TARANAKI BUSHRANGERS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 30, 11 March 1865, Page 8

TARANAKI BUSHRANGERS.

[From tho Taranaki Herald, February 25.] It will be a matter of general satisfaction, here to see that a portion of the Bushrangers, consisting of 50 men under Captair Jonas, are again caUed out for active service The appearance, last week, of a small partj of the hostile natives, not four miles fron: town, made it sufficiently obvious that holding any number of posts along the coast and in the open land would not render the busl land safe for unarmed or thinly scattered men to work in, and we may congratulate ourselves that the requisite proof has beei given without loss of life. In this war— or, rather, in this second edition of the wai of 1860 — whatever may be thought of th< general progress oi it, or of its results compared with the means employed, ii cannot be denied that the natives hav< shown a very wholesome aversion to tres passing on the settled districts of this pro vince. Instead of having houses burnt a the Henui, horses driven away in broac daylight from within sight of Mavslam Hill, firewood imported from Auckland, am escorts sent out to Omata the day before tin natives expected them so that they might es cape attack — instead of a state of things onlj feebly represented by these examples, w< have been able to substitute one not by anj means perfect, but certainly vastly better Since the second outbreak, in May, 18G3, thi natives have only at rare intervals come int< the settled district, and then they almost in variably retired much faster than thei came. Even while Mataitawa and Kaitak* were in their hands they only crossed ou land twice from place to place— their ordi nary communication was kept up by way o Waimate and the line at the back of tin mountain. And what was the reason of this Simply that they knew from unpleasant ex perience that there was a body of men alway moving about quite as much at home in tin bush as they were, and much better armed Supposing now, instead of one hundred we had had five hundred men so em ployed, and that instead of confining thei: operations to our own country they ha< gone systematically into that of thi enemy, and had followed them as thej would have followed each other whereve: they might be — can any one doubt tha such a body of men would have dom more towards finishing the war than tei times their number employed in marchinj along the coast garrisoning redoubts as the; went, and so by their action teaching th Maoris to feel themselves secure at a yen moderate distance if only a little brokei country or bush intervened ? The latter pro cess alone will never settle the war ; to d< this we must make the natives fear not ou redoubts and blockhouses, but our men The war is by no means over yet, and it i surely not too late therefore to make th< change. It is not as if we were advocatinj anything new or untried. General Cameroi himself started the bushranging in thi })lace, and it has been found to answer excel ently, why should he not try it on a large Bcale?