Aureretanga;
Groans of the Maoris;
Groans of the Maoris
Edited by
,G. W. Rusden
Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society
“Tοὐλεύθερου δ' ἐκεῖυο Tις θέλει πόλι
Xρηστου τι βόυλευμ' εἰς μέσου Φέιυ, ἔχωυ;
Kαι ταυθ' ὅ Χρήζωυ, λαμπρὸς ἔσθ
.ὁ μὰ θἐλωυ
Σιγα
.τί τόυτωυ ἐστ' ἰσαίτερου πολει;”
.
Euripides“If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment
and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter; for he that is higher than the
highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.”—
Ecclesiastes.
“And he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but
behold a cry.”—
Isaiah.
London
William Ridgway, 169, Piccadilly
And Sold by All Booksellers.
MDCCCLXXXVIII
Reprint Published by
Capper Press
Christchurch, New Zealand
1975
Printed offset by the Caxton Press, Christchurch
from the copy in the Canterbury Public Library, Christchurch
Dedication to My Countrymen at Home and Abroad.
More than three hundred years ago a humane Spaniard was reviled for denouncing cruelties committed, not by all, but by some of his countrymen, against the Americans.
Bryan Edwards, the historian of the West Indies, depicted those cruelties in terms which can never be forgotten. Vol I. p, 105.
“All the murders and desolations of the most pitiless tyrants that ever diverted themselves with the pangs and convulsions of their fellow-creatures fall infinitely short of the bloody enormities committed by the Spanish nation in the conquest of the New World:— a conquest, on a low estimate, effected by the murder of ten millions of the species. But, although the accounts which are transmitted down to us of this dreadful carnage are authenticated beyond the possibility of dispute, the mind shrinking from the contemplation, wishes to resist conviction, and to relieve itself by incredulity. Thus benevolence is called in aid of cruelty, and apathy among many becomes in time an accomplice in the crimes of a few.
Such at least is the apology which I would frame for (Robertson) the author of the American History, when I find him attempting in contradiction to the voice and feelings of all man kind, to palliate such horrible wickedness.”
At page 110, Edwards, declaring that his hand trembled as he wrote, and his heart devoutly wished that the statement could be proved false, quoted, from
My own hand refuses to transcibe the atrocious particulars which follow the above words.
Las Casas failed to arrest, though perhaps he modified the injustice of his own time; but Robertson (arraigned by Edwards for palliating the wrongs done) was compelled to acknowledge “the malevolent opposition of Las Casas’ adversaries,” and to accord “great praise to his humane activity, which gave rise to various regulations that were of some benefit to the unhappy people” whose cause he espoused.
Robertson himself testifies that the Spaniards robbed the Americans of their lands—parted the despoiled owners as slaves in time of peace—and in “war paid no regard to those laws which by a tacit convention between contending nations, regulate hostility, and set some bounds to its rage.” He tells us also that Las Casas, in pleading for the Americans, “censured the conduct of his countrymen settled there with such honest severity as rendered him universally odious to them.”
It may be hoped that hatred of “honest severity” was not so universal as the historian supposed, and that some just men concurred with Las Casas; for few Spanish civilians can have resembled Roldan, nor can all Spanish Commanders have been so base and brutal as Ovando.
A later historian paid a higher tribute to the philanthropist. Not denying that Las Casas, like other men, was liable to error, Prescott says: “He was inspired by one great and glorious idea.… It was this which urged him to lift the voice of rebuke in the presence of Princes, to brave the menaces of an infuriated populace, to cross seas, to traverse mountains and deserts, to incur the alienation of friends, the hostility of enemies, to endure obloquy, insult, and persecution… Who shall say how much of the successful efforts and arguments since made in behalf of persecuted humanity may be traced to the example and writings of this illustrious philanthropist?”
Thus did Prescott write of one whom he nevertheless blamed for “exaggeration and over-colouring.”
“Great and glorious ideas” are seldom entertained without enthusiasm, and, unless an author feels deeply, he will not stir the sympathy of his readers.
