KAKINO THE GOVERNOR.

Wellington Independent, Volume XIX, Issue 2116, 15 October 1864, Page 3

KAKINO THE GOVERNOR.

(Southern Cross, October 7.) Governor Grey has certainly a very original method of carrying into effect the instructions ho has received from her Majesty's Government. On the Sth of June, 1861, the Duko of Newcastle, indicating the great trust ho was reposing in the man whom he \ was sending to restore the disturbed affairs of New Zealand, wrote — "You will take I care that neither your own mission, nor tbe cessation of hostilities, when it arrives, shaU j carry with it any appearance of weakness or I alarm. It would be better to prolong the war, ■ with all its evils, than to end it without producing in the native mind suoh a conviction of our strength as may render peace not temporary nor precarious, but well grounded and lasting." These are words of a sagacious statesman ; but how little fulfilment are they finding in the great anti-climax at which Sir G. Grey's mission has arrived ? His mission is " to carry no appearance of weakness or alarm ;" it is "to convey to the native mind a conviction of our strength." What say the refugees from Kawau? — what is the message they convey from their mountaintop ! " Kakino the Governor. He is an old woman." Oh, emblem of strength : an old woman ! Nay it is a libel on the sex. There is not an old woman in New Zealand, nor out of it, who would have exhibited such lamentable imbecility as the " great pro-con-sul" has done, Mrs Bond, crying to those

