THE PRESENT PROSPECTS OF THE WAR.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVIII, Issue 1973, 22 October 1863, Page 3

THE PRESENT PROSPECTS OF THE WAR.

(From the New Zealander, 10th inst.) The phase of the war as at present seen from a Maori point of view is worth studying:, and it is not difficult approximately to arrive at the state of opinion which must prevail at MereMere or Ngaruawahia. To a people who have no conception of the physical powers of England, and of the resistless march of her colonizing population, the results of such wars as those of the Buy of Islands in 1845, the Hutt Valley and Wanganui in the succeeding years, and even of the Tannaki campaign of 1860, could not be of such a character as to induce a conviction of the hopelessness of any further appeal to arms. Although the tribes who were actually fighting against us on those occasions did not fail to observe that whatever might be the extent of our loss in men, we always left off fighting iv more efficiency, and with greater numbers than we commenced with, whilst our antagonists suffered iv numbers and means. ' Although, ws say, the tribes in contact with our forces must have observed this, yet it is not probable that remote tribes — to whom were carried exaggerated reports of native successes and pakeha reverses — hnd reason 'to cousider that the war had terminated in such a manner as to augur misfortune to any tribes that mi^ht again provoke hostilities. The easy terms, Too, on which the delinquents were admitted to a truce or a reconciliation, no doubt induced the belief that fighting was a diversion that might be indulged iv at no greater risk than that of the temporary personal danger of the actual combatant. With such a belief as this, it is not surprising that, on an occasion like that of the organization of the land league, and of Maori Kingism, the natives believed that the combination of tribes — of the great Waikato and interior tribes — iv a movement that was undoubtedly popular, would be sufficiently firm and powerful to repel and even to overthrow the European power ; and however savage their practices, orabsurbly exaggerated their ideas of their own numbers and strength might be, we must not deuy or ignore the effect of a species of wild patrietism in giving a stimulus to their mistaken gathering for the war. There can be no doubt that the natives, when preparing for the war in the Waikato, counted on a much greater accession of numbers from the various tribes than tbe result realised. From the Bay of Plenty, and tbe East Coast,

we now know that Thompson's fighting allies were but very few in number, where many were counted upon; while from Taupo and the Upper Wanganui the arrivals have been even more insignificant. The Kingites, iv reckoning the probabilities of the war, had, further, never believed that the settlers would have joined so universally in arms against them, and of course could not have supposed that further numbers would have been brought against them from the Southern provinces, and from Australia. We may fairly infer, and we think the circumstances indicate, that although still stubborn and unbending, the enemy is discouraged. William Thompson, who was lately degraded from the chief command, was, we are informed, resolved to carry out some desperate movement of attack— even to tbe extent of self-sacrifice (whakamorori)— at the Wairoa, and the resHlt has been the impotent attack upon a settler's family, and the distant and harmless fire upon Major Lyon's force. On the western side oi our forest frontier, the marauders, some 300 or 400 in number, retired precipitately before Colonel Nixon's force of about half that number, after having signally failed in their attack on the Pukekohe stockade with its twenty-seven armed settlers to defend it. On this side, by their sudden eruption, they succeeded, however, in capturing some rifles from the bush feller 3, and in plundering a number of detached bush homesteads, carrying off at the same time twenty or twenty-seven horses, but without accomplishing an act that would affect the ullinvite issue of the war. We can imagine no circumstance to be more enigmatical, and at the same time more depressing to them, than the calm and unmoved attitude of General Cameron at the Mangatawhiri during their temporary raid — not caring personally to attend to their marauding, but continuing to add post upon post to the British line at the Wangamarino frontier. . — .*-