The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1864. SUPPLEMENTARY SUMMARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 282, 7 October 1864, Page 3

The New Zealand Herald

AUCKLAND, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1864. SUPPLEMENTARY SUMMARY.

BPECTEMTJB AGENDO. " Give every man thine e:ir, but few thy voice: Tako cai'h man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. This above ail, —To thine ownself be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou r.-mst not then he false to any man."

Since the issue of our Summary of Friday last, there has been no marked change in the position of affair's. The resignation of the Ministry forwarded on that day to His Excellency has not yet been formally accepted, nor has he shown any sign of endeavouring to form another in their place nor, in I he absolutism which he has assumed., of meeting either one of the emergencies which are pressing nearer and nearer upon us. No movement towards Taranaki is being made. The escaped rebels in the North have been quietly and uninteruptedly allowed to erect one of the most formidable pahs yet built during the war, to provision it by the assistance of the neighbouring tribes who are friendly disposed towards them, and to become possessed of large quantities of ammunition and some 250 stand of serviceable firearms. Their numbers have been fully doubled by the accession of some of the rollers spirits of the North, while the intercourse between the Northern Natives and these escaped "Waikatos is gradually leavening the whole district between Kaipara and the North Cape with feelings of disaffection. The European settlers naturally evince the greatest alarm at this gathering of armed rebels in their midst. Some of their cattle .have already been killed and taken by the rebels, though as yet no settlers houses have been pillaged. The prisoners on parole have paid for what iiour, &c., they have bought, and say that they will do so as long as rheir stock of money lasts, but that when it is exhausted, provisions they must and will have. The consequence is that the settlers about M.iliurangi, Matakana, Pakiri, Managwai, and other large settled districts have ceased the planting of their spring crops, not knowing who may reap them. This is the first act in the tragedy of the "Escaped Prisoners" being nov." played in the North. Of the responsibility of their safekeeping at the Jvawau there can be but one opinion.

" It is because they were 4i prisonerstaken in the course of military operations carried on " tinder the conduct of Her Majesty's officers, and 111 the main by Her Majesty's military '• and naval forces," that Mr. Gardwell denies the right of the Colonial Government to decide upon their fate, and to have any voice in the question " whether such persons or " any of thein shall be released on parole or " otherwise, or whether they shall be kept " under such control as may legally be " applied to them as prisoners of war, or " whether they shall be handed over (from " whose charge ?) to the Civil Authorities to " be dealt with as criminals."

"Who after reading this Imperial ukase will suppose for one moment that Mr. Cardwell contemplated tlieir being retained in any other than the Imperial charge, and that for their custody and disposal his Excellency is alone responsible. Indeed, after the receipt of Mr. CardweH's despatch of the 27th June, from which we have just quoted, we do not see how the Colonial Government can be expected to receive into their hands, or pay one penny towards the cost of keeping, any other prisoners who may be taken during the war —nay the whole cost of the charge of these escaped prisoners, from their first capture, must be retained by the colonists from the trille they may think themselves bound to pay towards the cost of this war, which has been none of their own seeking, and which, owes its tedious costliness to Imperial mismanagement iii hanging, as a millstone around the nec-k of the General, a pro-Maori Governor who has his own private ambition to work out. If only for the reason that we should have the control of our own expenditure, the Colony will do right to refuse the seliish offer of the Home Government to guarantee one million of the loan. Britain only does this much to ensure herself the payment of money which is not fairly due to her from us. [New Zealand's necessity is sought to be made England's opportunity, and it has been reserved for the nineteenth century to witness the humiliating spectacle of Great Britain exercising the part of a not over scrupulous usurer towards her own children.

Even if we look upon the escape of the prisoners from the Ivawau as simply a blunder, and a very silly and dangerous one too, on the part of Sir George Grey—we can apply" no such lenient term to his conduct since the 11th of the last month, when the escape took place, and some two-and-twenty days after his receipt of Mr. Card well's despatch of the 27th June. Then the escaped prisoners had not two dozen stand of arms afiiong them, they had no pah built, they had excited but little sympathy among the Northern Natives —a regiment of militia or soldiers would have taken them dead or alive, with or without Native assistance, for assistance would then have been ireely ntforded by the "friendly" Natives to the Government. Now their capture can onJy be attended, with war in the North —whho to leave them where they are can tend to no other result. I'our or live hundred men cannot live long upon the little money they have, and this once expended they will commence living on the plunder to be obtained Vroin the settlers' homesteads around. There is no hope for a peaceful solution of this difficulty. iSir George Grey has allowed it to take root and grow, and already its seed is flying broadcast over the iN orth. Had he usgcL enGr°"V tiucL niuiily dGtGrmiinitiou at the tirsu, the lives and property of hundreds yet to be sacrificed might 'have been saved. The blood of each ono of ou.r JSuropccvtx settloro who niu»y bo

