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Ihr bringt mit euch die Bilder froher Tage, Und manche liebe Schatten steigen auf; Gleich einer alten, halbverklungnen Sage, Kommt erste Lieb’ und Freundschaft mit herauf;
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(2130)
In the autumn of 1906 the British Government invited me to go to New Zealand as Special Commissioner, to represent them at the opening of an International Exhibition at Christchurch, New Zealand. The opportunity of revisiting the scenes of early days was too tempting to be resisted. My public life had begun in New Zealand, as Civil Commissioner of the Waikato district under the late Sir George Grey, in the interval between the local insignificant Taranaki War of 1860 and the outbreak of the terrible war of races in 1863.
The administration of law, such as there was, in the Waikato and all other territory outside the British settlements was at that time carried on by the Maories themselves; the Waikato district was very especially under the jurisdiction of the Maori King and his Runanga. They protested from the first with complete unanimity against the intrusion of a British official into their territory; they repudiated his authority; they prohibited Maories from having recourse to the courts, or availing themselves in any way of
The officer was stationed upon an isolated plot of land, in the midst of native territory that had long ago been alienated to the Crown for the formation of a mission station; and the Maories, who are an extremely logical people, were rooted in the opinion that it was not lawful to drive him by force off Crown land. Besides this, the particular land upon which he was stationed had been before its transfer to the Crown the subject of dispute between two of the most powerful tribes of the Upper Waikato, and the question who had the right to eject the Crown possessor, and to whom the land would then revert, was one of fierce disputation. "It is for us," said Honi Papita, the principal Chief of Rangiaowhia to another tribe which was expelling the officer by force, "to spoil our own piece." The dubious and precarious position of the British officer was finally ended by the great fighting chieftain, Rewi Maniapoto, who led an armed war-party to the scene, and declared that, right or wrong,
Nothing can present a stronger contrast between the past and the present, than the two voyages which I made to New Zealand. In 1906 it began by a voyage from Liverpool to New York in the Majestic, one of the White Star Liners, a floating hotel, in which every luxury in the way of entertainment is provided, and in which the accommodation is as luxurious as the perpetual motion of the ocean will permit. The railway journey from New York to San Francisco was performed in Pullman cars, with the same luxurious surroundings, and with food as good as the most exacting traveller could desire. The one object that stands out, terrible and impressive, in the recollection of this easy and beautiful journey is the ruin and desolation of San Francisco. It was six months after the Sonoma. Professor David of Sydney, a fellow-passenger on the Sonoma, told us that all the loss of life and property had been caused by a slight shift of one of the sides of an ancient crack in the earth's crust, which ran through California. There had been shifts geological ages ago, and there would be shifts after geological ages in the time to come. He had many photographs to illustrate the truth of this view of the disaster.
The delightful voyage in summer seas from San Francisco to Auckland was accomplished in the same comfort as the voyage across the Atlantic;
My first voyage to New Zealand in 1860 presents a strange contrast to this comfortable and luxurious journey. I possess some old letters written at the time of the former voyage, some extracts from which will give the reader some idea of what a voyage to the Antipodes was like in those days. It was from Liverpool to Auckland in a sailing ship, the Red Jacket, with some 500
"The party that came on board to see us off on January 26 (1860) left at three o'clock, the captain and the pilot being in a state of uncertainty as to when we should start. A south-east gale with snow brought them to the decision to lie quietly in the river all night. Next morning the ship got under weigh at some early hour in a dense fog, which cleared as we got out to sea, towed by two steamers. One left us just outside the bar, the other towed as far as Holyhead which we passed about eight o'clock, then having a splendid north-east wind, which was to take us out of channel in sixteen hours, we cast off, but the sea ran too high to communicate with the tug.
"Next morning all our hopes were disappointed by a very light head-wind, and we enjoyed the pleasure of beating out. The wind increased to a strong hurricane from the south-west, which the captain said was one of the heaviest he was ever in. At last the wind went round to the north-east and the ship bowled away towards the south, at twelve or fifteen miles an hour, rolling in the most furious manner. It was a continued struggle with toilet apparatus, books, chairs, plates and food; everything kept coming at you in the most aggressive manner, and you never
"The days are settling down into steady routine. We get up between seven and eight and walk the deck until breakfast, which comes off at an irregular period about nine o'clock. The victuals are very good, and we have even milk every morning from a wretched cow, when she is not sea-sick; she inhabits a horse-box on deck. The poop is a kind of poultry-yard, the fowls and ducks die by dozens at a time, and are said to be thrown overboard, so that poultry is a thing rather to be eschewed. Luncheon rapidly succeeds breakfast; dinner, luncheon; and tea, dinner. The stewards spend their time in nothing else but clearing off one meal, and laying a fresh one. Our fellow-passengers seem quiet and disinclined to quarrel. The stewardess told me that in the last voyage they all began a week after leaving Liverpool and never stopped. Two girls, who slept in the same state-room, never spoke for two months. The captain is a very jolly fellow; he seems careful and cautious. He took the Red Jacket out on her first voyage, and made the passage to Melbourne in sixty-nine days. We are at present one day ahead of this trip, which was a very fast one. We have done nearly 300 miles a day for three days running."
"Last week was spent in variable winds and
"The days are settling into one unvarying routine, and it is difficult to recollect what has happened. There is no symptom yet of a row in the saloon, but a great war of classes impends over the ship. Card-playing has been put down as immoral and wicked in the steerage, while it goes on every night in the saloon. Steerage passengers are moreover very sore at not being allowed to come whenever they like on the poop, to which place certain favoured ones are admitted.
"The many-headed does not like this and will soon rebel. I made a radical speech to them after the school on Friday, and had a long talk with the democratic leaders afterwards. I really fancy that the intellect and common sense of the ship does not reside in the saloon.
"You will hardly care to hear how many sheep and pigs are left, or how long the fresh beef lasted. Our eyes were gratified by a distant sight of the Canaries last week; we have got into the Trades at last, and the weather is delicious—hot, but not grievously so. I am subject to constant persecution from hosts of children, led on by the captain's boy, an aggressive youth of seven, who has contracted an unpleasant liking for me, and takes it out in bullying on every occasion."
"The Trades are very pleasant—the sea calm, and the ship gliding along without pitching or rolling. Weather warm and sunny with a delicious cool wind. Last Tuesday we ran against a whale, which gave the ship a good shake and then cleared off. There is a terrible storm brewing on board. The ungodly passengers, both saloon and steerage, recreated themselves with dancing to a cracked fiddle on Thursday, and the display of the pomps and vanities of the world called down the censure of the higher powers. I'm sorry to say saloon, steerage, and intermediate took offence, and as the hot weather is imminent, a row seems inevitable. I tried a speech in mediation in the steerage this morning on liberty of opinion, and the duty of toleration, but without much effect, as the great unsoaped is bent on hostility. Our doctor has been sea-sick ever since we started. I do duty as amateur doctor's mate, and go the rounds, when he is too bad. I have not killed anybody yet, and trust to reach Auckland without a case of manslaughter. The practice is very interesting and instructive; most of the cases are from over-eating. We are fast getting amongst the marine curiosities of the tropics, whales and dolphins in the day, and such superb luminous creatures at night. The wake of the ship shows a gorgeous glittering band for about a hundred yards."
"There is a homeward-bound ship on the Challenger, bound for China, and yesterday there was quite a congregation of ships. The Challenger, which is still in company and three homeward-bound ships, one the Robert Starrit, bound for Liverpool with East India troops, signaled us, but the captain, as there happened to be a light breeze, said he would not lower a boat for the Queen of England. The wind is now very light, nearly a dead calm, and he may be more accommodating. The heat is becoming insufferable and even an open window close to your face gives very little relief at night. We enjoy the luxury of bathing every morning by having the hose of the fire engine turned on to us on deck, and the women undergo the same operation in the deck-house; their screams are most heart-rending and disturb the whole ship. Even the cow has the unsparing engine turned upon her, so that at six in the morning the ship and everything on it is dripping wet. The voyage is very dull, for our passengers are not socially a lively lot, and every kind of amusement except reading and 'the wagging tongue' is denounced and discouraged."
"Yesterday morning the south-east Trades sprang up. We are now away again at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour. We have beaten the Challenger hollow and lost sight of her this morning. We crossed the line at ten last night—there were no sports on board (for we are a very serious ship) except some fine 'all fours' races on the poop, which were much complained of this morning by those who had previously gone to bed."
"We are getting cooler and a little more jovial. We've started evening concerts twice a week. Of course, among 500 people we got some good singing; all our music is vocal, and our programme improves every time.
"The concerts are productive of harmony in more senses than one. The jolliest of all the fellows connected with the ship is the chief mate; he is a tall and thin man with a long nose, and has not his equal at chaffing, nautical or otherwise, on whatever subject you choose to assail him. He generally stands on his watch at the end of the poop, with a crowd of children, big and little, round him, some getting ships rigged and others teasing him. Of course this is in the Trades where you can sail all day without stirring a brace. He is altogether a kind of nautical Mark Tapley.
"There was a great fight on Sunday between the crew and some foreigners, whom the crew amuse themselves by teasing. The chief mate knocked a sailor down in the most refreshing manner and then conveyed him aft, and put him in irons to cool. A German had his nose broken, and another sailor had his head cut open with an pro tem., but the storm will break out afresh."
"We are miserably becalmed and the heat is tremendous though the midday sun is 15° off being vertical. The day is passed in literally gasping for breath, but the nights are delicious, cool, with bright moonlight, and nothing but the vulgar necessity for sleep prevents your spending the night on deck. Yesterday we had a boat out and rowed round the ship, but the intense heat greatly interfered with the pleasure."
"The calm ended yesterday morning and we had a jolly fresh breeze all day. The row on board has come at last with a vengeance, and in a more atrocious manner than I anticipated. Last night about eleven, I took a turn down the starboard gangway, just to look at the main deck, before turning in, and at the corner came upon a terrible row. The same sailor who was in irons for fighting the Germans had just been engaged at fisticuffs with another victim, and the captain, second mate and boatswain were trying to drag him aft from a crowd of sailors. After narrowly escaping braining by the legs of the passing madman, who was knocked on the head in time by the mate, we held the gangway against his comrades with the greatest difficulty. On the monkey
"The ship is getting into an orderly and secure state again. We had a meeting of passengers in the saloon yesterday and a document was drawn up and signed, reciting that in consequence of the mutinous conduct of the crew the captain had requested the passengers to form an armed watch to guard the poop, where the four prisoners were confined and agreeing to certain rules for our government. We have three watches of about twelve men each, which are on duty in rotation; it is very jolly fun now in fine weather, but will be anything but pleasant in the gales of the South Seas. The sentries are mounted in each of the gangways, armed with cutlasses and pistols, and two on the poop with revolvers during the night; the rest of the watch dispose themselves about the poop, quite ready to come if necessary. There is not much likelihood of a rescue being attempted on the bright nights we now enjoy—if it is tried at all, it will be on some squally night in the South Sea, but with the present precautions nothing is to be feared. The prisoners are always handcuffed;
"The light winds ended last Saturday week, in a very stormy breeze, but alas! from the east, and so dead in our teeth. Our position was unpleasant, as the wind drove us southward towards Tristan d'Acunha. We were all night under short sail, with sharp look-outs, and on Sunday morning, just as the captain and mate had made up their minds that we were well to leeward of the island, the summit of a great big black mountain suddenly loomed out of the rain and cloud, about seven miles ahead of us, and right in our course. Tristan is really the dry summit of a submarine mountain, the ocean being unfathomed in the neighbourhood of the island. It is about 4,000 feet above the sea, and looked wild and bleak enough, in the midst of the white stormy sea and black rain clouds. After passing Tristan the ship was kept away to sight a huge precipitous rock called "Inaccessible Island," a terrible-looking place; a fearful shipwreck occurred here a few
"Just off the Cape, with our usual luck, an east-north-east wind set in, and has compelled us to go down to the south into cold and disagreeable weather, and what is worse, among islands and icebergs; so there is nothing to tempt us on deck in the evenings, and we are very hard up for employment.
"Bear-fighting has become very popular with both sexes (separately, I don't mean together), but a boy fell down the companion stairs off the poop, and would have broken his back, had he not been a 'boy; ' a little girl bear-fought herself down the hold and was nearly killed; and two ladies in the next berth to ours, while engaged in hot strife, came crash through into ours, so the ardour for this pursuit has been a little cooled. Yesterday one of the remaining prisoners was let out, on promise of future good behaviour: the author of all the mischief now remains alone, and
"The wind is steady and strong from north-north-east, and we are running splendidly close-hauled at fourteen or fifteen knots an hour. Nobody on board ever experienced such winds or weather in these latitudes before. The wind forced us down as low as 48° 30' south. On Saturday we were roused up at seven in the morning to see an ice-berg; it was not a large one, and seemed much worn by the sea beating over it. It presented a beautiful ghostly appearance, with the same blue light you see in glacier crevasses. We passed about a mile to leeward: the sea was strewed with smaller pieces of ice, that had been broken off from it, any one of which would have sunk the ship. After this, we had a dense fog for two or three days, and you may imagine our position was not pleasant, for though there were four hands on the look-out, their combined eyes could not penetrate at times more than 300 yards, and that is a
"On Sunday last our magnificent breeze died away, and with it all our hopes of reaching Melbourne in time for the mail. We are now only 1,800 miles from Melbourne, which could be done in six days of decent sailing. Everybody is getting very tired of everybody else, and we shall begin to dislike each other if this lasts much longer."
"Still at sea, the breeze is very fine just now. (I always write when it blows fresh, one's spirits are so much better), but nobody by past experience can depend on its lasting. We have just had the mizzen top-sail carried away for the third time this voyage; and as this nautical phenomenon is followed by the descent of the halyard, a great heavy chain, crash upon the poop, you may imagine the incident is neither safe nor pleasant to the persons walking thereon. It is a great shame sending such rotten chains to sea, to endanger lives and limbs. We are now about 400 miles from Port Philip, so the voyage is nearly over. Sea-life is very reducing to the intellect, most of the passengers behaving more like big children than men; and we play promiscuously, children and men, on the poop."
"We have arrived at Port Philip Heads at last
"We are still lying in a state of great misery; they left us until yesterday afternoon, without taking the slightest notice of us, and then the quarantine doctor came off, and directed all the bedding and clothes to be sent on shore to be disinfected, and to-morrow all are to be vaccinated. The Melbourne people believe we have small-pox actually on board."
"The wretched people have all come from shore, in a most unhappy condition; their clothes and bedding were just put into boiling water, and returned undried, and as they were drenched to the skin, in going and returning in the small boats, many on board have not a dry thread of clothes to put on, or a dry bed to lie down on. This is one of the most original plans I ever heard of for improving the health of a ship. Our letters are to be all sent off to-morrow, so I must here conclude."
"We fell in with a glorious breeze so soon as
"Yesterday we came down upon the New Zealand coast near the Bay of Islands; all last night we were baffled by the light and shifting wind in a very awkward position between the mainland and some rocky islands called the "Poor Knights." It was as dark as pitch and the wind very unsteady. I was up nearly all the night with the captain helping him to take bearings and make out where we were; once we passed the whole length of the islands close to leeward when a very slight shift of wind would have put us into great danger. It was not till this morning that we got a chance of running into Auckland. The passage is one of the most beautiful I ever saw, leading through many islands, some high barren rocks with most fantastic shapes, some bright and green with their cliffs covered with bushes and creepers. At last you enter a narrow passage round the base of a high volcanic-looking mountain, and after about two miles a sudden turn to the right brings you in sight of Auckland. We went up without a pilot and were close to our anchorage when the one sole Auckland pilot condescended to come on board. The town is very picturesque-looking, dotted about among green hills, and the scenery all round the harbour is most enchanting. I can't say much for the interior, to judge by a fruitless excursion to the post-office to-night. It was impossible to see much, for the town is lighted by a few dim oil-lamps, but the first thing I stumbled upon was a
Such were my two journeys to New Zealand; and notwithstanding the discomfort and tediousness of the earlier voyage, its memory possesses a sweetness and pathos to which the later and more luxurious journey can never attain.
The first spot on the New Zealand coast familiar from old associations within sight of which the Sonoma arrived on October 29, 1906, was the island of Kawau, about thirty miles north of Auckland. This island was bought by Sir George Grey as a private residence for himself, and a place where he could carry on his favourite pursuit of making experiments in the acclimatization of strange birds and beasts. He employed it when his "institutions" were expelled by Rewi from the Waikato as a refuge for the relics of those establishments, the youths who had attended the technical schools, and certain of the officers and employés of Government.
At the time of this event Sir George Grey was absent from Auckland in temporary residence at Taranaki, where he was endeavouring to induce his colonial ministers to give up the disputed land at Waitara and admit that it had been wrongly purchased; he had just before in gratification of the general public opinion of the colonists taken military possession of Tataraimaka, a block of Crown land which the Maories were holding as a material guarantee for the restoration of what they claimed to be their own. Sir George Grey's first idea was to station the party which Rewi had driven from Te Awamutu, on Crown land
Sir George Grey had a beautiful house at the Kawau, surrounded by a number of cottages which furnished suitable accommodation for all the refugees. The island was stocked with deer, kangaroos, rabbits, emus, and all sorts of strange birds and beasts which he was trying to acclimatize: some were so tame as to be almost a nuisance: I remember my little son, then two years old, running about with bare feet, and playing with the deer; the game often ended in their butting him to the ground. The great old-man kangaroo was a more formidable person to approach, but even he was so tame as to accept food from the little boy's hand. In the island were the remains of a copper mine, which had ruined its shareholders some years before; all the works and houses were still standing, but in a state of ruin. It was difficult to walk about the island from the extent of uncleared bush, and dangerous from the wild Caroline, a sailing schooner belonging to the New Zealand Government which was to have run down from Auckland once a week, to bring food and other stores: but the exigencies of native affairs stopped the despatch of the Caroline, so we were left for some weeks practically marooned on the island to feed ourselves as best we could. There were excellent fish to be caught in the sea at "Flat Rock" on the east of the Kawau, a danger lying in the direct course of the ships going to Auckland, which was awash at high tide, and all the rocks near the Kawau at low water were covered with succulent oysters, so we did not starve, though eggs and milk for the children were not procurable. Sir George Grey's plan of reinstating the establishment at Te Awamutu never came off. The war of races broke out instead, and the whole party had to be taken back to Auckland, and was there dispersed. The American steamer passed close by the Flat Rock where we had fished for our living; it is now indicated to shipping by a proper beacon. I could make out in the distance the conical rock where we used to obtain our oyster luncheons,
The beautiful conical island of Rangitoto which closes the entrance of the harbour at Auckland was unchanged. On the shore opposite Rangitoto I was able to make out at the distance of a mile or two the buildings of the college at Kohimarama, once the headquarters of the Melanesian Mission, where I had spent many happy days with Bishops Selwyn and Patteson.
When I first arrived in New Zealand, Bishop Selwyn was the most unpopular man in the colony, and in almost every company, except that which Lady Gore-Browne, the Governor's wife, assembled at Government House, he was vehemently abused. His offence was that at the outbreak of the Taranaki war, he had had the courage to speak the truth, and truth is always resented by the British people when they embark on their little wars. Bishop Selwyn, with Sir William Martin, the late Chief Justice of New Zealand, and Mr. Swainson, formerly Attorney-General, declared from the first that the sale of Waitara to the colonial Government was invalid, and that the occupation of the land in dispute by British troops was unjust.
At the time of my first arrival the buildings at Southern Cross on their winter tour among the islands, and the Governor had just asked for the loan of the buildings in order to entertain in them a number of Maori chiefs whom he had invited to a conference in July, 1860, on the subject of native grievances in general. Mr. Mainwaring, who had accompanied me from England, and I went over to help the Bishop to prepare the college for the reception of these Maories. The Bishop and Mrs. Selwyn went a roundabout way on horseback and we crossed the harbour direct in a boat. The situation of the college is very beautiful; it is on a little shelly bay, opposite Rangitoto island, only four miles from Auckland by water, but about eight or nine by land. The college buildings were paid for by Miss Yonge out of the profits of "The Daisy Chain," which were dedicated to the Mission. The clearing out of the great hall to make a dining-room for the chiefs was immense fun, and my first introduction to the freedom of colonial manners. The Bishop at once took off his coat and waistcoat and worked like a day labourer, loading wheel-barrows with all sorts of odds and ends, from copies of the Bible in strange tongues to paint-pots and sacks of potatoes, which were then wheeled off, and the contents stacked elsewhere. As soon as the moving was effected, the Bishop took a broom and began to sweep, and sent us
Before, however, the preparations for the Maori chiefs had been completed, news arrived in Auckland that the mission schooner Southern Cross had been driven ashore in a gale of wind at Ngunguru, some fifty miles north of Auckland. Fortunately she ran on a soft, sandy part of the coast, so that she did not go to pieces, and those on board, after hanging half the night in the rigging, got safely on shore in the morning. The Bishop at once set off for Ngunguru and took me with him. We went in the Petrel, a twenty-ton schooner bound for Whangarei, uncertain how we should get thence to the scene of the wreck. The cabin of the Petrel was six feet square and not high enough to stand up in, but the Bishop was comfortable anywhere, and was soon quite at home, telling yarns with the captain,
Next morning, instead of being at Whangarei we found ourselves off Rodney Point, with a strong north-west gale, which sent us for refuge into a little cove under the lee of Rodney Point. There we landed in a very leaky boat, just calculated to go from ship to shore without foundering. Our purpose was to forage for food because the beef had been carried away by the sea during the night. The landing-place was a little patch of sand, from which a thing like the bear-pole in a zoological gardens led up a rock to a small native village. This was my first experience of a Maori house, which consists of a frame of sticks, to which bundles of raupo, a sort of reed, are tied; there is a small aperture for door, and a wood fire is kindled in the middle which completely fills the dwelling with blinding and choking smoke. Round this fire the natives were squatting by way of curing the "Influenza" from which they were all suffering. The Bishop was quite at home, and chatted away with the people, the brunt of the conversation being borne, according to the custom of all peoples, by the women. After calling upon all the people in the village it was proposed to go through a Maori wood to visit the chief; a storm of thunder and lightning caught us, kept us prisoners in an old shed, and then sent us soaking on board again. Next day the wind was just fair enough for the schooner to fetch Whangarei; you Petrel anchored in smooth water in the Whangarei river.
Next morning the leaky boat managed to convey us, and our spades, axes, and buckets, on shore before she filled. The Bishop sent off to borrow a whaleboat and passed the interval in climbing a mountain to see which way the wind blew. The rest of us went to breakfast with a Mr. Aubrey, who was postmaster, custom-house officer, harbour-master, magistrate, policeman, and held every other civil office. I thought this extraordinary at the time, little thinking I was destined to fill a similar post in Waikato. This was before the opera of "Mikado" and the character of "Pooh-bah" had been heard of.
On arrival of the whaleboat we set off to row or sail as the wind might serve round Bream Head and up the coast northwards to the scene of the wreck. We landed near the Head, and borrowed a sail, but it proved of little use; as soon as we rounded Bream Head the wind was foul the rest of the day. The Head rises straight up from the sea, cloven with huge fissures from top to bottom, its sides and summit covered with fresh green woods.
As soon as we turned to the north we found ourselves in for a very hard row; all day long we toiled up the beautiful coast, and it was dark
The Southern Cross proved to be quite sound but very deeply buried in sand, so much so that the port bulwarks and a large part of the deck were quite hidden. The sand was about the same consistency as that at Blackpool, top hard and firm, soft and wet below. There were about eight of us at work, one being a ship's carpenter whom we brought with us from Whangarei.
After the first day the Bishop left us for the purpose of fetching more material and further help. But beyond saving property, such as sails and cabin furniture, we could do nothing. After the first night or two we slept at the house of an English settler on the other side of the river, about Red Jacket had entangled herself.
On descending to Tutukaka, we came upon a Maori in a dirty blanket, whom we dragged off to a trader who had established a small store in the village. With the assistance of the Pakeha trader a bargain was struck for the purchase of a s. 6d. for the pig to be delivered at Ngunguru. The pig set off under the care of a man and a boy, with an odd dog or two, and we adjourned to the Pakeha's house, where he entertained us with tea and fried bacon, while the spectators talked over the whole transaction from various points of view. We had in the end to shoot the pig, as nobody was competent to slaughter it, and it was too fierce to be managed by an amateur.
The attempts to save the Southern Cross proved entirely abortive, but I learnt a great deal from the professional ship's carpenter, and we had nightly lessons in the Maori tongue from the Bishop, who gave them under the condition that while he taught us we would pick oakum, which was required for cauling the wreck. I had to return to Auckland before the rest of the party to catch the mail for Sydney, and left Ngunguru for ever at 4.30 a.m. by way of the Ngunguru river in the company of the settler at whose house we had lodged. We rowed about seven miles up the river, which winds about among hills densely covered with forest; the stream was full of old sunken trees, which made navigation very difficult. When the river became too narrow, we landed, and walked to a Maori settlement. We had to cross the river twice. Stripping your benumbed feet, on a cold winter morning and wading a chill rapid stream with a bed of remarkably pointed pebbles is a feat more enjoyable in the recollection than the reality. It has the advantage of making your feet very warm and your appetite very keen, and we did justice to the breakfast we brought with us and cooked at the Maori village. The path thence to the English settlement on the Whangarei river presented the usual pleasing alternation of forest, swamp and creek, in which you break your shins over long slippery tree roots, get a pleasant "stocking" of black mud, and wash it off again.
The only remarkable thing I saw was a superb waterfall, where a river plunges down ninety feet into a circular abyss, the sides of which are overgrown with creepers and trees, dotted with the bright green stars of tree fern. I got lodged for the night with a Frenchman, and next morning, finding no ship in the river, I started alone for Mr. Aubrey's at Whangarei Heads, which they said was only seven miles off. A polite Maori gave me a passage in a very leaky canoe part of the way, and finally put me on the right road. After proceeding some way, I came upon a second village, at the outskirts of which I found myself pleasantly bogged above the knees in black mud. After extricating myself, and passing the dogs and children, the way led pleasantly two or three times across the river to give the bogged traveller an opportunity of cleaning himself, and then crossed a mangrove mud flat of a depth varying from ankle to the knee. After walking many miles through endless Maori villages, I came upon a friendly settler who entertained me with bread, milk and pork, and the information that Aubrey's house was still eight miles off.
Next morning it took two hours to reach the house; so much for a New Zealand seven miles. I just caught a schooner setting sail for Auckland. We went tearing off before a north-west wind, and were in sight of Rangitoto at four o'clock, when with my usual luck it fell nearly calm, and we did not get to the North Head until past ten o'clock,
Although the coast of New Zealand showed little change from its former aspect, the moment the steamers rounded the North Head and entered the Waitemata Harbour an entirely new and changed spectacle presented itself. The aspect of the North Head itself from the sea side gave warning of such a change; an ugly fort and some pretty houses and gardens had replaced the primitive bush by which it was formerly crowned. But on entering the harbour it appeared that the old picturesque city of Auckland with its wooded bluffs and green hills and scattered dwellings embowered in trees, was gone; and a grand new city presented itself, extending to both sides of the harbour, in which none of the old landmarks were discernible.
