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Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3400, 9 June 1868, Page 2

TUESDAY, JUNE 9.

The most remarkable .peculiarity of ournative difficulty is the rapidity of the changes which it undergoes. JW^j'have no sooner prepared ourselves to grapple- with it injjne form than it reappears in another : we *are no sooner ready to deal with that" than' wq find that it too^ has changed to, something new and unexpected. Once, as we, all know, the difficulty was to be cured by flour and sugar, by winking at everything we could wink at, and taking as little notice as pos* Bible of the things we could not help noticing* For a time we thought we had hit on the cure, but we soon found that there were limits: to the mollifying influence (even of flour and sugar. The time had come, we were told, for the schoolmaster to go abroad. ,Th& difficulty was. to succumb before the. famous liberates artes, and the primer wm J;o conquer where the flour and sugar had failed. Again we were disappointed. The flour and sugar had failed 1 , but they had not been rejected; the , schoolmaster was subjected to both indignities. Nothing seemed left but fighting, and we set ourselves manfully to ,do it. Here, too, we w^ere legs, successful than we expected. TJie natives were ready to fight, as a rule, when our j;rc|ops werp not, and consequently were ready to decamp'when our men wanted to fight. But the purely 'fighting attitude,of thenative difficulty lasted^ very little longer .than its predecessors. ' 'It" Iwas followed by the« Hauhau fanaticism/ a iphase which w,e har.dly attempted to deal with, and which, in its turn, has almbst ceased to be of great importance. "We have now a new form of the old disease in the system of •" aukatis" : whicli is being spread over the country. This' chief or that prophet suddenly conceives a^pas^ion for solitude and retirement, and at onee s proclaims an aukali r— that is, an impassable boundary, not "to bef transgressed by any .European, accompanied by the 'most terrible threats of punishment upon all violators. The whole thing, espe- v bially the threat, is, not pleasant, and is by many considered a very real native difficulty. j The Assembly must, meet. within a few weeks now, and our Southern fellow-colb«« nists are sure to inquire about these aukafts, * They will want to know whether, one settler's cattle have not been dbiifiscate^ridanptner'a/J; servants all but" murdered. The curiosity they display w,ill not be a flattering curiosity^ however, nor promise any particular advantages to this part of the colony. On the „ contrary, the feeling will be one of fear and suspicion — of fea'rth'at we are going to drag them into fresh expenditure, of suspicion that we are designedly setting about the task o-f doing so. Bad as the native difficulty, in - its Protean shapes, has been for this island, and especially its northern [party, we know; oil •■■> no respect in which it has beemwc-rse th"^" lIl I hi this. The expense of flbu^-and'sugar^as* nb doubt, he&vy, but'itwasbasily calculated. Ttfhe cost of schools,' no doubt," seemed great, particularly when the small amount of (gopd\. they did was considered ; but, after all, it was but a few thousands a-year. Even the cost of war, gigantic. « thought it was, was a cost borne equally by all parts^ofVl^ew Zealand. But the cost of "suspicion $from our fellow-settlers isione, which we cannot calculajbe. The evils which it entails are not palpable enough to' be 'met^a'nd^grajppjei 0 ' * with, but they r are real enough to influence thje whole of "our future. This suspicion is, we repeat, the fruit .<°ofJ those 1 ' .rebeated " native difficulties." Our fellow- . cotantrymen at the South are not ungenerous enough to disHke'u l s''becau l se'of bur 1 misfortunes, but they haye_themselves suffered enough to be very critical about these misfortunes.. The assumption: of . a superior knowledge on the subject of native aflairs by ortr members in the Assembly—in itself,, perhaps a reasonable one — has been rendered W mischievous by, the system of mystery by wmchithas been bolstered up." I^Would^ peihaps, !>e* tcJO^'much to say ifHftt our members Know ,^ little more of 4he//natives than the Southern members ; but "we do not think it would be too much to say that^itywo lid be well if they would cease fo assert" 1 thin knowledge, iv jPhe' mystery of native affi irs lies iris this : that none but a Maori car comprehend-'ttie riativW^mind. Nqne of oui representatives are Maoris, and we do - not know that their glimmering •^mprehensio: 1 ira^afer thiijg hopeit igno?.^ K an( epf othere, od ; , * ■ >*h ..00 A .-A'AVW .0 . *'t.L^

If w e apply this principle to the present phase, of the native difficulty, we, shall see that it leads to very practical remits. Mutatis, it is said, are being established in -^ every direction. The King proclaims one; and, not to be outdone, Zachariah forthwith proclaims two or three. But others are ambitious, as we.ll as Zachariah j and the two or three are not unlikely to become twenty or thirtv,in>,a short time. Is this a " native " difficulty," at which it behoves our members ! »" to«haoc6 their heads and look solemn, wnen joa^S^^Sjj 8 sa *4 on (*^ e subject in the Assembly? Is it another of those cases x which they are bound to say can only) be '* ' managed and understood by 3STorthern lhen? Or may they for once venture to let men of common sense — -possessed of no special knowledger—look at the matter in a plain commbnsense f way ?If $ey, do so, the result will probably be that these aukatis will not be u ' r looked upon as a native difficulty at all. |It ' wiflbe said.that if the [King," desires privacy ,n, n he has. a right to, haveiit :> that if Zachariah - ! would rather not be visited by his European friends, it is the part of good manners to take the hint and stay away. The land; it . will be said, belongs to these men; or, at r" t least^j^he^ have an interest in it, and they have a right to warn us off. True, the notices they put up concerning trespassers are more truculent than we are accustomed to.. True,' they hint. at consequences more terrible even than man-traps and spring- : . .guns. .But,, after all, it matters little. If no one, tempts thef danger, its terrors will remain' inoperative., There is surely no great difficulty in keeping off your neighbour's r Jandj .when he tells you to do so; there can lardly be any great pleasure in testing the* sincerity 1 pf his threats of punishment. It may be said that these aukatis are not the work of the owners of the soil. This is very likely, indeed j but it does not increase, but rather diminish, tfie difficulty. It is riot our part to assert the lights of ZachariaVs followers against Zachariah, or even those of Lib neighbours. If Zachariah invades our , rights, we shall know how to treat that respectable fanatic ; and we need not doubt that the same knowledge will dawn, sooner or later, upon his native neighbours. "When the Maoris are tired of being shut up from civilisation by the aukatis of other men, they have it in their own hands to cast off the yoke; and they will doubtless do so. Until they are tired enough for this, we shall act the part of anything but wise men by interfering with them. So far then as aukatis are concerned, we hope no one will trump up another native difficulty. Of all the forms of antagonism known to Europeans, this seems the most harmless ; and is likely to be the most shortlived, if let alone. Eight years ago, our Government proposed to pass . a Native Offenders Act, to isolajbe the disaffected; the Maoris have taken ( up the discarded proposal, and changed its name tothatofaukati."