THE WAR IN NEW ZEALAND. (From the Times, Dec. 20.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVII, Issue 1378, 26 February 1861, Page 4

THE WAR IN NEW ZEALAND. (From the Times, Dec. 20. )

Recent events in two different quarters of the world suggest two veiy diffeient estimates of British, poweis In China an army of 10,000 men, mostly English, Lave defied an empire the nominal military force of which exceeds that of any Western Power, fighting their way thiough a difficult country, carrying by assault strongholds foitified with all the resouices of Chinese ingenuity, scattering in wild confusion that Tartar cavalry which was once the terror of Eastern Europe, and finally pitching their tents and dictating terms on the very walls of a capital containing 2,000,000 of inhabitants. Contemporaneously with these events a drama of a totally opposite character has been proceeding in New Zealand. There a force of 3000 effective men, commanded by a veteran general, and with an unusually large number of colonels and other officers, amply equipped with aitilleiy and all the munitions of war, drawing its supplies by sea, and backed by a British fleet of six ships of war, can hardly hold its own against a horde of naked savages, never exceeding 600, and now probably reduced to some 120, armed with wi etched flint and steel muskets and tomahawks unpiovided with the scantiest appaiatus of warfaie, and almost destitute of subsistence. The last advices fiom the colony of New Plymouth parsed for satisfactory, foi we weie assured that moat of the natives had returned home to plant potitoes, and sanguine hopes were entertained that advantage might be taken of this inglorious lespitc to accomplish some decisive operation. But the mail which has just arrived damps all such expectations. It is tiue that the native foice was reduced to much less than one-tenth of that at the disposal of General Pratt, but it is equally true that the three expeditions which had been made since the former accounts had pioved futile, that thg most brilliant exploit of oiii soldiars was the demolition of a few empty pahs, and that wherever resistance was offered, e\ en on open ground, they fell back. It would be ludicrous, were it not so disgraceful and disash ou^>, ta hear that a trumpery stockade interlaced and strengthened with green flax cannot be breached by a 68-pounder or that an European foice nearly as large as that with which Clive -non Plassey, and aided by artilleiy, must wait foi mortars before it can advance against another similar position. Yet these are simple facts, and give by no means an exaggerated idea of oin dncomfortuie. The noi them natives, whose Wuatary retirement has alone relieved New Plj mouth from a state of siege, have carried with them "horses, sheep, cattle, carts, and plunder of all sorts," the property of our ruined s_ttlei ,, whose wives and families have been depoiced for safety to Nelson, and who are thems -ives huddled together in the little town, without being able to strike a blow in self-defence, jica-rulnle the tribes about Wellington, as well as those which inhabit the Great Waikato Valley and still profess friendly intentions, are said to bj dekbeiating — not how they shall make ficu peace with the Government — but whether, having already sent Wiremu Kingi laige reinforcements, they shall extend the theatre of war by making an attack upon Auckland. Seven attempts seem to have been made in the course of the present year to dislodge the Maories from their rude fortifications, and in every case we have sustained or simulated a reverse, though in one it was retrieved by the gallantly of Captain Cracroft. The first was on the 15th of March, when Colonel Gold had an unfoitunate skirmish with the natives near Waitaia. The second was Colonel Murray's famous attack on the pah at Waireka, on the 28th of March, when, after the regular soldiers had been recalled, the pah was carried and the volunteers rescued from destruction by 50 blue jackets. The third was .uajor Nelson's less discreditable repulse at Waitara on the 27th of June. The fourth was on the 10th of September. Reinforcements had in the meantime been received from Australia, and General Pratt took the field with 1500 men. No sooner did the natives open fire than a retreat was determined upon, though the volunteers were ready to advance into the bush, and we blush to add that one dead body and several military accoutrements fell into the hands of an enemy variously estimated at 100, 50, and "less than 50," strong. The fifth was on September 19, when Major Hutchins, with 600 men, abandoned the attack of a large pah for want of mortars. We are unable to fix the date of the sixth, but the force w'lich retired, numbering 500 bayonets and three guns, was under Colonel Leslie, and was said to have had strict orders not to return the enemy's fire, in case they should interfere with the filling up of certain trenches which

