THE MAORI WAR.

Southland Times, Issue 1113, 24 February 1869, Page 2

THE MAORI WAR.

(TO THE BDITOB OP THB SOUTHLAND TIKIS.) Sib — The reverses at the seat of war, published in your paper of yesterday, indicating as they do a widening field of action, and confirming our doubts of the good faith of a large proportion of f the so-called friendlies, are such as I must cause every colonist who looks upo&<New Zealand as his own and his childrens* home, to pause and think seriously of the present position and future prospects of

his adopted country. For eight years now, with but sbort cessations ibis apparently interminable war has been dragging its sickening length axong. Victory after victory has been gained by our troops. We "have been told time after time that the power of the rebels was for ever broken, and that they could never again muster in force to be dangerous, yet danger still exists — the foe manifests more vigorous vitality. Imperial troops have been tried and failed, and colonial troops are now engaged in the conflict with a prospect of being equally successful. True, when a fight takes place, the white man, as a rule, comes off victorious, but winning battles does not seem to be subduing the enemy. Pahs are destroyed, Maori strongholds levelled, native armies scattered in one locality, only to spring into existence in another. One day we hear with joy of the death or capture of some chief or leader, whose deeds of cruelty and zapine had made his name synonymous with everything fiendlike, and the next we hear of his reappearance in fresh scenes as ready for deeds of violence and blood as ever. General after General has been appointed to subdue our subtle foe. Army after army has gone forth to conquer a few naked savages. Treasures have been poured out, and the blood of our race spilt like water in the effort, and yet the end seems as far off as ever. Instead of being confined to one spot, Taranaki, as at the outbreak of the rebellion, the infection of war has gradually spread itself over the greater portion of the whole of the North Island, aye, and will spread, unless a sterner mode of dealing with the wily savage is adopted. In the midst ot this gloom one is still further depressed by the tone of public feeling, as expressed by the leading organs, in England. Viewing us from a purely commercial stand point, they allow calculations of prospective benefit to outweigh and trample down such higher and holier emotions as might be kindled by the recollection of blood relationship, and tall us plainly we must fight our own battles. Nor would we whine and lament over this, humiliating and unnatural as such conduct is, did we foel that censure was deserved by üb, or that we had failed to show ourselves worthy of our sires, but to be thus Jcoolly cast adrift by her who ought to be our protector, is gall and wormwood. It is no use saying we can have troops, when we are compelled to accept them only on such terms as are almost prohibitory. Surely if Great Britain could afford millions to relieve a few well cared for prisoners in Abyssinia, a country commercially worth nothing to her, she might spare a little to succor some thousands of her subjects in one of her own most important dependencies. In thinking over the subject, one" is forced to the conclusion that for a long series of years sinister influences have been at work to produce in the public mind of the British people a state of feeling, towards the colonists of New Zealand, totally foreign to their nature. England is not characterized by niggardliness, but has ever Bhown herself liberal almost to lavishness when appeals have been made to her generosity in the name of suffering and oppressed humanity, and has often, to her honor, rushed to the rescue without waiting to consider whether the suppliant were of her own kith and kin, or alien in blood, language and lineage. What then can we think when she stands coolly bye and sees her own children massacred, mutilated, roasted, and devoured by a horde of cannibal garages ; what, but that her mind has been poisoned, persistently poisoned, by the gross misrepresentations of mutual enemies, who, under the guise of friendship, have long enjoyed her unbounded confidence, and that thus beguiled, she has, in a moment of unnatural repulsion, cast forth her own flesh and blood to take to her bosom the treacherous offspring of the stranger — disinherited Isaac to bestow the birthright on Ishmael. — Yours, &c., Saxon. Invercargill, Feb 23rd, 1869.