Strong colours are required in depicting startling events; and the world is generally too much absorbed in its pleasures and profits, its panem et Circenses, to allow its attention to be readily diverted to remote occurrences.
What less sorrows can command attention when my lost friend, the hero of our time, has been allowed to pass away beguiled by an appeal for his help in the sacred name of patriotism, thwarted, betrayed, maligned, abandoned to starvation or death, and yet standing alone on the ramparts of Khartoum contending for the honour of his country, whose rulers were earning “indelible disgrace” by his fate?
History will in due time fasten that disgrace upon those to whom it is due; but who can aver that the people of England, in the day of disgrace, did their duty to punish its authors?
Las Casas, in a worldly sense, failed in his crusade on behalf of humanity. But the day has come when his “actions blossom in the dust,” and his detractors are only known as an ignoble herd because they were his detractors.
For myself, although I have laboured in the cause of humanity, I have as yet failed to bring before my countrymen, as I desired, the manner in which infractions of a solemn Treaty have inflicted hardships on the Maori race, and, in my humble judgment, dishonoured the name of England.
The pages of general history are so crowded with events, that it is perhaps impossible to enforce sufficiently in them the consideration of special grievances. A shorter work may effect my purpose better; and, therefore, I have compiled from the most authentic sources, and in the most unimpassioned manner, the following brief record of a few of those dealings which have caused the groans of the Maoris, to which the following pages are devoted in the hope that past wrongs may yet in some degree be atoned for.
Some portions of their father-land still remain in the hands of the Maoris; and the “system of fraud, under the authority of law,” denounced by
Aureretanga:
Groans of the Maoris.
Groans of the Maoris
Long before the flag of England was hoisted in token that the sway of Queen Victoria was extended to New Zealand, in 1840, British subjects had trafficked with Maoris, and many of them had taken up their abode in the North Island.
When the Rev.
Marsden's labours can be learned from general history.
The “dreadful murders” became the subject of legislation in England in 1817. An Act (57 Geo. III., cap. 53) provided a mode of trial for the “grievous murders and manslaughters “committed” by the masters and crews of British ships, and other persons, who have, for the most part, deserted from and left their ships.”…
But the plague was not stayed. In 1830, a frightful atrocity, in which a British subject was an actor—stirred the Governor of New South Wales (
Nevertheless,
The English Government took various measures to vindicate the character of the nation.
They appointed a British Resident (Mr.
In 1835, the British Resident, at the Bay of Islands, aided thirty-five chiefs in a declaration of their independence, at a time when they suspected that “the tribe of
They were designated as “the United Tribes of New Zealand.” The conduct of the Resident was approved in England.
But, however kindly might be the disposition of the Government, there were terrible evils to which the Maoris were exposed by the irruption of a dissolute European population on the island.
The good tidings conveyed by Marsden and some others had done much. The Bishop of Australia (Broughton), after a visit to the Bay of Islands, in 1838, reported to the Church Missionary Society that “the chief and the slave stood side by side with the same holy volume in their hands.”
Captious men have disputed whether the extinction of slavery in Europe was the work of Christianity. None can deny that such was the case in New Zealand. When England abolished slavery in the Colonies, she gave pecuniary compensation to the slave-owners. At a great price she bought human creatures from her own subjects in order to make them free.
In New Zealand, touched by the wand of Christianity, the slave-owners themselves, the hereditary lords of their fellow-men—wielding the power of life and death, commanding without resistance, and almost worshipped by their dependents—of their free will enfranchised all their slaves. Cruel in war, and savage in many customs, the Maori has been depicted elsewhere by me without concealment of his
Such was the aspect of one side of the shield. On the other were the gloomy portents described and dreaded by Marsden, and not unrecognized by the Committee of the House of Commons in 1836, when it denounced the “atrocious” and unpunished crime of Stewart.
A Committee of the House of Lords took evidence also in 1838.
Efforts were made in 1837, 1838 and 1839 to found a British Colony in New Zealand.