"butchered in the North the earning struggle, the blood of every British and soldier who may fall in .the suppression of this new war will be justly laid at the (door of Sir George Grey. . How long will the Imperial Government leave us tied hand and foot at the mercy of such a Governor as Sir George Grey ? How long will it remain blind to what is due to its own honor, or if that be of little moment 3iow-a-days in Britain, to its own pecuniary interest in throwing the solo control of the war and the sole control of affairs which lead to renewed, and as in this case, an entirely new insurrection, in the hands of a man who by his acts protracts the war indefinitely, and j so increases its cost and losses ten-fold, while at the same time he draws tribe after tribe of this foolish and excitable race of natives into its vortex. Prom Tauranga we have intelligence of another rising of the Natives and an example of the way in which kindness and Icniencyis misinterpreted by them. Nothing could have been more generous than our i rcatment of these rebels, and yet now when they liud division in our camp—when thcy sl'o a large portion of the military -withdrawn from their district, and know that wo are distracted by an approaching ■ campaign at Taranaki and by difficulties in the North ; they refuse to allow the survey of the ceded (?) territory to be made, threatening to fire upon the •survey party, and are busily engaged in building a large pah a short distance from our advanced post —the " Gate Pah." It lias been sought to lay the blame of this renewed insurrection on the Thames Natives. There is little doubt thai; they have part in it: but so equally have the tribe on whose land the pah is being built, and who have been busy for some weeks past in removing some forty tons of potatoes and flour per day, issued to them by Sir George Grey's agent at Tauranga. It is plain for what purposes these provisions will be used, ■when we are told that during the time they have been removing these stores they and their women and children have been glad to obtain food from the Europeans when they came near the settlement and camp. His Excellency's newspaper endeavours, "by garbling the report of their correspondent, to make it appear that the Tauranga Natives have no hand in this renewed insurrection, but the opposite is known to be the true state of the case.

The ' Surat,' from England, with 140 passengers on board, has arrived during the past -week. Among these were the Maoris taken to England by a person named Jenkins. Of these unfortunate creatures, concerning -whose desertion when in England, and of whose consequent misery relieved by public subscriptions, the colonists read with indignation and disgust, two died upon the passage. To admiring lovers of dark-skinned aboriginals at home these individuals were represented as chiefs and ehieftainesses. On a former occasion we have stated that this was an imposition on the English public and a gross libel on the Maori aristocracy itself. The men were of a low class and stamp, both as to standing and character, and of the women we would rather say nothing. The Provincial' Council commenced its seventeenth session on Wednesday last, when "the Province was fairly taken, by surprise by ihe comprehensive and statesmanlike speech of the Superintendent. The session is likely "to be a very important one. The long and vexed question of a supply of water to Auckland will form one of the principal subjects of discussion. We have, it seems, at last a thoroughly practical and able engineer amongst us, and the report of Mr. Wrigg upon the supply of water to this city from the Nihotupu Stream in the mountain ranges of the W aitakerei has been looked upon by all men, competent to judge of the matter, as conclusive in favor of that scheme. Summer after summer we have seen disease prevalent in the more densely inhabited part of the city, the water procurable being little more than the drainings of cess-pools; while in all parts the little children, of more delicate organisation than those of other growth, have been struck down daily, and death has been carried almost into every family from this terrible want of pure water. From this cause Auckland has obtained the reputation of being most fatal to the lives of children, fully more than one-third of those born in it dying before they arrived at the age of eighteen months or two years. It has attained this unenviable notoriety entirely through the want of pure water. It arises from no peculiarity of climate, for in the country districts, and close in even to the town, children live and thrive. The calm and deliberate discussion of the advisability of adopting this report, and of carrying out the project, is a duty which the Council I owes to the community.