The Red Jacket had had to anchor off the town, and cargo and passengers were landed at the old commercial pier in tugs and lighters. But the S.S. Sonoma, of far greater tonnage, went at once alongside one of a series of fine wharves, at which other large steamers were lying. While she was being made fast I perceived amongst the crowd on the wharf, waiting to come on board, a very old tattooed Maori, with the most benign face imaginable, who had evidently recognized me, and was pointing me out to a younger man Hokioi, a Maori newspaper that was published in the Waikato before the war.
Of all the men, European and Maori, who were prominent in the events which preceded the Maori war, Patara was at the time of my visit the sole survivor. The "Hokioi" was a bird of Maori mythology, never seen, but known only by her scream, which was an omen of war and pestilence. The press at which the newspaper was printed had been given to the Maories by the Emperor of Austria, and the articles that were published at Ngaruawahia, the Maori capital, were logical and trenchant.
It had been my lot while Commissioner of the Waikato to edit, under Sir George Grey's direction, a rival Maori newspaper called the Pihoihoi Mokemoke, "the sparrow that sitteth alone upon the housetop"; and great was the screaming and bickering of the two birds during the short life of the latter, the particulars of which I will narrate in a subsequent chapter. But the hatchet had long been buried between the Hokioi and the Pihoihoi. Patara was in England some twenty-three years ago on a futile mission of the Maories to the British Government, and we then forgot our old contentions and cemented our personal friendship. But Patara at the age of
The Sonoma was seven days behind time at Auckland, owing to defective boiler power, and there was only just time to arrive at Christchurch for the opening of the International Exhibition, to be present at which I had been sent from the other side of the world. It had been intended by the New Zealand Government that we should travel overland from Auckland to Wellington and visit on the way the various places in the Waikato district which were the scenes of my former life; but the late arrival of the Sonoma had obliged them to abandon this plan; and it was arranged instead that the overland journey and the visit to Waikato should be put off till the end of our visit, when we were to return to Auckland to re-embark. Under these circumstances we could spend no time in Auckland, but had to hurry through to our ultimate destination. From the time we arrived at the wharf there were only two hours to spare before the mail steamer left Onehunga on the Manukau Harbour on the west coast of New Zealand for New Plymouth, and we had to go some six miles by train.
We were met on our arrival by telegrams of welcome from Lord Plunket, the Governor, and
There was the old Government House little changed from the days when Sir George Grey reigned; but all the wooden Government offices in which I had spent many unhappy days as a permanent official just before the outbreak of the Waikato War were swept away and the offices transferred to Wellington. It was from these buildings that just as the troops were about to invade Waikato in 1863, orders were issued to expel the inhabitants of the Maori villages round Auckland who were relatives of the Waikato tribes. Most of them were old and infirm. No complaint had ever been made of their harbouring dangerous characters, or behaving ill to the European farmers by whom they were surrounded. Our arrangements for governing Maori settlements, even close to our own doors, were so defective that the instant war broke out we found it dangerous to allow these poor creatures to remain in their homes. Twenty Maori policemen could have quelled the whole of them even in actual
The first person to whom this cruel decree was made known was Tamati Ngaporo, the brother of Potatau and the uncle of the Maori King, who was conspicuous for the efforts he had made to prevent war. He was living at Mangere in European fashion, receiving a considerable income from letting his lands as grazing grounds to the neighbouring farmers. After a short silence, Tamati asked: "Is the day of reaping then at hand?" Being told that it was, he observed: "Why has not the Governor put Waikato on her trial, before stretching forth the strong hand?" Tamati and the other Mangere natives quite understood the alternatives. They must submit to what they regarded as an ignominious test, or lose the whole of their property. And yet, to their honour be it said, they did not hesitate for a moment. They all thanked the Pakeha for this last act of kindness in giving them timely warning of the
In the residential suburb of Parnell a few of the old houses could be still picked out. Bishop Selwyn's house still stands, but is not the present Bishop's residence. The old Maori college, where deacons were prepared for holy orders, is turned into a school for young Maories, where handicrafts are taught, very much like the school begun at Te Awamutu forty-five years before, and swept
When we returned to the station we found Patara there returning to his home at Mangere, near to Onehunga. We invited him into the carriage and Mr. Swanson, a half-caste, who had formerly been a scholar at Te Awamutu, and had come with Patara to take care of him. Patara looked more benign every moment, and seemed to feel real pleasure at the sight of me. One of the oldest New Zealand settlers also came to the station, Sir John Logan Campbell, who had known the land on which Auckland was built long before it was selected as the site of the New Zealand capital city: but he had during almost the whole of my former life in New Zealand been temporarily absent from the colony.
Nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality with which the Commissioner representing the British Government was received by the Government of New Zealand. There is a department of this latter Government called the Tourist Department, which is established for the purpose of giving advice and assistance to all visitors to New Zealand, especially to those who come for the purpose of deer-stalking or trout-fishing, and to those who desire to explore the majestic scenery of the Southern Alps. The British Commissioner was put by the Government into the hands of this department, and every conceivable arrangement was made for his comfort in the various journeys by land and sea.
On arrival at Onehunga we found an immense crowd of people going to Christchurch, as the mail steamer was the last boat that would bring them there in time for the opening of the Exhibition. The journey from Auckland to Wellington, as far as New Plymouth, the chief town of the district of Taranaki, has still to be made in a coasting steamer, and the shallowness of the Manukau bar, and the narrowness of the harbour at New Plymouth restrict the coasting steamers to a small tonnage. Immense consternation in Onehunga and Auckland was caused forty-four years before Orpheus had struck on the bar and gone to pieces with the loss of all hands. She had sailed from Sydney with imperfect charts, and seemed to have been unaware that the bar was a shifting one. A seaman who was being brought back as a prisoner was said to have warned the captain in vain. A boat was sent off to Onehunga to seek help, and the boat's crew were the sole survivors. Long before help arrived the ship had been broken to pieces by the surf.
The voyage is made at night, and is little more comfortable than it was fifty years ago. The landing used to be effected through heavy surf upon the black sand of the seashore just below the town. This sand is composed of a very fine hæmatite iron ore, which many projectors have made vain efforts to utilise commercially, and out of which a small quantity of what is known as "Taranaki steel" is made, used chiefly for surgical instruments, which require a particularly fine and cutting edge. The traveller is now saved all risk of being drenched in the sea by the unceasing rollers and heavy surf. A little harbour has been contrived behind some rocks which lie off the shore two miles south of New Plymouth, and the steamer runs alongside a narrow wharf at which the passengers and their baggage are transferred to a railway train.
In 1863 I had spent a week at New Plymouth, after being expelled from the Waikato, and before
Both Sir George Grey, the Governor, and Mr. Domett, the Prime Minister of the colony, were at that time at Taranaki, and the condition of affairs was known by them to be critical: after a suspension of military operations that had lasted for two years, the British Government had taken military occupation of a tract of land called Tataraimaka, some few miles from New Plymouth, which the Maories had seized during the Taranaki War, though it was undisputed Crown property, and which they alleged that they held as a material
The first news we heard on landing at New Plymouth was that the Maories had the night before laid an ambuscade on the seashore between New Plymouth and Tataraimaka, with the intention of shooting down the Governor, Sir George Grey, or any of the officers or soldiers passing to and fro along the shore between Tataraimaka and the town, but, for some reason which has never been discovered, the ambuscade had broken up without carrying out their intention—no harm was therefore done on that occasion. The report was brought in by a friendly native, who had stationed himself at the New Plymouth end of the road along the shore to warn passengers, and who came into town as soon as the war-party broke up: I heard him tell his tale to Mr. Dillon Bell.
Sir George Grey professed an entire disbelief in the truth of the report, and no steps were taken to ascertain whether any such ambush had been laid, or what was the temper and intentions of the hostile tribes. There were at that time no hotels in New Plymouth. The Prime Minister, Mr. Domett, was living in a little lodging-house in which Mr. Bell and I also found quarters, and Sir
During the week I spent there it rained almost incessantly. The country seemed very beautiful and fertile, notwithstanding the ravages of the war; excellent beef, butter and cream seemed plentiful, at least they made their appearance in great profusion at our lodgings. It was a healthy, hungry place, people always eating, and never satisfied.
The great glory of New Plymouth is the beautiful Mount Egmont, which rises abruptly out of the sea, and has a pointed conical summit covered with everlasting snow. This mountain summit, however, only came out of the clouds twice during my visit in 1863, and was quite invisible in 1906.
During the whole time of my stay in New Plymouth in 1863, while peace or war were in reality trembling in the balance the Governor and his Ministers were engaged in a paper controversy as to whether the British Government, represented by Sir George Grey, or the Colonial Government, represented by Messrs. Domett and Bell, should take the responsibility of surrendering Waitara to the Maories, both parties being in complete accord as to the justice of the surrender. I was actively employed as a secretary in the preparation of the numerous memoranda written
An incident occurred at Taranaki which is worth relating as an illustration of the extraordinary power of personal persuasion possessed by Sir George Grey. A soldier had been sentenced to death for murder, and was waiting for execution at Auckland. The question of a reprieve was discussed by the Colonial Ministers in my presence, and they concluded that there was no ground for interfering with the course of law; my youthful opinion, so far as it was worth anything, concurred with theirs. Then I was turned out of the room, because the Governor arrived to hold a Cabinet Council, at which the soldier's case was, with other matters, to be discussed. I took a walk along the main road, while excluded from the lodgings, and on turning home again, met almost immediately the Governor, who had apparently disposed of the council in a few minutes. He turned me back to walk with him, and said that both his ministers had, after a short conversation, entirely agreed with his views about the poor soldier. "Yes," I replied, "there was no ground for reprieve." "Oh, no," said the Governor, "on the contrary, they both advised me to remit the sentence of
The controversy about Waitara was still going on when I left New Plymouth to take the relics of the establishments driven out by Rewi to the Kawau, by Sir George Grey's orders. The day I departed, a fresh ambuscade was laid between New Plymouth and Tataraimaka by the Maories, just one week after the former one that had been discredited; and the following morning, exactly one month after the military occupation of Tataraimaka, two officers and seven men, marching along the sea-beach towards the town, were shot down. It was in this way the Taranaki War, which was soon to be a war of races, was re-commenced.
The journey from New Plymouth to Wellington took about twelve hours in a train, which left at a very early hour, carrying the mail-bags which had accompanied us all the way from San Francisco. The railway runs northwards almost as far as the famous Waitara river, and then turns to the south round the back of Mount Egmont, through what was forty years ago a dense and impassible forest. The spectacle from the railway was very interesting: the whole of this country is now fertile and well cultivated, chiefly occupied by dairy farms, and exhibits the greatest outward signs of wealth and prosperity.
It was, however, sad to see how its beauty was disfigured by the stumps of blackened trees, which stood up out of the green grass below as memorials of the great forest which the dairy farms had displaced, nor was there any sign of the preservation of any parts of the forest, or any systematic replacing of trees, which might become a source of national profit.
The conversion of ancient forests, or "bush" as the settlers call it, into cultivated land, is part of the economical policy by which the New Zealand Government promotes the increase of wealth and prosperity in the country. The plan is to parcel out these unoccupied lands in suitable farms for bona fide settlers, to give every encouragement in the power of Government to those who will occupy these lands and convert the forest into dairy farms. The first difficulty is the clearing of the land, which demands a great amount of labour not immediately remunerative. The Government in suitable cases will even hire the intending occupier at good wages to perform the task, and pay the wages out of public revenue. The more valuable timber is first felled and the rest of the bush is then set on fire, which produces the black stumps so great an eyesore in the land. On the ashes of the burnt forest English grasses are sown, which come up most luxuriantly and soon afford a pasture for sheep and cattle. The Government then offers the farm to the man who has cleared it, bona fide settler, and not a land speculator. Most of the holders of these farms are exceedingly prosperous. The amount of beef, mutton, butter and wool produced by them is rapidly on the increase, and though none of them will become millionaires, they are able to lead prosperous and healthy lives, and are bringing up strong and vigorous children, who will form the New Zealand nation of the next generation. As the train approaches Wellington the older settlements are reached, which exhibit the same sort of evidence of agricultural and pastoral wealth.
On arrival at Wellington we were taken in charge by officers of the Tourist Department, who were on the look-out for us; they conveyed us on board the steamer which was on the point of departure for Port Lyttelton, and was only waiting for the mail. Mr. Fowlds, the Minister of Education and Health, who was on board the steamer took us under his care. After a calm passage in the comfort of a larger steamer, and a short railway journey from Port Lyttelton to Christchurch, we found ourselves established in the United Service Hotel, where rooms had been
Upon arrival in Christchurch I was immediately visited by Captain Atkin, the permanent British Commissioner at the Exhibition: he took me at once to the building and showed me all the objects which had been contributed by the British Government: their help greatly conduced to the success of the Exhibition, and the New Zealand authorities were most grateful for what had been done for its success by the Mother Country. A very costly and elaborate silver model of H.M.S. Swiftsure and also one of H.M.S. Albion, and all the drawings of H.M. Battleship New Zealand, not at that time completed, had been sent out, with exhibits of many engines and contrivances of war, contributed by the War Office. There was a very complete description of British Education, primary and secondary, with photographs of many schools; and there was a series of photographs illustrating the manners and customs and the festivities of the British people, both in ancient and modern days, from the prolific stores of Sir Benjamin Stone, who is de facto photographer in chief to the House of Commons. But the most important contribution of the British Government was the Art Gallery, which without their co-operation would have been meagre in the extreme; they had invited modern British artists to send specimens
I was afterwards carried off by Captain Atkin to see the Maori pah which had been built in the Exhibition grounds to show visitors what the dwellings and fortifications of the Maories in former times were like. The pah was designed, and the work carried out under the supervision of old Maori chiefs and officers of the Government, who were quite qualified to remember and reproduce the ancient forms; but it was unhappily disfigured by a gigantic beer bottle erected on its outskirts, in the very worst and most vulgar fashion of modern advertising, to extol the merits and invite the purchase of some particular brew of beer. It destroyed rudely the poetry and illusion of the primitive Maori handiwork. Our visit was cut short by heavy rain, which drove
The Cook Islands were annexed to New Zealand in 1901: they consist of a group of more than a dozen small islands of which Rarotonga is the best known. They are inhabited by a brown race akin to the Maories, who speak a language nearly related to the Hawaian, Tahitian, Samoan, Maori, and other Polynesian tongues. They have a Federal Council which can make laws for all the islands except Niué, which has a legislature of its own; but their laws and administration are subject to the New Zealand Government. They export coffee, copra and fruit, and the island of Niué does a trade in straw hats. In 1906 the exports were valued at £ 9,652, and the imports at £ 5,674. Their population is stated to be 12,279 natives and 161 whites.
In the afternoon of the same day I visited a public elementary school with Mr. Fowlds, and was at my entrance at once struck by the healthy appearance of all the scholars, great sturdy boys and girls, with rosy cheeks, and strong, well-formed limbs. I inquired about the condition of the children of the country generally, and whether New Zealand was cursed with that partial starvation of the child population which
The International Exhibition was opened on the following day by the Governor, Lord Plunket. The ceremony closely resembled those with which we are familiar in Great Britain. Military and civil bands were playing at every point of vantage. Every man wore the smartest uniform to which he was entitled, and every woman disported the most beautiful toilette that her taste, and the money of her husband or father, was able to invent and procure. There had been the usual quarrel about precedence, and who were entitled to sit in the chief places, but all had at last been amicably settled to everybody's satisfaction. The distinctive feature of the ceremony was an "Ode," the poetry and the music of which was composed by New Zealand artists, and performed by a band, chorus, and solo singers of the same country. It was a very beautiful and impressive performance.
In the afternoon I again visited the Maori pah, from which the storm of rain had prematurely driven us the day before. There was an old chief, Mahuta, of Kopua, a village of Waipa, in the pah, who said he had often seen and talked to me in former days: he had been one of Rewi's most ardent followers, and had taken an active part in driving me out of the Waikato; he shook hands with me in the most hearty and friendly manner, expressed his great delight at seeing me once more, and seemed to think, as indeed did all the survivors of Rewi's war-party whom I afterwards fell in with in the Waikato, that the fact of his being one of those who drove me away by threats of violence gave him an especial claim to welcome my reappearance. Te Heu Heu, the principal chief of Taupo, son of a chief of the same name, who was powerful and conspicuous at the outbreak of the war, was also present; he spoke English perfectly and seemed to have the most sensible appreciation of the present position of the Maories and their requirements and claims. The Maori pah was under the medical control of Te Rangihiroa, whose European name is Doctor Buck, a young Maori, who has gone through the full medical course of the Dunedin University, where
The festivities of the opening day of the Exhibition ended with a dinner given by the Governor, at which, as the representative of the British Government, the greatest of the exhibitors, I was asked to reply to the toast of "Success to the Exhibition." I took the opportunity of describing in detail the particulars and purposes of the British exhibits, and the steps that the British Government had taken to study the interests and wishes of the New Zealanders in the matter: this was only one among many illustrations of the good feeling which subsisted between the Mother Country and her colonies and dominions beyond the sea.
The festivities which accompanied the opening
At the laying of this foundation stone there was present, amongst others officially connected with the Technical School, Mr. Rusbridge, a workingman, president of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canterbury. I had afterwards the advantage of a long conversation with this gentleman, and he furnished me with much valuable information about the condition of workers in New Zealand. He said that the Arbitration Act was not unpopular with the trades unions in New Zealand, although every industry in the colony is now practically regulated by the awards which are made under its provisions. Nobody in the colony among either employers or workmen really desired its repeal, although there was of course some grumbling at an award which displeased any of the parties to it, and many persons desired amendments to its provisions. He produced a sample award, which showed how much opinion in England was misled by newspapers as to the condition of New Zealand industry; but as a future chapter will give a more particular account of the working of the Arbitration Act, it would be superfluous to describe and discuss in this place the award produced by Mr. Rusbridge beyond saying that it was calculated to open the eyes of a British visitor as to the amount there was to unlearn and to learn. As to other laws regulating industry Mr. Rusbridge said there was no compulsory insurance against sickness, but friendly societies were very active, and had many members.
There was no poor law in New Zealand, but endowments and benevolent funds existed applicable to extreme cases, the administration of which was controlled by Government. There was a very effective law for "compensation to workmen for accidents" occurring in the course of their employment, and almost all employers insured against the liabilities that might be incurred under this law, although they were under no legal compulsion to do so, and might keep the risk themselves.
We discussed the New Zealand scheme of old-age pensions, which Mr. Rusbridge assured me was extremely popular among the working classes, but he stated that there were bills introduced by Mr. Seddon before his death, which were to be brought forward in the next session of Parliament which would supplant old age pensions altogether. It is quite clear that the success of an old age pension scheme in New Zealand can teach us very little as to what would be the operation or cost of such a scheme at home, because the abject poverty of so large a proportion of workers, which is the great obstacle to all social progress here, does not exist at the Antipodes. The industrial associations in New Zealand are for strictly business purposes, to put the workers in a position to protect their own interests before the Arbitration Court, and they are not intended to be benevolent societies to provide for either sickness or old age. We discussed reformatories and the treatment of destitute children. The
The New Zealand worker is generally represented by the capitalist Press of Great Britain as a Radical and Socialist of the most pernicious type. I was not a little surprised and enlightened by my conversation with Mr. Rusbridge, whose opinions seemed those of a Tory Democrat of Mr. Disraeli's school.
There were two great receptions, given in honour of the British Commissioners in the Maori pah. They danced what is called a "haka," a dance of welcome; the contortions and gesticulations are most violent and quaint, and are performed by every individual in the "haka" at the same moment, and with the most exact precision.
The Maori costume of the dancers was to be seen in the upper part only of the figure; the ancient costume of the lower part, which was scanty, was suppressed, and the men were all dressed in trousers, and the women in long skirts which rather spoiled the æsthetic effect. Dr. Buck, the civilized medical practitioner, donned a Maori dress, and danced as vehemently as the rest. It was said that on all such occasions he made it a principle always to identify himself with his countrymen. The dancers were followed by speeches of welcome; some of the speakers had seen me in former days; some belonged to the tribes who had instigated the Waikato War; some had heard of me from their fathers; but all joined the welcome. Most of the speakers used the Maori tongue, and adopted the old style of oratory, running backwards and forwards with a spear in their hands, and introducing into their speeches snatches of old Maori songs; but there were one or two young men, not of the "haka," who wore English dress and spoke in English fashion, and wished us to know that there was a race of young Maories now springing up who were desirous of attaining the knowledge and civilization which the white men's schools and colleges could teach them and were ambitious of seeing their race become in every respect the equals of the Europeans, and of taking part in the government and administration of the country.
There was no change visible in New Zealand
The British Commissioners, as a part of the festivities connected with the opening of the Exhibition, gave a dinner to the occupants of the Maori pah. Unfortunately influenza had broken out, and the attendance was thereby very much curtailed. Lord Plunket, who was called away to perform a public function in Dunedin, was to his great regret not able to be present. Altogether about forty sat down to dinner, including one or two Pakehas. Grace was said by the King of Rarotonga, the principal of the Cook Islands. There were no alcoholic drinks offered to the guests, but the dinner was excellent and the King's health was drunk in lemonade. In proposing the King's health I ventured to make a short speech in Maori, saying that I had left New Zealand a young man, and returned an old man, and found all my Maori friends dead except Patara, the rival editor of the Hokioi. The Chief Te Heuheu of Taupo was the principal speaker in reply. He welcomed me as one who was the friend of his father, and of his people. Te Kohi (Maori for Gorst) was long ago their friend, and knew the Maories of old times, but now the former race had vanished and gone. The Maories present were strangers, they were unknown. The only means of knowing them would be, when it was pointed out that this man, or that man, was the son of some chief, or some
Other speakers followed and to the same effect, and they broke out into the old Maori song of welcome, "Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora, ka ora!" all the Maories present joined in the stirring chorus, given with hearty good will that made the hall ring again. Some of the old songs which were composed at the time of the war were also sung by the older men. The Cook Islanders also sang one of their very tuneful songs, and the King of Rarotonga apologised for being unable to speak, but there was nobody present who could interpret his language.
At the end of the entertainment every man was presented with a pipe, and every woman with a workbox, as a memento, and boxes of sweets were given and sent to the children.
No account of a visit to New Zealand would be complete without some description of the laws under which the industry of the country is enjoying a period of singular happiness to the workers and tranquillity to the employers; and of the system by which the land of the country is made available for increasing the wealth of the people. Of these Labour Laws the "Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act" is the most original and unique, and is that upon which the peace and prosperity of New Zealand industry appears mainly to depend. This law was designed by Mr. Pember Reeves, the present High Commissioner in London, and it was carried through the New Zealand Legislature in 1894 by the energetic parliamentary force of Mr. Seddon, the Prime Minister: it has many times been amended and added to, the last addition became law in 1905. "The necessity of continuous amendment," writes Mr. Tregear, the Secretary for Labour, "has been thrust upon the Legislature through the principle of industrial arbitration of a judicial character being entirely unique and without statutory precedent. The law on this subject has to be kept flexible in order to meet the continual necessities of change and growth. As difficulties, impossible to foresee, arise on the
The rapidity and vigour with which experiments in social reform are prosecuted in New Zealand presents an instructive contrast to the slowness and conservatism of the Mother Country. In 1890, as an outcome of the Berlin Labour Conference, there was appointed with much flourish of trumpets a great Royal Commission on Labour. After an exhaustive examination of witnesses it presented a majority and a minority report. The former recommended that the law of liability of trades unions for strikes should be altered and made that which the Taff Vale decision proved that it had in fact been all along, though unsuspected by the capitalists; the latter proposed Socialism as the only cure of existing evils. A third report was presented by me, proposing the establishment of Official Boards of Conciliation, with powers only of investigation into, and report upon, trades disputes, and without any legal means whereby its decisions could be enforced. But even to such a mild and perhaps ineffective measure of Government interference not one of my colleagues would consent; no notice was taken of my report, which has been long ago forgotten. Meanwhile New Zealand has established a working system for the regulation of industry, not by competition and strikes, but by judicial award,
At the time of my visit, there had not been a strike since the law was first promulgated twelve years before. A strike did, however, occur among the slaughtermen, at some of the freezing factories, after my visit in March, 1907, which was seized upon with glee by most of the capitalists and journalists of this country as proof of the entire failure of the New Zealand Act, although the strike was of short duration, and hundreds of the ringleaders were find £ 5 each, of which the greater part has been paid. Capitalist newspapers have from first to last misrepresented the facts of the strike in order to show the law of arbitration to be a complete failure.
I went to New Zealand imbued to a large extent with the ordinary British misconception. I had read in my newspaper that the Act had only remained in operation because all awards had been in favour of the workers; that the rise of wages had closed many industries; that all employers of labour regarded the Act with disfavour; and that it was impossible for the trades of the colony to be carried on unless it was repealed. Soon after my arrival in the colony,
The Arbitration Tribunal was at that time composed of three members, Judge Chapman, Mr. William Scott, who for eight years previously had represented the employers, and Mr. Slater, who had been the representative of the workers ever since the tribunal was established. I was introduced to them all, and with the first and last I had the advantage of long conversations.
It appeared from their communications that the Court now regulates industrial employment in New Zealand to quite as great an extent as the Land Law of Ireland regulates tenancy, but with much greater elasticity and expedition. Throughout the whole country almost every trade is now covered by an award in which the conditions under which the industry is to be carried on are specifically laid down, and the chief business of the Court is to decide whether any particular trade comes within any particular award.
The only occasion on which I got into the Court while sitting was at Masterton. A very interesting discussion was going on as to whether a man who kept a roadside smithy, and occasionally
The original Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act was a permissive Act, and applied only to those industrial unions of workers, and employers, who thought fit to register themselves as submitting to the Act, and they were at liberty at any time after complying with certain formalities to cancel their registration, a liberty of which advantage has never been taken. New Zealand was divided into seven industrial districts. Any dispute between employers and employed might be brought, in the first instance, before the Board of Conciliation of the district and might either be dealt with by them or referred at once, at the instance of either party, to the Arbitration Tribunal. The Board, after hearing the parties and their witnesses, could make a recommendation, which if accepted was put into the form of an industrial agreement and had the force of law. If not accepted it was to be carried to the Court of Arbitration, against the awards of which there is
The Act has been amended and extended, until it now in practice binds all the employers and all workers, so that now nearly every industry is practically carried on under an industrial award, made in many instances by consent, and in others by a judgment of the Court. The conditions imposed by the award vary of course from time to time, and also slightly from district to district, so as to conform to the special circumstances of each case. Every award is made for a term of years, usually two or three, but can be amended in the interval by order of the Court: after the expiration of the term for which the award is made, it can be prolonged by consent or by order of the Court, with or without amendment.
