TARANAKI.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 63, 10 November 1914, Page 4

TARANAKI.

The Lyttelton Times publishes the following interesting reference to this district: —Taranaki province has seen great changes for the better since'this day thirty-three years ago, when the Government risked another Maori war, and at the; same• time prevented one, by marching an armed force on Parihaka . and arresting the prophets Te Whiti and Tohu. It was on November 5, 1-881, that the Hon. John Bryce, on his celebrated white charger,, lrsd| up to the town of the prophets with the force of fifteen hundred Armed Constabulary and Volunteers, and sent in Major Tuke and Captains Gpdgeon and Newall, with a party of A.O.'s. with fixed bayonets, to secure the fanatical . religionists who had made Parihaka a pa of refuge for all the rebel-lious-minded amongst the Natives of the West Coast. It was a bold and perhaps undiplomatic step, and it was condemned by many as tyrannical, but it effectually secured the pacification o'fs the West Coast, and removed all. l : ehrs of another U rising against the settlers.; i ■ The Wjaimate Plains,. were practically an armed j .'camp jat tha|, time. • Redoubts,;, with , ; tall watchtowersv jdotted the , J>eautiful country between JEgniont : andi. the : . jhTjacksandj 'beaches j/tho posts wefe .garrisoned, "the sQldier-ppliconien.of|the,A,.C 5 forpe, •'and the 'settlers. ) yr l cjre.,ajll Volunteer corps,,, were fi'equent, and one "shot'fired might have precipitated a campaign, which of course could have had but one ending, though it would have delayed civilised progress on the Coast, for some years. To-day, in fat and prosperous Taranaki the memory of those exciting years, when the sound of the bugle' was heard- in* the land, 'and. ( ,when" : the-'grey-sliirted stalwarts of'the toiled at '•■'■their redoulitbuildrng^and; did '■sentry-go' over * all the Maori'tracks, is'tis'a remembrance' of an iuhrestfulidieain; Te-Whiti has 'been in his grave these ■ seven years, and the* semi-barbaric '>glory -of • Pari* hakaEvanished evenrbefore the: chief's end. ;The traveller'.oh the Tarahaki ! rbadsinp; longer,;meets the processions of waggons, and; bjijllockicarfcs; laden* with men, women and children] .and rood'supplies for the big monthly meetings at which the Prophet of the Mountain harangued his white-feather-crowned disciples. The Taranaki natives to-day are turning their hands to dairying with success, and the donothing rowdy old days are gone for ever. The motor car is more fre-

The motor car is more frequently seen now than the bulloek)dray. But Te Whiti's memory is deeply revered by every brown man and woman around Egmont. For all his stubbornness and his opposition to European progress, the prophet's influence was not for war but for peace* Tohu, his one-time friend . and later rival,,, was a man of very-different character, always anxious for War. It i.s a fact not generally known that it was Te. Whiti who prevented an outbreak of war when John Bryce and his troops marched on Parihaka; Tohu proposed to take a war-party of his young men out by night and lay an ambuscade along the bush road by which the troops were to march in from Rahotu in the morning. Had not Te Whiti firmly opposed this the'course, of Taranaki history would have been altered, and the disastrous war which ceased in 1869 would have been renewed in 1881. This little fact in Te Whiti's favor should not be ignored by-New* Zealand historians. ■"!'■'• " '