A Bill for founding a Colony was rejected at the second reading by the House of Commons.
How the able and energetic
These pages must be mainly confined to certain grievances inflicted on the Maoris in defiance of the terms of the solemn Treaty made with them in the name of the Queen on the foundation of the Colony.
In instructing Captain Hobson, who, under guidance of the able Governor of New South Wales (Sir Parliamentary Papers, 1841.
It was established, Lord Normandy said, “that about the commencement of the year 1838, a body of not less than two thousand British
Lest such persons should “repeat, unchecked in that quarter of the globe the same process of war and spoliation,” and “to mitigate and if possible to avert these disasters, and to rescue the emigrants themselves from the evils of a lawless state of society,” it had been determined to found a Colony, and this could only be honourably done by a Treaty with the Maoris.
The manner in which the Treaty was made has often been narrated. Its text is given as follows in a Parliamentary Return, 27 July, 1840. Parliamentary Papers, 1840 [560]. By order of the New Zealand Government a fac-simile of the original document and signatures was published in New Zealand in 1877, together with the declaration of independence of 1835. ‘Her Majesty Article the First.—The chiefs of the confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand and the separate and independent chiefs who have not become members of the confederation, cede to Her Majesty, the Queen of England absolutely, and without reservation all the rights and powers of sovereignty which the said confederation or independent chiefs respectively exercise or possess over their respective territories, as the sole sovereigns thereof. Article the Second.—Her Majesty the Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the chiefs and tribes of New Zealand, and to the respective families and individuals thereof, the full, exclusive and
Article the Third.—In consideration thereof, Her Majesty, the Queen of England, extends to the natives of New Zealand her Royal protection, and imparts to them all the rights and privileges of British subjects.— Now therefore we, the chiefs of the confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand, being assembled in congress at Waitangi, and we, the separate and independent chiefs of New Zealand, claiming authority over the tribes and territories which are specified after our respective names, having been made fully to understand the provisions of the foregoing Treaty, accept and enter into the same in the full spirit and meaning thereof. In witness whereof we have attached our signatures or marks at the places and dates respectively specified. Done at Waitangi this 6th day of February in the year of our Lord, 1840.” (Many Maori names were subscribed).
Hobson wrote to Sir
Sir Parliamentary Papers, 1840, [560].
The Treaty was as formally ratified by the Queen as by the Maoris. The Blue Books and Hansard abound with tributes to its binding nature upon the British people and upon the Colonists.
On one occasion a representative of the New Zealand Company wrote to understood the full force and meaning of the contract which he made.”
House of Commons Blue Book, 1844, Vol. XIII. App. No. 2, p. 36.
At a later date, 13 June, 1845, he wrote to a Governor in New Zealand, House of Commons Blue Book, 1844, Vol. XXX. (337).
Sir
The Treaty has never been cancelled. No Governor of New Zealand has done otherwise than declare to the Maoris that it is sacred.
The Constitution Act of 1852 (15 & 16 Vict. cap. 72) contained no word of disparagement of the Treaty: but it did contain clauses which enabled Her Majesty to preserve rights guaranteed to the Maoris. This Act was carried by Sir John Pakington in the ministry of
Clause 71 enabled her to set apart particular districts in which the “Laws, Customs and Usages” of the Natives should be maintained “any Law, Statute, or Usage in force in New Zealand, or in any part thereof, in anywise notwithstanding.”
Clause 73 retained for Her Majesty the sole right to acquire or accept from the Natives land “belonging to, or used or occupied by them in common as tribes or communities.”
The 58th clause enabled Her Majesty to dis-allow Bills passed in New Zealand, and the 59th deprived of any force any reserved Bill to which the assent of Her Majesty might not be given.
