THE PROSPECTS OF 1861 AND 1862 CONTRASTEDG

Wellington Independent, Volume XVI, Issue 1692, 17 January 1862, Page 5

THE PROSPECTS OF 1861 AND 1862 CONTRASTEDG

It is impossible to view without satisfaction the contiast which this New Year's day of 1862 offers to that which ushered in the year 1861, which as we write is drawing to a close. Then the "Journal of Events" at Taranaki was the source to which all most eagerly turned for news, and the news was seldom anything other than the details of destruction of property and of life, i of sacrifices made, and privations and losses submitted to by the settleis without much hope of change, or indeed without any prospect of their being ended. Now, at least, whatever the future may have in store for us, war is no longer in the land ; and the Government, while, on the one hand it appears prepared for all contingen- i cies, is devoting its energies, to the work of j peacemaking, and laying solidly the foundation' for future amicable relations between the Native people of this Island and the Europeancolonists. At this time last year Waikato, from end to end, was drifting rapidly into the war; the loyalty of the people was becoming daily less and less, and it was evident that of the in* surrection which maintained itself at Taranaki, the strength, materiel and moral, lay almost at our own doors in Waikato. Last year, her Majesty's Representative feared to allow a road to be made through Crown Lands towards the Waikato river, even by the hands of civilian labourers, least the jealousy or the anger of the Natives should be awakeued by such a proceeding ; to-day three thousand soldiers are employ ed in opening and completing a military road to the township of Havelock, and to the point Te la, at Maungatawhiri, which, in a strategic point of view, commands the uoble river which sweeps round its base. Branch roads to Wuiuku and to Wairoa are also, we understand, pro jected, and when completed will serve at once the purposes of the settler and the soldier, opening up and developing the resources of the country, at the same time that they provide, in a military point of view,' for its protection and defence. Whilst with the one hand, this work, useful alike to Europeans and Natives at peace, is being carried on, with the other hand are offered institutions of civil government suitable to lbs social condition of the Maoii, and having for their basis the Runanga, which has been called into existence amongst themselves, to supply a want which bas grown with their advance from barbarism,— of some kind of government amongst themselves, equal to the task of restraining the strong and protecting the weak, when the Queen's authority was powerless, even if recognised, as indeed in all purely Native districts in this Island, the authority of the Crown has always been. It may be regarded either as evidence of the change which has lately taken place in the Natire mind, or as a proof of the absurdity of the fear which was formerly entertained upon the subject, that no objection is made by the Natives to works now in progress on the roads ; that, generally, the making of the roads is admitted by those Natives wliose interests may be said to be more immediately concerned to be desirable, and that, as we have heard, they (the Natives) have offered to give from off their own land, where required, the load metal necessary to complete the work.

Add to this the fact that the new institutions of Government have been frankly accepted by the tribes of the Lower Waikato, and we shall be able to understand that a peaceful conquest of the upper as well as of the lower district is possible, if not easy. Firmness, patience, time, on the one side, on the other the promptings of self-interest, in bis perception of which the Native is acute, envy of the temporal advantages possessed by his neighbour, emulation, and even the lore of imitation will tend to the spreading of the new Dative government, and in no very long time we may look to have a District Commissioner at Njrarauawhia, and law and order established in Waikato.

We have said thai, the strength of the Taranaki insurrection lay near us here ; if that strength. -can be turned into a new channel, justice may in time be satisfied, the guilty alone suffering punishment. One thing is to us quite certain, that there remained two courses only for the Governor of New Zealand to puisue the one that which he is now following, the other that of rushing incontinently into a war which may become a war of races, which must terminate in the subjugation or the annihilation of the Native people, and which must spread desolation and ruin throughout the length and breadth of the land, making a Taranaki of every Province in the Northern Island.

We were not without hope that the vigour of the new administration would have contented even the war-at-aoy-price party amongst us ; it does not appear to have quite succeeded, if we judge from the tone of some of our contemporaries, supposed to speak the sentiments of the extreme left We have no purpose of entering into any discussions } our business is to make a record of facts as they pass ; we think that some of the prophesies of failure which hare lately been mysteriously disclosed, might have been more safely reserved until after the event • and we think that, the men of second sight notwithstanding, the prospects with which 1862 opens aye very different from those of 1861 which was all we proposed to show at preseut' in order that we might offer to our readers, joyously, the compliments of the season, and wish

them one and all a " Happy Nfiiv Yeab." — New Zealander, January 1.