, left in the minds of people, both at home, and in the Colony, that feeling of misgiving and insecurity that an “armed peace ” engenders. So long as Te Whiti ruled a band of fanatical followers at Parihaka, no one could forecast what form the offensive movement on their part might assume. To the Ngatiruanui tribe, the staunchest adherents of Te Whiti, can be traced the germs of almost every Native insurrection the Colony has suffered from. That part of the West Coast has been, in years past, the hotbed of disaffection. A turbulent tribe of Natives, intellectually inferior to any of their countrymen in the North Island — a tribe which the early missionaries almost totally failed in imbuing with the Divine precepts of Christianity — has been only repeating its past history in raising such prophets as Te Whiti. The Pai Marire-B~auh.au doctrine, which proved so infectious throughout the North Island,Jean be traced to Te UA, A Ngatircanui prophet. It is a common expression among the Natives of the East Coast, when discussing among themselves on state occasions in their runangas, matters of a purely national character, and pertaining to their fatherland, for the old men to impress upon their more youthful hearers, in sorrowful strains, the sad warning that the loss of their lands, through the action of past administrations, on account of the “ sins of the Hauhaus,” is solely owing to the influence exerted in the past by evil counsellors from the West Coast. That the arch-leader Te Whiti, and his Prime Minister, Tohu, are now firmly within the grasp of the British law, will, doubtless, in these more enlightened days, contribute, in no small degree, to nullifying the mana they so long held over their people. Whether the West Coast victory is the end of the programme of the political campaign, remains to be seen. We cannot, however, help reflecting that as Te Whiti has all along shown a remarkable disinclination for actual warfare, a considerable saving in public expenditure would have been effected had the policy now adopted been put into operation two or three years ago, or if Mr. Bryce’s advice had been acted on at the beginning of the year. Itis true that when Mr. John Sheehan was Native Minister, he made an effort—an effort that was treated by Te Whiti with contempt —to parley with the prophet-chief. Mr. Sheehan’s retreat, as a Minister of the Crown, from Parihaka, on the occasion referred to, will be remembered in the annals of the political history of the Colony, as the most ignominious on record. Mr. Rolleston’s retreat was but a shade better; and it was reserved for Mr. Bryce, aided by the timely exigence of an electioneering campaign, to pull the Colony through one of its greatest, modern troubles. It seems at last that any actual hostile’uprising of the Natives, is out of the question. War—with all its attendant evils, with its damaging effect at the present critical juncture of the affairs of the Colony—with its disturbing influences upon the settlement of the country, and the general feeling of insecurity it carries with it, is averted. The Colony at large breathes more freely. The last stronghold of the Natives has, to all appearance, collapsed ; and, this fact, taken in conjunction with the peaceful relations fisting between the powerful Waikato tribes, and the Europeans, we think the day is not far distant when the Native difficulty shall be numbered among the things of the past. [Since the above was written the opinion of Judge Gillies, in respect of armed forces, will be found in our telegraphic news].