The Treaty spoke so plainly for itself that it needed some effrontery to question its meaning. But greed for land and the exigencies of an embarrassed company prompted the use of arguments of which the arguers might well have been ashamed; and which, while Sir
The pages of Hansard show how Captain Rous, Sir
The constant endeavour of those who desired to defraud the Maoris was to depreciate the Treaty. In the House of Commons one member complained that Sir
When the Treaty has been violated in later years, it can hardly be said that either Englishmen or Colonists generally have been aware of what was being done by the prime movers in the wrong.
It requires a robust morality, however, to intervene to undo a wrong by means of which a worldly advantage is supposed to be procurable. I have always been careful to recognize the fact that the Colonists were not active accomplices in many of the wrongs inflicted on the Maoris. Those who wished to extirpate the Maori race, cared little whether that end was accomplished in the field, or by decay. The cumbering Maoris were to be destroyed. The bulk of the Colonists had no such desires, but their humanity did not assume the form of controlling the inhumanity of others.
As a motive for exposing iniquities it has seemed to me possible that a wider revelation of the wrongs done in the name, but not by command of the Queen, may tend to lighten the oppression which has so long been inflicted upon a race which reposed its trust in her.
With such a motive one may hope that all, whose good opinion is valuable, will sympathize.
The instance already given of the manner in which the
The Company had friends in England, and sought to damage the Treaty through a Committee of the House of Commons in 1844.
A Committee of fifteen, amongst whom was a member of the Company, did, in effect, carry resolutions which alluded to the “so-called Treaty of
In spite of Fitzroy's precautions the Report was sufficiently known to enable designing persons to stir suspicion amongst the most impressible of the Maoris. It was believed by many that the attack upon Kororarika would not have been made by Honi Heke in 1845 if the suggestions of the Report had not been represented to him as disloyal to the Treaty.
That it was not mere rumour among the thoughtless which attributed mischief to the Report, was proved by the fact that the sagacious Sir
The eagerness with which the New Zealand Company strove to work their will in England is shown by the fact that Sir
But that great minister fell before a mean coalition in 1846.
His position as an incoming Minister enabled him to pass a Bill without delay. With the new Statute he sent (December 1846) to the Governor (Grey) a new Charter and new Instructions. The latter were
It is more with the remonstrances than with the Instructions that these brief pages must deal. It may be stated broadly that the latter expressly denied to the Maoris the rights expressly guaranteed by the Treaty of Waitangi; and that the Earl wrote that he “entirely dissented” from the doctrine that “aboriginal inhabitants of any country are the proprietors of every part of its soil of which they have been accustomed to make any use, or to which they have been accustomed to assert any title.”
The Governor not only abstained from publishing but cogently remonstrated against the Instructions before their purport was publicly known in the Colony.
When they became known there in June 1847,
“It is my duty also to inform Your Excellency that I am resolved, God being my helper, to use all legal and constitutional measures befitting my station to inform the natives of New Zealand of their rights and privileges, and to assist them in asserting them and maintaining them, whether by petition to the Imperial Parliament, or other loyal and peaceable methods.”
Another noble-minded man,
A petition from the Bishop, the Chief Justice, and others, prayed that the Instructions might be revoked as derogatory to the honour of the Queen.
Governor Grey, while abstaining from promulgating the Instructions strove to allay the excitement which rumours about them had produced.
Captain Sotheby of H.M.S. Racehorse, with the Ngapuhi chief
The tact displayed by the Governor in dealing with the position must be read in general History.
The Groans of the Maoris are the subject of these pages.
The great chief
But we do not believe this news, because we heard from the first Governor that the disposal of the land is with ourselves. And from the second Governor we heard the same word, and from this Governor.
They have all said the same. Therefore we write to you that you may be kind to us, to your friends that love you. Write your thoughts to us that peace may prevail among the natives of these islands.”
A Wesleyan Mission Committee in London, armed with complaints from missionaries in New Zealand, swelled the volume of protests against the violation of the Treaty.
