The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-07-08
England and Her Col6nies-The War In
New Zealand.

England and Her Coi6nies-The War In
New Zealand.
BY the latest accounts from New Zealand we
find that bloody war was raging there be-
tween the British troops and the native popula-
ton. New Plymouth was the principal seat of
the fighting, and large numbers of the Maors
had been killed, including fourteen of their
chiefs.
This looks like revival of the calamitOus
scenes which followed the early colonization of
the islands. when the aborigines-a tall, well
formed and valiant rsce-were moved down in
thousands by the military, and Unfortunately
shot by the other colonists. 1t was their exter-
mination that was aimed at; but the New Zea-
lander was endowed by nature with too much
physical and mental stature to be so quickly
and remorselessly swept from the face of the
earth, In order to leave the rich lands Of his in
heritance in the undisputed possession of par
| eel of unscrupulous invaders, whose hands were
| in too many cases stained with murder, to the
lasting disgrace of themselves and their coun-
try.
The prime source of England's great political
power unquestionably lies in her colonial en-
pire, upon which, as they say in Albion, the sun
never sets. But the acquisition of these domi-
Mons was not achieved by her without vast
cost both of men and money, and the perpetra-
| ton of massacre after massacre upon the COM
paratively defenceless bodies of the aboriginal
| inhabitants.
The colonial history of England is associated
with unnecessary bloodshed, and if it were
| truly written would convey horror to the mind
of every reader. 1t is dark page in the
eyes of the philanthropist, and terrible record
| against the nation which caused such deeds of
slaughter and rapine to be enacted.
! The British wars in India were monuments Of
unholy carnage; SO were those against the
Caffres at the Cape of Good Hope, and the
| Maoris alluded to in New Zealand. Cases of
monstrous Individual cruelty on the part of
the soldiery abounded by iens OF thousands in
these campaigns. Helpless native women and
children were shot down without mercy when
ever they were met with. As late even as the
| recent Indian mutinies numbers of the cap
tured rebels were arranged in long lines, and
tied to the mouths Of guns, from which, at
given signals, they were, batch by batch, blown
| to atoms, which filled the air like q
shower of snow for several seconds, and nu-
merous other almost equally diabolical acts
were committed about that period by the
British army In Bengal.
England may rest assured that she did her
cause no good by this display of inhumanity,
for the people Of British India now nurture
more deadly feeling of revenge against their
conquerors than ever they did before.
| The aborigines in the settled districts of
Australia have dwindled almost entirely away,
| owing to the murderous treatment of the
English colonists. Kinahan CORVALLIS, in his
Panorama of the New World" gives the fol-
lowing instance of their mode of dealing with
them:-"I met with a squatter at Melbourne
says our author, "who deliberately confessed
that he had joined, on several occasions, O
mounted party to hunt down the blacks part
| ly for the sport of the thing, partly to rid the
district of them. This hunting consisted In
shooting as many Of them as they could over
take; men, women and children were indiscri-
minately murdered by these demons on horse
back, and their bodies left to lie where they had
fallen, beneath the silent heaven" I've some
| times used to shoot dozen or two before break
| FAST was one memorable confession Of the
| squatter alluded to; "but even that didn't keep
them away; they'd come in the night, and If
there was anything they could lay their hands
on they'd plumber it; 50, said 1, wait bit my
boys, and just poisoned bullock carcass or
two with the stock arsenic, and had them left out
for the gentry. That dose, two or three times,
ridded them of better than anything else"
The people Of our own country, we are sorry
to say, have shown but little forbearance
towards the red men; nevertheless, we never
heard Of their having committed such atroci-
ties as these diabolical wretches in Australia
have done.
We think after all we have heard and seen,
that England, instead of sending missionaries
| to convert the aborigines, ought to send some
to convert the colonists, for many of them are
sadly deficient in the practice of the Christian
virtues.
II we are not mistaken, England will yet find
that her colonies will cost her more than she
has gained by them; for the more extensive the
distant possessions of nation become, the
more danger Is that nation exposed to both at
home and abroad.
A CuRIovs FOURTH OF july CE1EBaArIoy-
We learn from one Of the abolition organs that
there was to have been a celebration of the