TARANAKI WAR.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 291, 3 August 1860, Page 3

TARANAKI WAR.

(From the Taranaki News, July 26.) H.M.S. Fawn arrived on Monday, bringing 112 officers and men of the 12th Regiment ; and on Tuesday the City of Hobart came with the head quarters of the 40th Regiment, consisting of 233 men and 11 officers, under the command of Colonel Leslie, and accompanied by the splendid band of the regiment. These arrivals make and addition, during the past wee)?, of upwards of 350 men to the force already in the province. The men appear to be all in excellent health and spirits, and a fine, clear, calm day, rendered their disembaikation rapid and easy, The 40th marched to the parade ground, and the detachment of the 12th to the Market-pJace, where they are for the present encamped. The Australian papers inform us that further reinforcements are on their way; arid it will be seen from our Melbourne extracts that General Pratt's arrival may be looked for immediately. We learn from a private source that Major-General Pitt, who has been organising a rifle force in Melbourne, has volunteered to bring 300 men to Taranaki, and that a considerable number have already enrolled their names for the service. We do not, however, understand that the authorities have as yet accepted the proposal.

The Airedale, with the members of the General Assembly, arrived on Tuesday morning, and left for Manukau in the afternoon. The Airedale is (to-day) hourly expected back on her way to Nelson «3n extra service, to return to this port, and probably to Manukau, and if so will probably bring the early proceeding of the Assembly. The colony at large will look forward with interest and hope to the result of the deliberations. These words, however inadequately, convey the intense anxiety felt in this devoted province, where all within our town is military rule, and all without is desolation.

There was a report last week that the natives had retired from Tataraimaka. If there were any truth in the statement, their absence was for a purpose and their return speedy. On Monday, intelligence reached town from Omata that pas were in course of erection on the block, and subsequently it was ascertained that six or eight pas, two of which are large ones, now occupy the places of the peaceful and profitable homesteads of the settlers. The love of devastation—the thorough and intense hatred that the native breathes to civilisation—is but too well displayed in the destruction of the commodious homes of the settlers, and the erection of these strongholds and their filthy appliances. They claim the block by right of conquest, and for the present hold possession of it. They teach us a lesson of the practical kind, far more to the purpose than a score of Governor's speeches upon the inviolable character of treaties.

Major-General Pratt, C.8., inspected two strong companies of the 40 th Regiment, numbering about 550 men, yesterday; at the Prince's Bridge Barracks, preparatory to their embarkation for the seat of war, in New Zealand. After a minute survey of the arms, and accoutrements of the men, the major-general briefly addressed the troops. He said, " Soldiers I am not going to make you a long speech. I have just received a despatch from Taranaki, containing the names of your comrades that fell there. We are going to avenge them; and I shall be with you." All the out' parties of the regiment have been called in, and, with the exception of about 40 men, who are on the sick-list, the whole will embark for New Zealand on board the City of Hobart. The embarkation is appointed to take place at noon this day, ai the Sandridge Pier. The major-general and staff will follow the troops immediately, in the Victoria, colonial war steamer. — Argus July 11.

(From the Taranaki Herald, July 21.)

The Native Corps is disbanded, and many trifling incidents of the past week point to a sort of Maori-phobia, or at least a growing suspicion of treachery, on the part of the whole native race, which is so entirely without foundation as to call for every check that any rational and sober man can afford. An able letter from Ihaia, printed in another column, points to a painful sense of this distrust on his part, and if the experience of the past, described in language both naive and orderly, goes for anything, no man, who is not in a degree "possessed/ will deny that he at least makes a fairly grounded claim on our confidence. Ihaia appeals to the past, and we must do so also before saying more on this important topic. The editorial veil shelters, sometimes, many performers, it is necessary to reiterate therefore, that we as well as the new comers to whom Ihaia points, have the miserable tragedies of India before our eyes, and deprecate all indiscriminate trust. The error of admitting Karipa and Matiu to the position of allies, we still blame severely; we trust that it will not be matched in the future. The exaggeration of Bishops, Archdeacons, and Maori-worshippers at large, we still regret, and will seek to nullify as far. as our own little influence goes. The devil, ever ready to assume the disguise of an angel of light, has persuaded some high members of the clerical profession, that in giving way to party spirit and official arrogance, they are administering apostolic rebukes to their sinful countrymen, bent on robbery and extermination of the blameless Maori. The same dark functionary persuades others that a manly regard for truth and civilisation requires them to loose their tongues in reckless abuse of the Maori. ■ In the midst of this confusion of indiscriminate mistrust* and intemjoorate advo-