The result was that
Thus, the “Groans of the Maoris” when they were powerful, aided by the noble Selwyn and Martin, Chief Justice Martin, whose “Remarks” on Selwyn also officially replied that “we all with one voice, as the friends and advisers of this native people, have persuaded them to put their trust in the good faith of England; and with one voice we will protest against any infringement, either in word or act, of the rights of British subjects which they acquired by cession of their independent sovereignty.” To a friend the Bishop wrote that he would rather that
A new measure was introduced in the English Parliament. In debate the conduct of
Another notable occasion on which Maoris made their complaints known in England, was one on which they again received aid from
It would be tedious to insert here, a detailed statement of the Waitara case.
One remarkable testimony to the accuracy of my view of the matter has recently been furnished by the high authority of Mr. Fenton who was for many years Chief Judge of the Native Land Court in New Zealand.
A few lines will state the broad facts of the case. Those who care to follow all its windings will find them in other volumes.
That tribe held possessions in various parts of the North Island.
The powerful section of it which dwelt at Waitara on the West Coast had, by co-operation with Rauparaha the Ngatitoa chief, acquired lands at Waikanae and in Cook's Straits; and
They left many members of their tribe at the Waitara, but in accordance with custom, common in other places as well as in New Zealand, they retained their titles to their original lands, while they went to occupy their new acquisitions.
It was notorious that
One of the pretended purchases made by the New Zealand Company comprehended
They were elastic enough to comprehend places of which the pretending buyer had never even heard.
That these parcels contained millions of acres, and in some instances, degrees of latitude and longitude:
That the agents of the Company were satisfied with putting such descriptions in their deeds, without taking the trouble to enquire, either at the time of, or subsequently to the purchase, whether the thousands of Aboriginal inhabitants occupying the surface of these vast tracts of country had been consenting parties to the sale.
I am further of opinion that the natives did not consent to alienate their pahs, cultivations, and burying-grounds: That the interpretation between the Aborigines and the agents of the Company in the alleged purchases was exceedingly imperfect, and tended to convey in but a very slight degree, any idea to the former of the extent of territory which the latter by these purchases pretended to have acquired, and that the explanation by the interpreters of the system of reserves was perfectly unintelligible to the Natives.” This passage was reprinted in a work,
When there seemed some risk that the New Zealand Government was about to recognize claims of the New Zealand Company at the Waitara,
The Governor (Fitzroy) and
Mr. Spain, the Commissioner, not recognizing the full claims of absentee owners, had recommended an award, which Governor Fitzroy, having full power so to do, declined to adopt; and, aided in his inquiries by those best acquainted with the Maoris and versed in their customs, he obtained the consent of the Maoris to an arrangement by which a block of land was secured for the
One writer sneered at the Governor for giving weight to the “customs of barbarism,” for being “blinded by maudlin sentimentality,” and “spurred on by the missionary clique to dispossess the Company of the finest territory they had ever acquired.”
It was indeed the richness of territory which whetted the appetite of the Governor's detractors; and which, from 1844 to 1881, spurred on the unscrupulous to practise every wile, and shrink from no injustice, in order to wrest the land from its rightful owners.
A few lines may be quoted here from a statement made by myself as to the rights of those owners. I cite them, instead of using others, because they have been approved of by the high authority of
Mr. Maning was an inhabitant of New Zealand before the English Colony was founded; but his sagacity and power were recognized by the Colonial Government, when he was long afterwards appointed a Judge of the Native Land Court. On seeing my statement he wrote to me (30th April, 1883):—“I cannot help writing to say that I admire your short and correct description of the tenure of land by the Maoris amongst themselves. The Ariki was trustee for the whole tribe, and had the right of veto on any alienation, which was exercised at Waitara unsuccessfully by
The passages commended by Mr. Maning were as follows:—
“The land was the domain of the people, and though by separate cultivation a man had a right to the product, he acquired no fee simple of the land. Over the whole domain the tribe hunted, and as the kiore or native rat was snared in distant places, the boundaries of each territory were well known, and, if necessary, defined by marks.
“Alienation to a foreigner could not be the act of the separate occupier. Only common consent could alienate the common property.
