SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1877.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 810, 25 August 1877, Page 2

SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1877.

We give the settlera of Kihikihi, Te Awamutu and neighbouring'districts oredit for having spoken ojiit plainly and openly to the Government concerning their grievances, ■which is more than we can say for the Te Awamutu Gavalry Volunteers. The Government baited a hook with an official promise, and the Te Awamutn Cavalry swallowed it at once, but they will find the bait bitter to the taste long before ever a minister of the Grown thinks it worth his while to visit Waikafco' for the purpose of inspecting the Waikato Volunteer Cavalry. The promise of such enquiry is a mere pretext on the part of the Government to gain time and allow the matter to be quietly shelved, as we pointed out on a former occasion — and we regret to see that the Cavalry have ridden blindfold into the ambuscade. So much for the military side of the question of the defence of the district. The settlers, however, who have taken the civil side of the matter m hand have shown a bolder and more determined front. The full report of last Saturday's meeting which we now publish is well worthy of persual. It affords an insight into frontier settler life, which points its own moral, and which it were well that not only the public but the Government of the Colony should fully appreciate, and understand. Maori insolence, and even violence , is not confined to the Kihikihi settlement. It is more or less experienced by the settlers along the frontier line, but it is m the Kihikihi and Te Awamutu districts that it reaches that unendurable point of aggravation, which at any moment may develop from a chance blow into bloodshed or rapine, and from that to a waroi races. And the Government is alone to blame for a state of things, which a short time since wafa almost as rampant at Alexandra, and wonld be so now at that settlement and at Cambridge bat for the military posts located there. Oar last issue records more than one instance of Maori J lawlessness at Alexandra, but at Kihikihi, . occurrences of a, tax more aggravated character have been of bo frequent \ repetition that they have ceased to \ .excite the- comment they. ought to I

have done. No one can read tha speeches-- at last .Saturday's meeting- without seeing that this ia so. The incidents mentioned are related as matters of common notriety to the settlers, adduced simply and "without exaggeration, and with an utter absence of intended sensational effect, as an evidence of the state of things pre. vailing m a frontier district left by a mistaken Government policy without the presence even of a sergeants guard of the Armed Constabulary. It -is well that the veil has been lifted by the outspoken speech of our frontier settlers; that the Colony and the Assembly now- m Session should know the risk they run. If the Government are dead to the breach of faith which their neglect of the defence of the district undoubtedly is to those settlers and others who have located themrf«|^f there, they r should most Mronly be alive to the danger to 38J$!£ they are exposing the Colony. Mr Coxhas again called the attention of the House to the matter, and the* Wellington press, more awake m its generation to the necessities of the caae^j^thiatia;. a Wellington Governm'en*||^|i^t hesitated to point out the u^tlr- folly of risking so much for so comparatively trifling -an exKpnditure. The matter is not merely a local — it is a colonial one, and, from the magnitude of the consequences involved, one which the: of the Middle Island will do well m their own interests, to have placed on a proper basis. From what we know, we feel sura that unless the Government afford adequate protection to the frontier settlera of Waikato, the •latter will take the matter into their own hands, and sonnthing like a vigilance committee for their self protection will be organised. It is not difficult to predict the outcome of such a course, but who will blame the settlers ? The blame will lie, and justly bo, at the door of Government, which less from a view to" reduction of expenditure than from an incapacity to appreciate the requirements of the case, thus left the way open to no other alternative than Maori aggression on the one s.ide, or the consequences of individual reprisals on the other. . * The Oengthy reports encroaching on our space have rendered it necessary that we should issue a second supplement with our present issue. Thereport of the Masonic ceremonial, and of the settlers' meeting at Te Awamutu referred to m our leading article, will be found m one of the supplements issued with today's paper, while room has been found for the concluding portion of the Cambridge Club report upon our fourth page, to make space for which haß obliged us to trespass on the patience of more than one advertiser. It had some little time since "become apparent that with the increasing prosperity and business of the district, it would be necessary to increase the size of the Waikato Times, and arrangements, now almost matured, have been made with that object. When these are completed we shall issue a sheet of the same size as the Auckland ' Evening Star.'