TE WHITI'S POLICY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Issue 1137, 2 October 1880, Page 2

TE WHITI'S POLICY.

The Parihaka Natives are evidently beginning to lose confidence in the efficacy of the their fencing tactics. The prospect of two years' hard labour renders the game not worth the candle. To the chiefs, imprisonment carries with it the additional degradation of lobs of mana and future atigma. What the Natives rely on as a dernier resort is not yet apparent, but the crvtcial test will come when the actual occupation of the land by European settlers is begun. It has been asserted by one whose long experience of the Native character entitles his opinion to respect that Te Whiti's policy is to wear out our patience and exhaust our exchequer by compelling us to ■ maintain an expensive military occupation of the plains,, .and that, should that force be withdrawn, they will create a panic among (he settlers and compell them to abandon their homesteads. The Government, however, are anticipating that system of strategy by the construction of blockhouses, and the fortification of Cape E»mont lighthouse, which forms the base of a short and direct line of operation upon Parihaka.