The Daily Southern Cross.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XX, Issue 2121, 7 May 1864, Page 4

The Daily Southern Cross.

r,uci:o irox vr.o " If I li«.Y« betn «xtin(Ui<lied, y«t tlur* ris« A thoui»iul Ijtacons fiom tlia »paik T b»re."

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1864.

Tt -would be -n orse llian useless to shut our eyes to the probable effect upon the native mind of tho rcpulao of the troops at Tauranga. The aboriginal tribes of New Zealand, not yet committed to the struggle, are intently watching the course of events, -waiting to join the strongest party. They arc ignorant of the resources of tho Empire. They sec only what is before their eyes, and are influenced cither way by the defeat or success of their fcllowcouutrymen. Upon men of a warlike disposition, emulous of fame, and ignorant of the power opposed to tho Maoris, every reverse the troops suffer m this desultory war must have a very bad effect. Tt gives them false ideas of their own strength ; and by sending recruits to the ranks of the fighting men from the hoated spectators, it must tend to prolong the war, and in the end lead to the decimation of their race. We arc glad to say that orr reverses have been few. The campaign in tho Wailcato was entirely successful, and tho results are apparent already in tho altered tone of public feeling, and tho advanced preparations made for the settlement of the conquered territory. It is not our intention, however, to reopen this subject. The plan of operations for subjugating Wailcato, and the manner in which that plan has been carried out, have been fully discussed in our columns. Wo have expressed an approving opinion, and to that opinion, in spite of the adverse criticism of a portion of the Southern press, we adhere. The difficulties of campaigning in the north of New Zealand arc known only to those who have seen them encountered and purmoimted, and thereforo opinions expressed by writers who are ignorant of this most material information, are worth nothing. They do not affect the question beyond raising false issues. But whilst we thus bear unqualified testimony to the skilful conduct of the campaign and its complete success, we do not shut our eyes to the probability that if the campaigu closes for tho season in tho Bay of Plenty without tho prestige of the British arms being restored, the spring will bring many wavcrors to the rebel standard. Tho action fought on the 29th of April, at To Papa, between tho° troops aud the rebels, resulted in a defeat for us ; the action fought betweon the friendly natives and the rebels at Matata, forty miles further south, on the preceding day, resulted in a decided victory for our allies :, the rebels were routed with great slaughter, j

and tliehf goods Wr<f spoiled.', , Our numbers were superior* to the rebels'; our arms and munitions of war bear, no comparison with theirs ; and yet, although we fought tliom under circumstances mO3t favourable to ourselves, wo sustained a repulse, and the rebels retired during the night. ' We are not now discussing the "cause of the repulse : we .arc discussing its effocts, and comparing the action at Matata with the fight at To Papa in something like the way Ihe natives will institute the comparison foy themselves. The Maoris will esteem themselves strong and the pakehas weak. They will not trouble themselves much whether the panic .which saved them and led to the repulse of the troops, was an exceptional occurrence, and one which might novov again happen to turn the tide of victory in their favour; they,, will only see the pakohas storming their works after a terrific bombardment, and retiring in disorder without achieving the conquest of the pa. They will likewise see the European garrison of Maketu assailed by the natives, and truly enough they will attribute the defeat of the besiegers to tribal jealousy and hatred, and not to anything we did. Are we wrong, therefore, in anticipating bad results from these occurrences, if the campaign closes now ? "Wo thiulc not. Let it not bo supposed that we desire to proloug the campaign, and expose the. troops to the severities of winter. Such is not our desire. On the contrary, we would rather hostilities had not commenced in the Bay of Pleuty this season if further action should expose the men to unnecessary hardship ; but we feel strongly, now that a blow has been struck, the necessity for showing the rebels that although the fortune of war declared for them once, our arm is not paralysed, nor have our men forgotten to be brave. Such an example would go far towards settling the disturbance in the Bay of Plenty; delay will only foment the strife. With regard to the action itself, we have little to say. The men appear to have been seized with a causeless panic and rushed from the works at the moment their triumph was all but secure. Such conduct, by British soldieis and sailors, is so unusual that it neces sarily calls for remarks, and more especially so when the delinquents have previously distinguished themselves in the service of their country. The worst feature of all was the desertion of their officers, who led gallantly and fell like bravo soldiers at the post of duty within the works of the enemy. >(lt may bo that regiments new in JNTew Zealand warfare, have an exaggerated notion of the ferocity of Maori warriors, and that the panic on this oecaison, was mainly owing to that feeling. If so, and it is not at all improbable, the respect of the rebels for the dead and wounded who fell into their hands, ought to convince them that the natives of .New Zealand can spare a fallen enemy as well as the finest troops in the world^Wc would not be doing our duty as public journalists, indeed, if wo withhold our meed of praise to the rebels for the treatment of our killed and wounded, and wo hope that in future they will continue to deserve similar remarks. AVehave gone into this matter thus freely, not with the view of keeping an unpleasant subject before the public, but for the purpose of pointing out the unsatisfactory state of affairs at the present time. If hostilities for the season had been suspended with the conquest of the Waikatos, all would have been well , as it is wo must go farther or a very bad impressiou will be left upon the native mind, leading doubtless to overt acts of treason by men not at present implicated.

