Letter V.

Persons in England, in looking at the New-Zealand question, appear generally to get hold of the Waitara dispute and Colonel Browne's war as the root and foundation of the present hostilities. They were, no doubt, very material elements in producing them, and had a direct effect on the growth of that hostile spirit with which ultimately nine- page 23 tenths of the Maori population south of Auckland became imbued. But there was another stream of events running parallel to those, which flowed originally from quite another fountain-head. These were the Land league and the King movement; separate at first, but, in the end, merging in one.

The Land league originated in the jealousy of the Waikato and certain other tribes of the progress of the colonists. Afraid that the land would be all overrun by the Europeans, they banded themselves together to oppose all land-selling. The movement was legitimate so long as they refused, every man, or every family, or every tribe, to sell his or their own land. But after a time the movement became aggressive; and, by means which practically amounted to intimidation, they prevented tribes and individuals from selling land which they were willing and even desirous to sell.

The King movement appears to have originated in a desire to establish law and order among themselves, and might, had it been properly directed in its earlier stages, have been turned to good effect. Partly by mismanagement during Governor Browne's administration, partly through the inability of the Natives to guide and control the machinery they had put in motion, it became ultimately little else than a system of antagonism towards the European, the whole aim of which was to keep him at arm's length, and to prescribe the limits within which colonization should advance. Being wanting in the knowledge necessary to enable them to establish effectually the machinery of government, the institutions established under the auspices of the King had no power, and were altogether ineffectual to secure law and order among the Natives themselves. They were sufficient, however, to concentrate the energy of whatever government they had against the European. Anarchy within, and tyranny towards those without, were the practical results of what was probably, in its origin, a well-meant but ill-designed attempt at self-elevation and national independence.

Both these systems—the Land league and Kingism— page 24 originated about 1848, during the first administration of Governor Grey; but at that period they made little progress, and had no prominence. That was the time, however, when the guiding hand was wanted, and when, by a judicious system of land courts and self-governing institutions, the feeble attempts of the Natives to struggle out of the confusion of their own social condition, and to annex themselves to ours, might have been carried on to a satisfactory result. It might have been done in the earlier part of Governor Browne's time, and the colonial authorities made the attempt to do it, but were thwarted by the representative of the Imperial Government. It was too late when Governor Grey returned to New Zealand in 1861; and the institutions which he then hastily endeavoured to establish only remain as a monument of good intentions, and perhaps of a not very clear perception of the right method by which to carry them into execution.

When Governor Grey arrived in the colony "Kingism" was a far more threatening difficulty than "Waitara." But Kingism had thoroughly adopted Waitara, and therefore it was that the latter had assumed so great an importance, and loomed on the political horizon far larger than it would have appeared if viewed through the medium of its own merits.

At the date of the renewal of hostilities at Tataraimaka, as recorded above, Kingism had developed these features:—A king, a very young man of no force of character, surrounded by a little mock court, and a body guard of household troops without shoes and with very tight stocks, kept aloof from all vulgar contact, and even from the inspection of Europeans, unless on humiliating terms; a body of 5000 to 10,000 warriors, scattered over the country, but thoroughly organized, and capable of easy combination, to the extent of 2000 or 3000, in any one spot; large accumulated stores of ammunition; large stores of food; a position in the centre of the island from which a descent could be made in a few hours upon any of the European settlements; roads forbidden to be made through the King country; the large rivers barred page 25 against steamers, so that nine-tenths of the country was closed against the ordinary means of travel and transport; the Queen's law set at utter defiance, her magistrates treated with, supercilious contempt, her writs torn in pieces and trampelled under foot; finally, Europeans who had married Maori women, and had lived for a quarter of a century among the Natives, both lay and Missionary, ordered out of the country, while their wives and children were taken from them on the plea of relationship to the Maori;—all this was accompanied by an exhibition of the utmost arrogance and self-confidence, and the most overbearing and undisguised contempt for the power of the Queen and the Europeans.

It was practically fast coming to this, that either the turbulent spirit of the King party must be controlled by force, or the colonists must leave the country. I know by experience what it was, for I spent the year 1862-1863, during which the revolt broke out, in a country district, in the midst of a scattered population of colonists, surrounded on three sides by tribes, some of which had openly committed themselves to the King party, and all of whom (with one insignificant exception) were notoriously in sympathy with it. At any time during that year a word from Waikato might have let loose upon us the excited passions of our neighbours; or more remote tribes might, by crossing a range of hills, or floating down our river, have invaded our district, and carried devastation into the midst of a peaceful population, as they had done at Taranaki, and were doing at Auckland. Though our district had taken the disease in a very mild form, and though friendly relations with our neighbours of the Maori race, of many years' standing, had created a feeling of confidence in them which the event proved to be well founded, yet we saw enough of Kingism in its new development to convince us how dangerous an element it had become, and how certainly, unless it were crushed, it must destroy the results of twenty years' colonization, and most, or the greater part of the population in ruin.