The Star. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1868.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 157, 12 November 1868, Page 2

The Star. THURSDAY, NOV EMBER 12, 1868.

But a day or two ago, and we were led to believe that no immediate danger was to be apprehended from the Chatham Islands fugitive?. It was said that the Superintendent of ffawke's Bay had so managed matters there as to restore the confidence of the settlers. This confidence, if it existed, has been followed by a massacre as terrible as any recorded in the history of New Zealand. In the absence of full particulars, it is inexpedient to offer any cutnmrntss on th'B awful disaster ; but it is impossible to refrain from asking how a settlement m such close proximity to the disaffected Natives was left so unprepared aa Poverty Bay must have be^-n. How is it that, with all our means of information, the movements of the Hau-haus were not better known? Was Poverty Bay left altogether undefended ? Taken in conjunction with the news from the Wauganui district, where Colonel Whitmore appears to have been more severely defeated thau was at first believed, tins calamity at Poverty Bay will most likely precipitate that general rising of the Natives which those who are well informed have always dreaded. The mure turbulent spirits of the Native King's following will not remain quiet with such incentives to action, and the probability in, that the Waikato will shortly be the scene of another and a yet fierier struggle. The prospects of the colony grow more gloomy day by day ; the weakness and incompetence of our rulers, nay more, their culpable neglect, more apparent. We deplore, with the most heartfelt Forrow, the murders which have been perpetrated, and we ask the people of this province, knowing what they know, whether the blood of theso murdered men, women, and children is not on the heads of the Stafford Government. This very district of Poverty Bay they have beeu warned about over and over again, and we have no hesitation whatever in saying that this awful massacre would not have occurred if they had done their duty honestly, and like men.