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Life of Sir George Grey: Governor, High commissioner, and Premier. An Historical Biography.

Chapter XXII. — An English Proxenos

page 163

Chapter XXII.
An English Proxenos.

Thirteen thousand miles away from it, Grey remained the friend of the Colony in which he had spent the greater part of his days. He might well have been appointed Agent-General or High Commissioner for it in London, and it is known that in later years he would have accepted the office, which was created in 1870; but the interests of colonial politicians had to be regarded, and perhaps he was distrusted by Ministers, while he might not have been a persona grata at the Colonial Office. He was to act like a Greek proxenos, keeping watch and ward over its relations with the Motherland, as Rudyard Kipling professed to sit on the boundary of Maine like the watch-dog of the British Empire. As there were once volunteer laureates in England, Grey was for a brief space, before the office had been created, a volunteer Agent-General. He was the intermediary between the colonists and the Colonial Office, but he failed to avert the total withdrawal of the troops from New Zealand. Yet once he was to render it a signal service.

Te Kooti.

Evidently inspired by Grey, Mr. Rees tells a strange story that is authenticated by the source from which it comes. An irreconcilable Maori chief, Te Kooti Riki-rangi by name, had risen in rebellion. It is proved, and it was known, that he had fought on the side of the colonists in the Waikato war. His reward was that he was transported to the Chatham Islands, with the prospect of being interned there for an indefinite time. Indignation at his ill-usage led him, as indignation against the colonists led so many of his countrymen, to revolt against Christianity and found a new religious page 164sect, which was suppressed. Resenting his slavery, he and his followers seized a ship that lay in the harbour, and compelled the officers to navigate it to New Zealand. There, on the east coast, at Poverty Bay, near his old haunts, he landed in force, and for months he led the colonial troops and their Native allies a dance. Four months after he had landed he swooped down on the English settlement at Gisborne and massacred a large number of its population. A thrill of horror went through the Colony. A still greater danger threatened it on the west coast, where Titokowaru was on the war-path. The colonists were terror-stricken and dreaded a rising of all the Hau-Hau tribes. A reward of £1,000 was offered for the body of Te Kooti, dead or alive. The Governor and the Premier appealed for aid to the loyal Maoris. Yet at this very time the British Ministry was finally withdrawing its last regiments. Lord Granville scornfully asked the colonial Ministry whether it was not exaggerating the magnitude of the danger. He had good grounds for his scorn. It is now proved that there were never more than 2,000 Maoris under arms, and there were 220,000 colonists. Where was the need of Imperial aid? The panic at length spread to the Colonial Office and the English Ministry, which then conceived an extraordinary design. Speaking through Mr. Rees, Grey revealed— presumably, for the first time—the plan of the Ministry for settling the affairs of New Zealand. A proposal, definitely formulated and drawn out in detail, was laid before the Cabinet—probably, by the Secretary for the Colonies. It provided that constitutional government should be provisionally withdrawn from New Zealand, and that General Gordon, who afterwards acquired a tragic fame as the Egyptian victim of the Gladstone Ministry, should be appointed dictator, like an ancient Roman, with absolute powers. The proposal was by no means so outrageous as it now seems. One half of it, at least—nay, both halves—had been publicly advocated, and by persons in authority within the Colony itself. A high legislative officer, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, openly advised that the constitution page 165should be suspended in the North Island, proposed that the Home Government be asked to resume the control of Native affairs, and held that the North Island should be governed by an Imperial Commission. The Superintendent (elective governor) of the province of Otago spoke to the same effect. The policy of self-reliance, he asserted, had failed. All wars with the Maoris were matters of Imperial concern. Mr. Justice Richmond declared that it had become impossible to enforce the law in the North Island. In January, 1869, at a public meeting held in Auckland, a petition was adopted, praying for the suspension of the Constitution as demanded by "the evident incapacity of the" local government, and the petition was forwarded by the Governor to the Colonial Office. A petition from Southland (the southern division of Otago) was to the same effect. The Governor weighted the recommendations with his own urgencies. Another Indian mutiny might break out, and massacres like those of Cawnpore and Delhi were to be dreaded.

A Proposed Dictatorship.

In receipt of such alarming statements and prognostics, is the British Government of the day to be blamed if it contemplated the appointment of a dictator? Before it decided, it resolved to take the counsel of the Englishman who knew New Zealand best—of the Governor who knew it supremely well. A military officer was sent to wait upon Sir George Grey and solicit his advice. Sir George prudently asked time to consider the proposal, and meanwhile, on this pretext, he cunningly retained the document that had been left with him. He condemned the scheme. Colonists who had for a decade and a half enjoyed representative institutions would never submit to the withdrawal of them and would themselves rise in mutiny at the mere mention of a dictator. By his own account, Grey's opposition to the proposal extinguished it, and it was never heard of again. He carefully preserved the document, however, and it is now in his archives.

page 166

Would Grey himself have accepted the mission which he refused to another? He certainly would. No position on earth would have appealed more magnetically to his ambition—an ambition that had its noble side. He would have gone out once more to New Zealand, but as an ordinary Governor, with extraordinary powers. He would have proclaimed martial law in certain disturbed districts, as he several times did during the Wellington war of 1846 and the Wanganui war of 1847. Had he deemed it necessary, he would not have scrupled to place the whole North Island under martial law—which is, of course, the same thing as suspending the Constitution. Te Kooti would have been captured, as he was. The rebel Maoris would have been conquered, as they easily were. The loyal Maoris would have proved themselves devoted and serviceable, as under Rangihiwinui they did. And the neutral Maoris would have gone over to the wmning side. Then the ban would have been removed, and the colony would have become the peaceful community it had long been. And Grey, who knew how to arrogate the credit that should often have redounded to others, would have been deemed the wonder-worker of it all.