THE WAR IN ZULULAND.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 656, 21 March 1879, Page 2

THE WAR IN ZULULAND.

Deplorably unwelcome as is the news that we are committed to another little war with the King of Zululand, there prevails a confident opinion in the best informed of official circles at home that; if sharp while it lasts, it will at least be short and decisive. It seems probable that the mode of fighting adopted on our side will be that of despatching several small bands of men under competent officers, and of thus dealing with King Cetewayo's troops by detachments. There can be little doubt that hostilities between England and the Zulus were sure to come sooner or later The present struggle may have been precipitated, but it has not been proyoked, and on all accounts it is well that it should have come at the time at which it has done. Supposing that it had been deferred a couple of years, aud that meanwhile, tranquility having been re-established, our troops had been re-called from the Cape ; in that event, the Zulus, who are not only warlike but truculent and treacherous, might, and probably would have signalised their hatred of the English name and power by planning a massacre of whites in Natal. The sequel of such a catastrophe could have scarcely been matter for speculation. The news would have stirred the whole of Great Britain with profound indignation. We should have hastened to inflict summary and conspicuous retribution, and the war which we should thus have undertaken, instead of being small and comparatively cheap, would have been certainly large and costly. The Government, indeed, which has already spent more than a million over the Cape troubles are to be condoled with for the occurrence on political ground*!. They will certainly have to come to Parliament for a considerable sum of money, and it is likely enough that this will throw them out greviously in their Budget calculations, which, before the intelligence from Zulu arrived, are said to have been very much more satisfactory than one could have supposed.