Untitled

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5497, 30 June 1879, Page 4

If we were to express our estimate of the situation at Taranaki in sporting terras, we would say that the chances against maintaining the peace are about ten to one. The natives have commenced ploughing at several places. They have been removed both by settlers and Armed Constabulary, but have always returned or now threaten to return. The natives have abandoned no place at which they have aver started ploughing operations. Strong forces have been mustered of Yolunteers and Armed Constabulary, but still the natives have ploughed, or attempted to plough, within call of stronglymanned redoubts. Instead of being cowed by our preparations, the Maoris have trespassed at fresh places, such as the White Cliffs. There is no sign whatever of the natives yielding. We have no news yet of the order to arreat the trespassers having been put in operation, but we presume that will be done at once, and the point will then arise, whether the natives will allow themselves to be made prisoners and put in gaol without resistance. If they do so, we shall make a peaceful settlement, but if not, then we shall see what we shall see. Our opinion is, that they will not suffer themselves to be arrested without resistance, for the purpose of being imprisoned for the offence of trespass. The whole affair shews what a power fauaticism has over the Maori mind, and how the native character is compounded of keen shrewdness and a tendency to the most absurd delusions. Hero are a number of men doing what they must consider a very dangerous service at the bidding of one who makes pretensions to be a god and to have miraculoua power, and who supports his pretensions by arguments drawn from Scripture. It is melancholy to think that the Christian teaching of the natives has come to this, and that the Bible should be the means of uniting them in a fanatical belief. The natives always were subject, even before they adopted Christianity, to gusts of semi-madness caused by some superstitious belief, but the influence of these was mostly local and restricted. Now, however, the circumstances are diflerent. The common position of the race in resisting the flood of European progress, and their common knowledge of the Bible, rander it possible for fanatical teachings to obtain influence over a large number. A better example of how fanaticism affects the Maori mind could not be furnished than that given by the Rev. Mr. Buddie in a speech delivered by him on his return from Kopua. He had there seen Wahanui, one of the most powerful men amongst the Kingites, who was keen and clever in argument, as was shewn at that meeting. Wahanui had been a student at the Wesleyan Institution at the Three Kings, and Mr. Buddie described how shocked and grieved he was to hear him say, " I am more than a chief now. lam a god. I am a deity." Europeans can hardly realise this mental state , but Wahanui give 3 a typical illustration of the Maori character.