THE BEST MODE OF WARFARE IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume I, Issue 296, 24 October 1864, Page 5

THE BEST MODE OF WARFARE IN NEW ZEALAND.

(From the Army unci Xary Ga:ctte.)' ■ It is very generally believed that strict injunctions have been sent to the Governor and to the Comiiiftndei' of the Forces in Now Zealand to abstain from attacking the natives in their pah.s, but to adopt a system which never fails, of taking possession of their crops and storing tliein, io be given up again to l-liem when t-licy have eeased to rebel. At the Cape of Good Hope we have been informed this plan was sticessfully followed, and that, ilie soldiers wore extensively employed in cutting down and storing the crops of the JCaflirs, which more contributed to the conquest of the country than all the combats' fought with that, brave race of savages. Tlie best mode of warfare in New Zealand, as in Jvallirland, seems to be to turn our swords and spears into pruning hooks or rather reaping hooks and tame savages in the same manner as wild animals. This may seem strange to those who have not. heard, as we have, how war was successfully carried on at the Cape.

Sir George Grey cannot be ignorant of all this, and General Cameron is too enquiring an ollicer not to have' made himself acquainted with ( lie modes of savage warfare in other places than New Zealand. AVe well remember hearing, at the time, some of our ablest ollvcers, who wore in the Cape wars, assert that in hand-to hand light again'st. our soldiers, armed and trained as they were, the Ivallir had the decided advantage, nay more, that in sill our encounters the savages had the best ot the and that we ultimately overcame them by starvation. Such, w? believe was the fact. AYliy not try the same plait in New Zeitlwid as was successful at the (Jape ?