Tn eke is probably no single tiling which docs either nations or individuals so many and such grn^ous wrongs as prejudice. Yet, despite the truth of this, which most would be ready to acknowledge at once in a general nay, there is nothing so absolutely universal amongst ourselves. Our nation, whether from its insular position or from some other aud deeper cause, is perhaps more subject to prejudice than any other. So much is this the case that most 'persons feel rather proud than otherwise of the possession of certain prejudices which they are pleased, in con sequence apparently of their being theirs, to elevate inlo some sort of virtue. Perhaps we, who have left our native country behind us so far, have also left some of our piejudices on the other side of the globe ; but if so, we have evidently by no means left behind us the tendency to take up and cling to new ones springing out of our new circumstances intliii colony. We have been led io make these remarks by the consideration of the news from Taurauga which told us of a great and most important native defeat inflicted wholly by natives upon their countrymen. It is now some time since Government was induced by representations, held by them sufficient, of the hostile feeling between the Arauasand the rebellious tribes of the East Coast and centre of the Island, to place arms in the hands of this force, and place thorn under European command. From time to time we heard various reports of their slate of feeling towards us and of their actual conduct. At one time wo we were told they were fighting with tribes who insisted upon joining the vebels in Waikato ; at another that they had themselves gone over bodily with their arms to the standard of Matulaera ; at one time it was confidently stated that they were under excellent discipline and likely to prove very serviceable under their European officors, and a day or two afterwords, we were equally distinctly informed that they had sent back the officers with a polite intimation that they would not require their services, aud that a longer stay might induce them to use more stringent measures. It was natural that where no one could guess at the truth from such conflicting statements as these, every one found it a relief to turn from these statements altogether, and rely on the prejudice which he had formed for and against the theory of natives fighting natives in a war to establish a European supremacy. Nineteen men out of twenty had such a prejudice, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred of those who had that prejudice they were against the idea offlicir fighting. Consequently wo received the tales of fighting with a calmly superior smile as a new edition of traveller's tales ; we looked with more favour on the tale of the polite dismissal of the officers, and almost with delight upon that which told of the secession of the Arawas to join the rebels in Waikato, carrying with them our guns and powder. The news of the fight at Matata has startledmanytherefore.andoughttohavestartled all into the conviction that they had been grievously mistaken, and had very possibly been guilty of doing themselves a great injuryby means of it. Let us see what it was the Arawas did. They attacked a body of natives who were retreating ; the attack changed the retreat into a light, but still they pursued. Again the enemy turned and fought, and aga|n they tried

to shake^off-the pursuer a- by* rapid^etreat^rm-"^ -itliis 1 desire?' Ifowevef, they/failed'^a'Bibiat'ioljrrr ' ' They seem at lasf'td liavo'been^'Jtxfprised/and ' - they certainly were destroyed j.hi£ Vijy suchas " •we have never gofca'n opportunity of practising 1 during tlio war. - They are said, on good authority, to hav6 killed from sixty to oue hundred natives. There can be no doubly that the" public has had plenty of ground to distrust and dislike "friendly native"' assistance*, and this has no doubt misled them in thelina'tter. 1 Such friendly natives as those who professed to hold witli such impartiality the balance between white men and coloured "men in the Waiulcu and the Mauku districts are a palpable delusion, and the public has not been .slow to see and To • appreciate their 'true value and character. Such friendly natives as ' the Arawas have shown themselves to be are a real source of strength, whose value cannot easily be 'over-estimated. They are as great to, support to our cause (possibly greater, but this we should ,not like positively •to say) as the Waiuku and other such " friendly natives " " were" causes of weakness and loss to it. The employment of any friendly natives at all id under such circum stances clearly a very critical affair, and one to be gone about with vast care and by persons of sound and unbiased judgment. The secret of success with the Arawas was the same, and that of failure with the people of Waiuku and others. The first were friendly to us, not because of any love to the pakeba — (nothing of the sort), — but from a very honest and bitter hatred of the natives who were our enemies as well as theirs. It | was a wise thing to see this in the case of these men, and we mistake much if it would not have proved a wise thing to have done it many months, perhaps years ago,- with others. There is not a doubt of the success of this experiment now, and we think the same might probably have been true long ago had we shown the wisdom and unprejudiced statesmanship we should have, but ay ere of till people the least likely to have shown. We do not say the time is yet past. The Avar may last a long time yet. Other and yet other tribes may be drawn into the vortex in the mad hope of success ; and if so the lesson now learned from the faithfu hatred of the Arawa natives to our euemies and their on n may be of use to us in ending the war at once more conclusively, less expensively, and less bloodily than we could otherwise hope to do. Let us hope the lesson will not be thrown away upon us and our rulers.