CHRISTMAS AT WAIUKU.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1641, 8 January 1862, Page 4

CHRISTMAS AT WAIUKU.

The observance of the hospitalities of the Christmas, we are glad to see becoming by degrees an institution among our Native friends, and with the good cheer will also come that good feeling, that disposition to kindliness, and to obliv ion of wrongs, real or imaginary, which ought to mark, and does mark, the festive season amongst ourselves. At Pokeno, near Havelock on the Waikato, there was to have been a large Christmas feast at which it was expected that. 600 Natives would be present, and at which the Upper Waikato would be largely represented. Of the occurrences at Pokeno, we have as yet received no intelligence; but of what transpired at the meeting of Ngatiteata at Waiuku, we are able to place a sketch before ourjreaders. The Christmas feast on this occasion was provided for the Natives by the liberality of Mr. Constable, of Waiuku; the Governor, Sir George Grey, was preseut; about one huudred and twenty Natives sat down to dinner. The air of the assembly was perfectly orderly, and the appearance of the Maori guests thoroughly respectable, the women and children, in particular, being unusually neat and clean. When the serious business of enjoying the creature comforts provided in such liberal profusion was ended, the people assembled in public meeting in the open air and seated on the grass. Then the following address to the Governor was presented and read: —

Waiuku, December 25, 1861 Father the Governor,—

Salutations to you. You have arrived in Waiuku. You have given heed to our word, and now we will listen to your word. Whatever you wish done we will do; for it is food that has been given up to be eaten. Let me consider the matter, “ Although scanty it is the scantiness of food given by Mu ; there is abundance behind. Although bad, it is bad in the presence of Taiawa,” that is, those things which you have given to us, namely, Magistrates and Runangas for the employment of Ngatiteata. From your loving children, The Ngatiteata.

Each Chief present, in his turn, repeated the words of the Address in order the more distinctly to mark his entire acquiescence in the sentiment it was meant to convey.

After this ceremony had concluded, the Governor met the Chiefs of the tribe for the purpose of making with them the final arrangement for setting up the new form of Civil Government in their District. At this meeting, we learn, the names of the Native Magistrates agreed upon by the people were submitted to His Excellency on behalf of the tribe, and also the names of the Wardens for the Hundreds in the District. The result of the meeting was, we are informed, perfectly satisfactory to the Governor, and it is believed that the most complete reliance may be placed on the determination of Ngatiteata to carry into entire and immediate effect Sir George Grey’s plans for the civil government of their District. With Njgatitipa on the one side of the river, and the Waiuku people on the other, it may be said that.the lower Waikatos have now embraced the new institutions. This is a step i.\ the march of pacification and progress of which the importance is great, and. considering the connexions of the Ngatiteata, and the importance of the territorial position occupied by them at Waiuku—their co-ope-ration in the work of improvement tvill be found to be, we think, of the greatest value. At this meeting also, avc understand, the question of road making Avas considered, and there Avas general agreement as to the necessity of making roads ; some uneasiness caused by the movement of the troops subsided, Avhen the object of that movement came to be fully understood. Meantime the troops have moved out to their Avork on the Great South Road. Three camping grounds, on this side of the long bush, had been chosen, we learn, one on Mr. Ruuciraan’s, one on Mr, Kerr’s, and one on Mr. Baird’s land; a fourth Avould probably be taken up near Mr. Austin’s, on this side of Havelock. “ Vigorous prosecution” of road making, forming, and metalling, Avill uoav he the order of the day, and it may be that in the future the Native “ difficulty” Avill yield to the pick and shovel, and knotty points of civil government be settled i at Christmas feasts. Whatever may be the result, however, it is gratifying that, for once at least, there should exist amongst the Europeans a very general concurrence in the propriety of the steps that haA'e hitherto been taken by Governor Grey, and that he should now be recognized by both races as being the right man in the right place.— lb., Dec. 28.

