Wanganui Chronicle. and TURAKINA X RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. THURSDAY, 29th APRIL, 1869.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XIII, Issue 1020, 29 April 1869, Page 2

Wanganui Chronicle. and TURAKINA X RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. THURSDAY, 29th APRIL, 1869.

Falstaff begged Doll not to talk to him like a Death’s Head, and we. are not going to continually bewail the misfortunes of our district. Despite of mismanagement and all that has come and gone, we shall yet rise superior to adverse fate ; batbefore quitting Colonel Whitmore’s West Coast campaign, it is but right that wo should put on record the simple facts connected with it —nothing extenuating and certainly not setting down aught in malice. Colonel Whitmore’s chief complaint, or the complaint which he means to be most severe, against his newspaper critics, is that they have no military knowledge. He forgets that a man does not need to be a tailor to know a well-made coat; and we strongly suspect that the Colonel was so engrossed in studying the technicalities of his art at Sandhurst, that he quite overlooked the important fact that these were simply means to an end. Military evolutions are no doubt very fine, but we should prefer routing the enemy, even if the thing is nut done according to book. A friend tells us that the Constabulary were brought up to Turanga-ika according to the strictest military rules, one division after another ; the Maoris most likely were quite astonished at such a display ; but the pa was not invested, and they made their escape. After one of the greatest of the many brilliant victories of Frederick the Great, an old General, who had been trained after the strictest sect of martinets, protested vehemently against the victory, declaring that he could demonstrate by the clearest principles of military science that the battle ought to have been lost. Colonel Whitmore possibly belongs to this school, and his course of action on the West Coast may be taken as an exemplification of its principles. First of all, we have been at in Suite pains to make the enemy acquainted with the fact that we consider him a most powerful antagonist, who is only to be brought to reason by the development of certain abstract principles that may fail us in the execution, but then the fault will be entirely owing to the press of the colony and not in any measure to the strategy adopted or those who direct it. After assembling at one point a force equal to the whole native population in rebellion, and possibly overawing such of the enemy as may be in the neighbourhood by numbers, the entire force is suddenly whipped away to another expected scene of conflict several hundred miles distant, and thus the district, which of late it was considered necessary to defend with a large force, is left next to defenceless. We may be told that according to the fixed and immutable principles of military science the rebels ought to have been annihilated long ago, yet we fail to glean any substantial consolation from the statement, so long as we know that they are strong as evor. TitokoWaru is not now here ; Colonel Whitmore has either driven him out of the district, or he has gone away and the colonel has followed him. Let us take the former view of it. What then ? Tlie enemy is not routed, not even crushed. We have seen farmers troubled with crows, and they got them driven off their fields, but the crows alighted on the first quiet spot, and by and bye returned to their former haunts. The only way to get rid of the crows has to destroy them. Our position on this coast at present is

just this : The enemy has gone, but he is not routed—not even punished, and he may make a fresh raid upon, us any day. From the Waitara, where Titolco is now supposed to be, to Te Ngntu-o-te-manu,his old place, is an easy day’s journey. And thence to the Waitotara, the descent can be accomplished without difficulty. We state the case thus plainly, that readers at a distance may understand it, —not for the purpose of creating alarm in any quarter. Indeed, our own idea is that, although perfectly practicable, the return of the enemy into this district is not very likely, at least not yet a while. The inducements to invasion that formerly existed are gone. Twelve months ago the Waitotara was covered with cattle and sheep ; the homesteads offered any amount of loot ; of all which the Maoris took full advantage. (Now, the whole district is a desert. But there is no security, no safety, no settlement, and there cannot be any until the strength of the enemy is broken.

Post-prandial speeches are usually glowing in their assertions and playful in their allusions. We do not therefore wish to make too much of Colonel Whitmore’s denunciation of the facts on which newspaper criticism has been based. He characterises them as wrong facts or false facts , but lie has not condescended to mention any one of the errors thus referred to. We confess, however, to some surprise at the bold assertion he permitted llitnself to use, to the effect that “ it was capable of demonstration that Englishmen have never yet taken the field but to be defeated at the outset.” At this apparently gratifying piece of information the assembled gentlemen are reported to have cheered. Yet it does not seem to us as if it could be a particularly pleasant thing for an officer professing himselE a perfect soldier, or a number of gentlemen met to do honour to the brave to assert and support a statement so humbling. It has passed into an axiom that all is well that ends well, and sometimes it is said that a bad beginning makes a good ending, still most people like tlie good beginning in the faith that it is more likely to end in success than its opposite. If we had been able to give the Maoris a sound threshing at the outset, there would have been nothing of this protracted struggle ; it was our bad beginning that has led to much of our misfortune, however good the far-off ending may be. But Colonel Whit more further supplemented Ids consolatory reflection on the want of success by remarking that the more Englishmen were beaten the more they “rise out of their difficulties.” This sounds somewhat like a paradox and we are forced to the conclusion that Col. Whitmore has hardly been beaten enough, as assuredly we have not yet commenced to “rise out of our difficulties.” And as these difficulties have already entailed upon us a load of impecuniosity and sorrow almost too hard to bear, we may surely now begin to speculate as to when and whei’e, our miseries are to end. Colonel Whitmore, we know, does not mean all he says. Perhaps the reporters have failed to catch accurately what Le did say. Either way, we part from him in friendship, but as liis speech has often made him enemies, may we not hope that henceforth he will think twice before he speaks once. He has many excellent qualities, we have often had pleasure in referring to these, and despite his unfair judgment of us, we still hope to have this pleasure in the future. Would we had to hail him as the hero of a decisive victory !