THE NATIVE WAR.

Southland Times, Issue 1066, 2 December 1868, Page 5

THE NATIVE WAR.

The telegraphic news from the North published elsewhere, is the most important yet humiliating ever received. The Maori rebels are becoming more fierce and more barbarous day by day. With each success they grow more bolder and bloodthristy ana their ranks are swelled numbersby who previously looked upon the rebel war as hopeless. The question now to be considered is, what policy should be adopted in order to put an end to the fearful butchery that is going on ? It is evident that unless some determined

• effort is made; unless the Government j can be aroused from the lethargic stupor it has so long indulged in, the feeling of contempt the Maories are manifesting for the colonists will grow and expand, the " Priendlies " will return to their countrymen, and the North Island will become untenable. The account of the massacres received is sufficiently horrible to arouse the utmost indignation and a thirst for revenge iv the breast of every individual having the' smallest I feelings of humanity. The fact that I women and children have been put to | the most painful of all deaths — burning ! — and their bodies flung to the pigs for <J food is evidence that the Maori rebels, |enlisted under the Hau-hau flag, are i -fanatically self-confident of success, and dead to all feelings of mercy. The attitude of the Maories, the fearful atrocities they are committing, and , ; the triumphs they are gaining, it is to be i hoped, will arouse the Ministry to a ; sense jof the necessity for adopting a war j policy of a very different and more>. vigorous kind than has yet been • Mr Staffobd is highly culpable for the p:irfc he has taken at this critical period of the colony's history. The warnings received nave been disregarded — the public have been repeatedly assured that the rumored danger was greatly exaggerated, and the Government intimated that they were adopting measures adequate to crush out the rebellion. Mr Staffobd has been prolific of promises, but in this matter he has proved to be woefully deficient m fulfilling them. The feeble attempts to organise a colonial force have been signal failures, and it now becomes the duty of every colonise to unite in a demand for more determined action, or the abandonment of the North Island as an integral portion of the colony. Let it become a Crown settle- j ment if the Imperial Government will ; consent to take it over, and settle the feud between the two races, which was of its own creation. The occasion, however, is too serious for delay; measures for the suppression of this Maori butchery must be taken at once. To hesitate is simply to doom numbers of men, women, and children to suffering and death. Let Mr Stafford and his colleagues adopt a war scheme that shall be conspicuous for a determination to quickly and severely punish the rebels, and the country, heavily taxed as it is, will not grudge the cost, but the present vacillating policy cannot fail to produce universal censure. Offer fair pay and good provisions to the colonial forces, with competeut officers, and Victoria alone will supply a sufficient number of men to speedily extinguish the rebellion. We have always maintained that the work of crushing out the war, legitimately belongs to the Imperial Government. The quarrel is theirs, not ours ; to them we have a right to look for assistance. Unfortunately for the colony it has suffered from a deluge of. sentimental admirers of the " noble savages," who looked upon the murdering and cannibal propensities of the Maories as natural instincts, only to be eradicated by sugar, flour, and missionary vapourings. Surely the Imperial Government and the British people will now see that this ideal notion has been productive of dire results. The indifference with which the colony is viewed at home is positively shameful. Every mail from England bring papers, in which articles misrepresenting this, colony, are published. Very recently an article appeared in the ' Pall Mall Gazette' on the state of the Maories. New Zealand history, however, is evidently unknown in the ' Pall Mall Gazette' office. \. leader headed " Exterminating Natives" is devoted to discussing the present position of the New Zealand War. and the arguments that have been advanced by the Colonial press, to show that the Imperial Go /eminent is in honor bonnd to aid the colony in its present difficulty. It says : — " The common impression in this country is that we have done our share of this kind of work [assistance]. Ie is not so very long ago since our troop? were engaged in an obstinate struggle with the natives, and the expense came out of the pockets of the British, taxpayer, who had already greater burdens on his shoulders than a happy New Zealand colonist ever dreamed of." The whole of this article displays intense ignorance of facts, and iissumes for the people of England a spirit of selfishness far in excess of truth. The people of the home country did not complain of the expenditure of five millions to release a score of prisoners in Abyssinia and if the press of England were truthful in disseminating correct information as to the state of affairs in this colony, it would be the verdict of the nation that Britain was bound to send Sir Chables Napieb with his Indian warriors to suppress this Tearful war. We maintain, and strongly, that this is an Imperial, and not a colonial question. It was go vernmental cupidity, and systematic blundering, during the time New Zealand was a Crown Colony that was the cause of all the mischief. It was Imperial misrule that sowed the seeds of disaffection, caused the ■ first war, and Imperial interference that has ktpt the natives in a state of rebellion. The Home Government should undertake the punishment of the offenders. It is, bowever, useless on aii occasion like this, to argue the question. The colony has been left to its own resources, and the General Government must grapple with the difficulty. The exigencies of the time demand prompt action, and the Government will be unworthy of its position, unless immediate steps are taken to obtain assistancefroai the Australian colonies and Great Britain.