It is impossible to view without satisfaction the contrast which this New Year’s day of 1862 offers to that which ushered in the year 1861, which as we write is drawing to its close. Then the “Journal of Events” at Taranaki was the source to which all most eagerly turned for news, and the news was seldom anything other than the details of destruction of property and of life, of sacrifices made, and privations and losses submitted to by the settlers without much hope of change, or indeed without any prospect of their being ended. Now, at least, whatever the future may have in store for us, war is no longer in the land; and the Government, while on the one hand .it appears prepared for all contingencies, is devoting its energies to the work of peacemaking, and of laying solidly the foundation for future amicable relations between the Native people of this Island and the European colonists. At this time last year Waikato, from end to end, was drifting rapidly into the war; the loyalty of the people was becoming daily less and less, and it rvas evident that of the insurrection which maintained itself at Taranaki, the strength, material and moral, lay almost at our own doors in Waikato. Last year, Her Majesty’s Representative feared to allow a road to be made through Crown lauds towards the Waikato river, even by the hands of civilian labourers, lest the jealousy or the auger of the Natives should be awakened by such a proceeding ; to-day, three thousand soldiers are employed in opening and completing a Military road to the township of Havelock, and to the point Te la, at Mauugatawhiri, which, in a strategic point of view, commands the noble river which sweeps round its base. Branch roads to Waiuku and to Wairoa are also, we understand, projected, and when completed will serve at once the purposes of the settler and the soldier, opening up and developing the resources of the country, at the same time that they provide, In a military point of view, for its protection and defence, Whilst

with the one hand, this work, useful alike to Europeans and Natives at peace, is b em S carried on, with the other hard are offeied institutions of civil government, to the social condition of the Maori; and havmg for their basis the Runanga, which has been called into existence amongst themselves, to supply a want which has grown with their advance from barbarism, —of some kind of government amongst themselves, equal to the task of restraining the strong and protecting the weak, when the Queen’s authority was powerless, even if recognized, as indeed in all purely Native districts in this Island, the authority of the Crown has always been. It may be regarded either as evidence of the change which has lately taken place in the Native mind, or as a proof of the absurdity of the fear which was formerly

.entertained upon the subject, that no objection is made by the Natives to the works now in progress on the reads; that, generally, the making of the roads is admitted by those Natives whose interests 1 may be said to be more immediately concerted to be desirable, and that, as we have heird, they (the Natives) have offered to give from off their own laud, where required, the road metal necessary to complete the won. Add to this the fact that the new institutions of Government have been frankly accepted by the tribes of the lower Vaikato, and we shall be able to understand that a peaceful conquest of the upper as well as of the lower district is possible, if net easy. Firmness, patience, time, on the one aide, on the other the promptings of self-interest, in his perception of which the Native is acute, envy of the temporal advantages possessed by his neighbour, emulation, and even tie love of imitation will tend to the spreading of the new Native government, and in no very long time we may look to have a District Commissioner at Ngaruawihia, and law and order established in Waikato.

I We have said that the strength of the Taranaki insurrection lay near us lieie; if that strength can he turned into a new channel, justice may in time be satisfied, the guilty alone suffcrhg punishment. One thing is to us quite certain, that there remained two course) only for the Governor of New Zealand t» pursue—the one that which he is now folbwiug, the other tha; of rushing incontinently into a war which bust become a Avar of races, which must terminate in the subjugation cr the annihilation of the Native people, aid which must spread desolation and run throughout the length and breadth of the laud, making a Taramki of every Province n the Northern Island. We were not whhout hope that the vigour of the new admiustration would have contented even the war-at-any-pricc pariy amongst us; it dois not appear to have quhe succeeded, if we jidge from the tone of some of our conterapcraries, supposed to spent the sentiments ofthe extreme left. We have no purpose of enering into any discussions; our business is tc make a record of facts as they pass; we think that some of the prophesies of falure which have lately been mysteriously disdosed, might have been more safely reserved mtil after the event; and eve think that, the non of second sight notwithstanding, the prospects with which 1862 opens are very differed from those of 1861, which was all wc proposed to show at present, in order that eve night offer to our readers, joyously, the compliments of the season, and wish it.bem om and all a “ Happy New Tear.” — l T J' jam 1.