“In the same manner, if a hapu, or sub-tribe, of a neighbouring clan, was invited to settle on the lands of a tribe, the new-comers, under the general tribal sanction, acquired such rights as any occupier of the inviting tribe could have possessed. Inheritance was from father to son…
“Where land was proverbially a cause of war, titles orally preserved became hopelessly involved. The paramount authority of the chief, his ‘mana,’ was the only safeguard. Chiefs descended from the leaders of the emigration from Hawaiki were deemed to have special ‘mana’ over the tribal land. The chief could not sell the village of his friends, nor the patrimony of any of them; but the tribe required his sanction to make good their own transactions. This fact was strongly impressed upon
“Strange rights accrued and multiplied. A fishing right possessed by a man's father entitled him to compensation, and the owner of the spot could not sell without satisfaction to the claimant. Marriage relations conferred partial rights. One man claimed compensation because his grandfather had been murdered on land, another because his own grandfather committed the murder. If wise counsels could not allay strife, fresh fighting conferred fresh rights. Conquest— absolute conquest with occupation—gave indefeasible title. But if a remnant of a defeated tribe escaped death or captivity, it preserved its rights, except as to those portions of its birthright which the conquerors chose to occupy, to till or to hunt or fish over.”
There are other characteristics of Maori land-law and usages, but it is unnecessary to dwell upon them.
The incidents of tenure among the Maoris are not peculiar to them among the families of the world.
Many of them are almost identical with those described by Tacitus as prevailing among the Teutonic ancestors of the bulk of the English nation.
The absence of cattle-ownership in New Zealand, entailed a difference with regard to the waste or common land (on which, in Germany the Teutonic cattle were fed), but the fishing and forestry rights were co-extensive with the tribal domain.
As in Germany, so in Maoria, the community, to use the language of Sir
The “power of absorption” of visitors in a tribe, which Sir
With much similarity to the choice of leaders in war, which Tacitus describes as extant in Germany, there was also in New Zealand a peculiarly important character ascribed to the Ariki, the hereditary head of the tribe, who was “tapu,” or sacred, in the highest degree and without whose consent, according to the Maori usages which the Treaty of Waitangi guaranteed to the Maori chiefs and people, no tribal land could be alienated.
As the Maori possessed no flocks or herds, he became an assiduous cultivator.
His skill was noticed by Cook and Sir
Though the cultivator was not the absolute owner of the land thus carefully tilled, he was protected by the whole tribal force in the use of it.
A marked feature in the Maori character was veneration for ancestors. To desecrate the place where their bones were deposited was a heinous offence, and it was incumbent upon all to avenge it, in ancient times. After the acceptance of the Sovereignty of the Queen, it was natural that in serious cases the authority of the Crown should be appealed to, to guard those interests, whether of the chief or of the tribe, whether collective or individual, which the Queen had solemnly undertaken to protect.
It is a lamentable fact that the most signal instance of the vain groans of the Maoris, and of the futile protests of their noble champion, Sir
His reward was the denial of a legal enquiry as to his rights, the rough seizure of his land, the advance of troops into his territory, and consequent wars in which with the aid of ten thousand British troops
Great interest seems to have been brought to bear in England in order to reverse the judgment of Governor Fitzroy as to the Taranaki land-claim put forward by the New Zealand Company.
Fitzroy had over-ruled, as he had the power to over-rule, the opinion of Spain, the Commissioner who had erroneously ignored the rights of absentee Ngatiawas to their Taranaki lands. Such rights were clearly unimpeachable in Maori law; and, supported by
It is impossible to say in what manner the Company's agents brought influence to bear in England. But in July, 1846,
Thus tempted by his casuistical superior, the Governor endeavoured, but vainly, to dissuade
The language of rhetoric perhaps coloured this description of the conduct of
A section of the Colonists viewed his return with animosity, because they coveted those rich lands which the New Zealand Company had pretended to purchase by obtaining signatures almost at random and inventing boundaries in the same manner.