The award in every case specifies the minimum of wages to be paid, and the maximum of hours to be worked. The minimum wage of men is usually in the case of unskilled workers 1s. an hour, and there are higher rates for the more skilled classes: and the maximum hours of work are usually eight hours a day, to be fixed between seven in the morning and five in the afternoon. Any work done out of specified hours is paid for at higher rates as "overtime." The usual increase for overtime is a quarter in time work and 25% in piece work, but it amounts to a half, and even to double pay, on certain occasions such as Sunday, Christmas Day, public holidays and night work. The proportion of apprentices to journeymen who may be employed in the trade is also specified, as well as the terms of apprenticeship, and the wages to be paid in each year. This provision, which is to be found in nearly every award, has revived the system of apprenticeship in New Zealand. No boy on leaving school seeks to earn wages in casual employment: he is at once apprenticed to the trade in which he expects to earn his living, or to acquire the capital necessary to enable him to settle on land of his own. There is also in nearly every award a provision for incompetent workmen, who may be paid less than the prescribed minimum, under certain specified conditions to be agreed upon between the employer and an official of the Workers' Union, or determined, in default of agreement,
Most awards contain provisions for the comfort and health of the workers, and for any special conditions applicable to their trade. For instance, in that of tailoresses, homework is absolutely prohibited. Every article must be fashioned in the workshop: in some other trades piecework is entirely prohibited; in some industries, as for instance in cabinet-making, the production of goods for sale at home by journeymen engaged in the factories is prohibited. In trades in which piecework is allowed, as for example in that of tailoresses, elaborate provisions unintelligible to the lay mind are made for the payment to be made for the various articles of dress, so as to equalize as far as possible the pay of piecework to the pay of daywork. In the sheep-shearing business, which is an industry of great importance in New Zealand, the shearers are protected by regulations as to s., and that the subscription shall not exceed 6d. a week. A further stipulation is in most cases added that the unions in the district shall keep a register of all competent workmen, willing to be engaged in the trade, so that an employer desirous of hands can find them without difficulty. It is the settled policy of New Zealand law to promote the formation of industrial unions, both of capitalists and workers as conducive to the smooth working of industries, and experience seems to justify the wisdom of this policy.
Under these awards, the minimum wage of an unskilled labourer, a mere pick and shovel man, amounts to 44s. a week, Saturday being a half-holiday, and the minimum wage of women amounts to 25s. a week; of course skilled men and women get wages considerably higher than the minimum. The members of the Arbitration Court, in discussing the policy and provisions of the Acts, justified the fixing of a lower scale for women workers upon this ground: A man's wages should be sufficient to support himself and an
When I said to Mr. Justice Chapman and Mr. Slater, the workers' arbitrator, that the high rate of wages was calculated to drive trades out of the country, and that it was alleged in Great Britain that this had been the result, they both laughed, and said that was an old story to frighten people in the Mother Country: they well knew the particular factory to which the story referred, and were even able to point it out from the railway carriage in which the conversation took place. Its closing had nothing to do with the Arbitration Act, but was the result of family differences which had arisen amongst the proprietors.
It seemed an anomaly, only to be accounted for by the wise provisions of New Zealand law, that identical work should be performed on the opposite sides of the world under such different conditions and at such different wages. The loading and unloading of frozen carcasses is identical labour performed in New Zealand and in London for the same employer. In the former place he receives 1s. 6d. an hour for a day of eight hours, and 2s. 6d. an hour if he works at night or on Sundays: in London he barely receives a living wage. Nor can this be accounted for by the common incorrect allegation that living is dearer in New Zealand than in London. It is not. Richer people who keep servants find living in New Zealand expensive, but not the workers. On August 25, 1906, in the New Zealand midwinter, the Government took a simultaneous list of prices of all the chief articles of subsistence at cities great and small all over the country; they printed the prices on large sheets and distributed them gratis at the International Exhibition at Christchurch. These sheets are too voluminous to produce here, but they prove conclusively that the articles on which a worker's wages are spent are much cheaper in New Zealand than at home. Rent is a little dearer than rent in country, not in town, districts at home; but that is partly because no New Zealand worker would live in such a home as the home worker is obliged to put up with.
For twelve years after the passing of the original Arbitration Act there was no strike in New Zealand. During my visit a little disturbance took place in Auckland, which scarcely deserves the name of a strike. The authorities of the tramways had dismissed one or two of their employees, under circumstances which created general indignation in the tramway service. The men stopped working the trams until they were satisfied that justice would be done, and there was a great congestion of tram cars for some time in the streets of Auckland. It was no question of wages, or hours, and upon receiving satisfactory assurances from the manager that the dismissed employees would be equitably dealt with, all the men resumed work, and there was no repetition of the demonstration.
In March of the present year, the first strike which has taken place since the passing of the Arbitration Act occurred, as has already been mentioned.
The season in New Zealand and Australia in 1906-7 was a very dry one, pasturage began to fail and sheep were sent prematurely in to the slaughter yards of the freezing companies in unusually large numbers. Many of the slaughter-men in the New Zealand meat factories come from Australia for the job, and are not inhabitants of New Zealand. They had just had a successful strike in Australia, which raised the pay from 20s. to 25s. per hundred. The men were persuaded it
At the Annual Conference of Trades Unions in New Zealand it was resolved after debate to stand by the Act, and the work of registering fresh industrial unions, and applying for awards, has gone on since quite as briskly as before. It is proposed by the New Zealand Government to take measures for insuring a more rapid procedure under the Arbitration Act. The delay in obtaining an award is the only weak point in the system, and was probably the chief ground which induced the slaughtermen to strike.
No objection was made by anybody of consequence in New Zealand to the operation of the Arbitration Act in the past or present: the only discordant note in the chorus of praise was apprehension as to the future. Trade had been, it was said, very prosperous since the Act came into force: wages and prices had both been capable of being raised, and had been raised accordingly: but when bad times came and prices fell the Act might fail: employers might be unable any longer to keep up prices, and would the workers then submit to a reduction of wages or would the Arbitration Act then break down?
The general prosperity of New Zealand and its people depends quite as much on the Land System as upon the regulations which govern its industries. The established principle is that the land of the State is to be used not to enable individuals to amass great fortunes, but to increase the wealth of the community as a whole, and give to every citizen the opportunity of living on the land, and rearing a strong and healthy family in the midst of salutary environment. The State, therefore, does not part now with the complete ownership of the soil, though it gives to the bona fide occupier such a security of tenure as secures to him and his family the full value of the improvements he makes and of the capital and labour which he expends upon his holding. Much of the Crown land is now let on 999 year leases at a rental based on the value of the land at the time of its letting and not liable to subsequent increase, public rights being secured by the covenants. The area of land which any one man may select is restricted by the Land Act to 640 acres of first-class land or 2,000 acres of second-class land. No single individual can under the New Zealand system appropriate large areas of land, either for speculative or commercial purposes, and exclude his less wealthy fellow-citizen from the occupation and cultivation thereof.
When land is thrown open for optional selection, there are three different tenures which the intending settler may choose.
But all the tenants of Crown land are under certain obligations to reside and improve their holdings. Residence must
Improvements have to be made
- On freeholds within seven years to the amount of £ 1 per acre on first-class and 10s. per acre on second-class land.
- On leaseholds 10 per cent. within one, 10 per cent. more within two, and 10 per cent. more within six years.
These improvements comprise reclamation of swamps, clearing of bush, fencing, draining,
Several schemes for aiding the settlement of people on the land have been devised by the Government at various times and carried into effect with considerable success: special settlement associations and village settlements are encouraged by favourable provisions in the Land Act. Under the "improved-farm settlement" system, which appears to be superseding all others, considerable tracts of forest land have been set aside by the Commissioner of Crown Lands for occupation under this plan. Applicants are selected, preference being given to married men. The areas of farms vary from 10 to 200 acres. No man may have more than one farm. A contract is made with the settler to fell the forest timber, burn it, and sow with grass seed up to 100 acres; wages are paid to him for his work, according to the current rates of the district, and £ 10 may be advanced to a single, and £ 30 to a married man to help to build a house. The land is then leased to the settler for 999 years at a rental of 4 per cent. on the amount which represents the unimproved capital value of the land and the actual cost which the Government has incurred in the felling and grassing; but the settler is bound to reside for ten years and to make the improvements above specified as applicable to such a lease.
It is stated in the New Zealand Official Year Book
For the settlement of bush and swamp lands still more favourable conditions were provided in an Act of 1902. The land opened under the Act was divided into three classes, and the selectors were entitled to exemptions from rent and rates for various periods according to the character of the land selected.
But the Government not only offered these liberal terms to induce the settlement and cultivation of the Crown lands, they also took steps to acquire for the people some portion of the land which in the early days of the colony had been improvidently alienated in large blocks to the primitive settlers. Nobody's land is confiscated under the advanced democracy of New Zealand. Such a process is unknown and unheard of. But the "Land for Settlements Act, 1892" authorized the Government to purchase by agreement from private individuals suitable properties for subdivision into farms. The land thus acquired is separated into small farms and leased in perpetuity at a rental representing 5 per cent. of the cost of purchase, survey, and administration. The Government acts only on the advice of a Board of Land Purchase Commissioners, and is limited in
Land may also be compulsorily taken for providing workmen's homes, within a borough of not less than 15,000 inhabitants or within a radius of fifteen miles therefrom, but not more than 100 acres can be so taken in any one year. The owner may retain an area of not more than ten acres in a borough, or fifty in the surrounding land. The worker's allotment is not to exceed five acres, and advances up to £ 50 are made by Government in aid of the cost of fencing and building dwelling-houses.
The history of the methods by which land has been purchased from the Maories, whose rights
"I really cannot tell to the present day who I purchased the land from; for there were about fifty different claimants, every one of whom assured me that the other forty-nine were 'humbugs,' and had no right whatever. The nature of the different titles of the different claimants was various. One man said his ancestors had killed off the first owners; another declared his ancestors had driven off the second party; another man, who seemed to be listened to with more than ordinary respect, declared that his ancestor had been the first possessor of all, and had never been ousted, and that this ancestor was a huge lizard, that lived in a cave on the land many years ago,
The war brought land purchase for the time being to a standstill, but extensive confiscations of native land took place in the Waikato district and elsewhere. Since the war about 8,000,000 more acres in the North Island have been acquired. The natives still hold about 5,000,000 acres of cultivable land. Laws have been passed in their interest to prevent them from pauperizing themselves by improvidently parting with the freehold of their lands and conferring powers of leasing through councils partly elected and partly nominated.
A great many laws have been passed from time to time by New Zealand parliaments for the benefit
But this book is not a political treatise; it is only the story of a pleasant journey and the reminiscences of the past which it evoked, and I must return to my travels.
It was with regret that after too short a visit we bid farewell to our kind and hospitable friends in Christchurch. Sir John Hall, formerly Prime Minister of New Zealand, had been persuaded to be Mayor of Christchurch during the year of the Exhibition: but he was too ill to take any part in the proceedings. He was, however, well enough to see me one day in his bedroom at his house in Christchurch, where we spoke of old times and where he talked with especial interest of the progress which was being made by the Maori race. He arranged a visit to his sheep-run at Hororata, to which we went by motor on a subsequent day, and at which we were received by Sir John Hall's son. We were entertained with New Zealand hospitality and shown the outbuildings and wool-sheds, which were of the most improved type.
After leaving Christchurch we spent a few days at Masterton, a small country town in the Wellington district: my brother-in-law, Mr. F. G. Moore, who resided there, had been one of the party at Te Awamutu driven away by Rewi. I met there a son of Archdeacon Maunsell, who was formerly head of the Mission Station at Kohanga, near the Waikato Head, which I had many times visited during my journeys in Waikato. The
Dr. Hoskins of Masterton gave me a curious view of the unexpected results to which a system of Preference may give rise. He keeps an establishment for the electric treatment of various ailments and diseases. He told me he had to get all his apparatus from Germany, France and the United States, where the electric apparatus necessary for his treatment is made and sold. He gets nothing from Great Britain, where the science of medical electricity appears to be much less advanced than in these countries; and on all the apparatus which he imports 20 per cent. duty is charged in order to give a theoretical advantage to Great Britain. This import duty, however, is of no advantage to British manufacturers, because none make the sort of apparatus required. The doctor had had many controversies on the subject with Mr. Seddon, and told him that his 20 per cent. tax was a burden upon the sick, who were the people who had to pay it in the end. But to me he strongly censured the British manufacturers who failed to take advantage of the New Zealand preference, by themselves making the articles which he had to purchase from foreign countries. How far the British manufacturer would then be constrained to lower the price, so as to give the New Zealand sick the benefit of a cheap instrument, he did not explain.
From Masterton we returned to Wellington, to pay a visit to the hospitable house of Lord and Lady Plunket.
While in Wellington I made great efforts to find copies of the Hokioi and the Pihoihoi Moke-moke. At last an incomplete set of the latter journal was found in the collection of Mr. Turnbull, a collector of Maori curiosities; but the Hokioi appeared to have disappeared as completely as the Moa. It was a curious sensation to be only imperfectly able to make out the sense of articles, some of which I had composed and all of which I had edited. The celebrated article on the King movement, written under the special supervision of Sir George Grey, which was that which really caused the suppression of the paper by Rewi, I read through, and fairly understood; it had been written, like many other articles in the paper, in collaboration with Miss Ashwell, the daughter of Mr. Ashwell the missionary; she was born in New Zealand, had lived all her life amongst the natives, and was thoroughly acquainted with the niceties of the Maori language. The fifth and last number of the Pihoihoi, the one which was being printed when Rewi seized and carried away the press, was not in the collection, and Mr. Turnbull doubted its existence anywhere, contending that all the copies seized by Rewi had been destroyed. He produced in confirmation of this a letter from Mr. J. von Dadelszen, the present Registrar of New Zealand, who was the boy Pihoihoi at the time the seizure took place. Mr. Turnbull was, however, mistaken, because I have now in my possession a copy of the final fifth number, somewhat, it is true, dilapidated and torn. Of the first page of this, a facsimile is here given.
There were in Wellington many men whom I remembered in former days as little boys, and the sons and daughters of former friends, but the Registrar-General, who as a boy was one of the actors in the scenes at Te Awamutu, was absent on Government business in Australia.
Captain Atkin and I, as British Commissioners to the International Exhibition, went up to the Wellington cemetery and placed a wreath on Mr. Seddon's grave.
It was arranged at Wellington that we should return to Auckland on our way home, through the Waikato district to revisit the scenes of former days, and to meet Mahuta, the son of Matutaera, afterwards called Tawhiao, the Maori King at the time of the war, and an assembly of the relics of the Waikato tribes. The journey was arranged by the Tourist Department, and Mr. James Cowan, of that department, who was born and brought up in the Waikato district, was told off to accompany us.
The overland journey from Wellington to Auckland commenced by a return along the railway by which we came from New Plymouth as far as Wanganui. Sir Joseph Ward came to
We were first taken to the Wanganui College, which is one of the best higher grade schools in New Zealand. The boys were all dressed, according to the custom of the school, in short trousers with bare knees. The whole school is formed into a cadet corps, and was paraded for our inspection. Two or three of the bigger boys were pointed out as having been members of the "All Blacks," who had made such a successful onslaught on the British football clubs a year or two before. We had a good opportunity at the inspection of examining their physical appearance, and a sturdier, finer set of boys could not be produced elsewhere. The Mayor then drove us to Virginia Lake, a freshwater reservoir, capable of supplying the town, and to houses and gardens on the hills overlooking the town, from which are beautiful views of the Red Jacket, and was afterwards with me at Te Awamutu: he subsequently became a resident magistrate in the native service, but had died many years before. The ladies presented us with a bag made of Kiwi feathers, and a special native feather, a sign of mourning, which I was told to wear when I visited Te Awamutu.
In the evening the Mayor took us to visit a technical school which contained 800 students, out of a population, of 10,000. The school comprised classes in art, modelling, wood-carving, carpentry, plumbing, photography, chemistry and botany, and an engineering laboratory was being erected. I doubt whether anything like such an institution could be found in a British town of the same size. At the school, I met as one of the managers Mr. Bryce, formerly native minister of the colony. He was the plaintiff in the action v. Rusden" tried more than twenty years before, in which the present Lord Chief Justice and I were counsel for the defendant. We were hopelessly defeated and unusually heavy damages were awarded against our client, so that Mr. Bryce had no reason to bear malice against us, and he seemed very glad to see me again.
Later in the evening I was taken by the Mayor to a club called "The Cosmopolitan," of a peculiar and interesting character; it was frequented by all classes of society, and contained a large number of members belonging to the working class; they all mixed with one another with perfect freedom and good fellowship; at home, where caste distinctions are so prevalent, such a society would be an impossibility.
Next morning we left Wanganui at 7 a.m. in a small steamer, to ascend the river as far as Pipiriki. The day was cold and inclement, and the voyage, although passing through the most romantic scenery, was, from the current of the river, tedious and slow. The river passes for the most part through forest, on which there are many Maori settlements on the river bank. These bear quaint modern names: Athens, Corinth, Jerusalem, London, etc. The mails which the steamer carried were delivered by throwing the bag on to a sandspit, and the passengers reached the shore in crazy boats, into which they were transhipped by perilous planks in the rapid current. At Pipiriki there is a very excellent hotel, perched on the bank
From Pipiriki the traveller, who is going northwards, has the choice of two routes: he may continue his voyage up the river in a smaller and slower steamboat, with more snags, more shallows, more rapids, and a greater chance of sticking on sandbanks, but amidst scenery said to be supremely beautiful, as far as Taumarunui; this is the point which the railway from Auckland to Wellington, now in course of not very rapid construction, has reached: or he may travel by stage coach through a virgin forest, and across the great central plain of New Zealand, to the Lake of Taupo, and thence to Rotorua. We chose the latter route. At 8 a.m. the "stage coach" made its appearance. It was an open buggy, of a rather frail appearance, drawn by four magnificent horses, and entered upon the journey up hill into a dense forest along a rough road, jolting the passengers cruelly. The comfort of the journey depends entirely upon the condition of the road. On our journey the road was said to be in a fair condition, and it was only here and there that the conveyance sank into deep muddy ruts, and had to be pulled out by the utmost exertion on the part of the four horses, aided sometimes by human hands. The road gives an opportunity to the traveller of seeing the condition of the virgin
After many hours of this kind of travel, the conveyance emerged from the forest, and passing through a region of burnt trees and incipient grass farms, arrived at a little village called Raetihi, where a halt of an hour-and-a-half was made. What most attracted our attention in this little clearing was the advertisement of a bazaar in aid of the funds for the support of an English Church, of which the most remarkable item was a baby show, at which a prize was to be given to the healthiest and most beautiful little Christian that could be produced.
From Raetihi the road proceeds through country in which trees become gradually more scarce, till the great open central plain is reached. At this point of the journey the snowy summit of
At 5.30 p.m. the coach arrived at Waiouru, to which the railway in construction from Wellington to Auckland has now arrived. It was a very cold and very bleak place, and the traveller is sheltered at a little picturesque bush inn, clean and comfortable so far as is practicable at so great a height, and so far from civilization.
At 7 a.m. next morning the coach journey recommenced. It was bitterly cold, but in the early morning the sky was so clear that Mount Egmont at Taranaki could be seen on the horizon. There were clouds hanging upon Ruapehu and the Tongariro range, between that mountain and Taupo, but they cleared off from time to time, and in the plain below it was beautiful and sunny; and the temperature gradually rose as we approached Taupo. The coach was the same
We arrived at Tokaanu at half-past one o'clock, in warm genial sunshine, our further journey was to be made by a little steamer on the lake. I
During the short rest at Tokaanu, I met another
In contrast with the former journey round Lake Taupo, the voyage in the little steamer was easy and pleasant. We were the only passengers, and the captain readily accommodated his course to our wishes. We therefore kept chiefly on the west side of the lake, cutting across the great bays and indentations by which it is interrupted. We first passed by Waahi, the ancient settlement of Te Heu Heu's tribe, which was destroyed many years ago by a great landslip, in which the chief and most of his tribe perished. He was a very great and celebrated fighting war chief of the old heathen days, and was the father of the Te Heu Heu who flourished at the time of the Waikato War. Then we passed the site of the old mission station at Pukawa, situated upon a wooded hill, above the lake where I had formerly
After crossing an arm of the lake to the Karanga-hape cliffs, which form a very prominent feature of the western shore, descending with fantastic fissures into the deepest part of the lake, the steamer arrived at Taupo village at a quarter-past six, the whole voyage having occupied rather less than four hours.
Instead of stopping for the night at our halting-place of olden days, we landed on the east bank of the river, and drove about a mile to a little health resort called the Spa, where there are boiling springs and geysers, and all the wonders of the Rotorua country in miniature. The establishment was composed of a number of wooden buildings scattered about in an isolated valley. The visitor had his bedroom in one building, his sitting-room in another, and a natural hot bath in a third, a very large structure of wood, with a natural hot spring flowing through it. There was a public dining-room, constructed on the plan of a Maori house, with grotesque carved figures
The Waikato river, after leaving the lake of Taupo, sinks in the soft pumice sand into what would be called a "cañon" in the United States of America, and remains depressed below the surface of the country through which it flows until it reaches Maungatautari far away to the north, at which it enters the great Waikato plain; it also makes a great bend to the east before settling down into a direct northerly course. At a place called the Huka the banks contract into a narrow passage through which there is a series of rapids and falls: there is a legend that a dispute formerly arose between the Taupo and Wanganui tribes, as to which were the more expert in the management of a canoe, and that the Taupo natives challenged the Wanganui to take a canoe through
A halt was made at Wairakei, to visit the geysers and boiling springs, which are to be seen in great variety and profusion in a narrow gorge in the neighbourhood. These natural phenomena are very wonderful, but resemble each other all over the world. They are to be seen on the grandest scale in the Yellowstone Park in the United States. In New Zealand there existed formerly rare formations of terraces of coloured tufa, pink and white, but these terraces were destroyed in 1886 by the sudden eruption of the Tarawera Mountain, a volcano that had been extinct for ages.
The road to Rotorua passes through Waiotapu, where a health resort is being established; the attraction of the hot springs is enhanced by the most beautiful coloured terraces, of orange and green, which are in course of formation, but are small at present in their dimensions. There is a convict settlement near Waiotapu, at which the convicts are employed in planting trees on the bare mountain-side, a most healthful occupation for them, and profitable for future generations. The road to Rotorua passes through a dreary labyrinth of bare and treeless mountains, with the
At Rotorua there is a health resort established by the New Zealand Government, and presided over by a qualified medical officer. All kinds of medicated baths, from the various hot springs, are to be obtained. There was a large building nearly completed, which was to replace the shaky tumble-down sheds in which baths for patients have heretofore been provided. On the lake just out of the town is the Maori settlement of Ohinemutu. It is rather a show Maori place, where visitors to the baths and hot springs see what is commonly supposed to be a Maori settlement. Ohinemutu abounds in beautiful springs and mud holes, in which the children play about apparently without injury. We went across the lake in a launch to Mokoia Island, also a show Maori place. There were very few Maories on the island, but they made a charge for our landing, and an old man, sitting on the end of an old canoe, demanded 1s. in payment for having his likeness taken in a snapshot. The lake abounds in large lake trout, of which our party in a short time caught three.
Mr. Fowlds, the Education Minister, with whom we had become such friends at Christchurch, met us at Rotorua, for the purpose of accompanying us through the Waikato district, which we were about to enter. Before proceeding with
The first place visited in the Waikato district was Waharoa, where what is left of the Ngatihaua tribe now has its headquarters. It is on almost the same site as Matamata, which had been the principal seat of the tribe in the days before the war. My old friend, Wiremu Tamihana, chief of the Ngatihaua, died soon after the war. His eldest son, Hota, whom I knew as a boy at Mr. Ashwell's school, died a few years ago; and his second son, Taingakawa, who said that he remembered me visiting his father at Matamata when he was a child, was now the chief. The tribe had sent a very pressing invitation to me to visit them, which I gladly accepted. It is a short railway journey from Rotorua to the Waharoa railway station, and about two miles from there to the settlement by road.
The natives gave us a most hearty reception in the real old Maori style. We were met about two hundred yards from the village by a drum and fife band of Maori lads dressed out with red scarfs: they were led by an aged warrior chief, Panapa-te-Pea, that is "Barnabas the Bear." Panapa was dressed only in a scarlet waist cloth: he danced backwards before us, making the most hideous grimaces, putting out his tongue further than you would think a human
After dancing, the speeches began. Taingakawa, who bore a very remarkable likeness to his great father, both in features and voice, referred to his father and other noted chiefs of the Ngatihaua who had been my friends in early days, but were now all gone; and he said my reappearance amongst them was like that of a spirit returned from the other world. They also presented a beautiful mat of "kiwi" feathers, which had been specially made for the occasion as a "token of love." The chief introduced me to three daughters of his elder brother and predecessor, Hota, the former schoolboy at Mr. Ashwell's. I spoke to the assembled tribes of my former friends and their great chief, and of the energetic though unsuccessful efforts he had made to avert war and create the good feeling between the two races, now so firmly established, but which he had not lived to see. We had luncheon given us in the great Runanga house at which
Quivers and shakes the solid land, Our homes are slipping away: Where shall man find an abiding place? O Ruimako! God of the lower depths Retain our land and hold it fast. Be firm! Be firm! Nor let it from our grasp be torn!
Taingakawa spoke, with a logical clearness which reminded me of his great father, of land grievances of the present day, which some of their Pakeha friends were advising them to lay, by means of a deputation to England, before the King and Privy Council. I strongly advised them to rely rather on the New Zealand Ministers and the Assembly, in which they had representatives. Our Government at home was neither competent nor disposed to deal with the intricacies of Maori land law: the Colonial Government could manage matters with greater enlightenment and justice. I reminded them of a fruitless visit paid to London in 1884 by Matutaera, the old Maori king, and his leading chiefs. We left
During the armed truce which preceded the Maori War, the natives were under the leadership of two remarkable men, who promoted rival policies. Tamihana, chief of the Ngatihaua, who laboured for peace, and Rewi Maniapoto, who contrived war. The history of the Maories in my short day was the gradual failure of Tamihana's efforts for peace, and the success of Rewi's policy to provoke war.
Tamihana went in old days by the name of the "King-maker," because he was the chief who more than any other had contributed to the establishment of the "Maori King" some years before the Taranaki war. The choice of the natives had fallen upon Potatau, an aged chief who was revered not only in Waikato but throughout New Zealand as one of the most renowned warriors of a former generation. He was gentle and benevolent in his old age: he said when offered the kingship, "I am a snail: what can a snail do?" His last words to his people were: "Hold fast to love, to law, and to the faith," and from his deathbed he sent a message to his friend Sir William Martin, the former Chief Justice of New Zealand: "Be kind to the niggers."
