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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Rare Volume

(C.) Page 1. — Apprehensions of a Forcible Interference with the Tribal Right

(C.) Page 1.

Apprehensions of a Forcible Interference with the Tribal Right.

The recent acts of the New Zealand Government have been received both by natives and Europeans as indications of a movement in this direction, otherwise than by legislation and the consent of the chiefs. Any such intention has at length been disavowed by the responsible ministers. The disavowal, however, was so long delayed, and the ferment raised by the apprehension of it was and is so serious, that the subject cannot be passed by without notice.

There has long been a growing indisposition on the part; of the natives to dispose of their lands; and this has found expression in a powerful combination known as the Anti-land-selling-league. The league, commencing about fifty miles south of Auckland, embraces nearly the whole of the interior of the island and extends to the east coast, and to the west coast south of Kawhia : (Report of the Board on Native Affairs, Parl. Papers, July, 1860, p. 240); some of the most active and influential members of it are resident in the immediate neighbourhood of Taranaki. This settlement has, from its foundation, been surrounded by difficulties so urgent that in May 1858, the Provincial Council memorialized the General Assembly, to the effect, "that the difficulties under which both races are now labouring can only be removed by an entire change in the policy of the Government, which shall enforce law and order among the natives, and give support and aid to such of them as are willing to sell land" page 33 (Swainson's New Zealand, p. 205.);—and "that the system heretofore adopted of requiring the assent of every claimant to any piece of land before a purchase is made, has been found to operate most injuriously in this Province on account of the conflicting interests of the claimants, and that the sufferers by this system are invariably the men who are most advanced in civilization and who possess the largest share in the common property. Your memorialists arc therefore of opinion that such of the natives as are willing to dispose of their proportion of any common land to the Government should be permitted to do so, whether such natives form a majority or only a large minority of the claimants, and that the Government should compel an equitable division of such common land among the respective claimants, on the petition of a certain proportion of them." (Ib., p.372.) "Governor Browne," observes Mr. Fox, "very properly opposed this attempt 'to coerce a minority of natives into selling their lands.' The proposal, however, is of consequence, as indicating the strength of the desire felt to obtain the waste lands at Taranaki; and what gives it peculiar importance is this fact, that one of the representatives of Taranaki in the General Assembly fills the office of 'Native Minister.' and has been for nearly five years one of the Governor's 'responsible advisers."'—(Fox, p. 21.)

Yet when the Governor visited Taranaki in March, 1859, "at a public meeting of all the principal chiefs of the district," he said "he thought the Maories would be wise to sell the land they could not use themselves, as what they retained would thus become more valuable than the whole had previously been. He never would consent to buy land without an undisputed title. He would not permit any one to interfere in the sale of land unless he owned part of it. On the other hand, he would buy no man's land without his consent."—(Parl. Papers, July, 27, 1860, p. 167.) The words emphasized above, might be interpreted either as directed against the usurpations of a self-constituted association like the Land-league, over-riding the free action of the independent chief; or against the well known right of interference on the part of those who, by immemorial usage, possess and may lawfully exercise that right. If only the former were intended, it should have been so explained, for it was understood by the chiefs in the latter sense, and "as striking at the very root of their power." (Archdeacon Kissling, C. M. S. Papers, p. 14).

Negociations, which followed close upon this address, page 34 so far from allaying the fears of the chiefs, rather tended to convince them that their apprehensions were not unfounded.

On the 18th March (ten days after the meeting) Mr. McLean (the Chief Land Commissioner) issued a public notice addressed to W. Kingi, and other chiefs:—

"You know that every man has a right of doing as he pleases with his own portion, and no man may interfere to prevent the exercise of his right, for the thought respecting his own is with himself. . . . The thought respecting his own piece is with each. This is a word of advice to you, lest you should interfere, without ground, with Te Teira, &c." (Fox, p. 27).

On the 2nd of April, Assistant Native Secretary Smith again wrote to W. Kingi. The letter and its general purport are thus alluded to by Mr. Fox:—

"Now they are informed the 'ancient tenures' are to be changed. The 'chieftainship of the land' is no longer to be regarded. 'The Governor's rule is for each man to have the word (or say) as regards his own land.'" (Ib).

Wiremu Kingi, in a letter to Archdeacon Hadfield, (Dec. 5, 1859) tells him that he "said to Mr. Parris, Disputed land the Governor does not desire. That Pakeha replied, that was some time ago, now this is a new system of the Governor's."—(New Zealander, Sept. 1, 1860.)

The new system might be to carry out the purchase of disputed land in spite of the dissent of those whose claim had been disallowed—a policy in most cases highly dangerous; but the expressions used by Mr. McLean and Mr. Smith naturally led the chiefs to imagine that the innovation extended also to the disregard of the tribal right. "The natives," says Mr. Fox, "regard the transactions as indicating an entire change in the system of land purchase, and as a departure from the principle of the treaty of Waitangi." (Fox, p. 26.) Nor where the natives the only parties who put this interpretation upon the Governor's proceedings. He has been commended by one party, and suspected by the other, both outside and within the walls of the House of Representatives:—and on both sides because it was believed he intended to set aside the rights of tribes and chiefs. The Bishop of Wellington, vindicating to the Governor the conduct of Archdeacon Hadfield, says:—" I think you have been misled in the matter of Archdeacon Hadfield's conduct about the Taranaki war. He page 35 told me, some months hack, that he wished to write to you about the state of the natives at Taranaki, as he had received a letter from William King; but as I then expected you and the General Assembly in February or March, I recommended his waiting till you came, and then to talk the matter over. We had no idea of the sudden coup de main your Excellency was planning, and the Proclamation of Martial Law in the Province of Taranaki came upon us before we had any opportunity of remonstrance. Both the Archdeacon and I were out of the country, and on the high seas, when your Excellency made the speech you allude to at Taranaki; I never saw it, or heard of it, till last month. But at the same time I should say, that if I had seen it, I should never have understood from it that you were going to introduce a new principle in the deciding of native titles to land; and that you were going to ignore the tribal right of ownership, and to accept the usufructuary possession as being a title to the fee simple."*—(Southern Cross, Sept. 1, 1860.)

If they were not really feeling their way to some ulterior measures, such as those ascribed to them, the conduct of the Government can only be regarded as in a high degree incautious and unstatesmanlike. It was not without reason that Dr. Featherstone said in the House of Representatives—(Aug. 17, 1860) "I hoped that ministers would have openly declared whether the "New Policy" recently adopted in the purchase of native lands, of which Wiremu Kingi and the natives complain, the policy of recognizing individual native claims and of ignoring tribal rights, is to be persisted in. . . . The principle was, for the first time, applied in the purchase of the land at Waitara, and considering the disasters it has caused, that one province may be said to be completely destroyed, and that the prospect of a general war is daily becoming more imminent, I do think that the colony has a right to know whether this new policy . . . is henceforth to be the policy of his Excellency's Government. For if such is the decision of the Government; or if this new policy be not openly and officially disavowed, I do not hesitate to say that it will be regarded by almost every tribe in New Zealand page 36 as a violation of the rights solemnly guaranteed to them by the treaty of Waitangi, and that the disasters of Taranaki will be repeated in various parts of this island but on a greater scale."—(Southern Cross, Sept. 1, 1860.)

* The Bishop obviously means that he should not, at that time, have put upon it the interpretation which subsequent events seem to justify; and hence should not have thought it incumbent upon him to take the steps which the Archdeacon is blamed for not taking."