THE Otago Witness.

Otago Witness, Issue 549, 7 June 1862, Page 4

THE Otago Witness.

DCJ-XEDIN, SATURDAY, JUXB 7, 18(5-2. Tin: intelligence from the North received by the AVhite .Swan, and the particulars of which i we publish in our issue of to-d:u% is singularly important and significant. We have nous of the actu.-il eommencuneat of hostilities between two important sections of the Ngapubi tribe ; of the holding of a great meeting of natives at the Thames; of the steady refusal of the owners of the block of land at (Joroma.nv.lel, known as '' Paul's land."' to come to any terms about allowing the miners to go upon it ; of the diggers milking nocturnal incursions on to the forbidden ground ; of the possibility of the natives resenting this robbery ; and of the fact that Sir ficorge Grey — in consequence, as it is undoiv.to.ul, of the native difficulties — has given up his intention of visiting Otago, and has sailed from Wellington {'or Auckland. The return of tuo (inventor to Auckland gives a special significance to the other items of the intelligence. It is abundantly evident that there must be very important business, to make it necessary for him to alter all his plans, and po->t off to Auckland in such hot haste. It is tmc that accounts vary as to the cau.-es ol' his return to Auckland, some being to the elect tint he has received infornrition of the wiiliujuicss of the Coro- ' mandel proprietors to '•ell their land, but that they will treat with no one but himself, in person. Still it is clear that it is owing to something in connection with native arfairs lint Sir George has had to return. It is evident that the mthe population is in a very unsettled st-ite*, and it is almo&t impossible to conjecture what will be the upshot.' The Xgapuhi quarrel is the outbreak of a feud of long standing, arising out of disputed ownership to a certain piece of land, to which, it would appear, both parties have, by Alaori custom, an almost equal,, light, although one has pus^esMon, and may thus be considered to have some points in his fa\o'\ Jt is thus essentially a Maori quarrel, and, if it were po.v-iblc for the Eutope.in authorities to look on quietly and let the Maories light it out among themselves — that might, perhaps, be the most politic course. But it happens, unfortunately, that the nutter iv dispute does not only alfect tiie paiticular plot of land which is at present the bone of contention, but tb.it the assailing party —that of Matin— !«ns claim to all the land that Tirarau and bis tribe hive been selling to the Europeans for the last t went y years, and much of which is fettled with a liiiti-.li population. It will thus be seen that the European authorities h^ve more th \n a seiitiment'il interest in this quarrel ; for as n-ttive rights seem to be chiefly founded upon the right of the strongest, it would follow that if Matin should overcome Tirarau he would, ipso facto, make good his own title to the land be claims This point of Maori land tenure has been amusingly laid down in a little book called " The New Zealand War in IS4j,'' in which the writer says: — "The only safe mixi.n I can give on native tenure, after all my study, is as follows :—: — Every native who is in actual possession of land must be held to have a good title till some otic else shows a better, by kicking him off the premises" If, therefore, Mr. Ma-tiu should succeed in kicking Mr. Tirarau off the land in dispute, it is not improbable that he tuny, by n-itive custom, be held to have made good his title to the whole, and a grave question may arise between native and I']urope.iu casuists, as to whether such claims can be allowed to bear a retrospective force ; or, as the Sonlhem Ci'oss puts it. whether the settlers •• are to p,iy " for their land over again, and, having " done so by virtue of the new policy, >( what security they will have that they shall •' not be c.dled upon to repeat the purchase a " dozen years hence by some maiauding chief, •' and paid Government official ?n? n "With reference to the "paid Government official," the remark applies to one Arama Krekc, a " native assessor," one of the officials appointed under Sir George *Gre}''s new '* JSTative Policy," but, who has iv this instance joined the party of the aggressor. When remousttated uUh imm the impropriety of a

Queen's Magistrate joining in such a fight, this model Native magistrate is said to have replied that tl he did not come to right about the huul, but about old quarrels!" The quarrel was " a very pretty (j-urrel as it stood," and promised to defy ;i 11 the effoits of missionaries and magistrates to hi ing it to a settlement, but the appearance of this " native a^es-por" 1 on the scene would appear to have complicated it still further, and to have made any hut a bloody reckoning almost an impossibility. Should this be the ca c c, it is by no means impossible that Tirarau may be defeated by. his enemy Matiu, in which case he would most pnibably fall back upon tlie European settlement at Wnngarei, and thus a collision might bo brought about between the settlers and the Ma iries. It was almost in the same way that the Taranaki war was brought on, and it is therefore not surprising that grave apprehensions should lie entertained as to the result of the present frar is. But there is another matter, the significance vi which appea'.s to be even more serious than the war at Jvaipara. We have no desire to be coiriiiercd alarmists, but the intelligence of a large meeting ar the Thames, of natives of the Thames and Walkato tribes, appears to us to be fraught with the most serious omens. The only notice that we have of this meeting is in the Southern Cross, of May 24, and nothing is said as to its object, but from the tone of the article in the Southern Crosi "we gather that it can hardly be of a pacific nature. In the first place, the Thames and Waikaio tribes have always been the most turbulent of all the Native tribes of New Zealand, and it is hardly to be expected that 1,500 of them would meet together merely for an interchange of compliments, especially if it be true as stated, that no Europeans or half-castes were to be admitted to the deliberations, and that delegates from the other tribes were present. Moreover, it appears that William King was to have been there, and that he had actually arrived within a few miles of Kerepehi, the place of meeting, " when he was " ovei taken by expresses from Taranaki, con- " vejyiiig the information that warhpd broken •' out there," and that he thereupon immediately returned. Of what nature the war in Taranaki might be, we have not the slightest hint; whether merely a Native .squabble or a conflict in which the European settlers are again involved. Everything, however, tends to show that afl'airs in the Nor,th Island, as regards the Natives, are in a very precarious condition ; that the native miud is in a state of ferment ; that a collision may at any moment be brought about, and that the authorities are by no means free from alarm. It remains to be" seen whether the opening scenes of the Taranaki war are to be re-enacted at Kaipara ; whether the diggers are to rush Paul's land and. thus precipitate a conflict in that quarter ; and whether the fifteen hundred Waikatos and others who have met at the Thames have been peaceably or otherwise disposed. rpon all these points, we may expect to be enlightened when the next mail arrives from the North, but in the meantime we must be content to remain in a very painful uncertain ty.