I first met Tamihana in the year of my arrival in New Zealand, when a small local war was in progress at Taranaki, about the right of a certain
I first met Tamihana at Mr. Ashwell's mission station at Taupiri. Mr. Ashwell had invited me up the country with the view of taking me to visit Tamihana at Matamata to see a native school which he had established there. It was the first of many journeys from Auckland to the Waikato. It began with a jolt for twenty miles, in a vehicle called a van, from Auckland to Drury; the road was full of holes, so that the effect of the four hours' carriage exercise was very similar to that of a flogging. From Drury you had to cross twelve miles of forest to the Waikato river: Mr. Ashwell had three horses and two Maories with tents and blankets; my wife and his daughter rode two of the horses, and he and I rode the remaining one in turn. Soon after entering the forest the rain began to come down in torrents, so that we were compelled to take refuge, wet to the skin, in the house of a settler by the roadside.
On the next day we continued our journey and came down to the river about 2 o'clock in
On the following day the ladies went on in the canoe and Mr. Ashwell and I proceeded on horseback. The ride was over undulating fern hills overlooking a vast plain through which the Waikato flowed, the distant view being bounded by densely wooded mountains; we descended to an old pah on the river bank to dine. The only occupant of the pah produced a rotten board to make a seat on the grass, off which he knocked a number of wood-lice and large black beetles that made my flesh creep all through dinner-time. After dinner we had to cross a flax-swamp; the river had overflowed its banks, so that the long stiff flax leaves grew out of the water; our horses went in above the shoulder in many places, and as the river was rising we were not sorry to come to the end of the swamp and find ourselves in the flourishing village of Paetai, where we were to meet the canoe and rest for the night. There was a fine large raupo building at Paetai, which was once a court-house where British law had been administered, but was then deserted. There was also a small native school conducted by a Maori woman; there were about a dozen girls all under ten years of age, all could read Maori perfectly, and knew a little arithmetic and English, though the pronunciation of the latter was eccentric. This school was supported entirely by the
Next morning the canoe set off at a very early hour, and left us to continue our ride along the river bank. We saw another school, this one of boys, kept on the same principle as the other, but the boys showed a decided superiority in point of intelligence. There were at that time many such schools in the Waikato district, all self-supporting or nearly so; the natives allotted a few acres of land, on which the labour of the teacher and scholars sufficed to raise enough grain and potatoes for their food. Beyond the school we had a long ride through water up to the horse's belly, as the river had overflowed its banks for many miles. Just below Taupiri we were hailed by a canoe descending the river, which proved to contain two great Waikato chiefs. Mr. Ashwell went down to the river bank to talk to them, and we all squatted down on a patch of grass, the two great men being both without breeches. They were on their way to inquire about the murder of a Maori which had taken place at Waiuku on the Manukau harbour: they shook hands and smiled most pleasantly, but stated very firmly that if the murderer turned out to be a Pakeha, as was
Our visit to Taupiri was a very short one. We were troubled with rumours of war from the moment we arrived. It was said that the Waikato natives were resolved to declare war against the Europeans, unless the murderer at Waiuku, whom they assumed to be a European, should be given up to them for justice. Mr. Ashwell's house, where I was staying, was situated on the banks of Waikato, about six miles below Ngaruawahia, the Maori capital. A war party came down from the upper country, headed by Tamihana: they halted at Ngaruawahia and induced the Maori king to go with them down the river to inquire into the alleged murder; a chief who came over to see Mr. Ashwell told him that it was now a certainty that a European had committed the murder, and they were determined to have the man surrendered into their hands for trial, that the Governor had called the King's movement child's play, and they were determined to prove that it was earnest. All this was said in the most quiet and deliberate
Next day at the early hour of 6.30 a.m. the war party paid the missionary a morning call. I got out of bed to see them. About two dozen of the leading men, wild-looking and tattooed, were some in the house, and some on the verandah. Tamihana, who never was tattooed, was among them, and was profuse in his professions of friendship. He said Mr. Ashwell's house was sacred under any circumstances, and that no one would dare to meddle with him, or any of his belongings, and he begged that I would go on to visit Matamata. I went down to the river to see the war party, which filled three large canoes. They were on their way to the village of Paetai, about fifteen miles down the river, where a great meeting was to be held. Tamihana declared he was most anxious to keep the peace, but that the greater part of his followers wished to insist on the surrender of the murderer.
After this visit Mr. Ashwell advised me to return to Auckland for the present, and to visit
There was going to be a war dance, which I was most anxious to see, but had to remain by myself, because missionaries on principle do not like to countenance war dances. It was the only real war dance I ever saw. The men wore white feathers on their heads and had a cloth round their loins. This, I was told, was a modern innovation out of regard to Pakeha prejudices. They were all armed with spears and tomahawks, and at first divided themselves into two parties, one reserved for the defence of the place, and the other, representing the attacking party, concealed in the bush. Three big lads, who were the best runners of the defending party, went out first as scouts, and on catching sight of the enemy, threw their spears at them and ran for dear life back to their own body. The attacking party ran after them with great shouts and yells: I was told that in former times, if any of the scouts were caught, they were killed on the spot. The two bands of natives then charged and rushed about, much like an ordinary review. They then began shaking and striking themselves, accompanying the movement with low chanting: this went gradually crescendo until it grew into violent leaps, and the brandishing of their weapons with yells and screams. Every motion was performed in exact unison, and with perfect precision, so that the body became more like a terrible monster than a collection of individual men.
The scene under the bright blue sky, with the distant mountains for a background and the dark yelling savages in the fore, set off with waving feathers and coloured dresses, was most interesting and enchanting. After the dance the warriors sat down, and the speeches began. Maori orators run to and fro while they speak, and gesticulate in the most active manner; they sometimes enliven their discourse with song, and are listened to with attention much greater than that shown to most orators by the House of Commons. Their speeches happily have the merit of being brief and to the point. Even Tamihana succeeded in expressing his sentiments in a five minutes' oration and a short song. After the dance I went to look for Mr. Ashwell, and found him talking to Matutaera, the Maori King. The King was in a dreadful state of indecision, dreading to advance towards Auckland, yet compelled by the feeling of the tribes to do so. Tamihana was the real leader, but even he and the other chiefs had by no means absolute power, and were obliged to yield to the wishes and prejudices of their followers. A letter came to the war party while we were there from Ihaka, the chief of the tribe to whom the murdered man belonged, stating that no person could be proved to have done the deed, and urging the war party to retire, but as Ihaka was known to be in the pay of the Government no attention was paid to what he said.
After leaving Paetai, we had to bivouac in the
We arrived in Auckland about eight o'clock in a violent storm and rain. I went to Bishop Selwyn's house to tell him about the war party, and he set off there and then, at that hour of night, in the middle of the storm, to meet Tamihana's party and endeavour to prevent mischief. The colony had really a much narrower escape than was at the time suspected. There was a certain notorious native at that time in Waikato, who went by the name of Whakapaukai, which may be translated into English as "gorging Jacky"; he and some boon companions separated themselves from the main body, and went off on their own account to pillage and possibly murder the settlers. The
My next visit to Tamihana did not take place until the following year, when a report was circulated that he was thinking of going to Taranaki to intervene in the war, and was collecting a large party at Tamahere on the east bank of the Waikato river for that purpose. I rode up to that place from Mr. Ashwell's station at Taupiri, with Hota, Tamihana's eldest son, as a guide. I found Tamihana and the head men of Ngatihaua sitting in a raupo house; they accommodated me with a seat on a blanket and food, for the tribe was just going to dinner. The fare consisted of baked mutton, potatoes, and an excellent white wheaten bread. The Maories sat in convenient numbers round the dishes, and ate without the formality of plates, circulating the mutton bone as civilized man does the bottle, from which each guest cut off with his own pocket-knife the portion he chose. After dinner Tamihana produced a handsome English Bible containing a great many maps. I underwent a close examination in ancient and modern geography, and history from Nimrod to Garibaldi. The result was satisfactory, and I heard myself called a very learned Pakeha. Soon after there was a great "tangi" for the slain at Taranaki; Tamahere was the village of Wetini, the greatest chief who had up to that time fallen.
I slept at the schoolhouse, about 200 yards from the village. Tamihana came down to talk in the evening; he was very quiet, but resolved about going to Taranaki.
The next day was Sunday; they had service in the morning, and Tamihana preached the sermon. Evening prayers were held in the open air. The proceedings at the latter were almost too much for my gravity; the congregation was squatted down, clothed in blankets and infested with naked babies, which toddled about making a most irreverent row, and as it was getting late, Piripi the deacon kept exhorting his congregation to read the responses faster, and finally closed the service abruptly, intimating they must come earlier another evening. A large meeting of Maories came down to the school to hear a lecture on the Queen and her Ministers and the House of Commons. I told them that the affairs of New Zealand were most carefully considered by these august persons, that the House of Commons, which I praised as much as my conscience would allow, was even then engaged in discussing their grievances, and exhorted them to accept their decision, instead of attempting a hopeless war. Tamihana seemed much struck with the account of the House of Commons, but he had gone too far to turn back. There were runaway sailors and other vagabonds among the Maories, who gave them bad and false advice as to their capacity to carry on a successful struggle with our troops,
A few days later Mr. Ashwell and I went again together to Tamahere, where there had been a large meeting of Maories, and Tamihana had several long interviews with us. His idea was to get Wi Kingi, whose rights in the land at Waitara were the subject of dispute, to write to the Governor, to say they would all agree to abide by the decision of the British House of Commons, and ask to have hostilities stopped meanwhile, and he told me that if England thought that Teira (the seller) was entitled to dispose of Waitara, they would give it up at once. We tried to persuade him that it would be better to go to Auckland than Taranaki on this pacific errand, but he replied that he had promised, so we made him write his intentions in a letter to the Bishop, in order to have as explicit a pledge as possible. He begged me to go on to Matamata, but I promised a visit as soon as he and his people had grown tired of fighting, and would go back there to live in peace; and so we parted. A large number of wounded from Taranaki came in while we were there, and it was wonderful to see how well their wounds had healed without surgical aid. It was a sad thing that so fine a tribe, possessing magnificent land and everything necessary to grow civilized and wealthy, should immolate itself in this ridiculous quarrel about 600 acres of land.
None, even of Tamihana's best friends, were
After Tamihana had returned from his visit to Taranaki, he sent for me to visit him again at Tamahere, and hear his account of what had been done. His tribe was very sore about the war; they had had no occasion to meddle in the matter, and had done so against the express injunctions of their Chief; they now saw they had gained nothing, and lost forty of fifty of their best men. The feeling vented itself in a dislike to all civilization. They had taken their children from the Maori schools, and abandoned the wearing of the civilized man's nether garments. Even Tamihana's wife had taken away their son, Hota, from Mr. Ashwell's
Our meeting took place in the schoolhouse, where, after I had furnished him with a cigar to keep him as mild as possible, he told a long story lasting about a couple of hours. First, he counted on the ends of his fingers the various reasons which led him to Taranaki, and which he had told me at our former meeting. He had never told his followers exactly what he meant to do. He arrived at Waitara on Monday (March 11, 1861), and before entering the Maori camp sent a letter to the General to say he had come to make peace, and asked for a truce on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to give him an opportunity of visiting Wi Kingi and the fighting chiefs; he said he was a man of authority, and his tribe would make good his stipulations. General Pratt, in reply,
On Tuesday morning a white flag was hoisted, according to agreement, on the Maori fence; there was no wind to blow it out, so two volleys were fired by the troops from the sap, before it was seen. Tamihana sent a message to the General, "he could have little authority over his soldiers if they fought after he had agreed to a truce." The General replied he had seen the Maories in the hostile trench. "Oh!" replied Tamihana, "that is their village where the trenches are dug, and now the firing is over, they are gone back there to live."
The whole of Tuesday was occupied in talking over the Waikatos, who when the object of Tamihana's coming was made known, cried and shouted against it. He did not tell me what arguments he used to convert them. His own opinion always was that Maori nationality, to maintain which he made every sacrifice, was not advanced by war with the Pakehas. His policy was passive resistance to our encroachments, the assertion of Maori independence by just and lawful acts, and to let us, if there must be war, be clearly the aggressors. Perhaps it was this view that he urged upon the fighting chiefs. They were more disposed to listen, because they were getting tired of the war. At first it was exciting and pleasant to roam at
The reason of my coming here is to bring you the opinion of the Ministers and of the Maories. I wish, besides, to see Waitara, to visit the fighting chiefs, and you, Te Rangitake (Wi Kingi) in particular, that I may learn the cause of this dispute. If Waikato was the cause, I should know all about it, but my opinion is that you are the cause of the dispute.
The dispute is not mine; Waitara is not mine, it is yours.
The dispute is yours, Waitara is yours.
It is yours.
Look at a man, his head is the
No; you are the head.
You are the head.
Yes. I am the head. Waitara is mine, the dispute is mine. There! I give Waitara to you.
Do you see my hand! (Holding out his hand half closed.) Water will not run out. But now (opening his hand) the water runs out. What sort of a giving Waitara is it? Like the former or the latter?
I give it fairly with an open hand. After this I have no voice in its disposal.
Brother, my opinion agrees with Rangitake's.
Waikato, do you object? Ngatiawa, do you object? Ngatiruanui, do you object?
I have not a word to say against it. You have done all fairly. Rangitake is the head, he has disposed of it.
Waikato, do you object?
repeated Rewi's words.
Then all is over, Waikato! Back to your homes! Ngatiawa, retire to Mataitawa! Ngatiruanui, away to your land! Let the soldiers go back to New Plymouth! Let Waitara be left to the protection of the law.
On Thursday, Tamihana asked for a truce that
Why have you sent for me?
The reason is this: Rangitake and the fighting chiefs have agreed that Waitara shall be given to me; Waikato has agreed to go home; Ngatiawa to retire to Mataitawa, Ngatiruanui to go away to their own land, Waikato is to be left under the protection of the law. Now I want the soldiers to be sent to New Plymouth.
It cannot be, the Governor only has power to do that, but let us go together on the steamer to Auckland.
I will not go. What was the sin of Rauparaha (a New Zealand chief who was captured on board a vessel and imprisoned under Sir George Grey's first Government).
He wanted to join in Rangihaete's war.
What was the sin of Pomare?
He wanted to join in Heke's war.
These sins were mere trifles. I am a very sinful man.
What is your sin?
I have committed two sins: first, I am a King-maker; second, I am the head of this dispute. It is for this reason I am afraid to go on the steamer, lest I should be treated as Rauparaha and Pomare were.
Let us see the Governor.
If you persuade me, I consent. You go by steamer, I will go by land. In three days I will be in Waikato. Let the Governor come and see me at Tuakau.
The Governor will not go there.
If he is afraid let his soldiers come to take care of him, or if he does not like to talk in the open air, let him come to Ngaruawahia—our house is there.
As it was found impossible to persuade Tamihana to adventure himself into our power, it was at last agreed that his proposal should be sent by steamer to the Governor at Auckland, but the General would not consent to a suspension of hostilities until an answer should be received. Tamihana in vain urged the desirability of saving human life; the General replied that it would be waste of time, and firing would recommence the following morning On Friday our white flag had disappeared, but that of the enemy was, by Tamihana's orders, still kept flying. The soldiers entered the sap, and commenced digging; no opposition was offered. They proceeded to fire on the Maori pah, "Now," said Tamihana to the fighting chiefs, "Do what you please;" the white flag was pulled down, and the war flag hoisted. Firing continued during Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Maories say they did not, during those days, lose a man, but on our own side Lieutenant Macnaughton, R.A., was killed and several men wounded. Tamihana took no part
I am come to hear what you have to say. Your proposal is: "Let matters be referred to the House of Commons, if it says we are to sink, let us sink; if it says we are to swim, let us swim."
I have come to Waitara, I have seen Te Rangitake, he has given power into my hands, they have agreed that Waitara shall be left under the protection of the law. I have told Waikato to return to their homes, Ngatiawa to retire to Mataitawa, Ngatiruanui to go to their own land. For this reason I said "Let the soldiers go to New Plymouth." What do you say?
I have no power to order that. It is the Governor who has power to do that.
What have you come here for? I expected you to have power from the Governor. Well, now you are a fool and the Governor too; I have been waiting here in vain and have no answer from either of you. You are fools both. Well then, I am going back to Waikato.
Let Waikato stay, let the soldiers stay until the Governor comes.
I shall not stay, I shall go to-day.
Tamihana told McLean that as the land was disposed of, and left to the protection of the law, his mission was accomplished, but if they wished to pull down the Maori king, they must come to Waikato to do it. He told me he was in favour of any person who had committed murder being tried for murder, but was resolved never to give up the Maori king; he had sent for me to tell me that peace had not been made, lest I should think he had deceived me.
It was late when his account was finished, and I begged to put off a reply until next morning, when he came with some of the chiefs, and we discussed the Maori king question. His position was logically unassailable. He told me that only seven old men out of all Waikato had signed the treaty of Waitangi, which purported to surrender the sovereignty of New Zealand to the Queen of Great Britain, and he named them to me on his fingers; he told me they had been given blankets for signing. Neither he nor his father, Te Waharoa, chiefs of the independent Ngatihaua tribe, had ever signed. I gave them the reasons which made the King movement unwise:—
Tamihana sat wrapped in his blanket, listening to all I said. He answered by assenting to all. He had no wish to separate from the Queen. They wanted to be a distinct, but not a separate, nation. He set up two sticks, "These," he said, "are the Governor and the King." He placed a third stick: "This," he said, "is the one law, that of God and the Queen, which will bind together both races," and he added, drawing a circle round them in the ground with his finger, "Let the Queen be a fence to protect them all." I said we objected to the name "king." He asked, "Why? What was in a name?" And had Shakespeare been translated into Maori he would doubtless have quoted him, as others do, in support of his position. He said they had long desired and would gladly accept English law, but they saw no reason for changing the name.
Tamihana was a pleasant man to argue with: he heard patiently all you had to say, took the greatest pains to find out exactly what you meant, and replied calmly, and always to the point. I have met many statesmen in the course of my long life, but none superior in intellect and character to this Maori chief, whom most people would look upon as a savage.
Tamihana's intervention at Waitara did not, it is true, make peace, but it produced a cessation of hostilities which lasted for more than two years. During this interval two Governors, Sir Thomas Gore-Browne and Sir George Grey, three successive Ministries of the New Zealand assembly, Englishmen like Bishop Selwyn and Sir William Martin, and many Maori chiefs, amongst whom Tamihana was the most powerful, all laboured to establish peace between the two races; but laboured alas! in vain. It was during this critical period that I became an official of the British Government, whether of the Imperial or Colonial Government was never exactly settled, and was employed in attempting to carry out their schemes for restoring confidence and peace. I had hitherto been known in Waikato as an independent Pakeha, and a friend of Mr. Ashwell, the missionary; but I was now to become a permanent resident in the district as an officer of Government.
All our labours resulted finally in disastrous failure. The one point to which all the Waikato natives, including Tamihana himself, firmly adhered, was the recognition of the Maori king and Maori nationality, and these we uniformly and firmly refused to recognize. The war of races which desolated New Zealand for many years, and cost
Tamihana had returned from Waitara mortified and disappointed. He had gone down with the most friendly intentions, ambitious to appear in the character of a peace-maker. His intervention had been met in no friendly spirit; he had been accused unjustly of promoting war and rebellion; he had been forced into the position of a belligerent, though he had never fired a shot; and he came back under the threat of war, if he would not abandon the Maori king. The Waikatos followed him sulkily. Rewi stayed behind to hatch mischief if he could, and succeeded at last in carrying off Wi Kingi, who might, he feared, if left by himself, patch up a peace with the Governor, into a sort of honourable captivity at Kihikihi. At Mokau, the Waikatos had broken out into open complaint and had bitterly upbraided Tamihana with ill-timed and useless interference in the war. He had contrived in some way, however, to satisfy them, and had made a journey
After my visit to Tamihana at Tamahere, I thought it my duty to go straight back to Auckland, to report the interview to Sir Thomas Gore-Browne, the Governor. On Sunday morning we passed through Paetai on the Waikato river. There was a congregation of seventy persons, two schools, one of boys and one of girls, beautifully clean and tidy, and they sang and chanted at the Church service extremely well. After the service I rode with a Maori down the river, intending to cross to Kohekohe, but we could find no canoe to ferry us across the river. We therefore went to a village further down on the west bank, where a storm of wind and rain kept us prisoners all night. We could not find a house which had any wall to it, but the Maori built up a temporary wall on the windward side. We sat round a fire in the middle, and the whole company doffed their trousers, wrapping themselves in blankets, and there we all sat, each man with his breeches hung above his head, like a company of knights with their shields hung above them. Next day I rode about forty-seven miles into Auckland; it kept raining horizontally and with great violence, so
Next morning I went to the Governor and gave him a full account of all that I had heard and said; he was very much obliged to me, as the Government had heard nothing of, or from, Tamihana since he left Taranaki. He confirmed what had been told me, that Tamihana's terms had never been accepted, and that peace had not been made. He seemed most sincerely and painfully anxious to avert the war of races which then appeared so imminent. He sent for Mr. Whittaker, the Attorney-General, and begged me to repeat before him the story I had told, and asked me to reduce it to writing, to be sent home to the Colonial Office; I believe much of it appeared in some long-forgotten Colonial Blue Book. Piripi, the teacher in the Maori school at Tamahere, a cousin of Tamihana, followed me a few days after to Auckland and told me that Tamihana had left Tamahere, and had gone far up the country to avoid the emissaries of the Government. A clerk from the Native Office was sent up with a letter, but did not see Tamihana, as he was stopped by the natives, and could get nothing to eat for a couple of days but a few potatoes, and finally had to return to Auckland without an interview or even a reply to the letter of the Government. Tamihana afterwards wrote to say he was unaware of this treatment, and much regretted it should have occurred. Tamate
All the troops were brought up from Taranaki with the exception of a single regiment, which remained in occupation of Waitara, while the Maories kept armed possession of a piece of undisputed crown land at Tataraimaka, some few miles from New Plymouth, which they had occupied during the war. They declared that they held it as a hostage for Waitara.
The Governor, meanwhile, drew up a formal ultimatum to the Waikatos, which was brought by an obscure native into the district and there distributed. It is difficult to exaggerate the effect of this proclamation on the minds of the natives, and its influence on subsequent events. This must not be estimated by the effect that a similar document would have on ourselves. Maories could at that time read, but were furnished with very little literature but the Bible and a few lesson books. This fresh and exciting paper, widely distributed, and carefully read at their evening meetings, where every paragraph was discussed, had an independent value as a
The document then went on to explain what sovereignty implied:—
On the other hand, the Queen had, by the Treaty of Waitangi, secured to them their lands. "By that treaty," are the words of the declaration, "the Queen's name has become a protecting shade for the Maories' lands, and will remain such, so long as the Maories yield allegiance to Her Majesty, and live under her sovereignty; but no longer. Whenever the Maories forfeit this protection, by setting aside the authority of the Queen and the law, the land will remain their own so long only as they are strong enough to keep it; might, and not right, will become their sole title to possession."
Lastly, the Governor, after promising to establish
It is impossible to exaggerate the effect which the statements printed in italics, coming from the Queen's officer, at so solemn a time and in so solemn a manner, had upon the minds of the natives.
Hitherto they had cherished a hope that the Queen would sanction their native sovereign, and be his protector. "How do we know," asked Tamihana, at a public meeting, "that the Governor disapproves of our work? He never said so." Now, for the first time, they learnt that, unless they gave up their king, the Governor had no option, but was commanded by the Queen to make war on them. A question was put in the New Zealand Parliament on what authority the statement had been made. The parallel columns which follow give the words of the despatch sent out by the Secretary of State, and of the declaration which the Government of the colony founded thereon:—
The natives had the option given to them of submitting to the Queen's sovereignty, or fighting for the possession of their lands. They knew well enough the former meant submission to be governed by the colonists: but their proud spirits could as little endure the rule of foreigners as our own, especially when threatened with what they thought unjust spoliation if they refused. Is it strange that high-spirited men, like Wiremu Tamihana, chose to be free, even at the risk of having to fight for their liberty? The first copy of the Governor's declaration reached Tamihana at Te Rapa, and was read aloud by him to Rewi, Epiha, Wi Kingi and other chiefs, who were on their way to a great meeting to be held at Ngaruawahia. His audience expressed no opinion further than a want of confidence in any document proceeding from the Government. Maories from all parts of Waikato and the neighbourhood began to gather at Ngaruawahia on Monday, June 3, but it was not until Thursday that any question of real importance was discussed. On
The first question was disposed of almost entirely by Tamihana himself, who commenced by denying that the flag had ever been intended to do away with the supremacy of the Queen as the protector of their rights and privileges. It was the badge of an agreement, made among themselves, to part with no land, and to hold meetings, which should take cognisance of and suppress evil among themselves. He detailed the good that he considered had resulted from this combination: disputes about boundaries, existing at its commencement had been set at rest; other disputes of the same kind that had since arisen had been quietly arranged; drunkenness, adultery, etc., had been suppressed, and they were now working to put down other evils also, that were still existing. He denied that the flag had ever been the cause of the Waikatos going to Taranaki, but maintained that blood relationship would have driven them, had there been no flag. He particularized the
The meeting then proceeded to discuss the second point. The argument used was, that the Queen's troops had commenced the war, had attacked and destroyed Wiremu Kingi's pah, with all that was in it, had appropriated the horses and cattle, and burnt and destroyed their property; it was therefore unfair to demand restitution and compensation from them, while the Governor did not say a word about compensating Kingi. On the third head, it was resolved that the survey of any of the lands of Wi Kingi and his tribe, or the movement of troops to Mangatawhiri or to any point which would clearly threaten a hostile movement against them would be, as they expressed it, "a call to them to awake out of sleep."
The result of the Ngaruawahia meeting was a long letter written by Tamihana to the Governor. He first addressed himself to the question of the
"I will now commence upon another subject. At the beginning of this war at Taranaki I
After observing that no investigation into the rights of Wi Kingi and Te Teira had been made, he went on:—
"Do you consider that this was a just war? Is it good in your opinion to give vent quickly to anger? Yes! but in my opinion, to make haste to be angry is wrong. Friends, wherein is our Governor right whom you believe in? Te Rangitake, who quietly reflected, is blamed by you, and the Governor, who hasted to anger, is supported and praised by you, hence my thoughts are perplexed in my heart, for hasty wrath has been condemned by James, who has said 'Be slow to wrath, swift to hear.' As it is, the precept in Proverbs xvi. 32 has not been carried out. Friends, it is for me, for me who am a child, to get angry hastily."
He then explained the grounds which had led Waikato to take part in the Taranaki war. He enumerated four: (1) That it was Potatau who fetched Wi Kingi back from Kapiti to Waitara. (2) That some of the Ngatiawa were blood relatives of Waikato. (3) They were fetched. They were written for by Kingi and Hapurona. (4) Potatau's words that land-selling should be stopped.
