PROSPECTS OF THE MAORIE WAR. T HE little war in New
Zealand grows with what it feeds on. The Maories, like the Scotch thistle, so terrible to the agricultural settler, are grubbed out or cut down in one spot, only to spring up in another. British authority in the province of Taranaki was at the beginning of the pre- sent year supreme only upon the ground occupied by British troops. General Pratt was lord and master of a little area round New Plymouth, as far as the Waitara Valley on one side, and the lower spurs of Mount Egmont's snowy cone on the other. To the south and north-west, from the Ngati- ruanui country to the head waters of the Waikato river and the shores of Lake Taupo, the fern and the bush, the ridges and ravines, were alive with the stalwart dark-skinned foes of the settlers. William King and his immediate followers held their ground in his stronghold at Mataitawa. The Ngatiruanui and the Taranaki tribes were in full communi- cation with him, and desirous of aiding him. The Waikatos had come down in considerable force from the north-west, and held the upper part of the Waitara valley. Still farther north, the Maorie villages were alive with excitement up to the very suburbs of Auckland, by no means indifferent to a combat in which Waikato chiefs had fallen, debating whe- ther they should strike into the fray, and only held back apparently by the hope that they could "localize the war" —a phrase that reminds us of recent diplomatic strategy in Europe—and fight it out with the whites on the plains of Taranaki. This, though by no means a pleasing, is not an exaggerated picture of the state of the war in January, 1861. Bands of Ma.ories, half suspected of being recruited from the ranks of "friendly natives," hovered round New Plymouth, committed murders on the highway "within a stone's throw of our outposts," drove off cattle and pigs, and fired homesteads which had escaped destruction at the outset of the war. Yet our private letters prove that the good folks of New Plymouth were cheerful, and in tolerably good spirits ; that the mob was rather vicious—Mr. Fox, the champion of the Maorie and clerical party, narrowly escaping a ducking at their hands—while the New Zealander tells us how Mr. Macfarlane's Venison won the Maiden Plate, and Mr. Farmar's Sheet Anchor carried off the Volunteer Cavalry Cup, on the course at Ellerslie. There was more confidence in the general and his officers, and some comfort was derived from the arrival of the 14th Foot, although it is not a particularly brilliant specimen of a British infantry regiment. On the whole, we discern greater cheerfulness, although the prospect of a "long spell" of war seemed to be lengthening out before the settlers.
There can be little doubt of the ultimate result, yet, to our minds, the aspect of affairs was threatening. Want of ade- quate strength to hold a chain of posts and keep a force in the field, fierce winds bringing with them alternately heavy rains and clouds of blinding dust, a warfare most harassing to the troops and disheartening to the settlers, the sagacity of the foe and the perils of the bush, had kept General Pratt almost inactive for nearly two months. Practically, there were no serious operations from the combat at Mahoetalii in November until the troops were marched to the Waitara at the close of 1860. The lull in the war gave the Waikato force, driven from Mahoetahi, time to receive reinforcements, and occupy and strengthen a new post on the left bank of the Waitara at Matarikoriko. Here they had a very for- midable position. Their pah was built on a tableland, covered in front by a deep ravine, enclosing in its depths a swamp and a dense forest. The outer edge of this natural ditch was garnished with a line of rifle pits covering a front of six hundred yards, and screened by acres of tall fern. General Pratt brought up nine hundred men to assail this position. His mode of warfare is peculiar and new. Against the native pah he set up a pah or "redoubt," as he calls it, of his own, and instead of "rushing" the rifle pits and pah and their rear, be used his redoubt as a bat- tery, and from it shelled the ranks of the enemy at a range of from one hundred to nine hundred yards. The rifle also came into play to resist the fire of Maorie skir- mishers in front, flank, and rear. Whatever we may think of the mode of fighting adopted by General Pratt, it has proved efficacious. The fire of cannons and rifles for one day and one night—that is, from Saturday morning till the dawn of Sunday—when a sort of truce of God seems to have been tacitly agreed upon—won the game. News which reached the general on the march that the enemy had fled, proved to be true, for a storming party rushing at the rifle pits and the pah found both abandoned, on Monday, the last day of December. But the enemy had not gone far ; he had only fallen back to Huirangi, two miles further up the Waitara, and there he recommenced the work of sinking pits and strengthening his stockade. Twelve days passed away before the mail left, and no movement had been made upon Hui- rangi. The wind blew, the dust came with it ; the enemy was visible enough, sometimes within cannon-shot, but had the troops advanced the stiff nor'-easter which brought the dust on its wings would have hurled it in the faces of our men. So they fortified the posts they had won—this is a war of pahs. General Pratt, in his despatch from the Waitara camp, says he intends to keep the natives in the bush ; but we read in the newspapers of Mamie columns being visible in all directions, from parties of fifty in search of plunder, to bodies of six hundred on the march. At this distance we cannot pretend to be judges of strategy, especially in a country like New Zealand, but there does seem a little danger that General Pratt was scattering his force too much by holding a number of posts. As long as the Waikato tribes send reinforcements southward, nothing can be done but fight them in positions of their own selection. They can move to and fro almost at pleasure. They can live in places where our soldiers starve. If General Pratt has•by this time taken the pah at Huirangi, and so far cleared the Waitara valley, to keep the enemy out of it he must leave some of his men in it, and so of other posts along the river. The savage takes to the bush, and reappears at another place. It had become a question at head-quarters, we believe, whether the true policy would not be to carry the war into the Waikato country, whence came the reinforcements of warriors. But to do that, a larger force than we have in New Zealand would seem to be required, and we should have to provide for Auckland as well as Taranaki. The one strong argument in favour of such a course is that the Waikato chiefs, the King and the Xing-maker, profess to dread it, for they hold out the hand of friendship to the white men in their country, and openly express a wish that the war may be confined to Taranaki. Thus it will be seen that the area of the conflict enlarges, and it becomes a question whether the home Government should not send further reinforcements and settle the question of superiority between the Maorie and the European at once and for ever. Nothing can be gained by half-measures in a battle of races. The home Govern- ment should take a broad and wholesome view of the quarrel, and show the Maories at once that, as they have raised the question, the Europeans must be masters. This policy would in the end be more humane, for if it be not done now, the settlers will have to prove the proposition bit by bit, at great cost of blood and treasure. The worst thing that could happen would be the temporary triumph of the clerical party, for that would ensure, at no distant day, a reaction of severity towards the natives, and something like an interne- cine war. But one can hardly hope for a wise decision from a Ministry which endorsed the despatch of Sir George Lewis last summer, and we cannot look forward with any confidence to such a waging and termination of the fray as shall make it the last Mamie war.
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