ducks of hers, " Dilly, dilly, dilly, come here and be killed," was dignity itseif compared Le with Sir George, aa he stood upon the deck lm of the Miranda, imploring Tapihana and Wi Kumiti to come back to the Island of Kawau. '~ m " Oh, rebellious sons of mine, return to my t> pleasant groves of Kawau ; — there the wallaj£ bies are awaiting you ; there are the Canak dian geese ; there is Father Ashwell, and l g there am I. Flour is there and sugar, abuns dant provision supplied by my hard-hearted j!*. responsible advisers. Little to do, and plenty , r to get ; return, oh my children, return to 3 . your parent, ' the great pro-consul' ! Re- " n member your parole, your sacred word of 3 . honor, which no Maori chief would ever }S break ; wbich you pledged twice to Titus. [ Q . Great is my love for you, my sons !" And Le what is the ungrateful response they make? fft — " Kakino the Governor.^ " The Governor is an old woman !" When Governor Fitzroy Le allowed Rangihaeta to go unpunished after n the massacre of Wairau, that chief remarked k — " The Governor is soft. He is a pumpkin." l£ But then Governor Fitzroy was a tyro n at the work of- Maori taming. It was iV reserved for Governor Grey, " the great pro- ' c consul," after some twenty years' practice at 0 the trade to be told, " Kakino te Katoana. t {. He is an old woman." Truly the Duke's inir structions are being well carried out. We , Q wonder what the Governor's feelings are? g They cannot be very chirpy. For nearly sis ■.' months he was quarreling with his ministers jg about those prisoners. Tiiey wanted to keep a them in safe custody. He wanted to let ia them go on parole. Tiiey didn't believe iv jt Maori honor, He did ; he would stake his 5 reputation on it. They were like the Irishman, who, on being told to let his antagonist , c up, exclaimed, "If you knew how much A trouble I had to get him down, you w\>uld ["' not say 'let him up.'" He ignored the , s trouble of getting him down, and was ready L _ to give him another chance. Ministers stood out long. At last, by continual coming he wearied them, and in an unfortunate hour y u they acquiesced in his Excellency's wishes. a "Take them to Kawau — 'anywhere, anye where out of the world' — so long as we get r rid of the responsibility, and you take it." ,' Away he went exulting, with Titus, and Tapig ' hana, and Kumiti, and half-a-dozen more — c " six merry sotds and all a-gog" — on board „ the Sandfly, and so to Kawau. Then the happy island is examined. Thare the future _ home of his human menagerie is fixed ; and j in a few days that odious, stinking, pestilent old c hulk (strong in smells and in capacity for _ safe keeping;), is. towed down to Kawau, * happy isle of wallabies and red deer ; and there those other dears — brown dears— axe _ turned ashore, with no other shackle to bind B them than their parole — sacred parole, which B no Maori chief would ever break ! For a j. littlo all goes smooth. Housebuilding, clear--1 ing for crops, and Father Ashwell and mornfc ing and evening service, boating and fishing, „ and flour, and sugar, and beef fat-fed on Kawau hills, Bpeed the timo away. His Ex- * cellency delighted, walks amidst his dear charges, oblivious of the blood of Rangiriri, ~ and the possible blood of the fields perhaps t •jret to be fought. Their wives are sent for. _ Some come, but others decline. Those who k come indulge in crinoline ; and no Customhouse officer searches for powder or balls, or , tomahawk, er other weapon. What need ? They have given their parole— the parole of m a Maori chief is sacred. Even the watchful Titus of the hundred eyes is lulled into a . sense of security ; and deluded into the bet lief that all is safe, he goes into Auckland to } do some marketing for his charges. Then *" the sly Tawhiti, anxiously watching his op--3 portunity on the not remote mainland [ launches his canoes on the silent watches of . the ni^ht, and having taken on board the r men of the sacred parole, cleaves withpowerfc ful paddle the briny wave. Softly the blades t are dipped, as they steal along the shore, } almost under the bows of the Falcon, small frigate of many guns, whose careful watch •, patrols the deck, but detects not the flight of • t the two hundred. There she lies, floating on r her own shallow, in the soft light of a full $ moon. How the hearts of the refugees must ' x have smote against their ribs as they watched 3 *h e Wg sbip, expecting every moment to see j fire flash from her side, and to hear the booming of the round shot as it sped towards them, . But no shot is fired ; no fire flashes from her '. porfc holes ; and the wily men of the forest ; and the wave pass on their way undetected, ( Less violently their hearts smite their stal- [ wart ribs; more vigorously their paddles smite tho swelling wave, as they glide into : the deep water that separates Kawau from themain. "Hurrah! We are clear. Kakino : the Governor. The Governor is an old woman." Such, no doubt, was the cry that rose from the sandy beach, as they stepped . from Tawhiti's canoes, and proclaimed themselves freemen, released from 'Maori parole and the feeble restraints of Kawau. " Then away, away to the mountain's brow!" They cbmb the high brow ofthe lofty Omaha; killing a cow or two on the way up, just by way of refreshment,— bush cows, no doubt, and not settler Meiklejohn's. No time is lost. Pa building is begun without delay. Logs are split, rifle pits are dug with the axes and Bpades which the Governor had given them at Kawau. Soon there is a fortified camp. Guns make their appearance — more than 200 guns, with ammunition to match. " Kakino the Governor. The Governor is an old woman ;" — so they sing, while their work goes merrily on. But not without interruption ; at the mid-hour of night the Falcon 3 cutter pulls wearily into Auckland harbor. The news of the breach of the sacred parole is carried to the Governor. Ministers aro roused from their first sleep. Titus, still in Auckland, rushes about in despair. We wonder what the Governor is thinking about. No matter what he thinks, by ten the next morning he and Titus are on board the Miranda in full pursuit. Titus and Te Oriori, himself once one of the prisoners, follow them up the hill. The meeting is pathetic. Titus is overwhelmed with " tena koes," and doubtless his nose is greatly flattened. He recovers his breath, and upbraids them with their broken parole. He implores them to go back again. " Not to Kawau," they reply. "But to the beach?" "Well, we will." He leaves them ; but to the beach they came not! Again they break their " sacred parole of honor." The Governor stays many days at Kawau. At early dawn he looks across the waters, hoping to see their returning canoes : at noon and at setting sun he walks tho lonely shore •.— " Oh, my children, my children ! men of the sacred parole ; why do you delay ?" At last, " with eyelids heavy and red," with weary steps and drooping gait, he returns to Auckland a wiser and a sadder man, to write, no doubt, a clever despatch to the Colonial Office, excusing the Maoris for breaking parole, laying all the blame on his Ministers or somebody else, and proving conclusively and beyond a doubt that the escape of the Maori prisoners 4k is the most fortunate thing in the world, " carrying with it no appearance of weakness, and producing in the native mind suoh a conviction of our strength as will render peace not temporary nor precarious." In - the meantime, the 200 continue their song on the top of the lofty Omaha—" Kakino ■ the Governor. The Governor is aa old woman."