served as a cover for native marksmen. The last was on the 9th of October, under General Pratt, with about 1000 men and some heavy guns. This expedition had not returned to camp when the mail left, but it had already declined the siege of a pah of somewhat more than average streugth. As we read the catalogue of these disasters, bloodless enough, it is true, gut infinitely damaging to our reputation in New Zealand, we are driven to review all our notions respecting the military superiority of civilised over barbarous races — of disciplined over untrained troops. Either the Norman conquest of Ireland, the Spanish conquest of America, our own early campaigns in India, and the French victories in Algeria, must be mythical events, or the fortunes of the Maori insurrection must be regulated by some very exceptional causes If a new " Robinson Crusoe" should be written while this story is still remembered, the relative numbers of the savagos and the Europeans must be leversed, and the latter must be made to letire "in good order" before a handful of natives, without even waiting to be shot down. No ono of our many correspondents attempts any explanation of the matter, except the obvious presumption that the military authorities, to whom an absolute discretion has been giving by the governor, must be unequal tothe responsibility, Can it be that the very insignificance, coupled with the boastful insolence, of the enemy unsteadies our men and puzzles our commanders, just as at chess a bad and reckless player is sometimes a more formidable antagonist than a master of the game? The phenomenon would not be absolutely without parallel, for the famous British column of Fontenoy was made of the same stuff as those Dragoons who fled like sheep before the famished and balf-armed Highlanders at Prestonpans Undisciplined valour, though no match for superiority of organisation alone, has sometimes proved more than a match for organisation and numerical superiority together. It is very natural that the colonists should clamour for reinforcements from England, and much is expected from the arrival of the 14th Regiment in December ; but the home Government may well feel that if numbers could insure success the troops now at Taranaki are more than enough to crush anything short of a general Maori rebellion, and of this the best accounts assure us that there is little prospect. What the true remedy may be it is for the Colonialoffice to discover ; our duty is done when we have eliminated the salient facts, so as to exhibit the magnitude of the evil. It is not the most peculiar, but it is one of the most vexations perplexities connected with this war, that the legality of those proceedings out of which it arose is openly challenged. Be this, however, as it may, we contend thab the primary question is purely military. Whether Tom Taylor and William King (designated in native doggerel as "Te Teira" and "Wirimu Kingi' 1 ) were in the "joint occupancy" of the disputed block, or whether the land substantially belonged to the former, subject to a tribal veto on its alienation — whether the selfish desire of the New Plymouth settlers to secure a good site for a new port and capital, represented by Mr. Richmond, influenced the governor to violate a principle which he had already laid down — whether the subsequent investigatiou of title was exparte or fairly conducted — whether this plot of land was appropriated as (> a wedge to oust the residue" of the southern natives from the choicest districts of their own soil — are points that may propeily be reserved for subsequent discussion, and ought not to be piejudiced by the issue of the present contest. Order must precede liberty, and no government can listen to armed remonstrances, especially when they take the foim of outrage and rapine. Many of the natives now in open hostility to the Queen's authority have not so much as the pretence of a grievance, and are ravaging oiu homesteads, after the manner of border warfaie, out of mere lawlessness and love of plunder. If we left the management of native affairs to our colonists we should not, strictly speaking, owe them any assistance in the present crisis. But from motives of justice and humanity we reserve the control of this | department for the home Government, and such a ieservation of power involves corresponding obligations. One of these is that of sacrificing all consideration for individual feelings and interests to the paramount necessity of re-es-tablishing the Queen's authority and protecting her subjects, however humiliating the confessions or engagements that justice may afterwards require to be made. — The following lemarks on the New Zealand question we extract from an article in the ' Spectatoi' of December 22:— "It is to the activity of the ecclesiastical allies of the natives in rebellion that we owe the mi&iepresentations of Colonel Brownes conduct at home and in the colony. Archdeacon Hadfield has done his best to destroy the political character of the governor, and he has only been too well supported. The English public, however, are always open to any broad and candid appeal to their sense of fair play ; and we are glad to see that Professor Browne, of Cambridge, has undertaken the task of vindicating his brother's character. We refer our readers to his phamphlet, entitled " The Case of the War in New Zealand Stated ; " and we do so with confidence, because we have travelled over the'same giound, investigated the question from the same authentic sources, and can therefore testify to the fairness of Professor Brownes statement of the whole case of war. Those who have been busy in demonstrating, by means of convenient omissions, and strained interpretations, the sneering proposition that Colonel Browne is an 'expensive Governor,' will have to revise their views. We have had many ' little wars,' but it would be very difficult to find a little war which has so justifiable an origin, and which there was no way of avoiding but by dastardly submission to the leader of the Ribbon, Lodge of Taranaki."