THE TIMES ON THE POVERTY BAY MASSACRE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 868, 13 March 1869, Page 4

THE TIMES ON THE POVERTY BAY MASSACRE.

(PROM THE TIMES, JANUARY 1.)

The telegram of 31st December, from Sydney, will have made the last day of 1868 a time of gloom and apprehension in many English houses. The statement, made in a single line, that in New Zealand " fifty Europeans with their families, have been massacred," is at once so clear and so vague as to spread terror throughout the numerous households which have relatives in the North Island. Such a tragedy is only a consequence which was to have been anticipated from the condnct pursued by the Colony itself. A cry may very likely, we fear, be raised on behalf of making vengeance for the atrocities of these savages an Imperial concern. The sentiment that no matter where Englishmen suffer it is equally the duty of England to see that right is done is so natural and generous that we shoujd gladly feel free to refrain from discouraging the tendency. But, if only in the interest of Colonial self-government, we must protest against such interference. The agency which has produced the calamity, is the almost incredible negligence of the Colony itself, and the Colony is best left to deal by itself with the effects of its own culpable inertness. Already, a couple of months ago, one part after another of the open country in the disturbed quarters appears to have been abandoned, and only two posts — Patea and Wairoa — were still maintained, while the insurgents were visible from them careering up and down and solemnising their war dances. Now, finally, comes this terrible butchery, due probably either to the capture of the latter place, which appears to have been defended principally by the neighbouring farmers, or to the extension of the insurrection in some fresh direction. Colonel McDonnell has his apologists in New Zealand, who hold that he has been unduly blamed for his part in producing the general state of affairs. We agree at least to the extent that the colonial authorities must not hope to shift the fault of remissness off themselves under cover of their officer's incapacity. It was, we must repeat, in the regular order of things as arranged by themselves that what has happened should happen. They confiscated native territories in the plentitude of military authority which the presence of ten British regiments gave them, and then they dismissed the troops which had inspired them with confidence to exact such a penalty from the rebel tribes. The scheme which they had pledged themselves to carry out might, perhaps have made such a policy safe. But they did not carry it out. The proposition was that the place of the Imperial troops should be supplied by a drilled constabulary force of 1,500, and that from the confiscated districts allotments of land should be made to the militia engaged in the previous campaign, to be occupied by them as a kind of garrison against native aggression. Instead, however, of 1,500 police, only 330 have been levied. So, again, allotments made from the confiscated lands were allowed to be selected at the mere discretion of the new settlers. Consequently, instead of each homestead being one of a regular chain of posts, and the whole constituting an advance guard to the Colony they have themselves been a fresh source of weakness. They have furnished a perpetual provocation to Maori attacks, and been at the same time destitute of means in themselves combining for their joint defence. Even when the periodical native agitation had burst into active operation, the colonial functionaries and Parliament appear to have resisted as long as they conld the evidence of the gravity of the situation. They raised troops, indeed, but of such indifferent material, that a single repulse turned them into a drunken rabble, twothirds of whom would seem to have deserted, or have had to be discharged. It would have been sufficiently grievous had the catalogue of reverses contained nothing worse than the shrinking of the line of British settlements twenty miles back. To the public disgrace now appears to have been addedafrightfulprivatecalamity. But the disasters of the five months will not have been altogether unprofitable if they force on the Colony a conviction of the necessity for adopting a policy which shall make them virtually impossible in the future. At any rate, a month's experience of the almost unresisted destruction of Colonial farmhouses and driving off Colonial cattle ought to have been rich in lessons of political economy to the New Zealand Government. It will have been taught that to save the cost of keeping disciplined troops for the protection of districts which a body of armed natives still claim as their property is not true economy. It is enough if the leaders of parties in the island, south as well as north, lay this to heart. We dare not apprehend that an English Colony which is immensely supei'ior, even numerically, to its native enemies will be incompetent to secure itself against them out of its own resoures. If the entire Maori population were up in arms, the Colony must be more than a match for it. But, in fact, the present rising has been confined to an inconsiderable section, although every week of impunity allowed to such a rebellion swells into proportions. It will be humiliating and impolitic in an English Colony to depend on the protection which comes from the compassion or mutual jealousies of a savage race. A practice of subsidising certain tribes in order to ensure their aid against their countrymen is even more obviously impolitic than it is degrading. The settler is thus encouraged in a false feeling of security, arising from the vicinity of savages who themselves derive from the trust placed in them a license to remain in , their independence, which leaves them unre&laimed savages still, and therefore s&ill untrustworthy neighbours. The Colonial Government seems to have been lately resorting to this expedient of buying natives goodwill by money and concession. It has, we learn, been distributing among

the friendly tribes a largess of £15,000 of public money, and granting a redress of native grievances which had been sought in vain for the past two years of peace. The measure seems, on the face of it, too like the ordinary Colonial principles of action hitherto in native matters. If the wrongs were real, it was undignified in the Government to delay the remedy till such a time. But if unreal, the lesson that the justice of native demands will not be strictly weighed at periods of public embarrassment is not likely to be lost on the savage intelligence, which is somewhat too apt to argue out premises to their extreme conclusions. Tranquillity secured by these means is held by an uncertain tenure. The Maori, become a regular soldier under English officers, might be converted into>a loyal subject ; but under a subsidised native chieftain he remains a savage. The New Zealand Executive and Parliament have now at least the stimulus to energy which arises from the consciousness that the eyes of the empire are upon them. They are still free to choose what course ' they please ; but their countrymen are free to criticise it, and will, the Colony may assure itself, exercise their privilege. England i« at least entitled to demand imperatively that the spectacle shall not continue of an immensely larger body of Englishmen satisfied, if it be peace to hold their tranquillity at the mercy of the caprice or superstition of a few hundred savages, and contented if it be war, provided the contest results in no worse than a certain number of drawn battles. The present exigency will quickly pass away, like others. But similar difficulties will recur if a radical remedy be not now applied. No policy, however, is worthy of adoption, which does not depend for its working on the Colony alone, and not on the assistance, much or little, of any other Power, whether it be the British empire or a handful of friendly ex-cannibals. Above all, no policy can be of any but very temporary utility, which recognises the title of more than a single government to exist in the New Zealand islands. A policy which would satisfy these twin conditions would soon put the Maori question at rest* for ever.