Hawke's Bay Herald. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1879.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5342, 28 March 1879, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1879.

The Waimate Plains affair threatens to turn out a serious matter. As it stands now, it would seem that the Government will have to decide whether extreme measures may be safely taken. Under other circumstances a temporising policy would perhaps have been the Avisest, but in this case, if a firm stand is not made the influence of the fanatic, semi-lunatic Te Whiti will be so greatly increased, and he will himself become so much inflated Avith a notion of his power, as to give occasion in the future for even more difficulties than we have now to deal Avith. The natives, we aro told, havo not only turned off the surveyors, but have re-

moved the survey pegSj rendering useloss; a good deal of the' \v6rk that has been clono, and'involying'-'the necessity of having the gVeater .portion of the country re-surveyed./ "Surely the Government will not -.tamely submit to this. "We could understand tho expediency of abstaining from folloAving up a criminal who has taken tefuge within the pah of a Maori chief like Te Whiti ) but when the natives interfere with Government officers, and -destroy the work those officers have 'done, appoint has been reached when it •would be dangerous to temporise* . We should be very sorry to see any step" taken that might lead to a renewal of tlie' Maori' Avar, hut there is very good reason for fearing tkat want of .'firmness on the presellb.occasion will be more lilcely t6 bring it about than if Te Whiti be shown that he cannot outrage the law with impunity. The suryoyors, it seems to us, will. have to be put on the plains again, and measures taken to prevent their being molested. If the Cvovernment cannot do this, how do they propose to give to tho purchasers possession of the sections of the plains which they may biiv 1 The G ovemuteht are advertising that they will sell 16,000 acres of the plains on the 6th of May next, but unless they can guarantee peaceable possession of the land, it will be useless to attempt to sell. Evidently, therefore, the Government must show that they are in earnest, and that it is the Parliament of New Zealand, sitting at Wellington, and not that of Te Whiti, sitting at Parihaka, that rules the country. The law will have to be* carried out and the surveys completed, and it will be for the Government to provide . for that being done with as little risk as may be of a rupture of our present state of peace with the natives.

When the Government decided upon having the plains survey td they must have foreseen that there was a likelihood of a difficulty arising at some time or other, and they must have made 'up tli_ir minds to tlie course • they would pursue in such an event. When the cook M'Lean was killed by Hiroki, the pos : sibility of interference with the surveys must have presented itself to the Ministry. We have no doubt whatever that the murder of M'Lean had nothing to do with the surveys, though it suits the bloodthirsty savage to put it on that score so as to have the protection of Te Whiti ; but though tlie murder had not what is termed "a political significance," it must have acted as a warning of what might possibly happen, and we cannot believe that the Government have not profited by the warning, although, very prudently, they have made no dssclosure of the measures they proposed taking. The Taranalti Herald, we notice, recommends a plan of armed occupation — that the Government shall push on a branch railway from Opunaki with a force of some 500 armed men. To us this seems a very questionable mode of meeting the difficulty. It would be far better, we think, to take up the very matter that lias been chosen by Te Whiti himself for the bone of contention, we mean the surveys. It is very possible, after all, that with a display of firmness on the part of the Government, Te Whiti will yield the point, particularly when he finds that Tito Kowaru and other chiefs condemn his action and support the Government.