A Wesleyan Missionary,
I will not multiply these pages by inserting in them the full particulars which may be read by the curious, elsewhere. It is sufficient to say here that great efforts were made to induce some Maoris to sell land in defiance of the refusal of the majority of their tribe;—that after the intervention of a Land Commissioner in these forbidden transactions there were quarrels, and lives were lost, among the dissentient Maoris; that the Acting-Governor,
In 1855,
The Council complained to the Governor that Rawiri, when about to cut the boundary of land he was offering “to the Government with the sanction of the resident Land Commissioner, was shot by
It was true that Rawiri was thus shot, but not without repeated warning to desist, and the language of the Provincial Council showed that Rawiri found abettors among the settlers in violating the intended safeguards of the Treaty of Waitangi as to the tribal proprietary rights.
On some minds the Bishop's manly justice made no impression. A newspaper had accused him of “lending his blighting influence to New Zealand “and “using his undoubted influence to shield notorious criminals from justice.”
The Bishop informed his flock that he would urge the Maoris to sell land amicably; but would “resist by all lawful means, every attempt to carry out any other interpretation of the Treaty of
The land sold at Taranaki already was, he said, 30,000 acres and it had cost only ten-pence an acre! [After the death of Rawiri, a friend named Ihaia took up his cause, and when his pah was besieged some of the settlers aided him.] A new Governor, nor to permit the purchase of lands until the owners are united in desiring to sell them, and have agreed upon the terms.” He “disapproved of the conduct of Cooper, the sub-commissioner, in commencing a survey of land before he was assured that all who had even a disputed title desired it should be sold.”
Thus, without approving the killing of Rawiri,
Other advisers besides the Bishop, advised the Governor well.
The Governor appointed a Board to investigate the land question generally, in 1856, and their Report reiterated what was known already to all intelligent persons who had studied the subject.
They found that “each native has a right in common with the whole tribe over the disposal of the land of the tribe,” and that “the chiefs exercise an influence in the disposal of the land, but have only an individual claim like the rest of the people to particular portions.” Blue Book 1861. (1341.) Presented by command, p. 200. C
Mr.
There was no doubt as to the Maori land-law, nor was there any doubt as to the guarantee in the Treaty of Waitangi that the law should be maintained.
But a section of the community hated the law and the Treaty, and at the coveted land at Taranaki they eventually induced the Governor to do what they required.
The Governor's general anxieties were somewhat increased in 1857 by the election of a so-called King in Waikato.
It was by gross mismanagement on the part of some of
The King-movement, as the election of
It was also said that there was an organized anti-land-selling league to refuse to sell any land to the Government, but this was denied by many.
The determination to set aside the Treaty of Waitangi in obtaining land, could not but induce resistance to that determination, and that resistance would necessarily take form in some kind of organization.
At Taranaki the old blood-feud was suddenly revived in 1858, by an act of Ihaia, already mentioned as befriended by that section of the settlers which reviled
Ihaia laid a plot for the murder of
Blue Book, 1860. Vol. XLVII.
A lurid light is thrown on the whole transaction by a passage written in May, 1858, by having received reinforcement and promise of further aid, declined to accept the interference which he so earnestly solicited in his letter… I
openly avow their desire to possess the land, which was the original cause, and is now the chief subject of dispute…”
By one outspoken settler, it was urged upon the Governor “that the Treaty of Waitangi, being no longer valuable to us, should be broken,” but the Governor declined to trouble the Secretary of State with any remarks “on such a document.”
Of the class to which the writer belonged, the Governor wrote (20th Sept., 1859), “The Europeans covet these lands, and are determined to enter in and possess them, Blue Book. Accounts and Papers. Return; House of Commons, 1860, Vol. XLVII., p. 78.recte si possint, si non, quocunque
modo. This determination becomes daily more apparent.”
There can be no doubt that
Such was the case in New Zealand in 1860, and from that time till the present “the Groans of the Maoris” have arisen on account of a trampled Treaty, and Englishmen have been shamed by the rejection of the prayers of
Efforts, were made to poison the mind of the Governor against Vide note, p. 14, supra.
