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

Chapter V. — Governor of New Zealand—continued;

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Chapter V.
Governor of New Zealand—continued;.

The Missionaries.

Besides the Maoris, Grey was to find in New Zealand a remarkable body of men who were playing a large part in the history of the Colony. They belonged to two religious denominations—the Anglicans and the Wesleyans, and their friendly rivalry presaged an equal share in its future civilisation. They had been principally instrumental in procuring the assent and the signatures of the chiefs to the treaty of Waitangi, and the first Governor had acknowledged his obligations to them in this connection. On many an occasion both Anglicans and Wesleyans had interposed between angry bands of Native combatants and made peace. They completed the pacification they had begun. Largely at their instance, the great hostile warriors—Kapiti and Heke in the north, Rauparaha and Rangihaeata in the south—turned their spears into pruning-hooks and died Christians. Such services were incommensurable and unrewardable, and they should have earned for the "transfigured band" both consideration and reverence.

The Missionary ideal.

They received neither at the hands of Governor Grey. An older man, with a still more perverted mind, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, appraised them more justly when, in 1839, he instructed Ms brother, Colonel William Wakefield, to deal considerately with them, because of "the sacrifices they had made as pioneers of civilisation." Self-sacrifice was the last attribute Grey was to perceive in them. Half a century afterwards he told how he had found them living in comfortable houses, in competence, and in good positions. Having incredible influence over the natives, they had acquired great estates,—and this page 43was the pretext of Ms hostility. They also opposed and bitterly attacked all who stood up for fair dealing. The chief of those who thus stood up for fair dealing was Grey himself, and he seemed to think that he had been badly used by them. Yet, at different times, he had written of them in despatches as "the numerous and admirable body of missionaries," and justly spoke of them as having conferred "incalculable benefits" on the Colony.

In the long strife that took place between them he was the aggressor. As early as February, 1846, immediately after the capture of Ruapekapeka, he intimated that letters of a gravely compromising, indeed of a treasonable, character had been found in the pah. These he professed to have destroyed without reading, but he let it be plainly understood that the leading Anglican missionary, Henry Williams, was one of the writers. Williams was one of the most striking personalities in the early history of the Colony. Like the late Archbishop of York, he had served in the Royal Navy; and the fighting spirit, subdued and refined, lived on in the old lieutenant. He was possessed by the ideal of the early missionaries, who looked forward to a missionary New Zealand;, peopled by none but Maoris and their missionary teachers, or, if by some scattered Europeans as well, needed at first for purposes of trade and industrial initiation, then by those Europeans under the government of the missionaries. No thought had they of making New Zealand a British colony, or the home of a future division of the British race. They knew their labours to be imperilled by the questionable specimens of Europeans already settled in the islands, and they dreaded that their entire work of evangelization would be ruined by British colonisation. So indeed it proved, or almost so. But these things were still in the womb of time. Meanwhile, these excellent, if mistaken, men dreamed of a Maori theocracy, where the missionaries would supersede the tohungas, or Maori priests, raise the whole people to a higher level, and create within them a new life.

Acting in that self-assumed capacity, so far from encouraging revolt, Henry Williams sought to guide and page 44disarm the rebel chiefs who lately threatened British ascendency. The heart of the old naval officer was loyal to the old flag, and he must have felt a sharp pang when that strangest of charges was made. The incident is notable only as revealing the beginning of Grey's animosity against Williams.

Grey's Action against them.

A month or two later it assumed an acute form. With the impression of the discovery still hot in his mind, Grey learnt that a number of persons had acquired large tracts of land from the Maoris, and for sums that now seem insignificant. These (he informed Lord Grey in a despatch dated, June, 1846) included "among them those connected with the public press, several members of the Church Missionary Society, and numerous families of those gentlemen," together with "various gentlemen holding important offices in the public service.'' He went on to say that "these individuals could not be put into possession of those tracts of land without a large expenditure of British blood and money;" hence, the despatch came to be known as "the Blood and Treasure Despatch." It would have to be decided whether (and he manifestly advised the Colonial Secretary not to decide that) "British naval and military forces should be employed in putting* these individuals into possession of the land they claim." The despatch was marked,, "confidential," but Lord Grey broke the seal of secrecy by promptly communicating the contents of it to the Church Missionary Society. The act set a questionable example to his namesake in New Zealand, who, twenty years after, communicated to his cabinet a confidential despatch from the Secretary for War and bitterly expiated the offence-The unfortunate Governor was twice punished—once for a despatch he wrote and again for a despatch written to him.

