PROSPECTS OF A WAIKATO CAMPAIGN.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 4, Issue 197, 29 June 1861, Page 1

PROSPECTS OF A WAIKATO CAMPAIGN.

The -Government now stands face to face ■with the Maori King, and it is generally acknowledged to be for the interest of both races that the latter should be put down. There are two modes in which it is thought that this object can be accomplished ; some advocate physical force ; others, a policy of conciliation. As it is impossible that any active measures can be taken for some months,' time is allowed for reflection. It appears to me highly important that in this interval the advantages and disadvantages of both these methods should be temperately discussed. In this letter I propose to offer a few observations on the method of physical force : should you deem them worthy of insertion in your paper I shall hope to continue the subject hereafter. Your own sentiments on this subject are expressed in these words : — " If a blow is to be struck in Waikato, it must be made final and crushing." That the blow, if struck, shall be final and crushing, is demanded by humanity. I invite your attention to some of the difficulties that must be overcome iii order that it may be made so. In the first place, the locality where the blow must be struck is at a great distance. Ngaruawahia is more than 80 miles from Auckland. Should the enemy retire southwards towards their Taupq allies, they can very greatly increase this distance ; for no final or crushing blow can be struck till the enemy is overtaken. There is little to destroy at Ngaruawahia beyond the flagstaff and the King's house, which is not a very sumptuous edifice: the burning of standing crops and faupo houses may exasperate but will scarcely crush the enemy. Thus the troops will have to advance at least 80 miles, and probably much more, in order to reach the scene of action. Your readers are acquainted with the nature of the country they must traverse ; the dense bush from 8 to 15 miles wide beyond Drury and Mauku ; the rapid river filled with shallows, sandbanks, and tree stumps ; the banks in some places swampy, in others covered, with bush, intersected by deep muddy tributaries, and nearer the supposed scene of action consisting of hills difficult of access and densely covered with trees. Military and Commissariat Officers will be able to tell what facilities such a route offers for the conveyance of guns and other^ "material," and of food for the men, who will find small means of subsistence in the enemy's country ; what danger there may be moreover of ambuscades in the forest beyond Drury or in the swamps and bush on the river banks. Attacks on the communications seem very probable from the great mobility of * the enemy. The Maori warriors having few accoutrements and no baggage train can move about with great rapidity through swamps and forests unknown and inaccessible to us. Driven from Waikato, they may reappear on the Thames, or, united as they will probably be to nearly all the natives in. the interior of the island, they may descend upon whatever settlement they choose. It is therefore obvious that all the settlements in the Northern Island will have to be secured against attack. For this the j colonists must make very great personal sacrifices, the militia and volunteers in every settlement must be carefully organised and prepared for active service. It ■will be remembered "how difficult the previous Generals found it, to defend the town of New Plymouth and at the same time conduct operations even at Waitara. The colonists repose great confidence in the military talents of the new General : he will need them, if he have to defend five or six settlements, and at the same time conduct operations at a distance of 100 miles. But supposing all these new difficulties overcome and' the soldiers brought face to face with the maories, there remain still all the old; difficulties- experienced at Waitara. The progress. there was slow, what ground is there for supposing that in Waikato it

will be more rapid 1 We have more troops, it is true, but in Waikato it is not unlikely that the enemy will be more than proportionately increased. We have a new General, so have the Maories ; and their faith in Wm. Thompson is as strong as ours in General Cameron.

Lastly, the time for operations is short ; the maories must not only be crushed, but crushed within seven or eight months. For military operations Waikato is now considered closed; we may therefore assume that at this time next year it will be closed again ; if the operations against the enemy are not by that time brought to a successful issue, they must be recommenced afresh in the following spring.

I have thus pointed out imperfectly some of the difficulties of this- enterprise : I do not doubt the possibility of overcoming them ; but it will be at a very great cost. This cost will be incurred partly in destruction and consumption of wealth ; and partly in severe human suffering and waste of life. The cost of the military expenditure is understood to be borne by the' Home Government ; but the Home Government means the British tax-payers, and the British tax-payers consist of millions of hard working artisans, and of our friends and kindred in the middle or upper classes. Taxes are not paid without some abstinence and privation on the part of the tax-payer, as some of us have perhaps not yet forgotten ; and indifference on our part as to the amount of aid we require, will soon earn us generally that character for greediness and selfishness already bestowed upon us by the Saturday Review. But Taranaki is a warning, that severe losses will probably overtake us colonists as well ; and besides the privations and loss of time implied in active military service as militiamen and volunteers, besides the risk that in some of settlements there may be a repetition of the scenes enacted in the neighbourhood of New Plymouth ; even the very corn and produce destroyed in Waikato would have found its way into our own stores and shops in exchange for English manufactures ; its destruction is" a direct loss to the consumer, in addition to the high prices already consequent on commissariat expenditure, and a loss to the merchants and traders, which the temporary gains from commissariat expenditure will not in all cases ultimately compensate. For the destruction of property of the Maories I ask no sympathy. But no man can be indifferent to the severe physical suffering and loss of life among our troops consequent on war, nor to the sorrows of bereaved widows and children, and few I think will refuse their sincere sympathy in the similar evils that must be inflicted on the Maories. Indeed after the war, our public and private benevolence would be largely taxed to relieve the widow, the orphan, and the destitute, whom our sense of stern necessity had made.

Now suppose the cost incurred and success achieved, that is, suppose the Maories severely defeated, arid compelled to give up their King and- flag and to consent to accept English laws and magistrates. Is it quite certain that we have gained our object ? The effects of war extend much further than they. are traced, and of many of them, especially those affecting the mind and character, we are profoundly ignorant. Few persons know what mischief was produced in the whole Waikato district during the past year by only a part of the population being engaged in the fighting at Waitara. Schools were abandoned, social improvements neglected, houses left unbuilt or unrepaired, in some villages even so trifling a matter as the dress visibly altered for the worse. It is not impossible that the process of forcing law and civilization upon the Maories may render the Maories incapable of receiving them ; the medicine may be drastic, but induce a more incurable disease. The Maories have vices at present, but. they are those of freemen and not of slaves. That same haughty independence, which renders them disagreeable to some people, and difficult to bring under fixed laws, is the very '-, quality which affords

strong hope of their, ultimate civilization ; to change this to deceitful servility by a ' sound thrashing,' may not be good policy. The colonists may find crafty -evaders of the law a bad exchange for bold defiers. Good laws and good magistrates do not necessarily imply a virtuous population.

As the sum and conclusion of these remarks, I say, let us not apply a method so costly and violent as a war, the effects of which can be very imperfectly foreseen, to cure this evil unless it is very clearly proved to be the only possible remedy. Amputate the limb to save the body politic, but not while there is any chance of curing the sore by a plaister. — Correspondent of New Zealander, May 18.