"These were the grounds of Waikato's interference. If the Governor had considered carefully, Waikato would also have considered carefully; but the Governor was headstrong, and that was why the Waikatos went to help Wi Kingi. For Wi Kingi was a man who had not been tried, so that his fault might be seen to justify the infliction of severe punishment. You mock us when you say that this island is one, and the men in it one For I look at the Pakehas who madly rushed to fight with Wi Kingi. About the murders my opinion is decided, that they were not murders. Look, it was murder when Ihaia killed Te Whaitere (Katatore). He caused him to drink spirits, that his senses might leave him. He was waylaid and killed by Ihaia. That was a foul murder. You looked on, and made friends with Ihaia. That which we regard as a murder you have made naught of, and these which are not murders, are called so. This, I think, is wrong, for the Governor did not say to Wi Kingi, and the Ngatiruanui, 'O friends, do not kill the unarmed.' Nor did he direct that the settlers living in the town should be removed to Auckland, when there was no fighting, and there stay. He knew he had determined to make war at Taranaki, and therefore he should have told his unarmed people to remove out of the way. With regard to the plunder, which you say is to be restored, listen to my opinion about that. The Governor was the cause of that. War was made on Wi Kingi, and
This letter was received as calm defiance. "All doubt," said the Governor, "is now at an end, and it is evident that if the Maories will not submit this part of the colony must be abandoned by all who will not yield obedience to Maori law, of which the aptest symbol is a tomahawk." Both sides began to prepare for war. Tamihana visited the tribes from Tauranga to the East Cape, to ascertain what support in men and ammunition he could count on. The Governor did not suspend negotiations, but it was known that unless the Maories submitted within a definite time, Waikato would be invaded. The Rev. J. Wilson was sent up to Peria, to try to persuade Tamihana to have a personal interview with the Governor. To this he at last consented, but only, he said, in order that when the time came for their being enemies, the Governor might have heard his reasons. "My words," he said, "cannot go back. All I have to say is that my words at the commencement will be adhered to. What I have to say in your presence
Before the arrival of Sir George Grey, the New Zealand Ministry, which had been actively supporting the war policy into which Governor Browne was reluctantly drifting, was turned out of office, and a peace Ministry under Mr. Fox—afterwards Sir William Fox—was formed. Communications had passed between the Governor and Tamihana, of a milder and more pacific character, and a general feeling had arisen in the colony as to the expediency of making some effort to settle pacifically the quarrel between Europeans and Maories without further fighting. It was settled between the Governor and the New Zealand Ministry that I was to be sent on a mission into the Waikato district, ostensibly to inspect and report upon all the schools supported by the missionary societies, and the natives, and at the same time to keep my ears open, and learn all I could as to the state of things in general, and the sentiments at present prevailing among Waikato chiefs as to peace or war. My departure was delayed until the arrival of Sir George Grey, who, after reading all papers about Tamihana, pronounced him likely to turn out "a troublesome fellow." It was said that Tamihana had had a new-born son christened "Newcastle," as a mark of esteem of that nobleman's conduct in recalling Governor Browne.
I went up the river in the company of Mr. Burrows, the secretary of the Church Missionary Society, who was on his way to Tauranga, and we took Tamati Ngapora with us, who was commissioned to induce the Waikato chiefs to go to Auckland to see Sir George Grey, although they had already declared that they would not have anything to do with the new Governor, until he recognized the Maori king. We visited that potentate, as we passed Ngaruawahia; he complained of being very much out of sorts, and his son, a nice little boy at Mr. Ashwell's school, was suffering from swollen feet. This had made the little prince cross and refractory; he had refused to wash until his nurses applied to Mr. Ashwell, one day when he was there to hold a service, to compel him. The Maori queen had been having her lips tattooed, for which offence she was fined £ 10, and the man who performed the operation £ 5. The little boy, grown into a man, is now the principal chief of the Maories whom I visited at Waahi in December last year: he is still popularly spoken of as the "Maori King." The title which caused a war in 1863 gives no offence to the most rigid Imperialist now.
From the Waikato plain we went over the ranges to Matamata for the first time to see Tamihana's schools, to which I had been so often and so long ago invited. It was a very rough road over wooded hills with no end of rivers and streams to cross. The village was beautifully situated on the edge
During the same journey I paid, one Sunday, my first visit to Kihikihi, the headquarters of the war party, and there I met for the first time with Rewi, whom I described in a letter written at the time as "a sharp lawyer-like Ngatimaniapoto," and Wi Kingi "a pleasant looking, white-headed old man, of genial and affable manners." There were plenty of soldiers' caps, rifles, and other spoils from Taranaki in the village, and a lot of young men, who wore a kind of uniform and were drilled as a bodyguard for Wi Kingi. We all squatted down on the ground after the Church service was over, and had a little talk about Sir George Grey. Wi Kingi said that his Maori children were too poorly to go and see him, and that he would have to come and see them. They said that Governor Browne was an eagle that came swooping down upon them from the clear sky, while Governor Grey was a rat that burrowed underground out of sight, and would come up in their midst when and where they least expected. It appeared evident from the conversation that Sir George Grey's personal influence among the Maories had been much over-rated; those present did not seem to have the least bit of regard for him, and several remarked that he had fought John Heke and Rangihaete, when he was Governor before, and was very likely to fight again.
They did not appear in the least afraid of the troops, and thought themselves quite safe so long as there was no road to Waikato whereby cannon, of which they seemed to be greatly afraid, could be brought into the field.
I returned down the Waipa, but as I expected saw nothing of Tamihana, though at each village I heard of his having been there. I stopped for the night at Kopua, the mission station of the Rev. A. Reid. He had a very good Wesleyan school, one of the best I had seen in Waikato. There were excellent buildings, all constructed by the parents, with glazed windows and good doors, and all the food was found by the parents—flour, meat, and milk in abundance.
Sir George Grey after his arrival was not long in coming to the same conclusion as Rewi at Kihi-kihi, that an invasion of Waikato was impossible until a good metalled road had been made through the Hunua forest ranges, which divided the settled districts round Auckland from the river. While this was being done it was necessary to occupy the attention of the Waikatos and the Maories generally by a real or sham effort to introduce laws and civilization among them: but from the first such men as Tamihana and Rewi were never for one moment deceived, and as soon as they heard that troops were employed in making the road through the ranges to the Waikato river they never doubted that Sir George Grey ultimately intended war. Tamihana wrote to Sir George Grey, in reply to the
Tamati Ngapora at last succeeded in persuading some old Waikato chiefs, of no great importance, to go back with him to Auckland and see Sir George Grey. They, however, declared their resolution to stick to their King and flag as unabated, and the Governor could do nothing but express his general disapproval. The victory of Tamihana and the Waikatos seemed complete. They had been threatened with war if they did not give up the king and flag, they had refused point blank, and the Governor was not prepared to carry out the threat.
Leaving affairs in Waikato in this unsettled condition, Sir George Grey turned his attention to the invention of a plan for the future administration
In the early days, however, Sir George Grey and Mr. Fox soon came to an agreement as to the plan of government that was to be introduced into native territory. The Maori country was to be Pelorus, commanded by Captain Beauchamp-Seymour. Mr. Fox as Prime Minister accompanied them and took me with him as his secretary.
Four large meetings were held at Korerareka, Kiri-kiri, Waimate, and Hokianga. The proceedings at each presented a monotonous similarity: there was first a great consumption of pork, eels, kumaras, and potatoes, followed by speeches and songs from the chiefs; and then the Governor, through an interpreter, gave an account of the new method of government he wished to introduce, after which there was discussion, which developed into conversation and the meeting came to an end, as Maori meetings usually do, without any definite resolution being passed. At Waimate the proceedings were enlivened by a crazy old chief, who ran up and down with a kauri-gum spear in his
The ride across the forests to Hokianga was a novel experience. The party was accompanied by a crowd of Maories on horseback, galloping about and kicking up clouds of dust or showers of mud according to the state of the changeable weather. From the top of a hill on the road I beheld the greatest stretch of forest I ever saw. In the plain below to right and left as far as the eye could reach, the trees extended and ascended to the top of the range of mountains opposite which bounded the horizon. The Hokianga river forms a large and beautiful tidal sound, like a Scotch loch, which penetrated the forest. We came down to one of the tributary creeks, and were taken to the house of a settler named Webster, where we remained weather-bound for three or four days by torrents of rain. At last we got down the river to a place where one or two thousand natives were collected. There was a sham war-dance, not like the real one I had seen before at Paetai, and a feast—baskets of kumaras and potatoes piled up in a long row, with quarters of oxen on the
Soon after the party from the Bay of Islands got back to Auckland an opportunity occurred of sending an emissary of Government in an official capacity into the Waikato, which Sir George Grey promptly seized upon. Tamihana had written to complain of the traffic in spirits carried on by European traders in the Thames valley, in violation of the laws of both the Queen of England and the Maori king. He wrote that the Ngatihaua had a vessel on board which it was decided by the Runanga of the tribe that no spirits should be carried. A Frenchman named Louis had seen her in Auckland, put three kegs of spirits on board and arrived with them in the Thames. On hearing of this the Maori Runanga had taken away the kegs and given them into the charge of the owners of the vessel, in whose hands they were still lying untouched. He asked whether they were right in what they had done and invited the Government to assist him in carrying out the law and saving his people from the demoralization of drunkenness.
I was sent off immediately to Matamata to tell him that the Ngatihaua owners of the ship had no legal right to seize and detain private property; that if an action were brought against them in the British courts they would be condemned to pay damages, which might be exacted if their ship continued to trade with Auckland; but that the Government sympathized with his purpose to keep spirits out of his country and would do everything to help him to carry it out in a lawful way. The Government had accordingly sent me up with a commission as a magistrate, which would authorize me to deal with the owners of the spirits and with any Pakeha who repeated the offence. The instructions of the Government were to use this opportunity of impressing upon Tamihana the advantage of having an authority in the district that could deal with Pakehas as well as Maories, and I was empowered to offer commissions as magistrates to him and the Waikato chiefs and to promise that their Runangas should be legalized and the by-laws passed by them made valid. As soon as I had told my errand, Tamihana replied at once that long ago he had earnestly besought help from the Government, and had besought in vain, and that he had therefore tried to set up a government of his own. "If," he said, "a weka once escapes from the snare you never catch that same bird again."
I had to wait at Matamata for three or four days while Tamihana ruminated on the Governor's
At last he made up his mind to ride over with us to Waikato and lay the proposal of the Governor before the Runangas. "You know," he said to me, "in the multitude of counsellors there is safety," adding sotto voce, "perhaps for the counsellors." He borrowed one of my shirts, for which he was most anxious to pay me, having no clothes but a pair of corduroys and a very ragged flannel shirt which long abstinence from washing had reduced to dingy earth colour. He turned out for the expedition mounted on a capital little horse, wearing a belt and a long pistol, but no hat, and galloped furiously over the
At Arikirua suspicions were expressed by the Ngatihaua that Sir George Grey's proposals were a trick to get them to do away with their King. Te Oriori said that the way to catch owls was for one man to shake something before the bird to attract its attention while a confederate slipped a noose over its head from behind. I was sent to dazzle them with laws and institutions and the Governor was watching his chance of entangling
At Ngaruawahia a law had been recently passed forbidding Pakehas to enter the town unless by special permission. Ignorant of this innovation, I arrived there next day and sat down to talk to a Ngatihaua chief till Tamihana should make his appearance. Two of the King's policemen, zealous for the new law, came to turn me away, and a whispered controversy between them and my Ngatihaua friend ensued, they urging him, and he refusing, to order me away. Not knowing what they were whispering about, I went down to the riverside and got into a small canoe, meaning to lean over and drink. The canoe being light, capsized and soused me in the Waikato. This decided the dispute on the bank above. Even the King's policemen would not send a half-drowned man away till his clothes were dried and some food had been cooked; before this was done Tamihana arrived at full gallop, having just heard of the new law, and fearing that I should be sent away. Sir George always affected to believe that I fell in on purpose.
The new proposals were discussed by the Runanga of Ngaruawahia in the most able and temperate manner. There was little said about the salaries, but much about the way in which the new institutions would work and the security the Maories would have for their liberty and independence. They all said that if some plan of the
During the meeting at Ngaruawahia, all the chiefs pressed so hard for an effective spirit law and complained so bitterly of the neglect of the British Government that I sat up and pledged the Governor to enact one forthwith, and begged them to judge of the sincerity and earnestness of the Governor by the rapidity with which it should be done. Looking back on this promise with the experience of a long official life, it seems to me to have been criminally rash, but I knew nothing of the inside of a Government office and its capacity for procrastination in those days. On this occasion, however, fortune favoured the bold. I rode straight down the river bank and caught Sir George Grey on his way to Archdeacon Maunsell's Mission Station at Kohanga, whence he was to proceed to the Taupari meeting. He at once consented to the requisite order in council being
During my absence in Auckland, the meeting of Sir George Grey with the Waikato chiefs at Taupari took place. Taupari was a Maori village near the Waikato Heads, where the Waikato river discharges itself into the ocean, and must not be confounded with Taupiri, Mr. Ashwell's station far up the river. To this conference all Waikato was looking with interest and concern; they thought that the question of peace or war would practically be decided. None of the leading chiefs from Upper Waikato were present, but they sent two men, Tipene and Herewini to represent them: they were selected not for their own rank and importance, but for their talents in oratory, which were very highly rated by their countrymen. The proceedings began by the public bestowal on Waata Kukutai and his tribe of the new gifts of Government. He was installed as head magistrate of the "Taupari Hundred," with a salary of £ 50 per annum, and the new institutions were fully explained to him and his people and to all others who wished to be loyal and receive salaries. On that same day the
On the second day Sir George made a long speech to the Waikatos: he began by an assurance of his impartiality between Pakeha and Maori, and of his sense of responsibility to the Judgment Seat at which he would have to stand, and said, "The people of Waikato may therefore rest assured, and I give them my word, that I shall never attack them first, and that they may rest in peace and quietness." On the points of difference between the two races he demanded first that the property stolen from the Europeans (at Taranaki) should be given up. "Whenever a man is caught with any of the stolen property,
In the second place, he urged the making of roads throughout the country and the protection of those who used them. "You must not think I shall let travellers, either Europeans or Maories, be stopped and plundered. I shall not make war upon the tribe; but if ever I catch the individual he shall be punished."
"Now," he went on, "the third thing—the King—I will talk about. You heard Waata Kukutai say I assented to the King and the flag. I must explain what I mean. If a tribe, or two or three or more, call their chief a king and stick up a flag, I think it nonsense, and don't mind it. I think it a foolish thing to do, and that it may lead to bad consequences, but I shall not quarrel with them until the bad consequences come."
After explaining the land purchase policy which he intended to pursue, and the new institutions he desired to establish throughout the country, he concluded, "Now dare you say I have not come here to conquer and kill you; I have come to conquer and kill you too—with good. Now I have done, and if any of you want to ask questions about what I have said, I am here to answer."
After others had spoken Tipene rose and said:—
"What I shall speak about is, the King, the flag and the plunder. You formerly were Governor of this island; and as for us, we were with you.
After your departure, we considered that we should raise up a King for ourselves, to stop blood-shedding and repress the evils of the land, and put an end to wars. Men were selling land throughout the island. We thought New Zealand would be gone. We saw the land which had gone covered with cattle, horses and sheep, and men employed fencing against cattle. We then said let the land be withheld. We began it, and others joined. We saw brother quarrelling with brother; so one man was appointed to suppress fighting and stop the blood.
"Land was bought at Taranaki; we heard it was bought improperly, and presently disturbance arose about it. We had not heard that the Pakeha was fighting at Taranaki until the soldiers had gone on board the ships, then we heard. Now this offence was from the Pakeha; hence we said, we are strangers to one another. We are divided; you on one side, we on the other."
If any tribe refuse to have your King, will you attack them?
I have not yet heard of any tribe within this island that has refused.
Until you give me a fair answer to that question I shall think you refuse my words of peace.
This is my reply. I do not know that any are outside. Let me hear it, and then, indeed, I shall say—we are a divided people. But we will not attack them.
If any tribe sells land to us, will you attack it?
We shall not consent. We and our land are with the King. We shall therefore withhold it.
If the man wishing to sell his land has not pledged it to the King, will you attack him?
No, he would be a stranger to us.
But if he had, and afterwards altered his mind?
The land will be withheld, because he will have been imposing on us.
What, by force?
No. We shall not strike; but if he sees us withholding it, and attacks us, then we shall strike. He will not be allowed to sell his land, but we shall not assail and kill him; we shall not do as you Pakehas do.
How about the stolen property, the cattle and horses?
My name for that is "spoils lawfully taken in war."
How about the land of the Europeans, on which the Maories have gone?
Is there no Maori land at Waitara in possession of the Pakeha?
What land do you mean? Do you mean the block that was fought about?
I ask you is there no Maori land at Waitara in possession of the Pakeha?
What land do you mean?
Waitara.
If you mean the disputed land, an investigation will take place.
That is well; let also the other land, Tataraimaka, be investigated.
We can have no dispute about Tataraimaka. That is ours.
Let the man who takes it be tried; that is a good plan for lands which are disputed. Let a trial take place.
The Ngatiruanui are in quite a different position to others; they killed women and children, burnt houses, and plundered. I have not inquired into the matter; but if I were a friend, as you are, going to speak to the Ngatiruanui, I should advise them to give up what they have got, and a piece of land as compensation. Even in distant parts of the world I heard of the conduct of the Ngatiruanuis, and felt ashamed at such things being done by Maories.
Tipene then laid his carved spear at the Governor's feet, and said: "Look here: You say there is no cause. Will the vibration (striking the head of his spear) stop at the tongue in the head of my spear? I thought your words of peace were to reach the other end." He meant that the Ngatiruanui had been their allies in war and ought to have the same terms of peace.
The Governor said he did not wish to pursue the subject further at that time.
Very well. Are your questions ended?
Yes.
Then I will ask a question. Are you opposed to my King?
I do not care about him; but I think it is a thing that will lead to trouble. It will be stopped by such means as I have adopted, and will die out.
If the King is brought to nought by your plans, well and good. You say, "What is the King to you?" We say, "It is a thing of importance to us." And the reason why we say so is this, that we have seen the good of it. The quarrels of the Maories amongst themselves have, for the last two years, diminished; and now, by means of it, many evils that have arisen have been put down without war. And therefore I say, the King is an important thing to us. Now I ask you, Are you altogether opposed to my King? If you consent to my question, we shall then work quietly; for we are not the chief cause of the King, whereas you have the final decision about your own system. So I ask you, Are you altogether opposed to my King, that you may say whether you are so or not.
If you ask me, as a friend I tell you I think it is a very bad thing.
It has not arisen from us, but from the whole island. My question still remains unanswered. I ask in order that the word of
I think each chief should come under the Governor; then they could all work with me.
We are not going to pluck out the various tribes that adhere to us. If a man comes to join us, we shall not tell him to stop away. Letters have come to us, and money has been subscribed, from every place in the island (naming the various places, and the sums of money that had come from each). At the present time, while both races are at peace, perhaps we shall be divided, or perhaps we shall be united. Proceed cautiously in working out your plans. The only thing that remains dark is the King. Your own plan is to unite us all.
The Waikatos had expected to get a distinct pledge from Sir George Grey, in answer to the question which Tipene had been sent down to put. It was not possible, however, to elicit from him such a plain declaration of his intentions with regard to the King as they desired. The language he had used convinced them that he was at heart opposed to the King, but they remained in perplexity as to whether he would or would not use that large army which he had at his disposal, and which he told them he could increase indefinitely, to put down the obnoxious King by force.
Sir George Grey's next act, however, which
Sir George Grey now determined to employ the British troops, who, since the close of the fighting at Taranaki had been living in idleness in cantonments round Auckland (to the great profit of the enterprising citizens), in cutting and metalling a good military road through the Hunua forest. No persons were more keenly
At the close of the Taupari meeting Sir George Grey returned to Auckland, and Mr. Fox, the Prime Minister, set off on a journey into Upper Waikato, to meet the chiefs face to face, and attempt to come to terms with them. He took me with him, and we rode about the country together. He wished in the first instance to see Tamihana, to arrange a tribunal for investigating the hundred and odd claims on the land at Waitara which had been ignored by Governor Browne's advisers; but that chief had betaken himself to Hauraki, at the mouth of the Thames, to settle a land dispute and keep Christmas there, and special messengers sent after him found only Victoria, his wife, at Matamata, who did not know when to expect him back. Tamihana and others had been assembled at Ngaruawahia to hear the result of the Taupari meeting. But as soon as the news of the projected military road reached them, they all regarded it as conclusive. Such a road, they said, could be only intended to bring great guns to the Waikato river. It was quite plain that the Governor was going to fight, after all. So they all dispersed and went their way. We spent Christmas at Mr. Ashwell's mission station at Taupiri, with many other Pakehas who were travelling in the district, women as
Just after Christmas the news came to Taupiri that Matutaera, the Maori king, with most of the chief men of Waikato, was keeping Christmas with Rewi at Hangatiki, a stronghold of Ngatimaniapoto, on the Upper Waipa, and Mr. Fox, without waiting for an invitation, took me with him and set off to join the festive party. The road was awful. At one place there was a ford across the Waipa along a ledge of slippery rocks just above a waterfall; the ford was interrupted by holes and pits into which a horse sank up to the shoulder, and at the far side was a projecting rock which squeezed the traveller to within two feet of the fall; it was a good case for one of Sir George Grey's bridges. At last Hangatiki, a most
It was Saturday when Mr. Fox arrived, and Rewi appointed Monday for a public conference. Our house was close to the "guard-room," and the evolutions of the royal army were a source of never-failing amusement. It was always "kicking up a row," and drilling from morning till night. The "general" was a smart young Maori, who had been carried to Europe by Dr. Hochstetter and had visited Vienna. He was very communicative, and seemed rather ashamed of being caught at such employment, which was, he said, only just for a short time; he spoke a little English, German, Italian, and French. The drill was all carried on in English, and they had even imitated the stiff regulation stock, usual in those days, which must have been purgatory to lads accustomed to the freedom of a blanket costume.
On Sunday the army was marched to Church; the general carried their prayer books in a bag, and served them out when they had taken their places; towards the end of the sermon he caught two talking and laughing and walked down the
On the Monday there was a great talk in the runanga house, Tamihana and the Ngatihaua were conspicuous by their absence, but Rewi with his protegé Wi Kingi, Reihana (then a young chief), who afterwards became famous as Wahanui, and most of the principal Ngatimaniapoto chiefs were there. The King, as usual, did not appear. It was the worst set of men in New Zealand to whom terms of peace could be offered. Mr. Fox, through an interpreter, gave an account of the new institutions and the plan proposed for the adjudication of the Waitara dispute. Rewi and the leading chiefs sat mute, but put up a henchman of Rewi's—a common man named Aporo—to reply. He was the man afterwards employed by Rewi to lead the war party which attacked Te Awamutu and carried off the printing press just before the outbreak of war. Aporo fenced about in the most ingenious manner in speeches and questions, without giving any pledge on any subject. He asked whether Mr. Fox did not think Governor Browne in the wrong, and Wi Kingi in the right, in the Waitara dispute. "Why," said Mr. Fox aside in English, "that's
Mr. Fox went on to the mission station at Te Awamutu, and thence paid a visit to the Ngatimaniapoto headquarters at Kihikihi. Great festivities were going on there. Te Heu Heu, the great Taupo chief, and his tribe were paying a ceremonial visit to the Maori King. The first person I met was my friend the general, who gave me a military salute. Matutaera and his suite were just leaving, as a deputation had arrived
My residence in Waikato divides itself into two distinct periods; during the former I lived as a magistrate at Te Tomo, a house hired by the Government from one of the settlers at Otawhao; during the latter as Commissioner at the Mission Station of Te Awamutu, in charge of a technical school and hospital that was being formed. Otawhao was the name given to the district in which the missionary station of Te Awamutu was situated. The name was that of an old pah built upon a low hill, the remains of which were then still to be seen. The name of the mission station, Te Awamutu, has now become the name of the district. During the earlier period I was
During the second period I was rather the officer of Sir George Grey than of Mr. Dommet's ministry. My position was that of Commissioner of the Upper Waikato District and during part of the time of the Lower Waikato as well. Te Awamutu, an estate of about 200 acres, with school buildings and a dwelling-house surrendered to the Queen many years before for a mission station, was lent by the Church Missionary Society to Sir George Grey, for the purpose of founding there a technical school and a hospital.
Life at Te Tomo was interesting and pleasant, if it had only been possible to divest oneself of the feeling that no progress was being made in the solution of the native question. The task of removing a family from Auckland to the heart of the King country, now accomplished by railway in a few hours, was then a work of difficulty: there were chairs and tables, pots and pans, to be bought for the house, and stores to last as long as possible in the remote bush. An honest Scotchman with a wife and a little girl of twelve, who had come out in the Red Jacket, agreed to go as servants. A young lady, engaged to be married to a captain in the army, begged to come with us as company for my wife; and Mr. Marsden Clarke, the clerk and interpreter, was to live with us till his own house was ready. Having got our baggage and servants packed off in a sailing cutter to Waiuku on the Manukau, whence they were to ascend the river by canoe, we turned our attention to the removal of my infant son, which proved a very arduous business, occupying a whole week from Monday to Saturday. We were favoured with beautiful weather, or I do not know what would have become of us.
The first day's journey was very easy and pleasant, as we drove along a good road in a dog-cart, and the second in a spring cart through the Hunua forest was not so very bad. The soldiers were getting on well with the road; in some places it was shaky and rough, but the more
Housekeeping at Te Tomo presented some difficulties. The boycott of the magistrate did not extend to depriving him of food. Such an expedient would have been quite repugnant to Maori ideas. In Heke's war, when some Pakeha friend suggested to that chief to cut off the droves of oxen sent to the British camp, he replied with surprise and indignation—"But if the soldiers get no beef, how will they be able to fight?" During the whole of my residence at Otawhao, old Porokoru, who was one of the strongest advocates of my being driven away, sold us fowls at 6d. or 1s. apiece, and live pigs at 1½ d. a lb. Our domain was entered through a gap in
I had frequently to go away from home for two or three days at a time to attend Maori meetings
The "new institutions" which Sir George Grey and the Colonial Ministry sought to establish in Maori districts were never in operation in the Upper Waikato. No salaries of magistrates assessors and policemen were ever accepted there, and they expressed profound contempt for those chiefs such as Waata Kukutai in Lower Waikato who had donned the Government livery and accepted the Government pay.
During the months that I had to pose as a magistrate at Te Tomo, my functions were limited to settling civil disputes among Pakeha settlers more in the guise of an arbitrator than a judge. I used to appoint a place convenient to the parties for a hearing, sit on a rail under the shadow of a tree, and after hearing both parties, give my decision, which was at once complied with, without the formality of judgment and legal process.
