MAJOR BIGGS AND COL. HAULTAIN.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXIV, Issue 2782, 9 January 1869, Page 5

MAJOR BIGGS AND COL. HAULTAIN.

(TO THE EDITOB OP THE INDEPENDENT.) Christchurch, Ist January, 1869. Sic, — I am glad to see by a letter which appeared in the Press of this morning, dated Wellington, and signed "Z.Z.Z.," thafc the aspersions attempted to be casfc on fche late Major Biggs, by the members of the present Government (to the effect that neglect of proper and official warning by his military supervisor, Colonel Haultain, led to the massacre of the settlers at Poverty Bay, on the 10th November last) have been, entirely refuted. All who knew poor Biggs feel certain that he never had proper warning given him, and the apologists of the Government must advance more substantive proof of what th^y allege to bo the fact, than thafc afforded by Dr Pollen in his letter to the Southern Cross, Archdeacon Hadfield's^ ietter to Stafford, or Richmond and John Hall's unsupported statements to their constituents. The action of the present Defence Minißter in allowing Whitmore to pursue fche escaped prisoners without supports or reserves of any kind, and the employment of a man like M'Donnell to command Europeans, for which he was never fitted, will cost the colonists at least a million of money, if. it does nofc hinder the advancement of New Zealand for years, and very likely cause the separation of the Northern from the Southern Island, for I feel assured that when fche news of the Poverty Bay massacre reaches fche English Government and the people, who are now in Parliament assembled, that the English nation will anticipate the wishes of a portion of the settler's here, and nofc only suspend the Constitution Acfc but send out a commissioner and properly commanded force to subdue the natives, i.e., conquer them, and then for the next twenty years govern fche North Island as a Crown colony. For all these misfortunes — for debt, separation, and the compulsory abandonment of the selfreliant policy, must be considered as very great ones — the colonists have to thank the present Government, in permitting a man without greater military antecedents than those of a subaltern of a line regiment, fco be .put in a position that should only be filled — not necessarily by a military man— but by a tried statesman and a man of sense. If Colonel Haultain is not utterly lost to all sense of propriety and decorum, he will at once retire from a position (that I wjll defy his greatest friend to say he is in any way fit for) into private life. His constituents called on him two years Bince to resign the scat he had obtained from them on false political pretences, bufc be was sufficiently alive to his own private interests — a thousand a year — to disregard their prayer, and the pity of the House alone kept him in fche amended Stafford Ministry, after Moorhouse refused Sir George Grey's offer of, forming one himself. — I am, &c, L. 0. P.