THE RANGARIRI PRISONERS.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 20, 23 December 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE RANGARIRI PRISONERS.

(From the Argus.) The Judges of the Supreme Court in Auckland have decided that the prisoners taken at Rangariri ara not to be regarded as simple prisoners of war, but as guilty of the crimes of high treason and murder. After the barbarities they have been practising upon the settlers, the cold-blooded massacres, and slaughters of our soldiers wounded in fair fight, it would not be very possible to deal with those men as simple belligerents. On the other hand, while regarding them as criminals, we cannot imitate their own ferocity — we cannot put them to the sword. But the punishment for' felony, viz., confiscation of their lands, will assuredly be f&pted. Waikato will be condemned to surrender a large slice of territory, as a penalty for raising a savage and murderous war. No are we any longer in a position tosympathise with the Maories in their disaster. They have been at pains to disabuse our minds of any lingering feeling of sympathy, both by the exaggerated unreasonableness of their objects, and the fashion in which they essayed to carry them out—killing man, woman and child. Notwithstanding Sir George Grey's forbearance, they meditated the extermination of the Pakeha. En-

couraged by the success we permitted them to be proud of, in blotting out the i Taranaki settlement, they projected a similar fate for all the other colonies, commencing with the Auckland one ;. that is, a race not numbering in all above 40,000 individuals, proceeded* and in the most bloodthirsty way, to resume possession of a vast country capable of supporting with ease a population of twelve to fifteen millions. Nature never meant a territory of the extent, resources and geographical situaion of New Zealand to ba the exclusive home of a few scanty clans of semi-savages. There, is room, surely, in so vast a region far aborigines and colonists to live side by side without cutting each other's throats, and there! will be such room for centuries to come.. We must compel the Maories to acquiesce in the fact, and we can do so with the clearest conscience. The confiscation of a portion of the Waikato country will not leave the Waikatos landless er without resource*. Tbe natives have never been numerous enough to use or occupy even a fraction of the enormous domains appertaining to every tribe. There are 36,000 square mile* in the North Island, or Ahi-na-Mawe, which is the scene of those disturbances; and for those 36,000 square miles there are only 36,000 aborigines. The extensive Taranaki country and its neighbourhood contain, for instance, only 1200 Ngatiawas, 1300 Ngataruanuis, and about 45() Taranakis. The Ngatiawas of the east coast number only 1860 individuals ; and vet their territory embraces 1,458,000 acres. The friendly clan of Nwapuhi is reduced to 5800 souls, but its estate is 2, 195,000 acres. Our friends of the Ngatiwhatua, broken up years ago by the Waikato?, are only 530 persons, and their domain is 1,278,000 acres. Of the dimensions of the territory held by the Waikatos and other septs, we have not obtained the exact figures, but the contrast of acres and human beings is in similar proportion. Everywhere in New Zealand, the vast reaches of land are only tenanted or touched by man in an occasional isolated spot. The country at large lies wholly unused, for the Maories never since we knew them subsisted by hunting, and so they have not the same reason to complain of the white man's visit as the more primitive savages of Australia, whose game, and therefore, subsistence, the stranger's coming banishes. Consequently, the strong dislike of the tribes in late years to sell,' even at the highest price, any part of those immense tracts, does not proceed from their really requiring them in any way, but from their disinclination to assist thereby the growth of the rival race. It is intended by the Auckland Government to widely establish military settlers in the confiscated districts of the frontier. A great portion of that country is eminently suitable for cultivation. The vaUey of the Waipa, a hundred miie3 long and ten or twelve broad, 18 one of the most fertile in all New. Zealand ; and the valley of the Thames has been famous for the production of enormous crops of wheat. And lines of settlers in Waiato. holding their lands by a tenure of military service, and who will he armed and trained soldiers, will constitute a protection to the colony behind, which is the most important in the island. Such a cordon of frontiersmen will be an effectual bridle on Maori incursions, and prevent a repetition of the disasters and horrors \ which characterise the present outbreak, and with which every newspaper and letter from the seat of war has been fraught. As a writer from the scene of those atrocities says — " Settlers who have never raised an arm against a native, are shot down in cold blood. Old grey-headed men, defenceless women, innocent little children, mere infants, are cruelly butchered, and their corpses dis gured in a most fiendish manner. Oue man who was thus sacrificed was in my employ for twelve months, and a better-hearted creature never breathed. He had been previously on such good terms with the natives that he did not believe they would harm him, and refused to arm himself. Another old man, whose funeral I attended the other day, was over seventy years of age, and nearly bent double. One little child, who was fired at, actually stood smiling at the savage while he presented his piece at him. .... Could you see the number of people here in Auckland, forced from home and all its duties — people whose only desire it was to be at peace with all men, and who toiled away in the wilderness, obeying the Divine injunction to replenish the earth and subdue it — it would make your heart sick.'* It is high time, indeed, that effectual steps were taken to preclude a recurrence of those tragedies. England cannot afford to have her New Zealand colonies destroyed in detail like that of Taranaki, where, while a victory attended her arms, the settler was, nevertheless, ruined,— driven from his home, and though twe years have elapsed since, not yet reinstated in it, owing to the continuance of frontier insecurity. We could not hear of the recent butcheries — disgusting and cowardly assassinations and mutilations — and this with patience of allowing them to be repeated periodically. The warrior who can strike down a child or tomahawk a dead body, is not a hero but a brute, and be must be made to know" that we won't again suffer him to play that part. In sentimental regard for the Maories we have forgotten overmuch the rights and the safety of our kinsmen planted in New Zealand. Their position and security must now be looked to, and in a practical and way. There is more Uian room for aborigines and settlers, without coming in hostile contact, and guarantees must be obtained by this wf|< 'against the

possibility of fresh fighting, or, rather, renewed murder. The aborigines must be compelled on fair and just terms to become, with the whites, obedient subjects of the one Government. It will be all the better for them, too, in every sense. For we must recollect tbat the presence of the Pakeha has in reality benefited them, since it has brought them the opportunity of civilisation. It is quite incorrect to suppose that the gradual and progressive diminution of their numbers dates from our colonisation. They were rapidly diminishing before by their ruthless unsparing intestine wars. The once powerful NTgatiWahaua of the east coast, and of Rotarua, remember how the ferocity of the- northern conqtieror Hon^i destroyed the bulk of their tribe. the relics of the South. lsland . can recollect the ter- . rible invasion, of Raparaha and bis Ngatiawas from the Wellington country—an invasion which /lef6 them only a remnant. And when our settlement was fixed * in Taranaki, it had been previously made - v -quite desolate by : the Waikatos; if is only since that the survivors of tho original inhabitants have returned,; and b'aye given us so much trouble. Our presence in New Zealand has not been a curse in any respect, but a boon to the native. It has given him what he had not before — the opportunity for development. There is no reason why he Bhould not live at peace with us ; and if he will not of his own accord, then it only remains to make; him, even with bit and bridle. "'