The Sun. — 1865-08-17 (London, England)

LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 1865.   There is at length a prospect of an approaching termination of the New Zealand war, which has now dragged on its weary length for so many tedious months. A war of this character has nothing to commend it to the most pugnacious or fiery European. It is harassing and inglorious, waged against an inferior race, who, under every disadvantage in point of military skill and science, have got so many advantages in their knowledge of the country and the quickness and ingenuity peculiar to savage races, that they are of ten able to defeat the bestlaid plans. No military glory is to be gained by a victory in a pitched battle should the natives ever allow themselves to be surprised or driven into one, but, at the same time, the pursuit or the defence may be as difficult and as fatiguing as if the enemy belonged to the most accomplished military nation. The sort of guerilla warfare which is peculiarly attractive to savages—the surprising of baggage trains and convoys—the murder of outlying pickets and stray individuals—all render this species of warfare especially harassing and unsatisfactory. In the case of the Maories, moreover, there have been other difficulties from their remarkable intelligence and semi-civilisation. They possess such singular skill in constructing defensive works, that it has been no easy matter to carry their positions, and more than once it has happened that when, after a desperate struggle, the works were carried, they were found to be empty, the Maories having left by a retreat which either had not been observed or could not be cut off. Swamps and marshes, impassible to Europeans, were easily traversed by them, since they knew the paths by which they could be traversed. Their knowledge of the use of fire-arms, too, gave them an immense advantage over mere savage troops, and they have had also, we are sorry to say, the advantage of European direction. All these causes have combined to render the war no easy one to bring to a satisfactory or speedy issue, and certainly it did not need she introduction of an extraneous element of perplexity. Yet this has occurred in the very serious disagreement existing between the Ministry on the one hand and the General-in-Chief on the other. In so complicated a matter it is not fair to judge until the statements of both parties are laid before the public ; but certainly the charge which General CAMERON brought against the New Zealand Ministry was not one which ought to have been lightly made against English gentlemen. General CAMERON, in fact, charged the Ministry with the continued prosecution of the war for the purposes of aggrandisement, and in utter carelessness of the lives of the Imperial troops. It is true that this charge was not made openly, but was openly communicated to the Governor in a semi-official letter, which he naturally thought necessary to lay before the accused parties, the more so as the Ministry had acted in perfect harmony with himself throughout. The Ministers de-dined to notice any such letter unless it were brought before them officially; and Sir GEORGE GREY, who had, as we have said, fully coincided in their Policy, thought it necessary to terminate all