One set of facts could not be gainsaid. The missionaries had acquired extensive estates, and they had paid sums that by no rule of proportion could be deemed the page break page 45equivalents of the so-called purchases. Of a comparatively small number of missionaries no fewer than eight six actual and two past missionaries—possessed an amount of land exceeding the maximum fixed by colonial ordinance at 2,560 acres, while the others were doubtless provided for on a smaller scale. There was nothing in itself unjust in such purchases. The Government of the mother-colony of New South Wales recognised that men who had made-such heavy sacrifices for love of their kind, and who were so situated that they could not provide for their families, should have their families provided for by the State, and such provision was made in the form easiest to the Government that had fallen heir to the fee-simple of an entire continent by making grants of land to the children of chaplains. Unlike the early (and some later) politicians of the Colony, who made a fortune in New Zealand and then returned to England to spend it, the missionaries had resolved to dwell with their families in the land whither they had been sent and among the people they had converted to a new life. It is perhaps little to say that the missionaries did not ask, as Grey's despatch cynically implied they did, to be put in possession of the lands they claimed—least of all, by the '' effusion of blood and treasure.'' They were already in possession of them, and the Maoris never contested the missionary claims. The influence of the missionaries was so great that the natives would probably have given up to them still more extensive tracts of land.

A Theocracy.

It is an old question. As early as the first Christian centuries it was realised that the devotion of the faithful was a source of public danger, and statutes of the early emperors limited the amount of the donations they could legally make. The triumph of the Church over a moribund power augumented the evil. Throughout the Middle Ages the 'dead hand' of the Church was over all. In several European countries it was estimated that the Catholic Church held one-third of the landed wealth, and page 46similar statements are made of the Oriental theocracies The acquisition of land, at least in early times, is manifestly the material foundation of the spiritual power. Through this means the Pope attained his primacy. Through it all the national churches sustained their energies and maintained their consequence in the world. At this day, the spiritual communions par excellence, such as the Methodists, the Congregationalists, and the Baptists assure their material existence by trust deeds which give them a legal title to their chapels, schools, and endowments. Sometimes their most saintly ministers have tarnished their repute by their pertinacious pursuit of such wealth, and several ministers in all the colonies have impaired their spiritual usefulness by an undue addiction to the acquisition of it.

The danger of a theocracy, buttressed by large material resources, arising in New Zealand was not wholly imaginary. One of the missionaries claimed 30,000 acres. Another claimed about 10,000 acres, and a Government commissioner, to whom the Governor had remitted the settlement of the dispute, assigned Mm the full amount of Ms claim. To several others the same commissioner rashly awarded amounts exceeding the legal maximum. Grey had not the smallest intention of conceding any such extravagant claims. Of the missionaries Henry Williams was the most intractable. He positively stated that he claimed no excess over the legal maximum. On the contrary, as he jesuitically admitted, he made his very extensive purchases of land for the sole benefit of Ms eleven children, and he never derived a shilling from any of them. Men, other than misers, usually accumulate for the benefit of their heirs, but they are not generally considered the less selfish on that account. Nor was it literally true that Williams did not benefit by the lands he bought. When, in consequence of these transactions, he was dismissed by the Church Missionary Society, he withdrew to an estate owned by one of his sons, and there continued his noble missionary toils. He had unwittingly been providing for his old age.

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The Missionaries' Land Purchases.

The missionaries had immediately adopted the practice sanctioned by the Government of New South Wales. In order to provide for their children they had proposed to the Church Missionary Society, which had hitherto granted a lump sum in satisfaction of all demands, that it should purchase for each child of a missionary 200 acres. The Society agreed, but annexed conditions that made the proposal unacceptable to the missionaries. They then decided to purchase land on their own account and place their children on it as they grew up. The Society did not disapprove of the practice, and the Bishop of Australia, then their diocesan, openly countenanced it. At the same time he gave them wise counsel. Let them provide for their children, and a blessing attend them, but let them reserve no land for their own use. Not otherwise could they escape aspersions.

Aspersions had already been made, and by one who fought without the gloves. When he was in England in 1840 Grey may, probably must, have seen four published letters addressed to Lord Durham by a famous Australian Presbyterian, John Dunmore Lang. Dr. Lang had touched at New Zealand on his way to England in 1839. He had kept his eyes open, and when he arrived in England, he told what he had seen. He asserted that the missionaries, especially the agents of the Church Missionary Society, had been the "principals in the grand conspiracy of the European inhabitants to rob and plunder the natives of their land," and that their systematic practice was "one of the grossest breaches of trust witnessed for a century past." It was a scathing indictment, and matters were still worse than Lang had made out. It was Anglican missionaries whose misdeeds he had heard of at the Bay of Islands, but, further south, missionaries of the other denominations had carried it to perilous lengths. The same pretext that induced the Anglicans to make extensive purchases induced the Rev. Richard Taylor, so creditably known in the literature relating to New Zealand, to purchase 50,000 acres.

