FIFTY YEARS AGO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20982, 19 September 1931, Page 8

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

EXTRACTS FROM THE HERALD, MAORI THREATS OF WAH The following are extracts from the New Zealand Herald of September 20, 1881 further reports regarding the speeches at Pungarehu of Te Whiti and Tohu indicate that threats of war with the Europeans were made. Addressing the natives, Te Whiti said:—" I see nothing but trouble ahead. Fighting must come; it is not you who are the cause of this but those around us. Go all of you and look upon me as your protector. Taka your arms and the blessing of the Atua (God) will be with you." Tohu said.— To-day the talk is of war and nothing else. There will be nothing but death for Maoris and whites for generations to come. I say that we will not give up what belongs to us. All I have to say ls > 'E'ght and kill. Destroy all before you.' " Other reports indicate that the persistent efforts to work up a Maori " scare " are not to be taken seriously and that the tale that the Government is recruiting is wholly without foundation. Mr. Gladstone recently referred totha value of the connection between Britain and her colonies. The proceedings of » captain of a French warship at Rarotonga show that the French are making strenuous efforts to obtain a monopoly of Island trade. To England. Rarotonga is nothing; to Auckland, it is a good deal, and, as regards the action of the French and other Powers, it involves the whota question of the commercial interests of New Zealand and the Australian colonies in the Islands. The British Government has never laid down any pn n * ciple of action in regard to protecting these interests. So long as this is the case the utterances about the unity of the Empire are words. The prospects of a British Zollverein appear feeble in* deed when the Imperial directions British policy are influenced by considerations purely English and neither British nor Imperial.