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Wairarapa Standard, Volume 9, Issue 931, 28 June 1879, Page 2

It is vam tor the I V. Z. Times to attack Sir George Grey on account of his native policy, as that will be sure to have the support of a mrjority of the House. The editor might surely find a weaker point than this in the Ministerial armor. Much more to the purpose is the following from the New Zca>ander :—An old diplomatic campaigner, like the Premier, who has had a generation’s experience of dealing with aboriginal races in British Colonies, and who desires to avoid every unwise precipitancy, shows that he is aware of the danger that exists by the active measures that are now being made. Ho desires to avert war if possible, and the feeling of the country is with him, but he is also preparing for it if itmustcome, and there again the Colony concurs. It is felt that now there must be no hesitancy if once an angry shot is fired, and the Maoris must be speedily taught to realise the fact, in view of the largo force that is now rapidly concentrating to the front, that if they force on fighting this must be the last native wav. To Whiti and his deluded followers must be made to feel that the welfare of nearly half a million

lof Europeans, and the social and com(mercial interests with which they are J I bound up, shall never again be imperilled ’ Iby the faintest possibility of another rising. They must bo led to see that their power for disturbance shall bo henceforward completely broken. It is natural, therefore, with issues so momentous to a large portion of the native race, the Premier of this Colony must be imbued with an earnest desire to exhaust every possible means for the preservation of peace, as he did in 1863, before determining on the dread arbitrament of war. Many settlers will remember that prior to the murder of Lieutenant Tradgett on the Tataramaika Block in 1863, Sir George • Grey, who was then Governor of the Colony, sought by every means in hia I power to avert the war, and in doing so incurred no small amount of undue obloquy amongst certain sections of the colonists ; but he showed afterwards, when he had done his duty in endeavoring to avoid bloodshed, that he was prepared to properly punish the rebels. He is acting on the same principle now, and the strong force, said to be between 1500 to 2000 bayonets, which will be in readiness to confront the natives, will teach them that their rebellion, if persisted in, will result in a final destruction of their power for mischief.” T u our thinking, the course which has been adopted by the Premier is the best possible course to take, and this would have been the opinion of the N. Z. Times it some other less-experienced person had been Premier in his stead. Had hostilities been hurried on by the Government before Parliament had ac opportunity of being consulted on the subject, there would have been no paper louder inits denunciations than the Times of the conduct of the present Ministry. The Hawkes Bay Herald , which cannot be called a thick and thin supporter of the Government, in referring to the charge which has been made against four Europeans, that the action of the Natives has been owing to their promptings mentions them by name. They are Majors Mair, and Jackson, and Messrs Moore and Searancko, the latter of whom is not unknown in Jiis district, where he was employed as a Native Land Purchase Commissioner some twenty years ago. The Herald says:—“Of two of these renegades we know nothing, except that for years they have been classed with Pakeha-Maori, objects of dislike and suspicion to both races. Searancke is somewhat better known. He originally, by some means or other, managed to obtain

a post as surveyor under the New Zealand Company. Three days after he landed he proved to the satisfaction of everybody that he was totally incompetent to do even the simplest surveying work. To travesty the old saying— “he could not survey ; to drag the chain ha was ashamed.” . . Major Mair is also a Pakeha-Maori. He fought with the friendly natives in the late war, and so got his commission. His savage ties appear to have overcome the sympathy of blood, and he has turned traitor. All four renegades were present at the Kopua meeting, but they kept with Tawhiao’s people, and held no communication with the whites. When they were invisible Tawhiao was comparatively courteous, and seemed inclined to treat with the Europeans ; while they stood at his side he was insulting and bouncoablo. The Ngatiawa chief who writes to our contemporary was present at Kopua, and this is the conclusion he comes to “If trouble arises in the Waikato it will arise from the same cause as it has done in Wairaate and Taranaki—viz., the earth hunger of the white settlers, and the unredeemed promises of past Governments.” Here is a new element introduced, though it is an element which has not infrequently been hinted at. “ The earth hunger of the white settlers. ” What does this mean? Why, that men—Englishmen—aro so imbued with the greed of gain that they hesitate not to thwart the e(torts of the Ministry to secure a “ peaceful conquest” over the Maori, and, for the sake of acquiring a few thousand acres of land, are content to run the risk of plunging the Colony into a bloody war. No language could bo too strong to condemn such unholy greed—no punishment too severe for the raercanary traitors, if they can be convicted of the heinous crime imputed to them. Truly, the task of the Ministry is complicated if they have not only to contend with open and avowed enemies, but with foes in the camp of the Europeans.”