The King-maker's Sons.

Tamehana had two sons, Hote and Tupu Taingakawa te Waharoa. They were young lads when the Waikato War began, but they both went into the fray, and carried their doublebarrel guns in the campaign. We used to see a good deal of them in the Waikato in after years; I was acquainted with both of them and frequently talked with them about the page 20 page 21 events of the war. They were men who differed greatly in character. Hote, the elder, was a born warrior, a firebrand, rowdy, always eager for a fight. He used to go off to Taranaki campaigns every season by way of a jaunt, “to shoot soldiers,” as he told the pioneer settlers in Waikato. Taingakawa, the other son, strongly resembled his father in character. He was a quiet-mannered man and an altruist. Like his father, he was not a big man; his head was well-shaped and intellectual. Up to the time of his death in Waikato in 1929, he was the principal guiding force in the dwindled Maori Kingite organisation.

A story told of Tupu Taingakawa's youth is some index to his character. When Wiremu Tamehana, brokenhearted at the ruin of his hopes and schemes, lay dying at the Waihou in 1866, he called his two sons to him. To the elder boy, Hote, he put this question:—

“What will you do about the pakeha when I am dead? Is it peace or war with you?”

Young Hote passionately replied: “I shall continue to make war. I shall fight the Government.”

To the younger lad, Tupu (usually known as Tana in those days): “How will your path lie? Will you, too, fight against the Queen?”

“I am for peace,” was Tupu's reply. “You have made peace, and I shall not tread upon it. I shall not make war against the Queen.”

“That is well,” said the King-maker. “You shall be head of the tribe, to follow after me.”

The younger son kept his word; and it was certainly just as well for the settlers of the Waikato frontier that he did so, and that he and not the turbulent Hote was the controlling chief of Ngati-Haua during the anxious times on the border a few years later.

Taingakawa did not live to see his lifelong wish realised, the return of confiscated land to his people. They are still starved for land whereon to make a living. But he lived to see the justice of his father's cause realised to a considerable degree and recorded by the Royal Commission of Enquiry into land confiscations. Those confiscations—they rankle still, though the races have long been at peace and the Maori is embarking on the good life of the land again. As that fine character the Waikato chieftainess Te Puea Herangi told the latest Commission enquiring into Native affairs: “They never forget.”

“Smoking shortens life according to the non-smokers, but as I've been smoking since I was a lad, and am now eighty-three it doesn't seem to have shortened mine much,” remarked an old identity in the smoke-room of an Auckland club the other afternoon. “But then,” continued the veteran, “I always smoke New Zealand toasted tobacco— Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead)——and if there's any better I'd like to know where I can get it. When I meet a non-smoker I'm always sorry for the poor beggar—he doesn't know what he's missing!” They all laughed. This old smoker has discovered what thousands of other smokers have found out—that toasted tobacco is the best because not only does the toasting immensely improve flavour and bouquet but it largely eliminates the nicotine in the leaf. “Toasted New Zealand” is as innocuous as it is fragrant and delicious. The four brands are: Riverhead Gold, Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, and Cut Plug No. 10 (Bullshead). No other toasted tobaccos are manufactured. But there are several imitations!^*