But I also exercised, indirectly, a great deal of
It was also part of my official duty to take up the case of Pakehas who had been unfairly treated, whose goods had been seized, whose cattle or sheep had been impounded, or who were threatened with violence. I visited local Runangas and the King's Runanga for this purpose, but nobody seemed able to give redress. Orders were given by all the chiefs that on my visits to native settlements I was to be kindly and hospitably entertained, and these orders were uniformly obeyed. The best house in the village was placed at my disposal, fern was cut for bedding, the best food they had was cooked and laid before me, and no payment whatever was asked for or expected. They would, indeed, have been much offended if it had been offered. If there was a sick man, woman or child in the village, I was called in to prescribe; I hope my prescriptions did no harm. I once went to Kihikihi to complain of some outrage committed by the Ngatimaniapoto on a Pakeha, and had a fierce altercation with Rewi;
During the first period, no very serious attempt was made to drive me from my district by force. An abstract resolution was indeed passed by the Runanga of Ngaruawahia forbidding the establishment of a Queen's magistrate within the dominions of the Maori king; and Patene, a crack-brained Ngatimaniapoto chief, determined to exalt his name by carrying the resolution into practical effect.
No sooner did news reach him that I had actually arrived at Otawhao and was a guest at the mission station, than he set out from his village, at the head of a Maori regiment, the counterpart of that which Mr. Fox encountered at Hangatiki, bent on expelling the intruder. Patene first marched to Rangiaowhia to arrest a malefactor, but as the Rangiaowhia people would not surrender him, they nearly came to blows: the dispute ended by the old men taking the soldiers' guns from them, and turning them out of doors, saying "they would have no riot there." After spending a wet day at Rangiaowhia, Patene marched his forces down to the mission station to expel the magistrate. It was a comical scene.
A large party of Rangiaowhia men went down on horseback, joking and laughing, to see the fun. Everybody in the neighbourhood had received notice of the intended performance, so that a number of Europeans, with several ladies, had assembled; and a tribe of scampish Maori boys had perched themselves on the fences to get a good view. On the arrival of the soldiers, who had been halted out of sight to put on their breeches, everybody first shook hands with everybody else, and then Patene read to the assembled public a declaration of loyalty to the Maori king, which had, he averred, been signed by 2,079 persons. As sunshine in the open road where Patene was standing was found to be too hot, he proposed an adjournment to the shade in the churchyard; so I went and sat down on the church steps, the army was re-formed, reprimanded for allowing the boys to poke fun at it, and manœuvred through a gap in the hedge into the churchyard, and drawn up with fixed bayonets, a couple of yards in front. Patene then came forth and made an oration. He dwelt on the wrong committed by the Governor in sending up a magistrate when they had passed a resolution that none should be allowed. It was no use my saying that I had never yet judged a Maori; he had seen in the papers that the Governor had sent me up to be a magistrate. It might be a piece of Queen's land on which I was living, but he would not let me stay, unless I consented
It turned out that the principal chiefs of Waikato had never authorized this expedition of Patene; they wrote to Rewi, and told him to keep his tribe in better order and stop all future attempts at violence. Patene was very angry when he found his zeal so little appreciated. He said he had been trying to carry out a law universally agreed to, but now his act had been condemned, he should never allow the magistrate to be driven away, and should resist anyone who might try
There were, of course, scattered about the villages of Waikato, plenty of discontented people who had been affronted by leaders of the King party. Now that loyalty had a market value,
Wiremu Te Wheoro, the chief of a small section of Ngatimahuta, the tribe royal, was the only man I ever came across who appeared to have the slightest notion that his loyalty implied any obligation to obey the Queen's laws. He was a very intelligent young man living at Kohekohe,
The monotonous occupation of pretending to be a magistrate, while deprived of all real power and authority, was diversified by a journey to Taupo. Mr. Fox and a companion were travelling through Waikato to the East coast, and I accompanied his party from Otawhao as far as the foot of the lake. It was a wild journey, occupying five days, through remote Maori settlements and primeval forests. The very names of the villages through which we passed are now forgotten. We passed the boundary line where the fern country of the North and the grass country of the South were contending for the mastery. It would have been of fascinating interest to a naturalist; the fern seemed to hold its own on the tops of the
We passed an entire day traversing in Indian file a native forest, catching occasional glimpses of the sky through the overhanging trees and camped at night in an opening, where we made an enormous fire with fallen timber, round which we sat and listened to the cry of the owl which exactly produces the words "more pork!" We were kindly and hospitably welcomed in every Maori village; and our fatigue was comforted with natural warm baths when we reached the place where the Waikato rushes out of the lake of Taupo. My journey round the lake to Mr. Grace's mission station has been related in a former chapter.
It was not long before it became obvious to the meanest understanding that, as a means of reconciliation between the Pakeha Government and the hostile Maories, the "new institutions" had proved a complete failure, at any rate in the Waikato districts. No attempt was ever made, or could be made, to enforce by civil process obedience to law. The central power was divided; the Colonial Ministry and the Governor were often in conflict, and the Maories knew it. No man could serve two masters, and an untutored love of independence prompted the Maories to serve neither. The so-called loyal natives looked on Government rather as a storehouse of good things to be enjoyed, than as a superior power to be obeyed. If they could not get what they wanted out of the local officer, they went to the Colonial Minister; if he was churlish, they appealed to the Governor; and often got in the end what they asked for. No attempt was made to support the authority of the district Commissioners. Correspondence of the most important kind, of which the Commissioner was kept in profound ignorance, was carried on with natives by officials in Auckland. Measures were taken, sometimes by the Governor, sometimes by a Colonial Minister, sometimes by the officials of the native
The result of this was that the loyal natives soon became more disobedient than the disloyal. In May, 1862, Arama Karaka, the chief assessor of the Bay of Islands district, and one of the most loyal Maories in New Zealand, fearing no restraint from his patrons at Auckland, took part in a native war at Whangarei, where he attacked a chief named Tirarau, an old friend and ally of our Government. Ihaka, an assessor living in the Manaku, told everybody in the native office he would obey nobody, and that Sir George Grey was not his master, and shortly after went with a neighbouring assessor named Aihipene to the Waikato and recommended the people to attack and pull down a native police school, which the Government were building at Te Kohekohe. One of Te Wheoro's policemen, on being summoned for adultery, renounced his allegiance, sent his Gazette that he had "resigned his office." Waata Kukutai asked for an advance on his salary to keep himself from going to prison for debt. The district officer was directed to stop the salary until the advance was repaid. The latter having obeyed his orders, Waata was so angry that he wrote an abusive letter to the Government complaining of the underhand fraud committed upon him by the Commissioner, and threatening to resign his office. No notice was taken. Shortly afterwards the Governor raised his salary from £ 50 to £ 150 a year as a reward for his loyalty, and Waata thereupon applied to the Colonial Ministry for a salary for his wife, because the weight of public affairs prevented him growing food for her.
But the Colonial Ministers did not like to have these disagreeable truths obtruded upon them; they seemed determined to listen to no statements of fact, but such as were in their opinion favourable; everything that indicated difficulty or danger was quietly put aside; their chief care was to make it appear that the difficulties had
This report was sent home and printed and still exists in some inaccessible and long-forgotten Blue-book. My recollection of the contents of this document, which I expected at the time would have procured my immediate dismissal from the Colonial service, is but imperfect. I pointed out that the Maories had become purely democratic; the traditional power of the chief derived from heathen superstitions was gone. Men like Tamihana and Rewi had indeed the name of chief, and their abilities gained them respect and influence both in their own tribes and among strangers; but they found it easier to execute the popular will than to guide it. The supreme authority, legislative and judicial resided in the village Runanga. In making laws, the Runangas had no idea of any limit to their province; their regulations extended to the minutest details of private life. They made laws about behaviour on Sunday, laws against falsehood, whether slanderous or not, laws to fix the price of pigs, corn and potatoes, laws to fix the payment for which people should carry the mails. The Runanga would have been a grievous tyranny if it had only possessed power to carry its decrees into execution. But a Runanga generally had no police, so that a Maori, by obeying no laws at all, managed to enjoy a fair amount of personal liberty.
The Runangas also throughout New Zealand exercised judicial authority. As to the mode in which this function was carried out, the following extract from an official Report of Mr. Turton, who succeeded Mr. Fenton as a magistrate in Waikato, made in 1861, will give the reader some idea. I think I quoted it in the official memorandum.
"The Maori Court, or Runanga, was opened. Old Riwai sat as judge. The case, one of Koreroteka (slander) was introduced, and argued by two young men as roias (lawyers), each having received a fee of 10s. The judge was quickly confused by them, and sent to ask me how to proceed. I replied I was there as a spectator only, and wished to see how such cases were conducted. Plaintiff then began on behalf of her daughter, ten years of age, whose gentle birth had been maligned, and in a screaming speech, with abundance of grimaces, demanded damages of £ 50 to be paid down at once. On this loud laughter arose on every side. The child's father came forward to prove how reasonable was the demand; saying that, though the mother was a slave, he was a chief, and a great one too, and that the sum was little enough for having called his daughter a slave. He was supported by uncles and aunts in abundance, who all, doubtless, thought that £ 50 ready cash would be a good thing for the family; so they all stood up and chattered together, making confusion worse
In Waikato there were King's magistrates, just as in other districts there were Queen's magistrates, but neither had any power. Physical force resided in the members of the Runanga, who carried out their decrees, when they were carried out at all, by the strength of their own right arms. Against a Pakeha defendant it was easy enough to put a Runanga in motion. But a native could redress wrongs received from a Pakeha, without troubling the Runanga at all, by helping himself to a horse or cow; and this would be approved and sustained by the Runanga, if they thought the original claim to compensation just.
The laws which guided Runangas were such as approved themselves to the individual conscience of each member. Some quoted the Ten Commandments; some, Maori custom; some, English law; some, especially Tamihana, the Statutes of the Pentateuch. I once heard a trial at Peria, in which it was proved to the Runanga that one Kepa had made a law that nobody should go to his house while he was from home; and "Kepa's law" was accepted throughout the trial as perfectly valid; the only question entertained was whether the defendant knew of it.
The Runangas did not succeed in administering substantial justice. Being a popular and
The anarchy of one tribe differed from that of another. Some administered law with more justice, others, with more vigour. Owing to Tamihana's character and influence, I never heard a complaint of injustice from Pakehas living amongst the Ngatihana. "In the neighbourhood of Maungatautari"
Matutaera Potatau, the Maori king, had very little to do personally with affairs of State. All public business was transacted by the Runanga of Ngaruawahia which was composed of about a dozen members, the elder chiefs of the Ngatimahuta tribe and relatives of old Potatau. But Rewi, Tamihana, or any other great man from the provinces, on a visit to Ngaruawahia would sit with the regular members and join in their deliberations. Common men did not presume to take part in this Runanga. Of the wisdom of this Council I spoke in my Report in the highest terms. In all the discussions of questions I brought before them, they argued with calmness and good temper, keeping steadily to the point at issue and facing all the difficulties. The strongest opposition never provoked any personal rudeness. It would have been impossible to get together a body of Maories with whom the Government could have more advantageously consulted upon the management of the native race. If the King's Council had possessed power equal to their wisdom and moderation, the Maori War would never have taken place. The Runanga of Ngaruawahia often acted as a judicial body; it was the last resort in cases which nobody
They all laughed, wished us good-night, and at that time revealed no more.
The authority of the King's Council was not universally acknowledged. My friend Patene once told me that he had never recognized as members of the Council any others than Rewi, Weteni, and another, and that the men who called themselves the Runanga of Ngaruawahia were a set of impudent usurpers. The King's magistrates appointed in each tribe added no strength to the central authority. Their power, dignity, and emolument all depended on local sources; there was nothing to bind them to the King's, as distinct from the tribal Government; they were nothing but local officers who used the King's name as a badge of opposition to the English Government. Tamihana and several of the members of the King's Runanga wished to vest the whole judicial power in chiefs appointed by, and responsible to, the Maori king; but as he could bestow on them neither power nor salary, the project was impossible.
In those days there were in Waikato and the adjoining districts bodies of youths, drilled, armed, and dressed in uniform in imitation of our troops. Playing at soldiers was for more than a year the absorbing fashion in Waikato. The men who fought at Taranaki introduced the practice on their return, having learnt the English words of command, the bugle calls, and the corresponding manoeuvres by watching our troops. Those who d. a day. These soldiers were not at the command of the King's Runanga; whether they would have obeyed their commanding officer was doubtful, but their commanding officer would certainly not have obeyed the King. On several occasions when the services of the soldiers were requested the chiefs by whom the companies had been raised and equipped refused to let them be employed. When Reihana was asked to send his men to Coromandel to defend the goldfields
The King's power of raising revenue was very small; most of the money came from voluntary contributions. The largest donation I ever heard of was one of £ 300 in sovereigns collected by the Hawke's Bay natives and sent to Waikato just after the Taranaki War. It was said that this sum remained untouched till the invasion of Waikato took place. All money taken at ferries in Waikato was paid over to the King. The charges, which were regulated by tariff, were usually 1s. 6d. for putting a man and horse across the Waikato, and 1s. across the Waipa and smaller rivers. One ferry paid in one year £ 5 to the King. The system was an advantage to travellers whom it saved from extortion. At the small creek Mangatawhiri, where the tariff was made by Queen natives under the sanction of the Governor, the charge was half-a-crown. Most of the local Runangas paid over to the King a share of the fees and fines they exacted. As much as £ 10 at a time would come down from Reihana of Whataroa for the King's treasury. One way of raising money which was proposed was to levy a poll tax of £ 1 on every Pakeha resident in the King's country. The promoters of the scheme wished to impose it on all alike, missionaries, magistrates, and traders, whether on Crown or
For a long time after the establishment of the Maori king, so little personal hostility was felt towards the Queen, that when during the Taranaki war some innovators proposed to change in the Church Service the name of Queen Victoria into King Matutaera, the heretical desire was scouted. "Pretty fellows indeed said the chiefs of Ngaruawahia, "to want to alter the Prayer Book." I once, during the Taranaki War, attended a service at Ngaruawahia, conducted by Mr.
The hostility in Waikato, which was real and acute, was kept up by a feeling of distrust and opposition to the Colonial Government; but it was the existence of the distrust and not its particular manifestation in the establishment of the Maori king that constituted the danger.
In June, 1862, before the Governor and Ministers went down to Wellington to meet the Assembly, I was pressed by the Government to visit Auckland for the purpose of having a personal interview with Sir George Grey. I was at first reluctant to fall in with this proposal, because while they admitted the truth of all that had been said in my official report, they met it only with mild expostulations and persisted in making no change in the method by which Waikato and other native districts were to be administered. I replied, therefore, that I had nothing new to say, and that if the Government disagreed with the opinions that had been forced upon me by what I had seen in Waikato, as to what ought to be done, it would be better for them to accept my resignation at once.
While I was thus awaiting positive instructions, a very comic incident occurred at Kihikihi which illustrated the state of affairs in the district. The Runanga of Kihikihi had stopped the Napier mail, owing to a quarrel with the Rev. J. Morgan, the postmaster, as to the pay to be received for carrying the mailbag through their territory. Ngata, a tall chief with a merry face, who had fought like a lion at Taranaki, and was eager to fight again, undertook to carry out the
The Government having finally decided that I should go into Auckland, I there became the
The Colonial Ministry which had just gone to Wellington were not consulted and knew nothing about these schemes, and Sir George Grey licensed me to spend the money of the colony on these objects without stint, and without limit. Both establishments were to be under my superintendence, and after the school at Te Awamutu had been set going, I was to come down the river, and establish myself at the Queen's redoubt where the military authorities would supply artisans, and everything necessary for the Kohekohe building. I thought the whole affair was like muzzling a mastiff—it was a question whether the creature would or would not fly at you while you were doing the job. Sir George said he did not think the Upper Waikato would interfere, and whenever you felt downhearted in your work a little medicine would always set you right. I never met another man in my life so cool and quiet in conversation and so energetic in action. When the rough plan for the police station at Te Kohekohe was laid before him, he looked the paper over and drawled out in a soft voice, "Yes, I think we'll begin to carry this out to-day," and then he put on his hat, and walked me straight off to General Cameron, to ask him to let the engineer officers so modify
After the new policy for Waikato was settled, I had an awful journey home, the river was sweeping down in a great flood, and all the little tributary creeks had become swollen too. At Taupiri I found my horses had bolted, so I borrowed two of Mr. Ashwell's for myself and the Maori lad who was with me, and then we started off on a bright moonlight night, hoping, late as it was, to get home. Alas! when we reached Mangapiko, not two miles from Otawhao, we found the bridge swept away by the flood, and so swollen was the creek that the cold and lateness of the hour made us afraid to swim, and we had to pass the night in a Maori house instead of a civilized bed. The next week was passed in changing houses with Mr. Morgan, as there was no possibility of doing anything towards establishing a technical school at Te Awamutu until we had full control of the school buildings. It was not pleasant to give up the clean neat little cottage, which we had made so comfortable, and go into a large tumbledown house; nor did Mr. Morgan much like turning out at a week's notice from the place where he had lived for twenty years, but he generously said he would be no obstacle to anything which might be for the good of the natives. Most of the dwelling-house was in so crazy a state that it would have to be pulled down and re-roofed, but the school buildings were fairly sound, and could be adapted
All the girls and little boys were sent away from the Mission School, and only four or five of the biggest boys kept, and it was announced that only big lads would be admitted in future and would be taught trades. The design was at first approved by Tamihana and the peace party, but was opposed by Rewi and the war party; but they all had a suspicion that the operations at Te Awamutu were only a blind to keep them
No attempt was made to prevent the development of the school by any forcible measures, though its danger was soon apparent to most of the Maories; but many of the Runangas in the neighbourhood promptly passed laws forbidding any young man to go to the Awamutu school. I had pointed out the certainty of this being done to Sir George Grey, and expressed my doubts whether good food and neat clothing would tempt young men to disobey. Sir George Grey laughed at me, and said he knew the Maories better than I did, and that the school would rapidly fill. We began at once to give bread or biscuit and tea morning and evening, and pork and potatoes every day for dinner. There was room for twenty lads at once, and twenty more in three or four weeks' time. By the end of the summer our building would provide accommodation for 100, and we should then be in a position to set the Runanga of Kihikihi at defiance. The King sent a message from Rangiaowhia, where he was on a
While we were on these friendly terms, a dinner was given by the chiefs of Rangiaowhia, to commemorate the King's accession, to which all Europeans were invited. At the request of the natives I took the chair and was supported by Te Paea, the King's sister, Wi Karamoa, Taati, and other leading chiefs. The dinner was served in European fashion, and was excellent; roast beef, preserves, tarts, and bottled ale were in the bill of fare, and everybody behaved in the most decorous manner. After dinner, there were races, and other athletic sports. I ran a race with the General of the King's army, and was beaten by a head. A day or two afterwards the whole party returned the visit, and dined at Te Awamutu, and as a pledge of friendship and goodwill they wrote to the Governor inviting him to a meeting in the Waikato district. The news of these festivities, when it reached Auckland, was received with great indignation, and one journal wrote an article saying that if ever a man deserved to be hanged for high treason, Mr. Gorst was that man; but by the same post I received a letter from Sir George Grey expressing his approval of all I had
A discussion at this time arose amongst the King party about religion. A Runanga had sat at Taupo to discuss the relative merits of the Roman Catholic and Protestant faiths. It was argued that the priests of the former religion avowed themselves to be of no country, professed allegiance to the Catholic Church, and not to the Queen, and made no opposition to the Maori nationality and King, whereas the Church of England and the Wesleyans were friends of Governor Grey, staunch in their allegiance to the Queen, and persistent in using a form of prayer for the Queen, even to the length of supplicating that she might vanquish and overcome all her enemies, including, of course, the Maories themselves. The argument was held by the Runanga of Taupo to be convincing. They sent letters to Waikato recommending all persons to change from the Protestant to the Catholic religion. A report was circulated that King Matutaera had become a convert, and a pastoral letter from Bishop Pompallier, the Roman Catholic Primate, to Matutaera, offering to station a priest at Ngaruawahia, was printed and published. The indignation of the Protestant chiefs was aroused. Old Porokoru, alarmed lest he should be converted, clad himself in European garments, put on a tall black hat, and attended church at Te Awamutu for about six consecutive Sundays, where he Hokioi, the King's Gazette, to explain that he had not changed his religion but had merely replied when asked whether he approved of the Roman Catholic faith, "I approve of all religions in the world," which, the paper observed, was the right sort of thing for a sovereign to say, who had subjects of different creeds.
In the meanwhile the establishment at Te Awamutu was being organized with every prospect of success; every applicant for admission was referred to those already in the school, to make full inquiries as to the management and discipline, and told he would be received and treated in the same way upon the one condition of obedience. Every one in the school was clothed, lodged and fed in plain, but wholesome and civilized fashion. Clothes and bedding were regularly inspected and kept scrupulously clean. A schoolmaster was appointed, who taught reading, writing and arithmetic to all, and besides this, each young
Prosperous as the small beginning of the school was, the difficulty of constructing buildings for its development was very great. The Runanga of Kihikihi passed a law forbidding the sale of timber trees for the repair and enlargement of the school, and young men from joining it. The very men who ten years before would have given land, timber, provisions, and even labour to establish a school of the kind, now resisted the buying, felling, sawing and carrying of timber by the strangest stratagems. On one occasion, a man came down to tell me they had established a ring of cultivation round one of the saw pits, which carts were forbidden by a law they had made to cross, and that I should have to wait until the crops were reaped before getting out my sawn timber. I replied "that this was just, but I, on my side, was under the necessity of ploughing up a piece of Queen's land, which led to the only bridge over the Mangahoe creek and planting it with wheat so that they could not cross the river between Kihikihi and Rangiaowhia until the wheat was harvested. The next day my friend returned and said the Runanga proposed to give me a right of way to my sawpits, in exchange for a right of road to the bridge. To this I agreed, and the bargain was faithfully kept. Another chief, a great friend of Rewi's, threatened to break the saws, and when, in spite of the threat, the work still went on,
The sawing of the timber for the police barracks at Te Kohekohe was delayed by a different cause. After setting in motion the technical school at Te Awamutu, I went down the river in Bishop
The New Zealand Assembly at Wellington zealously supported Sir George Grey's policy. They repudiated indeed the bargain which Mr. Fox had made that the colony should undertake the responsibility of governing the Maories, and turned out the Ministry for having made it. Another Ministry, under Mr. Domett, was placed in office upon the distinct understanding that they were in no case to be so rash as to propose any particular policy in native affairs. They were to let Sir George Grey pursue what course he pleased, and were to second him and give effect to his wishes, by making any orders in council, and supplying any funds he required. The New Zealand Assembly desired to make the Governor Dictator. But no
The Assembly voted ample funds for the technical school already commenced at Te Awamutu, and it was further agreed that a native hospital, promised long before, should now be erected on a small plot of Crown land, consisting of about thirty acres, not yet enclosed or cultivated, about three-quarters of a mile from Te Awamutu. This land had been given to the Crown by the Waikatos for the purpose of a hospital many years before. There was to be a house surgeon in constant residence at the hospital, and a superior officer under the title of Medical Commissioner, who was to travel about the whole Waikato district, to heal the sick, send serious cases to the hospital and recommend measures for improving the sanitary condition of the Maories. This latter appointment was offered to the Rev. A. Purchas, at that time the clergyman at Onehunga, who had been a qualified medical practitioner before he was ordained. He spoke the Maori language, and understood the people
At the same time Sir George Grey sanctioned the establishment of a Maori newspaper, to reply to the Hokioi, of which the articles, emanating from the King's Council, were being read all over the island. It was to be published at the Awamutu school and circulated gratis throughout the Waikato; and the art of printing was to be added to the trades taught in the school. The printer was Mr. Von Dadelszen, now the Registrar-General of the colony of New Zealand, who was at that time a boy and had been taught to print at Bishop Selwyn's printing press in Auckland. Patara, a cousin of the King, and at that time one of the most influential chiefs of the Runanga of Ngaruawahia, had recently published an article on the subject of the intended steamer. "Successive Governors," said Te Hokioi, "have declared to us that the Queen, by the treaty of Waitangi promised us the full chiefship of such of our lands, rivers, fisheries, etc., as we might wish to retain. Now Waikato is one of the rivers which we wish to retain under our own chiefship. How is it, Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke (The sparrow that sitteth alone upon the housetop).
A printing press was ordered in Sydney and so soon as it could be furnished and set up at Te Awamutu, the first number of the new journal was to be published.
In October, 1862, a very important Maori Convention, which had been summoned several months before by Tamihana, was held at Matamata. I was at first instructed to attend it, and had made all preparations to go, but at the last moment orders came from the Governor that I was not to be present. This meeting was attended not only by the Waikato tribes, but by deputations from Tauranga, from the east coast, Napier, Wanganui and Taranaki. The subject which the meeting had been called to discuss was the proposal of the Governor for a judicial investigation into the title of the disputed land at Waitara.
The opinion generally current among the Maories was that no arbitration could take place while the troops remained in possession of Waitara; so long as the Government persisted in holding the land in dispute by force of arms, it was right in their opinion to refuse every offer of arbitration, and to continue to hold Tataraimaka as a material guarantee for the restoration of that which was their own. The difference between what Sir George Grey proposed, and what the Maories would accept was small, but important to both sides. It was the old question of Independent Nationality in a different form. If both parties withdrew from Waitara, the investigation would
But although the meeting at Matamata was not attended by any representative of the British Government, Bishop Selwyn was there, and it was from him I learned the full details of what had taken place. After the meeting, he came over Maunga Kawa into the Waikato, and spent a week in our house at Te Awamutu. He was a very original guest; his principle, as he told me, in staying at people's houses in the bush was to give no domestic trouble of any kind. He made his own bed, he tidied up his own bedroom, he cleaned his own boots, and even washed his own clothes. One Saturday afternoon he was missing, and the only clue as to what had become of him was a report that he had gone to the kitchen, and borrowed a piece of soap. My wife and I, on looking for him, discovered him in a bend of the Mangahoe creek, having just completed the washing of all his clothes, which were spread out on the bank to dry. Like Sir George Grey, he was passionately fond of children, and devoted to the service of women. My little boy exercised a complete tyranny over him, perpetually riding on his shoulder; and I recollect meeting him on foot, when he was on a journey through the bush, while an old Maori woman, with a heavy bundle, was riding on his horse.
At the Matamata meeting, Bishop Selwyn did his best to moderate the zeal for nationality, which overpowered all other considerations. The first encounter between him and Tamihana took place on the Sunday. At the morning service, Tamihana preached a sermon to the assembled congregation on the text, "Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity," and he enforced the doctrine on his hearers by enumerating all the benefits which had resulted from the union of Maori tribes under one King. They were formerly perpetually engaged in quarrels and wars; they were now united in a common brotherhood, and each tribe pursued the interest of all. This discourse produced a great effect on the congregation, and the Bishop, hearing of it, preached at the afternoon service, from the same text, another sermon. He urged upon them the great advantages that would arise from the cordial union of the Maori and Pakeha races, and he pointed out to them the impossibility of such a union taking place, unless they agreed to submit to one law, and one Sovereign.
