The weakness of the New Zealand Government in patching up
a peace without re-establishing even the semblance Of authority at Taranaki has at length issued in its natural result—a new outbreak of war. The smouldering fire broke out again on Monday, the 4th May ; anl there can be little doubt that a new Maori war is now raging. Sir George Grey proceeded, early in March, to Taranaki, to reinstate the settlers so long dispossessed of their holdings by the natives. He began with a block of land called 'Tataraimaka, a short distance south of Taranaki, but separated from the English settlement by a strip of native land. The road from Tataraimaka to the settlement runs along the beach skirting the native strip, and this a party of soldiers were sent to repair, which they did with some pebbles taken. from a brook within the native territory. This was made tho excuse for threats of war, of which Sir George Grey, with foolish trust in his own fascination for the natives, declined to take any notice, even urging the settlers to return to their most distant farms. Fortunately, the settlers were far better informed and more wary than the Governor. They refused to go. On the 4th May two escort parties were fired at on this road by parties of the natives in ambush, and one of them, eight in number, lost seven out of the eight. On the inquest held at Taranaki—for Sir George .Grey refused to treat it as anything but a civil crime,—one of the jury, Mr. Arthur Atkinson, as we learn from a private letter, extorted from the Government Land Commissioner, Mr. Parris, that he had been forbidden by the Governor to include in his evidence on the inquest any information of what had passed between him and the Governor respecting the present disturbances. Friendly native chiefs had warned Sir George Grey. The superintendent of Taranaki, Ur. Cloaks Brown, had written to the Governor an official hint, and tho native minister, Mr. Bell, had also spoken to him of the ambushes, and met only ridicule for his pains. The coroner's jury wished to return with the verdict a censure on the Government for culpable negligence, but this the coroner would not receive. What New Zealand wants is, Sir John Lawrence for Governor for a year or two, with a. couple of Sikh regiments to re-establish order in the northern.island. No good can come of Sir George Grey's feeble and temporizing policy.
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