MASSACRE BY THE MAORIES.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 13, Issue 1027, 2 March 1869, Page 3

MASSACRE BY THE MAORIES.

(From tho "Times," Jan. 1, 1809.) The telegram of December 31 from Sydney will have made the last day of 1868 a time of gloom and apprehension in many English houses. The statement, made in a single line, that in. New Zealand " fifty Europeans with their families, have been massacred," afc once so clear and so vague , es to apre&d. tewsre .ttawvg^ottt the mimexj dm households rrkick hare rdaitres ia. the North Island. Information from Wellington had shown that up to the beginning of November the new Maori war had been one continuous series of disasters on the side of the colonists till, at its date, they , had actually been compelled to exchange an offensive for what was mainly a defensive attitude. Yesterday intelligence would imply that the rebellion had reached a new and yet more alarming stage. But even such a tragedy is still only a consequence which was to have been anticipated from the conduct pursued by the colony itself. A cry may very likely, we fear, be raised on behalf of making vengeance for the atrocities of these savages an Imperial concern. Tho sentiment that no matter whore Englishmen suffer it is equally the duty of F)ngland to see that right is done is so natural and generous that we should gladly fcjel free to refrain from discouraging the tendency. But, if only in the interest of coloniah self-government, we must protest against such interference. The agency which has produced the calamity is the almost incredible negligence of the colony itsolf, and the colony is best left to deal by itself, with the effects of its own culpable inertness. Already, a couple of months ago, one part after another of the open country in the disturbed quarters appears to have been abandoned, and only two posts— Patea and Wairoa — were still maintained, while the insurgents were visible from them careering up and down and solemnising their war dances. Now, finally, there comes this terrible butchery, due probably either to the capture of the latter placo, which appears to have been defended principally by some neighboring farmers, or to the extension of the insurrection in some fresh direction. Colonel M'Donnell has his apologists in New Zealand who hold that he has been unduly blamed for his part in producing the general state of affairs. , We agree at least to the extent that the colonial authorities must not hope to shift the fault of remissness off themselves under cover of their officer's incapacity. It was, we must repeat, in the regular order of things as arranged by themselves that what has happened should happen. They confiscated native territories in the plenitude of military superiority which the presence of ten British regiments gave them, and then they dismissed the troops which had inspired them with confidence to exact such a penalty from the rebel tribes. The scheme which they had pledged themselves to carry out, might, perhaps, have made such a policy safe. But they did not. carry it out. The proposition was that the place of the Imperial troops should be supplied by a drilled constabulary force of 1500, and that from the confiscated districts allotments of land should be made to the militia engaged in the previous campaign, to be occupied by them as a kind of garrison against native . aggression. Instead, however, of 1500 police, only 300 have ever been levied. So, again, allotments made from the confiscated lands were allowed to be selected \ at the mere discretion of the new settlers, j Consequently, instead of each homestead being one of a regular chain of posts, and the whole constituting an advanced guard to the colony, they have themselves been a fresh source of weakness. They have furnished a perpetual provocation to Maori attacks, and been at the same time destitute of any means in themselves for combining for their joint defence. Even when the periodical native agitation has burst into active operation, the colonial functionaries and Parliament appear to have resisted as long as they could the evidence of the gravity of the situation.

j They raised troops, indeed, _ but of such j indifferent material that a single repulse turned them into a drunken rabble, twothirds of whom would seem to have deserted or have had lo be discharged. It would have been sufficiently grievous had the catalogue of reverses f contained nothing worse than the shrinking of the line of British settlements twenty miles back. To tho public disgrace now appears to have been added a frightful private calamity. But the disasters of the last five months will not have been altogether unprofitable if they force on the colony a conviction of the necessity for adopting a policy which shall make them virtually impossible in the future. At auy rate, a month's experience of the almost unresisted destruction of colonial farmhouses and driving off of colonial cattle ought to have been rich in lessons of political economy to the iNew Zealand government. It will have been taught that to save the cost of keeping disciplined troops for the protection of districts which a body of armed natives still claim as their property is not true economy. It is enough if the leaders of parties in the islands, south as "well as north, lay this to heart. We dare not apprehend that an Euglish colony which is immensely superior, even numerically, to its native enemies, will be incompetent to secure itself against them out of its own resources. If tho entire Maori population were up in arms, the colony must be more than a match for it. But, in fact, the present rising has been confined to an inconsiderable section, although every week of impunity allowed to such a rebellion swells its proportions. Tho Maori King is stated to have refused his sanction to ib for the time, and to have returned its leaders' gift of human flesh with rebuke. Many natives have even brought active assistance — some from motives of hereditary hostility to the authors of the insurrection, but others from neighbourly concern for the danger of acquaintances among the settlers. Symptoms of such capacity in the Maori mind to acquiesce in the fact of English settlements in their country are welcome. They give room for a hope that a catastrophe which fanatical admirers of the principle of nationality would doubtless deplore, may yet in time ensue, and the problem how to save a remnant of the raco from extirpation be solved by its absorption into the British population. But it would be humiliating and impolitic in an English colony to depend on the protection which conies from tho compassion or mutual jealousies of a savage race. A practico of subsidising certain tribes iv order to insure their aid against their countrymen is even more obviously impolitic than degrading. The settler is thus encouraged in a false feeling of security, arising from the vicinity of savages who thomselves derive from the trust placed in them a license to retain their independence, which leaves them unreclaimed savages still, and therefore still untrustworthy neighbors. The colonial government seems to have been lately resorting to this expedient of buying native goodwill by money and concessions. It has, we learn, been distributing among the friendly tribes a largess of £15,000 of public money, and granting a redress of native grievances which had been sought in vain for tho past two years of peace. The measure seems, on the face of it, too like the ordinary colonial principles of action hitherto in native matters. If the wrongs were real, it wal undignified iv the government to delay the remedy till such a time. But if unreal, the lesson that the justice of native demands will not be strictly weighed at periods of public embarrassment is not likely to be lost on the savage intelligence* -which, is somewhat too apt to argue out premises to j their extreme conclusions. Tranquility secured by these means is held by an uncertain tenure. The Maori become a regular soldier under English officers might be converted into a loyal subject ; but under a subsidised native chieftain he remains a savage. The New Zealand Executive and Parliament have now at least the stimulus to energy which arises from the consciousness that the eyes of the empire are upon them. They are still free to choose what course they please : but their countrymen are free to criticise it, and will, the colony may assure itself, exercise their privilege. England is at least entitled to demand imperatively that the spectacle of an immensely larger body of Englishmen, satisfied, if it bo peace, to hold their tranquillity at the mercy of the caprice or superstition of a few hundred savages, and contented if it be war, provided the contest results in no worse than a certain number of drawn battles. The present exigency will quickly pass away, like others. But similar difficulties will recur if a radical remedy be not now applied. No_ policy, however, is worthy of adoption which does not depend for its working on the colony alone, and not on the assistance, much or little, of any other power, whether it be the British empire or a handful of friendly ex-cannibals. Above all, no policy can be of any but very temporary utility, which recognises the title of more than a single Government in New Zealand Islands. A policy which should satisfy these twin conditions would soon put the Maori question at rest for ever.