THE LATE VICTORY.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVIII, Issue 1887, 27 June 1863, Page 3

THE LATE VICTORY.

The Canterbury Press devotes an article to the late engagement at Taranaki. It undervalues the nature of the oontest, the conduct of those engaged, aud the results attained, speaking in a flippant and sneering tune of the whole affair. It however contends latterly that the colonists do not sufficiently rely on themselves, and goes on to say : —

" Sad indeed and strange it is, that the one thing to which we do Dot look is to our own hands, our own resources, our own laws. We are ever turning to every point o{ the compass, aud whining for some external aid. First, it is troops and men of war from England, Australia, Tasmania : next it is German military emigrants: next it is Sikh regiments from India : anything and everthing bat— ourselves alone.

It is not the mere winning of a battle here or there we look to ; it is not the success of this or that particular policy we care about; but vre are concerned with the growth of a spirit ef cowardly dependence on any one but ourselves, whifh the late and present Governor have eqiully evoked and fostered. Had Governor Browne bad the greatness and pluck to put Colonel Gold and his troops into a steamer and send them to Sydney, and to have called on the whole population of these Islands to aid him—ever assuming the war policy to have beei justifiable — less lives on the whole would have been lost, and the Natives would have admitted that we were the superior race. Every step we now take, even a victory such as the last, gives them occasion to congratulate thensehes on their own superiority, and so postpone the period when these Islands can be reduced to a pacific state."