Organising the Maoris.

The end desired was happily unattainable, but the means used subserved wiser purposes. Adopting the suggestion of James Busby, the first official British Resident in the Islands, the Governor pensioned some of the tribal chiefs; others received regular rations; and to others were given presents. Eealising, as Hongi had long ago realised, that the possession of arms of precision was the chief source of Maori strength against the English and at the same time the chief cause of wars with one another, he succeeded, after a long struggle with his Council, in stopping the sale of fire-arms to the natives; and he otherwise endeavoured to abolish intertribal wars. He restricted the sale of alcoholic liquors among them and thus checked their ravages. One has seen, at the Hot Lakes, a stately Maori wrapped in his blanket, with the port of an ancient Roman clothed in his toga, assisting a tipsy Maori woman, with a child on her back, along the road; and one could conceive the hatred of the pakeha that smouldered in the heart of the old chief.

Grey next reverted to the policy of Governor Hobson, unhappily reversed by FitzRoy, of prohibiting the sale of Maori lands to private individuals and re-asserted the pre-emptive right of the Government. He proceeded to organize the natives. He formed and armed a body of Native police under European officers. Some of the more intelligent he intended to use on juries and otherwise employ in connection with the administration of justice. Courts were created; resident magistrates were appointed, with the powers of commissioners; and one of these was afterwards Sir John Gorst. A lawyer was page 62made standing counsel to the Maoris, with a salary and a commission on sums received. The courts thus constituted were at first freely resorted to by the natives. During one year 211 cases were tried and £490 recovered from Europeans in Auckland alone for the Maoris.