SUPPLEMENTARY SUMMARY. Br recent arrivals we have later files from the Provinces to the following dates. Auckland. Sth inst ; Taranaki, Sth ; Marlborough, llth; Nelson, llth; Canterbury, 10 Lli ; Otago oth. The following is a resume of the news : — • AUCKLAND. Thk Weekly News of the Sth inst. says : — The position of the Colony during the past wee]-: has certainly been more unusual than pleasing. Just before our last issuo the Colonial Ministry tendered their resignation to the Governor, and by its form, which was absolute and without conditions, intimated that they had no hope of being able longer to act with Sir George Grey, and no wish to ■ make auy further attempt. As yet the Gr j vernor has made no sign. The reason ] probably is that ho has a diflicu'Ly in know- ' ing what sign to make. To form a new ' Ministry it is pretty certain that Ministers J must be forthcoming, and this seems to be I precisely the difficulty. If no Ministry can be found to tako the place of the Whitaker and Pox Government, then it may be presumed that the only way in which the Government of the country can be carried on will be found to be by an immediate summons of the Assembly. Some definite line of poiiey may be looked for as likely to be displayed very shortly now, even if the Governor has thought it well to make an effort to attach some of the Southern politicians to himself in a new Cabinet. In any case, the Ministerial crisis can hardly be expected to last veiy much longer, nor is it to be desired that it should do so. A Ministry which considers that it has resigned cannot be expected to give any attention to questions of more than the merest routine, and even in the present degraded position of the Colonial Ministry such a state of things cannot but be a misfortune more or less severe to the Colony. The Maori ex-prisoners seem to be flourishing. The latest news gives quite a brilliant picture of their position. They havo now, it would seem, completed their pa, and at the same time finished the work of arming themselves to resist aggression — or to become aggressive. The position thoy occupy is said to bean almost impregnable oue, on the summit of a lofty ridge, surrounded by a great extent of dense forest. The commissariat ofthe seceded ones appears to be excellent, and so far as the fiour is concerned is said to bo supplied by the Governor's orders — we can only hope not at the colonist's expense. With the supply of flour — possibly supplemented by a few tons of svgar — the efforts of the Governor seem unfortunately to be ended, and the natives find themselves compelled to kill any cattle or sheep they come across. This course is natural, but as the cattle and sheep belong to neighbouring settlers it has its disadvantages. This seems to have been represented to the Governor by those most nearly concerned ; but the only satisfaction they could get appears to have been the consolation of hearing that if the cattle had been killed in their own paddocks, then indeed something might perhaps have been done. Of course the Maoris had a right to hunt upon all the waste lands ofthe Crown — a right probably implied if not expressed, in the Treaty of Waitangi. A good deal of uneasiness is felt a» to what may come of it all. It is just possible that, by high feeding, the Governor may delay any overt act of war on the part of the natives until his proclamation of terms of peace has been duly elaborated, when of course the Maoris, great and small, bond and free, will rush into his arms. The signs of afresh storm are not confined, however, to the North. If Sir George Grey's peace supplications — for such his terms, to produce any effect at all, must be — are not very quickly forthcoming, it seems more than probable that Tauranga will again become the theatre of war. There seems as yet to have been no very active steps taken in hostility, but the surveyors have been much interfered with, and threats are held out that unless they desist worse will happen. It does not appear to be the case that any new pa has yet been erected on onr lands at Tauranga, as was reported, but as far as the signs of the times go, there is every reason to expect a repetition of this old native challenge to us to come and fight them. We may hope that if fighting does take place it may be short and sharp, and the natives taught once for all that we arc not to be bearded with impunity. THREATENED STOPPAGE OF THE TABANAKI CAMPAIGN. We have repeatedly expressed our doubts that Governor Grey intended to carry out a real campaign in Taranaki, and we are content that time should either confirm or contradict the soundness of our opiuion. Meantime the following extract from the Southern Cross of the 7th inst, shows that the Taranaki campaign is not so likely to take place as some people suppose : — " A week ago and we were all in a state of excitement from tho rumoured removal of troops to Taranaki and Wanganui. His Excellency the Governor had been down to the .Kawau, and failing in his entreaties through his interpreter to induce the escaped Maori prisoners to returu to a state of captivity he came back to Auckland, and preparations were immediately made for a renewal of the campaign on the West Coast. His Excellency, however, did not consult his Ministry, but treated them as if they were nonentities in all matters of peace and war — useful as furnishing the sinews of war, but not to be trusted in applying them. Of the crisis which followed we have spoken, and immediately after came the suspension of the contemplated military movements. Il is now believed on very good grounds that no movement of the troops will take place yet. The awkward position of affairs in the North, owing to the escape of the Maori prisoners, has much complicated matters. These men have built a fortified pa, on an almost inaccessible mountain called Tamahua opposite the Kawau, and the position of which can be seen from the highest part of the city. They have received an ample supply of arms from some of the semifriendly natives in the North who, from old grievances, or from being incensed at the execution of Ruarangi for the murder of tlie Thomsons, seem determined to make matters comfortable for tlieir new visitors, and thus enable them as they say to " work out their own deliverance.". They state that if they are left alone and the soldiers are not sent after them, they will remain quiet and not molest the settlers, but that if they are interfered with they will fight. No confidence, however, can be placed in their statements ; and it is very probable that if the troops were , removed to-morrow to Taranaki, these Northern rebels would attempt a diversion by attacking the settlers. Under, such circumstances, General Cameron, perhaps, mayadvise his Excellency that his new born zeal, for renewing the campaign on the West Coast, has come too late, and that he must first attempt to " work out the deliverance" of the Northernsettlersfromtheconsequences of the escape of these prisoners, and for which Sir George Grey is alone responsible.

We may add lhat a small detachment oc the Commissariat Transport Corps started, in the Alexandra, for Wanganui, on Saturday last; but, beyond that, no military movcjiients of any coirsequenco have taken place."