During the speeches and discussions which took place on the following day, Bishop Selwyn asked for an opportunity of addressing the assembly, which was at once granted to him by the head chiefs. In his speech, he pressed and besought the Maories, especially Tamihana and Matutaera, whom he called upon by name, to
The Bishop's speech was listened to with attention and respect, and was supported by several Ngatihaua chiefs, who stood up, and boldly declared themselves to be on his side, but it did not alter the general resolution of the meeting. His arguments, however, had produced on Tamihana a greater effect than the Bishop at the time supposed; for a fortnight after the meeting, he rode over with his followers to Kihikihi, and in an open and public meeting, demanded from Rewi and Wi Kingi that an investigation should be made into the title to Waitara, in the manner in which the British Government had proposed. Wi Kingi refused point blank. A stormy discussion then ensued, in which Rewi and all the Ngatamaniapoto supported Wi Kingi's refusal, and ultimately their opinions prevailed. Tamihana, thus baffled in his first proposal, next
It did not appear to occur to the British authorities that, notwithstanding the refusal of the Maories to join, they might have instituted on their own part a formal and public investigation into the title to Waitara and the validity of the claims of Wi Kingi and his tribe. Had such an investigation taken place, instead of the informal and secret one which Sir George Grey instituted at Taranaki, with the Prime Minister, Mr. Domett, and the Native Secretary, Mr. Dillon Bell, after Tataraimaka had been occupied by the soldiers, it is probable that the war at Taranaki would never have recommenced. The Maories would have awaited the result of the public investigation before they began to fight. The private inquiry, however, at once brought to light the fact that Wi Kingi and his tribe were living at Waitara in pursuance of a valid agreement made with the sellers, and Sir George Grey expressed a very strong opinion that this fact, if known to Governor Browne, would have prevented his ever purchasing Waitara.
On January 1, 1863, Sir George Grey suddenly determined to visit the Waikato district attended
Sir George Grey returned to Taupiri, where he was unfortunately taken ill, and unable to accept the pressing invitation which Tamihana and all the people sent to him to again visit Ngaruawahia. Instead of that, a meeting was arranged to be held at Taupiri, and there for the first and only time Sir George Grey met Tamihana face to face. Matutaera had also obeyed the summons and rode on horseback from Hangatiki as far as Rangiaowhia. There, however, he broke down; he was too sore to sit any longer on the saddle; to his bodily pain was added mental anxiety that the Governor would think his inability to ride a mere pretence. He therefore sent for Mr. Morgan and a native catechist and asked them to examine his condition; they did so: they certified formally that the King could not sit on horseback, and the certificate was duly forwarded to the Governor.
The proceedings at Taupiri took place in a field near the mission station. As soon as Sir George Grey entered the field at the farther end of which the chiefs were clustered together, the crowd suddenly parted and Tamihana ran forward, took the Governor by the hand, and with cries of welcome led him to the seat placed for him as president of the meeting. Rewi and the Ngatimaniapoto chiefs were not present. Then Taati,
Tamihana then intervened, and defended their establishment of a Maori king with the customary arguments, and again asked him to acknowledge their King. The Governor replied that as the criminal at Wanganui had been rescued by them from the hands of justice, they had made themselves participators in his crime. "No, it is not ours," said Tamihana; "we condemn those evil deeds." The Governor declared that such outrages were the natural consequences of their refusal to submit to the Queen's authority. Tamihana again entreated the Governor to recognize their King. Since his appointment they had lived in peace in Waikato, no crimes were being committed
There was one speech made by the Governor at this meeting which is omitted from the official account, but which impressed the natives more than anything else he said, and which rang through all Waikato and the tribes beyond its limits which adhered to the Maori king. It was repeated over and over again by chiefs who had been present, both in public speeches and in private conversations. Sir George Grey was reported
Remonstrances were addressed to the Government at the Taupiri meeting against the threatened steamer. The Maories had never objected to small boats and canoes, but a steamer was a different thing; it could bring troops and great guns into their country. The Governor said he should certainly bring his steamer to save them the trouble of paddling their canoes against the current; it would tow their canoes. In a very short time they would be convinced of its usefulness and would threaten him with war if he took the steamer away.
Before his return to Auckland, pressing invitations were received by the Governor to visit Rangiaowhia and Tamahere; even after he had left Taupiri riders galloped down the river bank after him, beseeching him to return. In pursuance of their promises, Tamihana, Taati, and the chiefs present at Taupiri wrote letters to Taranaki, urging the Ngatiruanui to give up Tataraimaka
The first number of the Pihoihoi Mokemoke was published at Te Awamutu on February 2, 1863, and was scattered broadcast over the whole of Waikato. The manuscript of the first issue was revised by Sir George Grey himself, and published under his express authority; it contained an article which created an immense sensation in Waikato, and gave to Rewi the opportunity of suppressing the "spades" which were digging, by physical force. The article was headed, "The Evil of the King Movement." It first recited a letter from Matutaera to the Governor of December 8, 1862, which had been printed in the Hokioi. The letter asked the Governor "What evil had been done by him, and on what account he was blamed," and the Pihoihoi undertook to give to these questions a plain answer. The article set forth the great dignity and the great privileges which were accorded to a king, and asked what were the duties due from a king in return. It answered this question by a quotation from Jeremiah:—
"To the Kings of Judah, sitting upon the throne of David, thus saith the Lord. Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor; and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless nor the widow, neither shed innocent Pihoihoi, "are these things done by Matutaera? Does he execute judgment and righteousness, does he deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor? We have all heard of horses, of cows, and of property robbed from the Pakehas who live in Waikato. Has judgment been executed by Matutaera, has he blamed the wicked doers? No; the property wrongfully robbed is still in their hands, and Matutaera and his laws are responsible. Once upon a time there was a king in a foreign country; stealing and murder and all crimes were put down by him. It is said that at the end of his life golden bracelets were hanged upon the trees by the roadside, and remained there till his death, for no man dare steal them, for fear of this just and powerful king. He, my friends, was a king who executed judgment and righteousness. Can Matutaera do this? Let him hang up some golden bracelets at any place within the bounds of his kingdom, and let us see how long it will be before they are taken away? Let me tell you a story about another king. A man with his little daughter was journeying along the road, the child some distance in front, and the man behind. A wicked man on horseback threw her on the ground, and attempted to ravish her. The child screamed for help, and on the arrival of the father the criminal ran away. But he was known and apprehended by the girl's relations, who wished
This article, which was expressed in the most forcible and idiomatic Maori, by the help of Miss Ashwell, produced an enormous and unlooked-for sensation. It was read in every Runanga house in Waikato, and was the subject of painful discussion at the King's Council at Ngaruawahia. The tribes less intimately related to Matutaera were greatly amused and enjoyed the hit at the King's Council, but the chiefs of Ngaruawahia were very angry. They said the "Sparrow" was written in a bad mocking style, nothing like the calm and reasoning tone of the Hokioi. Some said, Why is this press allowed among us? Others, Why is not the press broken, and the Government
Oh, Kahakura, at the sea! Oh, Ruamano, at the sea! Hearken! our treasures are being borne away, By Whiro, Whatino and Wharona, By thieves wind swift, By thieves headlong, Cast them down! dash them down! Fling them upon the trees! Let them be a prey to be cast down! A prey to be dashed down, A prey to become the spoil of the far-famed. Arise! Gird on! Cast down! dash down! Let there be a shock, A shock of army meeting army; Let there be a prey to overturn them, To lash them, Oh, Tangaroa! whet thy teeth, Sharpen thy teeth, If thou liftest thyself on high, Tangaroa Shall gather together all his, against thee.
Rewi took the hint, and began to organize in secret an effective attack on Te Awamutu, with the object of suppressing the Pihoihoi and expelling the Commissioner. It was not the first time in my life that a paper of which I was editor was suppressed by force majeure. When I was a boy a paper called The Scholar, of which I
Many vague warnings came to me, even from Rewi himself, that something decisive was about to happen. Te Oriori came and took up his quarters at Rangiaowhia and assured me he was there for our protection, as there would be trouble and darkness not only at Tataraimaka, but in Waikato as well. I was shown a letter from Tamihana to Rewi, urging the latter on no account to use any violence at Te Awamutu. The writer said that what had already taken place at Te Kohekohe, would cause trouble enough, and any further disturbance would be added by the Governor to this former one, and the two together would be made a cause of war. Rumours of this kind had been so common, and so often came to nothing, that these warnings were unheeded; my wife and two children came up to Te Awamutu and settled themselves in the half-furnished house.
The first outbreak against Sir George Grey's new plans took place at Te Kohekohe, as mentioned in Tamihana's letter to Rewi, and had occurred on March 8. The sawing of timber for the police barrack had been completed, and the
On March 25 I rode over to the mission station at Kopua to make inquiry about some bullocks which were being purchased for the Government station. A rumour had reached us that an "army" would visit Te Awamutu that day, but I paid no attention to it. On my return to Te Awamutu, after dark, I found the place in the hands of the enemy. A body of eighty Ngatimaniapoto natives were encamped round large watch-fires in the road, and in the adjoining field opposite the church, where the printing office stood. I rode through them without interruption, and found the house surrounded by a cordon of sentries, who let me pass without question. I learned that the party was commanded by Aporo, the Maori who had been the spokesman at Hangatiki the year before. Rewi and Wi Kingi had accompanied Aporo and his eighty armed men as far as Porokoru's house, which was about 300 yards from Te Awamutu, and sat there while the mischief was done. Aporo had led his men to the front of the printing office, there halted them and had prayers. Mr. Von Dadelszen and a Maori youth were engaged inside printing the fifth number of the Pihoihoi. They came outside on seeing the arrival of the "army," Pihoihoi, and other contents of the office. They were taken to Rewi's place at Kihikihi. They carried off besides some clothes, blankets and other private property, which were returned as soon as the mistake was discovered. Mr. Von Dadelszen had taken off his collar and tie while printing, and left a gold pin sticking in one of the cases of type. Though the case was taken, and natives going in and out all the afternoon, the pin was found, hours afterwards, carefully stuck in the wooden wall. They even sent into the house to ask leave to have a pot and kettle in which to cook their food, instead of helping themselves as a civilized army would have done, to such utensils as they required.
After the press had gone, the war party, with the women and children by whom they were accompanied, sat down in the road and field to await my return from Kopua and to remove me, as they had done the press. Their guns were loaded, and the mission house surrounded by sentinels posted at short intervals. Aporo at the time gave as his reason that being responsible for our lives and property, he was determined to keep all other natives off the premises while he remained in occupation.
As soon as the news of Aporo's attack reached Rangiaowhia, and before my return from Kopua, Te Oriori and Taati, with a number of other natives, had galloped down and vehemently protested against what had been done. They said
After my return no hostile action took place, except that they sent in a message to say that if I refused to go away in the morning I should be shot; they then fetched firewood to keep up their watch-fires, instead of burning the fences, and they shifted the line of sentries to meet the domestic convenience of the household. All the youths in the school behaved splendidly; they said they would stand by me in any extremity, and do whatever I told them. We had no arms, and resistance was impossible.
Early in the morning a herald arrived from Rangiaowhia to say that all the chiefs and people were on their way to judge the Ngatimaniapotos. He said the words of Honi Papita, the principal chief, were "we have been treated like slaves." The herald, after making a violent speech, and singing a war-like song, came into the garden, followed by Aporo, who ordered him out again.
He refused to go and said, "Is this your place, oh Aporo! No, it is ours, it is for us to spoil our own place; you have treated us like slaves." Patene, who was present, supported the Rangiaowhia men against his own tribe. Aporo said sneeringly that Patene was paid by Government for his advocacy. The calumny put Patene in such a passion that he tried to knock Aporo down. The intervention of my little son, who was running about, clasping the angry men by the legs, and of Mr. Mainwaring, who proffered a fig of tobacco for them to cut up and fill their pipes and have a smoke, averted the conflict, and the herald agreed to leave Aporo's men in possession until the trial had taken place.
Crowds of Maories now began to arrive from the neighbourhood, Honi Papita, Te Oriori, and Taati on one side, and Rewi, accompanied by Wi Kingi, who now openly assumed the leader-ship of the attacking party. They all sat down in the public road, and in the churchyard adjoining, and every one was excluded from the premises of Te Awamutu, by cords of flax and Aporo's sentries, by which the place was completely surrounded. A long and animated discussion, at which I was not present, took place outside. I was told that the Waikato chiefs expressed the strongest indignation at Rewi's unwarranted violence in crossing his boundary line, and doing lawless deeds on the lands of other tribes. Rewi's reply was that he was only carrying out
Rewi, after I had gone, declared that he and his men would not stir from the spot until their object was accomplished. They settled themselves on the ground in dogged silence. He sent off messengers to Hangatiki to fetch Reihana and his forces. Taati pointed with his spear to the mission house and said—"If you use violence I am there," and he and Te Oriori then came into my house in great alarm. They said they had come to be burnt. If a house were set on fire with a chief inside he would be considered to be burnt, and vengeance taken by his tribe on the incendiaries. They said they would remain in the house, because they did not think Rewi would dare to make an attack or set fire to the house while they were seated within. Taati sent a messenger to fetch the King, and Te Oriori sent another to Matamata for Tamihana, urging them to come with all speed.
At last Mr. Reid, the Wesleyan missionary at Kopua, persuaded Rewi to have a personal interview with me. At this interview, which took place in the road between the church and the gate of Te Awamutu, Rewi after much reluctance agreed to withdraw his men, and give a three weeks' interval, during which I should communicate with Sir George Grey. He made a speech to
"Te Awamutu," March25, 1863." Friend Governor Grey,—"Greeting! This is my word to you. Mr. Gorst has been killed by me. The press has been taken
by me. They are my men who took it, eighty, armed with guns. The reason is, to drive away Mr. Gorst, that he may return to the town; it is on account of the great darkness caused by his being sent to live here, and tempt us, and also on account of your saying that you would dig round our King till he fell. Friend, take Mr. Gorst back to town, do not leave him to live with me at Te Awamutu. If you say he is to stay, he will die. Let your letter be speedy to fetch him away within three weeks. "From your friend, "Rewi Maniapoto." To Governor Greyat Taranaki."
After writing the letter, Rewi, true to his word, withdrew Aporo and all the men, and said for the space of three weeks he would guarantee Te Awamutu from any attack, but that during this time the place would be constantly watched, and at the end of three weeks the attack would be renewed. He refused to give up the printing press, saying it would be sent down to Queen's land at Te Ia. I was now, according to Maori usage, technically dead, and was thereafter addressed as "you food of Waikato," and when I travelled by canoe, my conductor was greeted from the bank by cries of "How are you and your corpse?"
The Governor when he received Rewi's letter at Taranaki resolved not to answer nor take any
The news of Rewi's violence reached the King at Whatawhata on the Waipa, when Patara, the editor of the Hokioi, was the only councillor with him. By Patara's advice, a letter was written condemning Rewi's conduct, and requiring him to send back the printing press, pay for the damage and outrage, and leave all questions about the removal of the Governor's officer to be settled by the King and Council. The letter
I said that unless they could prevent Rewi from repeating an act which they admitted to be wrong, the Governor's words had come true already, and the King had fallen. Rewi was now master, and Waikato and Ngatihaua had become his slaves. We shook hands and parted in sorrow, and I never saw Tamihana again.
He died soon after the conquest of Waikato. Years after his death, a letter in his well-known handwriting was put into my hands; he had written to me in his affliction, and intrusted the letter to a military officer who had forgotten to deliver it.
I understood that after their visit to Te Awamutu, Tamihana and Te Oriori went on to Ngaruawahia and proposed that King's soldiers should occupy Te Awamutu, to prevent a second attack. But they soon discovered that few would back their proposals. Lower Waikato was charmed
Before evacuating Te Awamutu I thought a direct appeal ought to be made to the King and his Runanga; for that purpose Mr. Purchas, the Medical Commissioner, and I went down to Ngaruawahia; we were accompanied by James Falloon, a half-caste chief in the Government service, who was killed soon after the commencement of the war, in an ambuscade. We were lodged by Patara and Te Paea in the printing office of the Hokioi. The chiefs who had been fined came to excuse themselves; they said when the first number of the Pihoihoi came out they were very angry at what was written about the King, and asked, "Why isn't the press taken away?" But they were sorry Rewi had construed their hasty words as approval of such an attack. A Runanga was held to discuss the propriety of defending Te Awamutu, at which we were not invited to be present. Te Paea sat with us near the house while the discussion was going on. She said, "It was neither the Pihoihoi, nor the words
Next morning I wrote to the Runanga, saying that Rewi alleged that his attack on Te Awamutu was sanctioned by all Waikato, and I asked whether this was true. On this Patara came to us and said that this was the very question that they had debated for three days and three nights without coming to a conclusion, but another meeting was to be held at which I was invited to be present. At this meeting strangers from Hawke's Bay, and the East Cape were present, and also several of the Lower Waikato chiefs who had taken part in floating the Kohekohe timber to Te Ia. Proceedings commenced by reading out my letter. Here-whini rose to reply: "Yes. It is done by all Waikato; though Rewi did it, it belongs to all Waikato. When we were at Te Kohekohe, we resolved to go up to remove you, but when we arrived we heard that Rewi had done it. The Pihoihoi. We saw that the Governor's words at Taupiri were being fulfilled, so we determined to remove you and all your works and goods to Te Ia to the Governor's side."
After this speech there was a dead silence, and Patara came to ask us what we were going to say. We told Patara we were not going to say anything. We did not intend to discuss Herewhini and his five grounds, because no ground could justify driving a man from his own land. All we wished to know was, who had joined in the deed. This was repeated aloud, and Herewhini again said:—
"It was all Waikato."
We asked, "Who are all Waikato?" He pointed down the river, and waved his spear round the horizon saying "it included all, and more than all we could see. From Tongariro to the sea all had agreed." We said, "Not all"; he challenged us to name one who had not. We named Matutaera Potatau and Wiremu Tamihana. He said he would not believe this, unless letters were produced; it was no use for us to say we had seen
"Ngaruawahia," April15, 1863."I said to Rewi, oh Rewi, leave these days to me. Bring back the property, let none be lost, I do not say that Mr. Gorst shall stay, he must go.
"From Matutaera Potatau."
In explanation of this letter Patara said the King was merely the mouthpiece of his people; he acknowledged that Matutaera had now made Rewi's act his own, he said the King could not tell me to remain, because he had no power to protect me against Rewi, and he was afraid to blame Rewi too strongly lest he should revolt altogether.
When we returned to Te Awamutu we learned that a messenger bringing a letter from Taranaki had met Rewi at Kihikihi and given the letter into his hands. The letter, of which James Falloon managed to obtain a copy, was as follows:—
" Mataitawa,in the region ofTaranaki." April8, 1863." To Wi Kingi,toRewi Maniapoto,toTe Waru,toPorokoru,toHoni Papita,and to all their districts."Friends and fathers, salutations to you in the Grace of God, and in the shadow of our King.
"On April 4 the Governor marched to Tataraimaka with his soldiers. His barracks are finished and stand at Tataraimaka. The determination of the people here is to wait for the word from you, and from the people of the island. These five tribes, Te Atiawa, Taranaki, Ngatiruanui, Ngatirauru, and Wanganui, have sat down at Tataraimaka. The red earth has dried on the surface, the work of the people, the guns will shortly be firing continually. Oh, Wiremu, what is your determination for your people who are in trouble here? Friend, if it were only a canoe of wood we should know how to act, but for a canoe of men, where shall we search?
" From the Runanga of Mataitawa."
Without waiting to consult with any of his brother chiefs, Rewi turned the messenger back with this answer, "Strike the Pakeha." He then mustered his men, and without troubling himself further about Te Awamutu, set off to Hangatiki on the way to Taranaki.
Matters seemed to me to be now growing so Pihoihoi. He laughed and said it was very true. They had come out of kindness to urge us to go to Auckland at once. We had seen how Rewi had treated us in time of peace and we might judge what he would do in time of war, or rather what the people of Hangatiki might do; they said very plainly that as soon as the first shot had been fired at Taranaki any young fellow who wished to exalt his name would come and murder us, and the chiefs would have no power to prevent it. They begged us to go at once, and not put it off from day to day, waiting until bad news came from Taranaki; it would be then too late. We evacuated Te Awamutu on 18th April, 1863; I took a last look at it, as we rode away, from the heights above Mangapiko, and it was more than forty-three years before I saw it again.
On 3rd December, 1906, at 6 o'clock in the evening, we arrived by train at Te Awamutu railway station. We escaped the slippery clay hills, and the dangerous swamps of the Maunga Kawa mountain, over which the road from the Thames to the Waikato valley used to pass: the railway skirts round the base of the mountain, and crosses the Waikato at the old ferry of Te Rapa, now called Hamilton, by an iron bridge, the modern substitute for the frail canoe, towing the traveller's horse behind it. We crossed the rich plain of Horotiu far below Tamahere, but saw nothing of its extent.
The station at Te Awamutu is at some distance from the town. We were met by Mr. Teesdale, the Chairman of the Town Board, and by Mr. Bockett, Secretary of a Reception Committee which had been formed by the European settlers, and were driven in brakes along a road which skirted the upper part of the lands of the old school now leased to farmers, to the Te Awamutu hotel, where we stayed during the visit. At the door of the hotel I was met by a group of elderly men, Maories and half-castes, who proved to be the remnant of the old scholars of Te Awamutu. They had been got together by Mr. Swanson of Auckland, also an old scholar, who had been at great pains to inform Pihoihoi had stood; the building had gone, but I was told it still existed in some part of the township. We went into the churchyard and stood on the very steps of the church on which I had sat when Patene came to drive me away, but the church had been greatly altered and beautified, and the old whitewashed barn-like structure was scarcely recognizable. The churchyard, in those days a bare grass field, was now filled with gravestones and inscriptions of many who had lost their lives in the Waikato War. We thence returned to the new township, which stood upon
The Local Board entertained us at dinner. In responding to the toast of my health, I described my departure from Te Awamutu more than forty-three years before, and how when I took a last look at the place from the hill above the Mangapiko creek, I wondered if I should ever see it again. Up to a few months ago I had never even dreamed of seeing again the place filled with memories of departed friends, where so many happy days of my life had been passed, much less that I should arrive by railway and be entertained by the Town Board; it was a great pleasure to be welcomed there by the British inhabitants. Of all the kindness and hospitality shown to us in New Zealand, the climax had been reached that evening by the reception at Te Awamutu.
It had been arranged that on the following morning we should be driven in a brake to Rangiaowhia and Kihikihi; and that the gathering of Maories and the public reception should take
We drove thence to Kihikihi, along a good metalled road made through the old impassable swamp, and were hospitably received by Mr. William Grace, a son of the former missionary at
From Kihikihi we were driven to Orakau, which was the scene of a celebrated exploit of Rewi's in the Waikato War.
Three hundred of his tribe, including many women, occupied a pah at Orakau for three days, with little food and no water, heroically resisting more than six times their number of Imperial and Colonial troops. The road runs directly through the site of the pah, but no traces of it now remain. When their ammunition was exhausted and they were summoned to relinquish the place as hopelessly untenable, Rewi appeared upon the battlements and cried out, "We will not surrender, we will fight on for ever, and ever and ever" When it was proposed that the women should go free, they replied, "No, we will die with the men." Shortly after a sudden sally was made from the pah by the whole body of defenders with the women in the centre, including Rewi's niece, now Mrs. Grace. Sir Henry Havelock, years after, in the House of Commons used to talk of this rush from the Orakau pah as the finest thing he had ever witnessed in the whole course of his military life. The troops were taken completely by surprise, and before they had recovered themselves, and brought guns to bear upon the fugitives, they were well on their way to the Waipa river, and the broken
In the days before the war Orakau was a pretty native village with large cultivations, and great groves of peach trees, from which all passersby, including pigs and oxen, were welcome to take as much fruit as they chose, but the peaches have from some disease now died out and disappeared.
At Orakau we were hospitably entertained by Mr. Andrew Kay, who in the old days kept a store on the Mangatawhiri creek near Te la, and it was to his store that the Maories brought down the press of the Pihoihoi, after it had been carried off from Te Awamutu, and subsequently given by Rewi to Tamihana for disposal. I asked him particularly about what had become of this Government property. He told me the natives had landed it from canoes and placed it in his store; that he then informed the Government that it was in his hands, and asked for instructions. After an interval of some days, drays were sent from Auckland, the press was loaded into them, and driven off in the direction of Auckland, and that was all he knew of the matter. A ridiculous story has long been current that the natives melted the type into bullets which they used in the war, and although Mr. Kay's evidence proves that this story is untrue, I have no doubt it will
From Mr. Kay's house we were driven back in heavy rain through Kihikihi to Te Awamutu. We passed the tomb of Rewi, which has been erected at Kihikihi, now turned into a little European town, and just before reaching the hotel, at Te Awamutu I caught sight, through the rain, of the site of our old home at Te Tomo; the house was gone, and its place was only marked by a group of acacia trees, which seemed specially to flourish like nettles in this country, on the site of former dwellings.
In the meanwhile a great assemblage had collected itself at Te Awamutu. All the Europeans from the neighbourhood were there, and the livery notes of a native drum and fife band were heard. Maories had come in from all quarters, on horseback, on foot, in vehicles of every description and by special train from the remoter parts of the King country, until between four and five hundred were assembled. All these were awaiting us on the recreation ground. As we drove up, the Maori drum and fife band marched to meet us and escorted us to the pavilion, and the whole body of natives burst out into an ancient song of welcome, beginning with the words "Haul up the Canoe"; they then danced a Haka, accompanied by the well-known song of greeting, "Ka mate! ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!" which is always sung on occasions of peacemaking or when welcoming ancient friends.
There were bright coloured flags, bearing Maori inscriptions and symbolical devices, and the greater part of the people were in native costume. When the uproar of reception subsided, speeches of welcome in the most affecting strain were made by the Ngatamaniapoto chiefs. Some were the very men, and some were the sons of men, who had composed Rewi's army of eighty men armed with guns who had raided Te Awamutu in 1863, and expelled from their country all the men engaged in the benevolent work at Te Awamutu. It was a strange contrast to the last time I had been face to face with Ngatimaniapoto, more than forty-three years before.
The first speaker was Tuko Rewo, a white-haired old chief, who spoke the most cordial and affecting words of welcome, and in a high quavering voice sang a song, in which he likened my reappearance to the first dawn of light in the morning sky. I had gone as a chief from their midst, and I now returned to them as a chief. All the high chiefs of olden days were gone, and I remained alone. He ended his speech by chanting the pathetic old song of sorrow for the dead which begins:—
Listen, oh ye people, This is the parent of death,
and all the assembly joined with heartfelt energy in the chorus.
