THE EMPLOYMENT OF FRIENDLY NATIVES.

Otago Witness, Issue 920, 17 July 1869, Page 20

THE EMPLOYMENT OF FRIENDLY NATIVES.

In a speech in tho Legislative Council nn tho 25th ult., explaining tho cause of his absonoo from the Front, Colonel Whitraore expressed himself on thii point as follows : — I have hoard people say, what is the uso of tho friondly Natives 1 Well, Ido not ontiroly believe in them, hut 1 do not believe in being entirely without them, and agroo with the opinions expressed by a gontfoman of somo authority on the subject, TrFoathorston, that the friendly Maoris must always be regarded In the Usht of an auxiliary screw, and you must not depend exclusively upon them, for tho chances are if you do, they will fail you in the hour of need. If they once fanoy you redly cannot do without them, they will make uso of the power they have, and ihwart you. On the othor hand, if thoy see yon are perfectly independent of them, they are most jceftlous in their Mnriotf. T hsvd found th»t when ttxmt 90 pw otnt of our

valuable, iftWhen* they»s:re/senr6UejMaey jbiepome t more;;than auxiliariesjr and form a ,yejysimp^rtantmrt of ;pufr,.militafyj machinery-; for,.ipeing(,aoquainte;d7(With A variety 'of expedients, they render the work rless disagreeable to our men,' and niake it possible to dispense with guides, and I think that after three or four months' service, they cease to sympathize with their own people. (As an auxiliary screw, native tribes enable us to surround positions withgreaterrapidity/thanwecouldpossibly do without them. f / At the, same time I do not agree with th^suppositionthatthey are actuated by other than mercenary motives. That might have been the case some few years ago, when they were not paid, and •when I believe they looked upon it aa an honour to be employed. Since they- have been paid, and paid more than the local Militia, they have begun to > alter in character. I saw in one of Major Hair's reports, which has been laid on the table of the House, that, just at the moment when he hoped to turn their services to account, they ( would ,not fight unless they got double, pay. The moral of that is that we should rely ohiefly upon ourselves, and only when we wish to hurry the results put on the auxiliary screw. We must : have an , European > force strong enough to defend . itself and make itself respected, and we can use this screw on particular occasions, or in any particular undertaking whore numbers are wanted. ... I shall return to the subject of the friendly Maoris, .and I had forgotten to mention one thing that I ihink is the chief duty required of them. It will be well understood by those honourable gentlemen who have wild pigs on their runs. We want them to do the same work as the dogs that track the pigs and keep them occupied until the bull-dogs come up and despatch them. In the bush our men cannot go so fast as the Maoris, who can travel over four miles of ground while our men, running as hard as they oan, can only do three. In the retreat from Otauto, they did not go by any path at all, but entirely through the supplejacks ; if we had had bloodhounds, or Australian blacks, or even experienced bushmen, to take up the trail, I think it is exceedingly likely we might have gone faster than we did, and it was perhaps owing to our men not being encumbered, that we as nearly overtook them as we did. I wish to repudiate the idea which is prevalent, that we want friendly Maoris to do our fighting. Sir, we can fight for ourselves, man to man, or even at odds against us ; but the friendly natives, for purposes of guides, are indispensable, and wherever there is a difficulty in discovering tracks, or tracing or following a flying enemy and bringing him to bay, they are very valuable. I hope I have made out to the satisfaction of the Council that I am not a disgraceful deserter from my post, and also that in no unworthy way did I assume the command of the forces last year. I hope I have shown that in the difficulties that we had to contend against on the West Coast, there has always been some reason for what I have done, and that I have not in any way degraded the service of the country, but that there has been during the past year, something done and a great improvement in the training of our Colonial troops ; and I hope in that consideration honourable gentleman will find some little consolation, and have reason to hope that the troubles which at present afflict bhe country will speedily bo brought to an end. I feel confident that if the present forces were concentrated in a central position, tho rebellion could be put down in a muoh shorter time than is generally believed. Every step has been taken already which is essential to our ultimate success, and I think nothing but numbers —in faot, the concentration of the forces that at present exist —is wanted to make up a force against which the whole of the hostile natives in the island would not have the slightest chance. But as the work of crushing the rebellion with suoh appliances might appear to be too long to some, I may say I feel certain that by putting on < the auxiliary screw, and having a solid European force behind, in a few months all tho natives at present in arms against us, and even the King, if he chose to support them, would be defeated ; and if we wove to sssomble the forces we have in the different parti of the country, trained aa they now are, we would inspire respeot in the minds of the natives, and vory likely cause tho Kins to hand over the murderers of our settlon.

Thr "compliments of tho season" is a phrase very much in vogue at Christmas, and tho early part of tho year ; but I heard tho other day an analagous phraso that might be seasonable all tho year round. A laborer's wife wan •peaking to mo of a gentleman who had stopped to talk to hor. " Very plwuwnt ho made hJMelf . Ho pasted upon me tho com* plitncntc of tho weather, and then atked about John's rheumatics, &c Ac" There was the phruo, "tho compliment of the

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