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Two things strike one in connection with the matter. Where did men who were presumably poor procure the money for making such extensive purchases? Mr. Taylor paid £681 for his 50,000 acres; Mr. Fairbnrn paid £923 for his 40,000. They must have borrowed the money. That is, they engaged, through the ordinary channels, in land speculations. Were such speculations consistent with their professional character?

Next, the missionaries estimated the value of land at five shillings the acre. This is shown by their proposal that, instead of giving their children at fifteen years old a final gift of £50, the Society should buy for them 200 acres. It was also the estimate adhered to by the Government commissioners. At that rate Mr. Fairburn would have paid a sum of £10,000 instead of less than £1,000, and Mr. Taylor £12,500 instead of less than £700. And what was the money value of the tools, etc., Mr. Williams gave for his thousands of acres?

Williams never surrendered the lands he had so easily acquired. In his heated controversy with the Governor, the Bishop (who sided with the Governor), and the Church Missionary Society he took high ground. He demanded that the Governor's grave charges should "be either fully established or fully and honourably withdrawn." They seem to have been sufficiently established by the mere enumeration of the lands owned by Williams's sons—almost the only fertile lands in the beautiful but barren and unproductive Bay of Islands. Withdrawn they never were, unless a friendly visit to the Bay of Islands during Grey's second term as Governor of New Zealand be considered such. The historians have taken sides with Williams. Not only his son-in-law, the scholar Carleton (who used to cite Aeschylus in the House of Eepresentatives, where there was no Sheridan to check him) in a biography of his father-in-law and in a special vindication, but the historian of the Church of England in New Zealand, the good Dean Jacobs; the historian of New Zealand, the Draconian Rusden; and the biographer of Wakefield, the all-accomplished and impartial Dr. Garnett, have with one accord set themselves page 49to laud and justify the brave old missionary. Two demurrers may be entered. First, let the unbiased reader peruse in the Parliamentary Papers the list of articles given by Williams in exchange for the tracts of land he purchased from the Maoris. It compares favourably with the collection of looking-glasses and Jew's harps given by William Wakefield for his alleged purchases, but it is still edifying. Next, let him remember that some of Williams's sons are among the largest landholders in New Zealand.

The Governor's Triumph.

The entangled affair issued in a victory for the militant Governor. The peccant missionaries were stringently dealt with by their ecclesiastical superiors and by the New Zealand courts. In 1849-50 Henry Williams was dismissed by the Church Missionary Society, and one of the most potent influences for good was for a time partially extinguished. The account of his departure from his "old and much-loved home, all untouched in Sabbath peace,'' reminds one of the departure of the seceding Free Church ministers from their manses only seven years before, which has been pathetically painted by Sir George Hervey. The root of both severances was the same—collision with the civil power; but the Scottish Presbyterian went out with clean hands, while the Anglican went out gorged with the spoils of the Maori. If the biographers and historians vindicate Williams, they fling the other missionaries to the wolves. Clarke, who had been a catechist, and then was appointed Chief Protector of the Aborigines, a capacity in which he rendered them signal services, was likewise dismissed, though a legal decision had been, given in his favour. He offered to surrender the excess, provided it could be held by the Church in trust for the education of the natives, and when this condition was rejected, he divided his estates among the members of his family and was again condemned by his society for so doing. Fairburn was also dismissed, and he too offered to surrender his excess land on similar page 50terms, but in his case the Government acted with a stringency that no legal decision impeded. It seized the greater part of his 30,000 acres, which had been a bone of contention between two hostile tribes, and were bought by him at the instance of Williams (who refused to purchase them for himself), because on no other terms could peace be made. Some grasping Wesleyan missionaries, who had yielded to the same overpowering temptation, were also dismissed. The Governor had triumphed. Shall we condemn him? For once at least in his life his motives were pure. A professing Christian and an Anglican, he can have had no prejudice against either Anglican or Wesleyan missionaries, and it is surely doubtful whether he was animated, as Mr. Rusden alleges, by jealousy of the power wielded by the consecrated band. He saw the natives being robbed of their chief, almost their sole, possessions by men whose offence was all the deeper that they were self-dedicated to an unworldly life, and whose influence over the Maoris was the more irresistible. He stood between the helpless natives and his own conscienceless countrymen; should he not stand between them and those of his fellow-countrymen who ought to have been the living embodiment of the conscience of their race? We shall not condemn him. The whole episode forms almost the brightest chapter of a life where pure motives, noble passions, and high ends were strangely mingled with egoist aims, vindictive passions, and unworthy means