TARANAKI.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1354, 2 February 1865, Page 3

TARANAKI.

Our dates are up to the 25th ult.• Miutabt Movements—There seems to be at least a reasonable hope that our present state of uncertainty is to be terminated, and that things are to be advanced at least another stage towards completion. General Sir I). A. Cameron, K.C.8., and staff, landed here on Sunday last from the Falcon (which, owing to the rough weather, was obliged to put to sea for some days), and left again on Thursday, for Wanganui with the intention, we believe, of at once commencing the long-talked-of road to this place. Col. Warre, as previously announced, will direct the operations at this end, and will therefore work down to meet the advance from Wanganui, It is true that half the summer has been wasted, and if lamenting over it would bring it back again, it would be worth while to dwell upon it; but there is still plenty of fine weather left for all that need be done between here and Wanganui. For the road-making intended can be only light work, making a way passable for carts we suppose, not permanently forming and metalling it, —the present and main object being of course the opening of the road and the practical demonstration that we have a right of way, and mean to use it henceforth; the permanent formation of the road will be a matter of time. The only other thing to be done, besides the road, will be to frighten the Maoris—killing a few or many of them will be of avail, unless the survivors are left with the conviction that they can be killed too if they do not submit. This operation can be carried on with advantage simultaneously with the road-making, and need not take longer, and there will therefore be time enough for it, and certainly men enough, for it would, we believe, be extremely difficult to find Maoris enough to fill even one regiment between here and Wanganui. But to do it they must be followed up at their own pace and to their own positions. If it is not done now it will have to be done hereafter, unless, as some sanguine people believe, they are already so sick of ! it that they do not mean to offer serious opposition; ! but this is not probable, with all the freshness and [ power of their new faith to keep alight their old enmity. We are glad to see that the butchery of | Henare Ngakoti, his wife and child, by a party of the enemy, including some of their relatives, is not to be passed over as an ordinary incident. The coroner, J. Flight, Esq., at the instance of the Superintendent, issued an order to the sergeant of police to exhume the bodies, and to bring them to Waitara for an inquest. As the place where they are buried is some miles in the enemy's country, application was made to the military authorities for help, but this help was not granted: General Cameron, who was here at the time, " not thinking it desirable that a warrant should be issued by the civil authorities." It was no doubt extremely undesirable that the civil authorities should have done anything to interfere with General Cameron's plans, but it was very desirable that at least some mark of public reprobation should be put upon such an act as the one we are speaking of, even if the perpetrators of it could not at once be brought to justice. The matter, however, is not to be let drop. It was rumoured in the early part of the week that Hapurona and others were coming in to surrender themselves, having broken faith with their late friends on account of this piece of extra barbarity, and it may very likely be true. We hear that Major Atkinson is going down the coast to-day with Colonel Warre, C.8., beyond Tataraimaka, to select a site for the township of the second Otago company, and that on his return from Auckland,"wlilcla will be aboot the 29th instant, the sites for the Melbourne and other companies will be chosen. However quickly it may be done, it will be none too soon.—Taranaki Herald, Jan. 21.