The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1868.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 405, 17 November 1868, Page 2

The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1868.

It is a satisfactory indication of an improving public spirit in Westport that such a meeting has been called as that which is appointed to be held this evening at the Empire Hotel. It is true enough that, in the destructive encroachments of the river, the inhabitants of the banks of the Bullerhave themselves to contend with an enemy of a very uncompromising and unconquerable character. It would, indeed, be nothing strange if loeal'feelirig were to be solely engrossed with the silent but certain and serious advances of that enemy. The prospect of property being lost, of trade being destroyed, and of the interests of a district being otherwise seriouslydamaged, is a prospect of itself sufficient to localise men's feelings, and to diminish their personal interest in matters more distant. But the inhabitants of Westport, while fully appreciating the importance of the " natural" enemy with winch they have to contend, are not without sympathy with those in the North Island whose lives, as well as their property, are in danger from an enemy whose instincts are, in a high degree, unnatural and in-

human. The news of the massacre at Poverty Bay has produced, in common parlance, a " profound sensation," and, with the sensation which it has produced, it has provoked people to a sense of the folly and the fatality of the present policy being - continued in our relations with the Maori race. It can do nothing towards the interests of the inhabitants of the Middle Island to raise a cry for indiscriminate war. It is they who have hitherto substantially supplied the " sinews of war." It is they who suiter most in pocket, if not in person, by the system of warfare which has been, and still is, the curse of the Colony. They have every reason not to urge active and hostile operations against the Maori, but every reason to urge peace, if peace were possible. But, as matters are at present, peace is apparently impossible of attainment, and if it is to be war, all that is felt, and all that is asked, is that it shall bo war, not alone in name, but in reality. There is sufficient knowledge of the fact that war is costly, and that, in New Zealand, the cost has fallen upon that part of the Colony which, while losing much, has had nothing to gain. There is also the knowledge, however—or, at least, the conviction—that the war, even as a war on the defensive, has been carried on not as it ourrht to have been. Metaphorically expressed, it is felt that the war has been carried on with offerings of peace in the right hand, and with the sword in the left. There is an impression, not unjustified by the history of events, that able generals and efficient troops were brought to the Colony in vain, and their cost incurred in vain, because there was in the country a Coventor pacifically disposed. And there is still the impression that the bravery or the exertions of officers and men are expended in vain, because they have to combat not only the skill of the savage, but the tactics of time-serving Commissioners and " sucking " politicians. It is this policy, if policy it may he called, against which the voice of the colonists is being 'raised, and against which, we imagine, the humble inhabitants of Westport are, this evening, desirous of expressing their protest. Of course, there is much more to be considered, by those who have the conduct of our colonial affairs, than mere protesting. Men and money must be had, and to have these to the extent required implies a greater imposition upon the resources of the Colony than the resources of the Colony are, probably, capable of sustaining. Should it prove so, the so-called " self-reliant policy" must he abandoned, and it would bo well if, at the meetings which

arc now likely to be held throughout the country, expression Ave re given to the public opinions which, in reference to that question, now prevail. It was a policy which was never altogether endorsed by tho feeling of tho people, and, with an enemy on one side, and on tho other the confession of the colonists' own weakness, it is impossible to suppose that Englandjjwill hesitate to make the war one of her own, and to carry it out, not under the direction of Grovernors or Commissioners, but under the direction of tho General iu command. If England can send to Abyssinia a powerful army to relieve a few com-fortably-quartered captives, and cau refuse to aveuge the massacre of a whole community living under her constitution and her flag, there will cei'tainly be presented an anomaly unparalleled in tho history of the nation, or in the history of the nations which have colonised the world.