The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-14 00:00:00

SEIN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 14, 1861,

war with promptitude and vigour. The War and
Peace parties in the House of Representatives have
not only agreed but combined a new Ministry
uniting the leaders of both sides. It is at length
admitted by all that a strong hand is needed to
secure the lives and property of the settlers.
Either the settlements must be abandoned, or the
Waikatos must be disarmed and dispersed. The
necessary severity may and must be matter of
regret, but the alternative leaves no choice. It must
be remembered, too, that the hostilities are entirely
of the Maories' own causing—the only fault of our
Government having been of late a too great eager-
ness to conciliate and concede. There was, un-
doubtedly, a good deal of mismanagement about the
occupation of the land in the Waikato district, more
especially with regard to the Tatairamaka block ;
but the charge of causeless bloodshed must certainly
rest on the heads of the natives, who have followed
up their barbarous commencement by committing
eighteen murders within the last month of which
we have any intelligence. The confiscation of the
native land at Waikato and Taranaki has been re-
solved upon ; and, indeed, no other course holds out
the smallest promise of peace. The disarmament of
the natives is another necessary step, R hile the
proposed military settlements will afford substantial
protection to the colonists, and will retain the con-
fiscated lands with a firm grasp. Roads are to be
carried farther into the country, thus depriving the
natives of their principal strongholds—the swamps,
marshes, and bush lands. It is satisfactory to find
that in other districts the Maories, probably owing
to the discomfiture of the natives at Waikato, are
on friendly terms with the settlers. A resolute
settlement of this affair will be of incalculable ad-
vantage to all the settlements of New Zealand.
Half measures now would be most mistaken mercy
—they would be cruel alike to colonist and native;
denying the former that support and protection
which he has a right to claim from his Government,
and encouraging the latter to the prosecution of a
struggle which, if maintained, must end in their
total extermination. The Maories are by nature a
very superior race to the generality of aborigines,
and the aptitude they have shown in acquiritg
European tactics prove that they are capable of a
high degree of cultivation. If they can be made to
lay down their arms and live peaceably with the
settlers, it is possible that they may rise in the
scale of races; but it is very certein that they must
now be reduced to unqualified submission, if we
hope to retain a footing in the colony.

No sooner do our artillery contrive guns capable
of penetrating all existing armour plating than
some newly-devised plan for protecting vessels is
Projected. While Mr.REED is contending that no
shot can penetrate his Bellerophon target, which,
by the way, has never yet been subjected to the
ordeal of a fair trial, namely, such as the Warrior
target has undergone, Sir WILLIAM ARMSTRONG
claims for his monster six hundred and ten pounder
a complete triumph, inasmuch that with a single
shell he destroyed the aforesaid target at a range
of four thousand yards. Yet again last Friday a
trial took place at Shoeburyness with the old sixty-
eights, which proved that after all the money and
labour expended on these new guns the old service
gun can be as effective against armour plates as any
of the new inventions. The only difference made
is that instead of a cast-iron spherical projectile
being employed a steel one of the same form and
weight has been substituted. The result has been
that where the cast-iron hall made only a slight
indentation the steel shot penetrated the four and
a half inch plating and sunk into the teak backing.
It was considered, however, by those present that
had the charge but been slightly augmented the
target would have been broken through, and this,
too, with a spherical shot, the worst possible form
of projectile for penetrating armour plating. We
have no doubt that if flat-headed bolts, so cone
strutted as to carry true to their mark, were sub-
stituted, the penetration, even with the ordinary
Isixteen pound charge of powder, would be easy.
Let it not, however, be supposed that the substitu-
tion of steel for iron is any grand discovery of the
Lords of the Admiralty or dockyard authorities.
Such a proposition may have been made to them a
year or so ago, but of what avail would that have
been ? What has awakened the Government of
England to the importance of steel shot is the
fact that a leading firm in Sheffield, Messrs.
JOHN BROWN and Co., Atlas Steel and Iron Works,
have been for some time past manufacturing such
-projectiles for the Russian and other Governments,
while Messrs. BLAKELY and Co. are providing the
same Governments with guns equal to any yet tried
at Shoeburyness or elsewhere. Let us console our-
selves, however, on the principle of better late than
never ; and if the Admiralty have been dilatory in
some respects, and shown undue partiality to cer-
tain parties, to the detriment of the interests of
the country, they have been active enough in ex-
perimenting on iron plated targets, and in the
construction of experimental fleets at an enormous
cost. We have considerable doubts as to the effi-
ciency of ironclads for general purposes, but such
as they are, England can boast to have sent to
sea the finest anetelargest ironclads yet ,afloat.
What the Americans will do hereafter time will
show. The Secretary of their navy stated the other
day that the class of vessels which were required to
contend with England in a forthcoming war would
require to be of such dimensions as would enable
them to carry any requisite thickness of armour,
large storage for coals, powerful engines, and guns
of the heaviest calibre. The expense of such ves-
sels, however, he observes, would be so heavy, that
he could not give the order for the construction even
of one without the sanction of Congress. From
such statistics, coming from such a quarter, we are
led to suppose that the forthcoming navy will he so
many ironclad Great Easterns, and we expect that
a like ill success awaits them. The late statement
regarding the repulse of the monitors in the attack
on Charleston shows clearly that this class of ves-
sels are useless when contending against heavy
forts, and we expect that the like re-
sults would follow an engagement with a
heavily armed frigate, the concentration of
whose fire would soon place the armadilla hors de
combat. Of what avail are turrets, bomb-proof
though, they be, if an unlucky shot deprives them
of all motive power. The Americans have just
launched, after considerable difficulty, their last
naval chef d'ceuvre, the Dictator. She is 314 feet
in length, 50 feet in breadth, and 221 feet deep.
Her armour is 11 inches in thickness, with 3 feet of
oak to back it. She is provided with a revolving
turret 27 feet diameter, composed of iron 18 inches
thick, in which will be placed two 13-inch guns,
carrying projectiles weighing 304 pounds. Is this
what armour plating is to come to ? True, the
leviathan is provided with a formidable beak, to
enable her to aet as a ram, but even then only two
guns for all that armour-plating. costly engines,
and heavy working expenses—why each shot that
she fires will cost the States some 100,000 dollars,
unless she be almost constantly in action. We
might almost exclaim with Prince HAL, "Only one
halfpenny worth of bread to all that Sack I" Ali
the nations of Europe are now provided with rifled

cannon, and all the maritime ones are possessed of

;or soon will be) guns which will be able to pene-

irate any ordinary armour-plating. It is more than