Another chief referred to the departed glory
As it was still raining very heavily, the meeting was adjourned to the Town Hall, where I was welcomed by the Chairman of the Town Board on behalf of the European settlers now resident at Te Awamutu. I then made a short speech, which Mr. Grace translated into Maori, thanking both Europeans and Maories for the reception they had given me. It was the place where some of the most active and happiest days of my life had been spent, and though the passions of the two races were then stirred up for fighting, my work had been entirely one of friendship and goodwill. Even those chiefs who on political grounds drove me away from the neighbourhood, recognized in after life the benevolent character of the establishment at Te Awamutu. Rewi himself wrote me the most friendly letter, asking for my advice, after the war was over. To come back to a place in which one had lived and laboured
In the evening there was a social meeting in the Town Hall, which was attended by Europeans and Maories promiscuously; there were first Haka and Poi dances, and afterwards the ordinary dance programme of society to an excellent town band. There was also singing: a beautiful song was sung by two very pretty Maori girls, the daughters of Mr. William Hughes, once a carpenter's apprentice at Te Awamutu school, and now a wealthy and prosperous chief at Kopua. They had presented my daughter in the morning with a green stone and a gold pin, which they described as "the pin of love," in token of the
Turn, oh, turn back, Spirit of Te Kohe (Gorst). Send back your love to us When you look your last on Te Awamutu; Think of the lonely ones you ne'er will see again: As the train bears you from our midst Oh, backward turn your gaze, Like the smoke that backward drifts, Towards our lonely home. Farewell! a fond farewell! We will pin you and your daughter to our hearts With the pin of love, The pin that will never rust.
On the following morning we visited the old mission house at Te Awamutu, to which we were kindly welcomed by Captain and Mrs. Bockett, who were then in occupation. The house, which was rebuilt by Government in 1862 out of the timber about which we had so many fights with the Kihikihi natives, is said to be as good as ever, but all the surrounding school buildings, which would have been rebuilt had Rewi permitted, had long ago been pulled down and taken away. I went into the various rooms, filled with memories of the past, and walked about the garden, now peaceful and lovely, in which Aporo and his men had raged forty-three years before.
We also visited the public school at Te Awamutu; it is a large school of more than eighty children, most of whom were the children of European
It was a strange sensation to arrive at Ngaruawahia by train. The little modern European town has assumed, in spite of official decision, the name of the old Maori capital. For some time after the war it was attempted to call the place Newcastle, in honour of the late Duke of Newcastle, who at the outbreak of the war was Secretary of State for the Colonies, but usage was too strong, and the name is now dropped.
My first visit to Ngaruawahia took place on a Sunday in March, 1861, when Mr. Ashwell went to hold service there, and this is how I described it, in a letter written at the time. "The village consists of a few huts, built between the Waikato and the Waipa: the most conspicuous objects are—a large flagstaff, which is looked upon as the bulwark of Maori liberty, a large barnlike building, which is the royal residence, and a very curious black and white wooden structure, which is poor old Potatau's tomb. We found a large number of natives there; Wi Kumete, a brother of Potatau, had just returned from Taranaki with a large party: the English accounts had reported him killed. Upon this he was very merry, and told us he had unexpectedly come to life again. Tamati Ngapora, the peacemaker, was there, and told us his eye could not see Wi
In the modern town of Ngaruawahia there is little to remind the visitor of its former appearance. The tomb of Potatau alone stands, solitary and undisturbed, as a memorial of its former greatness, but at the great Runanga house, the historical flagstaff and all other Maori houses are gone, and are replaced by railway stations, hotels, and the modern houses of European settlers. The Ngatihaua settlement on the bank of the Horotiu, as they called the Waikato, had disappeared, and instead of the canoe ferry, by which man and horse used to pass, there was an iron railway bridge. The beauty of the two rivers remains unspoiled. The clear rush of the torrent of the Waikato, which joins the dark and placid
We spent the afternoon in wandering about the picturesque little town, and seeing the process of making the New Zealand butter, out of the milk produced by the dairy farms of Waikato; nearly all of it is exported to Great Britain, where it commands in the market a price scarcely inferior to that of the best Danish butter. It was strange to partake of an ordinary dinner in an ordinary hotel, and to go to sleep in an ordinary bed, instead of enjoying the warm and profuse hospitality of the native oven and the bed of fern. It had been arranged by the Government with Mahuta, son of Matutaera the Maori king of former days, and grandson of Potatau, whom I had known as a little boy at Mr. Ashwell's school, that we should be carried from Ngaruawahia to Waahi in a Maori canoe. A party was sent to Ngaruawahia by Mahuta to welcome and take charge of us. It consisted of a chief named Ehau, a lame man, a Tohunga of great repute among the Maories, with two others, who were to take charge of the canoe. The canoe was a new
We all embarked at about half-past eight on the following morning, from the green bank of the Waikato, just above the junction of the two rivers, where I had so often landed and embarked long ago. Our official conductor, Ehau, could not go with us, having received news of the death of one of his relatives, and the canoe was taken charge of by a stalwart chief, Hori te Ngongo, the son of my old friend Te Oriori, long since deceased. The Tangi-te-Kiwi was pushed out into the rapid current, and was soon speeding smoothly and swiftly down the broad river.
It was a beautiful summer morning, the forestclad ranges of the hills on the left bank rose clear above the willow and acacia clumps that now fringe and obscure the banks of the river.
Hori te Ngongo stood amidships, giving the time to the paddlers by voice and gesture, and breaking from time to time into one of the old Maori songs of ancient days. One of these songs had been composed in 1863, in special reference to myself, and the Mangatawhiri creek, which was the frontier between the King and Queen's dominions in those days. As the canoe approached native settlements on the banks, the song about me was chanted in louder tones, or my name was called out to the people, who replied by the waving of shawls and cries of welcome, "Haere Mai, Haere Mai." We passed Hopu Hopu, where Mr. Ashwell's boys' school was formerly stationed, and where I had taught Tamihana's son. The school had gone, but it is still a mission station, at which a native clergyman is stationed.
I could not make out the former settlement of Kahumatuku; whether it was hidden by the weeping willows or whether, as was more probable, it was altogether abandoned I cannot say. This village was only a mile above Taupiri, and was one with which I had been especially familiar; it was there I first preached a Maori sermon. It was the headquarters of a small section of the Waikato tribe, numbering only fifty or sixty men, scattered over a wide extent of country, reaching as far north as Paetai, and south as far as Whatawhata on the Waipa, and everywhere intermixed with larger and more powerful tribes. Hona, the head chief of the tribe, had been an assessor
I went down from Te Tomo to Kahumatuku, where they held a meeting, and stated their requirements. They demanded two magistrates, two wardens, five policemen and a secretary, in all ten officers, for the government of fifty persons. They were very angry when their demand was refused: they said they were treated much less favourably than other tribes had been, and they
Disappointed at the coldness with which their newborn zeal for the Queen was received, they resolved to make application in other quarters. Hona went down to the Commissioner of the Lower Waikato, and told him that his tribe lived partly in the Upper, partly in the Lower district; they all objected to be included in the former, but all wished to be in the latter. Thence Hona went on to Auckland to see what effect he could produce on the Government. His conditional loyalty was accepted, the Government made the arrangements desired, and Hona and his friends became salaried officers of the Queen.
A month afterwards, to Hona's great disgust, the Lower Waikato district was placed under my charge, and I was in a position to note the way in which Hona carried out his duties. Against the King party he was utterly powerless. A resolution had been lately passed at Ngaruawahia to augment the King's scanty revenue by laying
During the whole time that Hona was a Queen's officer, he attended native meetings, visited Ngaruawahia, appeared to be on good terms with the
Sweeping past the shore on which the village of Kahumatuku once stood, the canoe soon arrived at Taupiri. From the high peak of Taupiri on the right bank, the once sacred mountain of the Maories, most of the timber seemed to have been cut away, and the base so sacred in former days that no traveller could proceed up the river on that shore, but must needs cross in a canoe to the left bank, was now desecrated by a railway station and cutting, and the screams and smoke of locomotive engines. On the left bank could be seen the old landing-place of Mr. Ashwell's mission station, so familiar in former days. But all the buildings of the house and mission school were gone, and the site was overgrown by a thicket of acacia trees. There were
Soon after passing Taupiri, we observed in the distance a large canoe filled with men. It had thirteen paddles on each side, which flashed regularly in the sunlight as the canoe made its way up the river to meet us. This was Mahuta's state canoe, sent up the river to meet the "Tangi-te-Kiwi" and escort her to Waahi, where the Maori assembly was to take place. This canoe carried twenty-six paddles, and amidships stood a picturesque red-capped figure—the conductor and timegiver of the canoe. All the paddlers were magnificent specimens of athletic Maories; they were stripped to the waist, and were members of the most celebrated canoe tribe of the Waikato. The royal canoe came alongside and Mr. Fowlds, the minister, and my daughter were transferred to the canoe, which then shot away, easily
I had once before in my life landed at Waahi. I was coming up the river in a "kopapa," a small canoe paddled by a single boy. Night was coming on, I was wet through, cold, and hungry. At Waahi an old woman invited me to land. She cried over my forlorn condition, took me into her house, and still weeping split a fern stick, into which she tied an eel in folds like a gigantic "cracker." This she roasted over the embers of a fire: it was the most delicious morsel I ever tasted. Strengthened and invigorated, we then set forward on our nightly voyage. On this occasion we landed in sunshine at about 10 o'clock, being greeted by a crowd of women and children, waving coloured handkerchiefs, singing songs, and crying "Haere Mai." From the shore we proceeded amidst a crowd dancing and singing around us to a great open space opposite the native houses, where chairs had been set for us and where our meeting with Mahuta was to take place.
The idea which was first broached by the Maories in the pah at the Christchurch Exhibition was to have a great "tangi" at Waahi, in memory of the chiefs who had been my comrades in former days, and who with the one exception of Patara were all now dead. But the proposal had been changed by Mahuta into a meeting of a more civilized character, in which speeches and not weeping were to be the order of the day.
From the landing-place we walked up, surrounded by the shouting women and children to the "Mare," the wide open space in the centre of the town, where a great assembly of Waikato Maories was waiting for us. The principal chief present was Mahuta Potatau, who had been for some years a member of the Legislative Council of New Zealand and was for some time a member of the Government. He was supported by Henere Kaihau, who is the elected representative of the Western Maori Electoral District which embraces the Waikato and surrounding country, and by our friend Taingakawa, Tamihana's son, who had come over from Matamata to take part in the proceedings. Old Patara was also at the meeting, to which he had come from his home near Auckland, but from his great age he took no part in the public speaking. There was also a very old chief
Only Mahuta and Henere Kaihau spoke at the public meeting, which began by the reading aloud of an address of welcome in the Maori language which had been presented by Mahuta; in reply to the address I said in Maori that I had forgotten a great deal of the Maori language, which I used in the old days to speak, and I must therefore ask them to let me address them in the tongue of the Pakeha. The rest of my speech was interpreted as I went on. "The Government of Great Britain had asked me to go out to New Zealand to represent them at the International Exhibition at Christchurch, to testify to their goodwill towards the New Zealanders, both Pakeha and Maori. That which persuaded me to take such a long journey in my old age, was the ardent desire to see once more the Maori people, and the scenes of the happy days of my youth. It is true almost all my old friends in New Zealand of both races are dead and gone, but there is one old friend present to-day, Patara Te Tuhi, who met me on the wharf a few weeks ago when I arrived in Auckland. Patara and I were once antagonists in the days before the war, when he was editor of the Hokioi, and I of the Pihoihoi, but for many years we have been the best of friends. More than twenty years ago, when Mahuta's father Tawhiao, Patara, and others came to
Mr. Fowlds, the Minister of Education, also addressed the assembly, and pressed upon them the importance of sending their children to the public schools, and giving them all the advantages of a European education. He claimed to be a friend of the Maori people. When Sir John Gorst was coming amongst his old friends, he wished to accompany him, and to show the friendly feeling of the New Zealand Government. They might not always understand each other, there might be difficulties, but the Government always desired to do that which was right and just. The Government wished to provide more technical teaching for Maori children, and invited gifts from
After the formal meeting was over, we had much talk with the Maories there assembled from various parts of the district. A luncheon was served to all the visitors in the large meeting house. The food was various and abundant, and well cooked, coming as it did from native ovens, but as in all other places the service was in European fashion. We sat at a table with a white cloth, with knives, forks and spoons. I felt a lingering longing for the old hospitality of former days, when the company sat on the ground, upon clean flax mats spread over the floor, when each guest had a separate portion handed to him by a Maori girl in a little green flax kit, woven for the occasion, potatoes and meat and vegetable marrow together, to which he had to help himself with his fingers, and when fruit, peaches and melons were poured upon the ground about him in unstinted plenty.
After the dinner I had a further and final talk with Taingakawa, whose acuteness and persistence in efforts to enforce his own views reminded me of his father. The Maori people are always in a chronic state of dissatisfaction with the New Zealand Land Laws. It would weary the reader to attempt a description of the various methods that have been from time to time tried. Failure, which led to wars in former days, only leads to dissatisfaction now. Native owners are
It was this idea that I did all I could to combat, and I tried to put before Taingakawa in private conversation the futility of the proposed expedition to Great Britain, and to persuade him and his party to entrust the decision of the question to the New Zealand Government and Parliament. I told him the latter were much more fit to judge of the intricacies of New Zealand land law than people in Great Britain, where nobody understood their complicated land system, and nobody had leisure to investigate its intricacies. In the New Zealand Parliament the Maories themselves had representatives, and could secure a hearing of all their views and arguments. That in Great Britain, if they succeeded in obtaining access to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, they could only lay their case before a man ignorant of Maori laws and customs, and overwhelmed with other
After a great deal of talk with the natives present, we took our leave and crossed the river, in the Tangi-te-Kiwi, to the Eastern bank, whence a special train conveyed us to Auckland. The railway to Auckland does not go along the bank of the river, and there was no opportunity of recognizing the spots familiar in the journeys on horseback and in canoes in the old days. The village of Paetai seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Nobody had heard
It was up in these ranges above Drury, then covered with forest, that I fulfilled my last and most dangerous service in New Zealand for the Government. The road to the Waikato was at the time when the invasion took place thronged by armed men of every description, from the veteran British soldier to the raw colonial shop-boy shouldering his musket for the first time. Through this the Maori refugees from Mangere and other villages near Auckland, who had abandoned their homes on the summons of the officials of the native office, had to thread their way as they went over to join their relatives in Waikato, and some of them became greatly alarmed. A report came to Auckland that two chiefs, Ihaka and Mohi, with their women, children and young men, had taken refuge at a small native village called Kirikiri, on the slope of the Hunua forest, overlooking Drury. There they had stopped and appeared to have given up all intention of going
We left Auckland on this errand on July 13. The Mangatawhiri creek had been crossed the day before, so the invasion of Waikato had
The next day we rode on horseback into the ranges to Kirikiri. I thought at the time it was something like putting your head into a lion's mouth. We found Ihaka very ill, and half-a-dozen aged men, with a few women and children in one of the houses; they sent off for Mohi, and after we had waited for about an hour, he arrived with a few young men, and sat down for a talk. The main body of effective young men never appeared at all. Mr. Dillon Bell told them that the proclamation calling upon them to take the oath of allegiance and give up their arms was not intended, as they had supposed, to be a positive order to leave their homes. He had been sent out by the Governor himself, who had heard of their destitute state, to give them the choice of taking the test, and returning home in peace, or if unwilling to do this of going unmolested to the Waikato to join their friends. He urged the former
Late in the afternoon we returned to Drury. The last thing we had heard when we went away in the morning was that a settler and his son who had gone into the forest were missing, and the first thing we heard on our return in the evening was that they had been killed and that their bodies had been found in the forest near Drury. Their murder was never laid to the charge of Ihaka's party, but to an entirely different tribe. At ten o'clock that night a telegram was received at Drury from the Governor ordering the troops to
We arrived in Auckland at four o'clock in the afternoon, and were met by Mr. Myers, the Mayor, who took us in his carriage to the Grand Hotel, on the top of the hill near the gates of Government House. I spent as much time in Auckland as could be spared from public duties and receptions in wandering about the streets of Parnell, the suburb of Auckland, in which I had lived, and trying to rediscover some of the old spots of which I had imagined myself for more than forty years to have carried a clear and precise recollection in my memory. The effort was not attended by any remarkable success; it is strange what tricks memory plays, and how much that is supposed to be recollection is only imagination. The main road of Parnell, which was bordered in former days on either side by quiet houses and gardens, had become a noisy thoroughfare, with big and thriving shops on both sides, and electric trams passing up and down every few minutes. The modest building which had been "St. Mary's Cathedral" was gone, and was replaced by a new church. The old house of Bishop Selwyn looked low and obscure amongst the much finer houses built around it, in one of which the present Bishop resides. The house in which Mr. Dillon Bell, the Native Minister, had lived, still stands on the main road, dwarfed,
On the day following our arrival, the Mayor, Mr. Myers, and the citizens of Auckland, were good enough to give me a public reception in the Municipal Buildings. There was a large gathering of the leading citizens, many of whom came to shake hands after the meeting and claim acquaintance of former days. Amongst others who presented themselves was the English schoolmaster Pihoihoi Moke-moke, in which were bound up all the five numbers that had ever been published; the last, which was among those seized by Rewi, was somewhat torn and dilapidated and bore the marks of rough usage. I had told the Mayor, whom I had met at the Exhibition at Christchurch, of my desire to see and if possible recover copies of the paper; he then promised to make inquiries on his return to Auckland at the Public Museum. He found there that they had in the Museum duplicate copies of the paper. A complete set was bound in morocco, with an illuminated frontispiece containing the arms of the city, pictures of a Maori and a settler, a view of Rangitoto, and the entrance of Auckland Harbour, and the following inscription:—
Presented by The Citizens of AucklandtoTheRight Hon. Sir John Gorst,on the Occasion of His Visit, AsSpecial CommissionerFrom theImperial Government, to theNew Zealand International Exhibition,1906., Arthur M. MyersMayor.
I expressed my most grateful thanks for the beautiful present they had given me, which would be one of my most valued possessions, and for the kindness with which I had been received throughout the country, culminating in this reception at Auckland. I said I was sorry to leave New Zealand, and wished I could remain longer. I expressed my astonishment at the marvellous progress that had been made in forty years, and especially at the success which the New Zealand Government had achieved in the management of native affairs. It was a unique distinction of New Zealand, for which there was no parallel in the history of the world, to have solved the problem of having a semicivilized race like the Maories living on equal terms with the Europeans. It was gratifying to find the Maories had now, on the whole, implicit faith in the justice of the Pakeha, and the old feeling of dislike on the side of the Europeans had entirely disappeared, and was replaced by the most generous sympathy towards the Maori race.
Mr. Fowlds took me to visit many of the schools. There were two admirable schools for Maories in Parnell, the St. Stephen's School for older boys and the Victoria School for older girls. The former, to which I had paid a hurried visit on first landing, seemed an exact realization of the plan which had been projected at Te Awamutu. It was a technical school, in which arts and crafts were taught, and a good elementary education
On the Saturday we were taken for a day's excursion by Mr. Fowlds to the National Park at Nihotapu, in order that my daughter might see
On Sunday Sir John Logan Campbell, the oldest settler in Auckland, who knew the site of the city before a single house was built upon it or a Government surveyor had trod upon the shore, took us to the top of Mount Eden and One-Tree Hill, from which the whole neighbourhood of Auckland and Onehunga can be surveyed. One-Tree Hill and Cornwall Park at its base have been presented to the city by Sir John Campbell.
The whole of the country which surrounds the city of Auckland is completely changed from its appearance in former days. The old conical hills, formed by extinct volcanoes, still remain as landmarks, changed only by the drives and paths which have been made to their summits. But all the country is parcelled out into gardens and houses and orchards which exhibit signs of wealth and prosperity, far in excess of the appearances of former days. The authorities of the city are quite alive to the danger of allowing the population to become too concentrated. There are no slums yet in the city, and the municipal regulations are such as to prevent their growing up. The
We sailed from Auckland for Sydney on December 10, in one of the Union Company of New Zealand's steamers. It was a sad and everlasting farewell, no "auf wiedersehen"; we all knew that there was little chance of our ever seeing each other's faces any more. I could not help contrasting the happiness and prosperity which we left behind with the sad and gloomy prospects of both races at the time of my former departure. The war in Waikato which had been so long dreaded had actually broken out. The decision to invade Waikato had been made in haste: it was agreed upon by Sir George Grey and the New Zealand Ministry only during the day which preceded the night in which the troops began their march. So many reports from the most varied quarters had come pouring in, all tending to show that there was a plan amongst the Waikatos to do some outrageous act like the fatal ambuscade at Tataraimaka to provoke an immediate war, that the Governor resolved to begin hostilities at once for the sake of the women and children in the outlying districts who might have been the first victims. It was of course impossible to say then, and it is impossible to say now, whether the fear of attack was well grounded; in my opinion both then and now it was not; but after
Tamihana had at last joined the fighting party: he had never before engaged in war since in his young days he became a Christian; he had then declared, to the consternation of his father, an old cannibal chief and warrior, that he should never
The Governor sent off to Australia and India for all the troops that could be mustered and spared; and resolved to recruit a colonial force in Australia. It was for this object that I accompanied Mr. Dillon Bell to Sydney. My family went too; Auckland was in too dangerous a state for them to be left there alone. I little imagined it would be forty-three years before I should see New Zealand again.
The prospects of the Maori race were blacker
But the figures for 1896 showed a large decrease and the increases for the periods 1896-1901 and 1901-1906 are too great to be accepted as facts, Whether there has been any degree of increase during the last ten years is considered doubtful, and, so far as the censuses since 1874 are to be relied on, the population of Maories is at least stationary. The half-caste population, on the other hand, is thought to be on the increase and at the 1906 census amounted to 6,516.
The following extracts from Reports of Dr. Pomare, a Maori, native Health Officer under the New Zealand Government, will give some idea of the causes which impede the increase of the Maori race:—
"We have looked into the question of the decline of the Maori, and have found that the causes of this were legion. Bad housing, feeding, clothing, nursing, unventilated rooms, unwholesome pahs, were all opposed to the perpetuation of the race; but a deeper knowledge of the Maori reveals to us the fact that these are not the only potent factors in the causation of his decay—like an imprisoned bird of the forest, he pines for the liberty and freedom of his alpine woods. This
"There is one matter which I would like to draw your attention to which I think has an all-important bearing on the fertility of the race, and that is Maori marriages. The matrimonial arrangements of the Maori are not only deplorable but productive of much harm. Girls entering their teens are made to wed beardless youths, with the
"It has been said that the Maori women are sterile, and that is one of the reasons why the Maori is decreasing. I think this state of sterility is more or less limited to the aristocratic Maori. When you look through the list of our noted men, you find that most of them are heirless, but not so with the plebeian. They are productive enough, only more than half of the children die before they reach mature years. Why the aristocratic Maori is unproductive is probably due to the two following reasons: first, consanguineous marriages; second, the partial adoption of pakeha habits and costumes, promoting diseases. There is no doubt that consanguineous marriages, which are more or less limited to persons of high rank, result in the extinction of aristocratic lines. The second reason is evident enough, for Maori women are martyrs to female complaints which are due to carelessness, neglect and exposure. If we could save half of the children who die annually, there would be a marked increase in the Maori population. The main causes for the infant mortality are: first and greatest, ignorance concerning the bringing-up of babies; second, unsuitable food; third, bad clothing; fourth, bad ventilation; fifth, improper nursing and non-attendance of
There was a final gathering of our friends on December 10, at the Grand Hotel: the British Commissioners gave a farewell luncheon to the principal citizens of Auckland; besides Mr. Fowlds and the Mayor, personal friends and the descendants of former friends were there. Patara was a distinguished and honoured guest, and his reception by the company was a visible token of the change that had come over the social estimation of his race. The Mayor took us down to the steamer, and as we drew away from the wharf, William Swanson and William Hughes, the old scholars of Te Awamutu, waved a last farewell. Good-bye to the kindness and hospitality of the living. Good-bye to the fond memories of the dead.
Next morning the vessel was off the North Cape: we soon sighted and passed the Three Kings Islands: I watched this last bit of New Zealand territory till it faded away in the distance—Good-bye for ever. Good-bye, Good-bye!
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In demy 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 18s. net.
With eight full-page Plates, and twenty-two initial Letters from Punch.
"A handsome and delightful volume with many illustrations and wonderful initial letters…. Valuable and welcome as it is, it is still more highly to be recommended for the admirable portrait it gives of one of the very best of the mid-Victorian men of letters."—Pall Mall Gazette.
"A mine of good things."—Globe.
"That the book is sensational, fantastic, and extravagantly audacious, is evident at once; but Father Benson's triumph consists in this, that he has dealt with a subject riddled with pitfalls without being absurd. Sensational the book is, but it is clever and significant sensationalism, which makes this book more interesting than anything that Father Benson has yet given us."—Daily News.
"Father Benson has undertaken to present Mary Tudor to us in a manner that shall awaken, not the feelings of horror and detestation usually considered appropriate, but those of pity, understanding, and respect. Exquisitely pathetic is the figure he draws, with so much sympathy and insight."—Globe.
"Seldom has a more powerful picture been presented of the ruin wrought to monastic life by the rapacity of Henry than that which Mr. Benson has furnished…. He has contrived to furnish forth a novel in which the interest is well maintained, and the characters, good or bad, are intensely human."—Scotsman.
"A remarkable novel, full of genuine learning, its characterisation strong and clearly denned, and its sincere and devout spirit must impress even those who cannot agree with its tendencies."—Saturday Review.
"The strongest of all Father Benson's books…. There is no denying the strength and sincerity of the book, nor the force of its downright insistence upon the necessity of expelling the excesses of sentimentalism from the character…. A strongly worded but clean-minded exposure of one side of contemporary national life."—Daily Telegraph.
"What we are most struck by in Mr. Benson's collection of stories is the admirable way in which they are told. He is an ideal raconteur, and with a few skilful suggestions infuses the individuality of the narrator into each experience…. Indeed, so entertaining have we found this gathering of clerical story-tellers, that we have experienced a sense of regret in parting company with them."—Outlook.
"It is impossible to appraise in the ordinary terms of criticism a book which appeals to us so strongly as 'The Light Invisible.' Its delicate, elusive mysticism, its deep spirituality, exercise upon the sympathetic reader an irresistible charm, which can hardly be analysed or defined."—Church Times.
"'Richard Raynal' tells of a 'solitary' or mystical hermit, who went to warn Henry VI of sin and death, was beaten and died. That is all. But the slight thread of the story is wonderfully moving. Father Benson has made out of these tiny materials a fabric of the most fragrant sweetness, the most delicate colours,"—Morning Leader.
In crown 8vo, cloth, with frontispiece portrait, 6s.
"It is seldom that an historical novel is so satisfactory; there is not a single dull or dead page. Mrs. Brookfield must certainly write some more historical novels."—Daily Telegraph.
In foolscap 8vo, leather 3s. 6d. net, cloth 2s. net.
"A very charming little book. Mr. How has a light and pretty touch, and has evidently been a loving and faithful observer of the little ones about whom he here tells many delightful and some touching stories."—Punch.