THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE AND RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. “Vèritè sans peur.” WANGANUI, OCTOBER 15, 1863.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 7, Issue 365, 15 October 1863, Page 2

THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE AND RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. “Vèritè sans peur. ” WANGANUI, OCTOBER 15, 1863.

The Wellington papers confirm the report, mentioned last week, relative to the enrolment of military settlers for this province ; we are informed, however, that they are not to be confined exclusively thereto, but are intended for Hawke’s Bay also if need be. This enrolment at first sight leads to the belief that the Government intend to confiscate the laud required for the location of the settlers, and for that reason some have imagined that their introduction will be the last straw on the camel’s back—that we may expect nothing short of a most determined resistance by the natives, when the military settlers attempt to take possession of the lauds so to be allotted them. Any such belief is, however, without warrant. It is true that the military settlers in the Waikato are to be located ou confiscated land, but the conditions of enrolment for those to arrive in this Province have been adapted to its different condition. The Waikato tribes are en masse at war with us, and, therefore, independently of obvious considei'ations of justice, nothing is easier than to determine on the confiscation of their lands. In this Province the natives are considered peaceable, i.e., many of them are friendly disposed, and those who are not so have committed no ovei't act which the Government cousider a sufficient i asus belli. Portions of ti’ibes have gone to Taranaki aud have taken part in the war there, but the Government has thought it politic to look upon this as the act of the individuals and not of their tribes, and so confiscation has not been dreamed of here, nor anywhere else except in those districts in which war actually exists. We have not now to consider the soundness or unsoundness of this policy; but we simply state the fact (which weighs all powerfully with a government of such limited resources as that of this Colony must for a long time be) that the cost of war is so great, that the fee simple of all the native lands in the Island would go but a little way to provide for it. Say what the Duke of Newcastle and the Times may, the Colonists of New Zealand would infinitely prefer buying than confiscating : purchasing is infinitely cheaper than making war, and the commercial principle has a wonderlul vitality ? iu this and all the colonies belonging to the great nation of shopkeepers. Confiscation, with its attendant risk of war, doesn’t pay them as a speculation. In those districts where war actually exists, “to have and to hold” the lands of the rebels is confessedly one of the best, if not the only “ material guarantee” for future peace ; but we may depend upon it the Government will not be allowed by the Assembly to risk Avar by any such procedure in districts that are either neutral or what is called peaceable. No doubt there will be many in the Assembly who will take other views than those connected with £ s. d.—men who will express the desire to rule otherwise let it cost what it may and who will protest against what they think to be a deference to expediency or policy ; but, talk as they will, the government of the natives always has been,

and we had almost said always must be, one of temporising, until the day arrives when the colonists everywhere are numerically in the ascendant. With the majority in the Assembly the conviction will be, that this or that course of action must be pursued or avoided because it is or is not worth while to do otherwise. If our readers require a practical illustration, they have only to bear in mind how frequently emissaries from the King are stalking through this district and province, sowing sedition wherever they go. By the current mail from Hawke’s Bay we notice that the appearance of several of them there has created much uneasiness. The Government do not attempt to apprehend or punish them, simply because of the probable consequences j but in Nelson, where the idouists so largely outnumber the natives, five _of these nmissaries were pounced upon the other day and shipped off to Auckland. Those, therefore, of our readers who have imagined that any steps are intended to confiscate the lands of Kingites in general, or of those who have gone from hence to Taranaki in particular, with a view to find land for the proposed military settlers, may safely rest assured that nothing of the kind is contemplated. W hether this is a sound or unsound policy, we say again we are not now inquiring ; we take things as they are, and prognosticate accordingly. The conditions of enrolment are briefly these. The thousand men are to form ten companies of 100 each, with too commissioned and ten non-comnissioned officers. They are to be stationed in the southern portion of the North island, and will continue on active service as long as the Government require, when no longer required for active service, they will be placed on farms of fifty acres for a private, and for officers proportionately. These farms will be contiguous for each company or two forming complete townships in such parts of this island, as the Government may direct them to be laid out j hut ordinary militia service, for the three years following, will be requisite before the title to the laud will be given. It does not follow, therefore, that when the period of active service is over, that the settlers will he permanently located in this province at all—indeed, they cannot be unless the Provincial Council directs that the requisite land shall be set apart for them. The value of the land, all round, will be about I'3o per man—a cost for immigration which is scarcely too great considering the three j T ears condition of occupation and protection, in addition to a previous period of active service, dependent on its length entirely on the immediate peaceful or disturbed state of the province. As instructions are said to, have been actually issued to the recruiting agents in Otago and Australia to proceed at once with the enrolment, we may expect a portion of them very shortly. As soon as they arrive they will probably be pushed into the various districts as they are intended in the first instance to relieve the colonists as much as possible from their militia duties. In Auckland the militia have already come in from the “front,” their places being taken by the military settlers, and they now parade only one day a week (instead of every day aud all day as before), very much to the pi-evention of that total bankruptcy, to which the previous state of affairs was fast hastening so many of them.