THE POLICY OF THE WELD MINISTRY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 678, 29 July 1865, Page 3

THE POLICY OF THE WELD MINISTRY.

[From tl c Times, April 14.]

Our correspondence from New Zealand describes exactly such a state of affairs as might have been anticipated from the policy of the Colonial Government us prefigured in the last despatches. Mr. Weid, the new Premier, on assuming office, announced his intention of opening up the country of the robel Maoris by roads cut through the bush. This design constituted substantially the whole programme of his Ministry. He did not profess to desire war with the natives, nor did he exactly proclaim it, but he said that they should no longer be protected by their natural thickets from the arm of the law. Their woods should be cut through aud through, their fastnesses should be laid open, and their retreats should be rendered acccessible by broad military roads, maintained by military stations. If they would consent to this, well and good ; no harm should happen to them, and they should oven be paid handsomely for their labour, if they would join in the work ; but if they resisted the Queen's authority, or interfered with the Queen's troops, they should be summarily chastised. That was the policy proc:aimed, and its oxecution has now been commenced with what wo may regard as the natural results.

Of course the Maoris know very well that roadmaking means conquest, and that if their wildernesses were opened to the easy march of the Queen's forces, they could rise in rebellion no more. Half their strength lies in the strength of the positions they can occupy, and if they are stripped of this advantage they can no longer set the Government at defiance. They naturally, therefore, resist the road-making. As they have not the least idea of becoming peaceable subjects or renouncing the privilege of chronic rebellion, they are making a stand for the jungles which protect them. They have fired upon our troops from ambuscades, and have begun to murder even their own couutrymen suspected of being friendly to Government. In fact, it is a New Zealand war of the old kind, with just this difference, that if wo succeed in making roads as well as repulsing the rebels, there will be more to show for our victory than in times past. Otherwise it is the same story over again, and it is plain, indeed, from the nature of the proceedings, that nothing less was anticipated. The country selected for this experiment is one of the most difficult and dangerous districts iv the Northern Island. It lies on the west coast between Taranaki and Wanganui, the distance from one of these points to another being about 100 and 120 miles. The intervening territory — Ngatiruanui — is the seat of one of the most barbarous and ungovernable tribes in the whole island, and we may recognise the handiwork of the savages in the inasac-es now reported. To drive a road through such a country is tantamount to invading it, and the Government has so understood the work before it. The preparations, though probably none too extensive, are characteristically disproportionod to the apparent object. We are assured that the natives could r.ot possibly bring into the field more than 600 fighting men ; ineeed, the suggestion that nearly 1,000 were engaged in a certain attack upon our camp is treated with incredulity and derision. Nevertheless, General Cameron, a resolute and intelligent officer, well qualified for the conduct of such a campaign, has taken with him to Wanganui a force of 3,500 men provided with all the appliances of war. He has three strong battalions of British troops, and portions of other regiments, bringing up his regular infantry alone to a strength of 2,917 officers and men. He has an artillery force with its Armstrong guns j an effective division of Royal Engineers, and strong detachments of the Military Train and Transport Corps. But besides this he has ordered out the Militia, and the Rifle Volunteers have already joined him. That is the guise in which the Qaeeti's representatives are forced to set about roadmaking in the Queen's own dominions, and with nobody near them but the Queen's own subjects.

To complete the anomalies of the spectacle, the British General is actually playing a cautious game, and is as circumspect in his tactics as if he were moving against a vastly superior force. There is a lion in his path. Within twenty miles of the coast the natives have thrown up a pah, and, having been allowed a month or so to complete it, have rendered it, after their fashion, a strong fortification. The redoubt contains perhaps 500 Maoris, but though General Cameron advanced at the beginning of February with more than twice that number of British troops, he declined,' and we have no doubt with excellent judgment, to attack the pah. He treated his enemy exactly as Sherman treated Johnston in the march upon Atlanta. He left him unmolested in his intrenchments, turned the position by a flank march, and proceeded on his expedition as if no enemy were in his rear at all. By these tactics he has probably saved much and lost nothing. An attack upon a Maori pah means the sacrifice of a score or two of British soldiers, and the ultimate escape of nineteen-twentieths of the garrison in a species of triumph after the post has become untenable. Even Armstrong shells, though in our experiments we seem able to pitch them into any conceivable place, do little harm inside a pah. A Maori seems very hard to hit. Even in the attack which they made upon our camp in open day they left but 18 of their number on the field, though they killed and wounded twice that number of our troops. Of course, in this road-making business they will enjoy the full advantage of their natural tactics. We are penetrating their country, and they can lie iv wait for us where they please, but every mile of advance and every acre of clearing will diminish their chances for the future.

We are not disposed at such a moment to revive the political question or to balance the respective obligations of the mother country and the colony. According to Mr. Weld's own programme an end of our liabilities is in prospect, and, Indeed, well within view. By-and-by the colony is to dispense with the army so long maintained at the Imperial charge, but in the meantime the troops are there, and wo do not see how they could be better employed than in this military roadmaking. A good, broad, wellguarded road, cut right through the country from Taranaki to Wauganui, would be worth a dozen treaties of peace or professions of surrender. If we succeed this time, we shall at last get a substantial result from a New Zealand war, and the object happens to be one to which even the strongest partisan of the Maori race can take no exception. These natives, as wo are perpetually reminded, are the Queen's subjects, inhabiting the Queen's territory, and it is obviously most desirable that in their country a3 well as all others good roads should be constructed aud maintained. It is not competent to any section of the population to say that their abodes shall be kept inaccessible to the authorities of the land. Whatever may be the property of any tribe in this territory, we have a perfect right to take a portion of it for the Queen's highway. We tako such property unhesitatingly enough at homo, and, indeed, if land is forfeited by treason, theßO Maories have lost their rights many times over. It is a pity they were not informed years ago that though their freeholds were reserved to them, these rights might be lost by rebellion. Their offence is not that they, quarrelled with the setters, but that • they habitually rose in arms against the Government which was most anxious to do them justice even as against its own native-born subjects. Very strange and very unfortunate it is that the good men who for the last tweity yearß have been cultivating and civilizing the Maori mind to the

best of their power should never have taught these savages that the first duty of a subject is to respect the Government, and his worst crime to rise in rebellion against it. What terms are tho Queen's representatives to keep with a class of "Her Majesty's "subjects" who not only refuse to Bubtnit to authority, bnt who claim to inhabit inaccessible thickots, and look upon loadmaking as an act of war ? How are we to regard this Maori? Is ho a British subject amenable to the law, or is he a savage, beyond thocategory of civilized and responsiblftcitizens ? Hitherto, thanks to prejudiced and enthusiastic patrons, he has had .ho benefit of both these characters. He has been held the white man's equal in any conflict of civil rights, and an irresponsible savage whenever he chose to go to war. Ho Ins rebelled just when he pleased, and has been allowed to terminate his rebellion with impunity by coming forward to say that ho had had enough of it for the time. He is now fighting with the hope of maintaining these Toryconvenient privileges, but we trust this campaign may make an end of them once and for all.