The Evening Herald. THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1869.

Wanganui Herald, Volume III, Issue 666, 22 July 1869, Page 2

The Evening Herald. THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1869.

The first of Mr Stevens' local government resolutions has been negatived, and tbe others have been withdrawn. Mr Stafford, in speaking to them, did not favor the imme<diate and wholesale abolition of the •.provincial system, but was rather to support the subdivision >pf provinces as circumstances favored ;it, and as any large portion of tbe 'people desired if. This is statesmanlike and sound. Reform should gradual and continual, unless in those exceptional instances where great evils require sudden or violent remedies. The subdivision of provinces should depend on local cir--cumstances; and these in different parts of the Colony are dissimilar. Wanganui and Timaru may expect to be legislated for in accordance with these principles when Mr Stafford returns to power.

There is not any portion of the Fox policy containing so many elements of weakness as that which pointed to the destruction of the military character in the colonial forces. The word "demilitarise" was in itself unfortunate, but it has been considered more a topic for pedants than the nut which contains the kernel of the Government policy. Mr McLean is the representative of the chaotic principle. His military views are concentrated in a pah; from which would emerge, on the eve of danger, bands of straggling Maories, who could only be put into motion by the eloquence and tact of a native agent. Before an action could be brought about a long series of koreros would be absolutely essential. It the ball could be kept rolling without further effort the first great impulse might be cheaply purchased at any price, but when, it requires a force to keep it goingequal to that which set it in molion, the terras are altered from simple to compound. It may not be that MiMcLean has influenced the other members of the Government, but the inference is open. Mr Fox would give the colonial forces more the character of a police. There is a condition wanting to give his policy even a good face, lie must make the rebels afraid of the police-man's-baton; he must destroy that propensity of the Maoris to act in bodies. Given this condition, and the police element may work. What ideas does the military character of a force convey 1 V> c suppose a high military organisation ro mean, rigid discipline, ihe vowrr ot moving in Indies, tho .concentration of lorce upon a given point at a given time, and the accumulation and discharge of power in overoommg resistance,

Does the ordinary meaning of a police force answer all these conditions ? A police force hardly conveys any other idea than the moral power of a Government. The Italian troops are continually employed in hunting down the Neapolitan banditti ; because these are not only the black sheep of society, but armed and organised bands of a semipolitical character. One of the first of American Generals, General Sherman, has been sent to subjugate the Red Indians. Pie has a military force under his command, subject to all the rules cf strict military discipline. But, what Mr Fox exactly means is to us incomprehensible. We cannot dri»w correctly either comparisons or contrasts, so long as the Government chooses to leave the Colony in its present state of fog upon the matter. We can, however, point to a |ime when the force was thoroughly demilitarised. It was in : that state from the second attack on ? Te Ngutu o te Manu until the disbandment of Y o n Tempskey's corps, ! and it was in that state a few days ago when it mutinied on the East Coast. No Government ever accomplished anything more easily than the demilitarising of an army. A canteen without restrictions, a commander without military knowledge, or stopping tbe pay for three or four months, are each and all sufficient to bring about such a result. There is another plan which the Government are putting into operation. To destroy in the minds of the men the permanent nature of the service—to be continually changing the principles upon which the Constabulary are organised—is one of the most effective means of making the men indifferent and mutinous. No such thing as sn esprit de corps, or love of tbe service, is possible, when the men have an uneasy notion that they may be disbanded at any time a politician finds an "idea." There is another little point, perhaps, Mr Fox will answer to himself. He believes in Imperial troops—two regiments of 1000 men each—as the one desideratum for putting.an end to the rebellion. Is it not, we ask, in their military training and organisation that Mr Fox's faith is fixed ? He has said as much, and Mr Gisborne has strongly urged this consideration. Then upon the horns of this dilemma the Government is impaled. If military organisation is a good thing, let us by all means have it; but if it be not desirable, either let us-dispense with Imperial aid, or demilitarise the two regiments as soon as we get them. This is the rationale of the argument.