cacy of the Maori, where there is so much o irritate on both sides, what should be the course of the public press? An upright writer should surely aspire, if not to. guide, at least to moderate the voice of public feeling. Merely to echo its worst extravagances j with exaggerated loudness, is to bring strange evidence of the blessings of civilisation. The press in this little province has generally steered clear of party violence, and only at exceptional times as one paper been at war with another. But with every desire to maintain that peaceable condition we cannot pass our contemporary's article of last Thursday in silence. A writer so plainly delirious might be left to run his muck, if it concerned only individuals, but a whole race was here libelled, and the settlers at large become implicated in the libel unless .it is promptly disavowed. Never was the " falsehood of extremes" better illustrated than in these words applied to the Maori race, " cruel, untameable, and false." Cruelty and falsehood of the Maori is, at worst, equalled by that of the writer of these words. What man is there in this settlement who has not abundant reason to know that one or other, and often all these epithets are a gross libel on the race ? Who has not found the Maoris almost universally docile and obedient laborers ? who has not found them just and honest tradesmen?—hard, perhaps, but with a hardness in which British tradesmen often pride themselves. And for their cruelty, let those readers speak who have seen the attention bestowed on Mr. Browne at Waitara, or who have lived among the natives or partaken of their friendship. " With such ferocious natures, we can reason only with the sword," says this writer. Perhaps the ficercest nature that could be easily pointed to among the race is that of Ihaia, the writer of the letter bei fore mentioned J yet will the candid reader say, that letter, foi the ungarbled genuineness of which we pledge ourselves, is from .a man inaccessible to reason? It were well if all newspaper writers were half as clear and consecutive. The Maori does not " hate civilisation," but he hates restraint; and let any reader ask how he likes it himself. What are his feelings when he sees some offspring of Martial Law in the shape of a " Proclama- i tion " limiting his actions in any way which does not seem to him reasonable? Does he welcome the restraint and hug it to his bosom ? He may obey because he has been brought up under habits of subordination ; and this great blessing of order he knows, if he thinks, is worth many a submission to trifling wrong and unreasonableness. But we venture to say that, with the gallant Pistol when Fluellen offers him the leek, he may exclaim, " I eat, and eke I swear." " Damn the proclamation I" he says, and goes to obey it. This brings out the real point at issue, if intemperate persons on both sides would let it be seen. The Maori, like all uncultured beings of any nobleness, kicks at restraint. Insubordination is the sin of Adam. Civilization requires subordination, and a collision ensues ; but civilization will never designedly, or with passionate recklessness, " sweep away every savage from her path." She does not " hate" the Maori as this mad writer asserts. It is an insufferable prostitution of her name to say so. The vices that hang about her may hate and destroy the Maori; civilisation hates only his insubordination. The writer quotes " the contests of former ages" to show that the doom of the Maori is sealed. It is a vulgar and pernicious way of reasoning (can it be called reasoning?) to justify a course in the future, because it leads to results which humanity has always had to deplore in the past. It is as if the man bent on murder should cheer himself on by the reflection that every age as had murderers. Every crime may be justified on such a plan. But the grounds of the arugment are as false as it is illogical! Nine tenths of the age of the human race has passed away before the Teutonic family, from which we spring, had a settled country or anything that we call civilisation; and after a host of collisions, the sun now never sets on their seed. The Celt too has not vanished before higher civilisations, but his blood tinges, for good or ill, the vast continent of North America. It may be in the book of providence that the Maori is not to survive—the ways of God are inscrutable—but civilisation has little right to claim our respect if she does not do her utmost to prevent such an extinction. Let the reader consult his own better feelings, and the result is not doubtful. To conquer a peace, not a land covered with corpses, is the aim of the good warrior. Let not us who are engaged in this miserable warfare, be guilty of the black sin of quoting " God and Nature" to lash our passions always too easily excited; or stimulate indiscriminate suspicions and hate by falsehood and exaggeration. Let good temper and fair play be the motto of all who fight under and rejoice in " the Red, White, and Blue."

The attention of the reader has already been called to the letter of Ihaia showing his relations and sentiments to the Europeans. The concluding paragraph of the same letter gives a piece of advice on military matters supporting the opinion expressed last week in these columns. The views of Ihaia are entitled to attention, his courage, energy, and fertility of device, mark him as the stuff of which Generals should be made, and it is most desirable that all possible use should be made of those qualifications. There has happened nothing of a military nature that suggests any comments that ought to be, printed here.., The entrenchments proceed, and appear a very excellent piece of work. Well manned they will keep out^ very desperate Maoris;

and very.desperate ones they will be, who come to try their hands at an attack. The trenches are good,, but even a better way of strengthening the town will be the complete organisation of the men in it, so that each should fall into his place on an alarm by day or night. Probably it will be well that the inhabitants should keep close and defend their houses, that is to say in case of an attack by night, leaving the streets to the regulars whosib uniform will prevent the fatal mistakes, of friend for foe. that are most to be dreaded, and which might even on a false alarm, cause grievous disaster. The trenches are good, organisation is better, but best of all as a defence for the totvn will be a spirited prosecution of operations against the insurgents in the country.