HOW TO DEAL WITH TITO KOWARU.

Southland Times, Issue 1061, 23 November 1868, Page 3

HOW TO DEAL WITH TITO KOWARU.

"•" (Erom the 'Wanganui Times.' This cannibal chief and the hapus of the Ngratiruanui tribe under his command have ever been a terror to Europeans m the southern part of the Taranaki district. The cold-blooded and unprovoked murders committed by those savages during the last five or six years have been jinked at by the Government, who made no attempt to punish the murderers. Even after Cahill, Squires, Clarke, and trooper Smith were butchered, and the body of the latter carried off, cooked, and "eaten by that savage, who in a written circular boasted of the exploit, even then, we say, the Government had ordered that the outposts should be drawn in, the force concentrated at Patea, and the settlers left to their fate. Now that they have carried their movement into effect it will be the duty of a new Government, which we trust is, or shortly will be in office, to at once adopt measures for exterminating Tito Kowaru and as many of his followers as will reduce the number of those savages to a minimum that will ensure their submission to law and order. We are aware that such a recommendation will be read with pious indignation and severely commented upon by people at home. Those philanthrophists can read of the butchery of their fellow-countrymen ; of some of them being butchered, cooked and eaten ; others, when wounded and taken prisoners, thrown on huge fires to be roasted whilst still alive, and no mercy ever having been shown by any of those relentless cannibals. They can also read of the settlers who escaped being butchered, being plundered, their houses burnt down, and themselves and families driven from their homes in beggary — all this, we say, our Exeter Hall friends at home could more patiently hear thau that one of the savages should be roughly treated by our men during an attack upou any of their strongholds. The virtuous indignation which gave rise to the Pokaikai Commission, and the trash published in the home papers upon kindred subjects, fully prove that the sympathies of an influential party at home are with the Maoris, and not with their murdered and plundered fellow countaymen. England has left us to fight it out with the Natives, or at least with such hapus of cannibals as those under the control of men like Tito Kowaru, and for the benefit of the peacefully disposed portion of the Native race, and the European population at large, we are compelled to say, that extermination is now the only remedy. In fact we fully endorse the sentiments expressed in the following article, which we clip from the ' Taranaki Herald of the 26th instant: — " "With regard to Tito arid hia mob, our advice will be short and concise — Extermination. Desperate diseases require desperate remedies, and if we have no which to see this native feud extending further, we must crush it out — crush every spark of it out — or we may find, when we least expect it, that it has broken out in a fresh place, causing us more loss of blood and treasure to subdue. The blood of the gallant men who were killed — especially those poor fellows who were barbarously tortured, and perhaps eatenby the fiendish Hau-haus-cries aloud for vengeance, and the Ministers will be unworthy of the name of men if they make any terms with these wretches. Extermination from the face of the earth is the mildest phrase we can use for the punishment of such animals. Animals ! No animal — not even the brutes of the forest — would torture the poor men who lay wounded, as these incarnate savages are reported to have done. They are worse than animals — they are veritable ghouls. Let us not be misunderstood. "We are not advocating in any way the extermination of the Maori race as a whole, but merely the hapu to the south of this province, headed by Tito Kowaru. The conduct of such men as the natives who escaped from the Chatham Islands, we can almost admire, and believe that had the same number of Europeans, prisoners been in a similar position, that few of those who had them in charge would have been allowed to live to tell the tale of their escape. But Tito Kowaru's Jtapu, whose deeds are rapine, murder, and cannibalism — and who are a. curse to this island and colony — we

would wipe out of existence by any means, as long as it was done well and effectually. Better at once adopt Mi Cracroft Wilson's suggestion, and finish the war by contract, let the sum be what it may, and we shall then hope to see the day when our settlers may occupy their land without fear of their lives being jeopardised, or their property destroyed."