The Governor wrote in 1858 “
The history of the war of 1860, which was the cause and pre-cursor of the greater war of 1863, would occupy too much space in these pages. It must be perused elsewhere.
It is enough to say here that the Governor was induced to accept personally an offer by a prompted Maori, named
Mr. Swanson complained of this in the New Zealand Parliament in 1881. “Why, the very Gazettes were falsified, The Maori was on one side and the English on the other, and there were falsehoods on the face of it. The English said, ‘The land is
Though, as the principal chief, he could forbid the sale, his attempt to do so was represented to the Governor as disloyalty to the Queen, to whom he all the while was appealing.
After his pah was attacked, it was charged against him that the Maoris had commenced the warfare, Fortunately, a military eyewitness,
Colonel Carey testifies (p. 189) also that “the Colonists treated even the friendly tribes with the greatest brutality. The prisoners we took had to be most carefully guarded, not so much to prevent escape, as to save them from the un-English and unmanly attacks of the Europeans, who, when they could do so with safety, treated them with the greatest indignities. Widely different was the behaviour of the soldiers…”
It is true that the Maoris not only groaned, but fought, when they were attacked at Waitara. They knew that it was by pre-arrangement with some Europeans in Taranaki that
Dr. Featherston groaned in the New Zealand Parliament over the wrong done. Confiding in the good faith of England (he said) that “when Her Majesty's Government know that the greatest portion of the land is owned by natives who have either protested against the sale, or have never been consulted in the matter—that no investigation worthy of the name has ever been instituted into their claims;—when, Sir, the Home Government learn these facts I venture to predict that their answer to his Excellency's application for troops will be that those who have been guilty, while acting in Her Majesty's name, of so great a wrong, who have plunged the country into such a war, are no
Mr. Forsaith also produced in the House, a letter from Te Rangi-take, which said “My belief is the Governor is seeking to quarrel, as he is putting death before me… If the Governor without cause attacks me, and I am killed, there will be no help for it, because it is an old saying:—The man first, the land afterwards— that is, first kill, and then take possession.”
Waharoa the Maori King-maker groaned thus about the murder of
It was this that disquieted the heart of
A groan from one hundred and seventy chiefs on the East Coast (far from the scene of rapine at Waitara) was addressed to the Queen —“Mother, do not listen to the false reports which, perhaps, are sent to you. They are false. Know then that the quarrel relates to the land only. We think it desirable that you should appoint a judge for this quarrel that it may be put an end to.” The Governor's advisers disparaged the petition; and, though sent to England, it was unheeded. One of the petitioners became in after-years an elected Maori member of the New Zealand Parliament.
It was not only by Maoris that Her Majesty's Government were implored to arrest the rape of the Waitara and the unjust war by which it was effected.
It was perfectly true that the head of the tribe had, by Maori law, the right to forbid a sale; but this right, far from being rebellious against the Queen, was one of those rights pertaining to Maori tenure which the Queen had guaranteed to the Maori chiefs, of whom
Both Selwyn and Martin groaned bitterly at the seizure of
The Bishop appealed in vain. The local Government kept back his appeal while they spent weeks in concocting an answer to it. Their arguments (if they deserve such a name) are recorded elsew here and need not be repeated here. It may be well to state that they averred that if the Bishop “desired to arouse and stimulate the hatred of race, he could not do so more effectually than by such assertions.” As to a judicial trial of something more ludicrous than has yet been seen in our public dealing with the Maoris, which is saying a great deal.” It is remarkable that the ministry which thus vilipended a legal trial contained several lawyers. The complaints of the late chief justice, Sir
A revised edition, not decorated with the Governor's name, was afterwards published. As the Notes contended that the words “tino rangatiratanga,” or full rights of chieftainship, in the Treaty of Waitangi, meant “ownership” and not full “chiefship” as Sir W. Martin contended, one may presume that the Governor was glad to have his name withdrawn.
Ordinary tribesmen had a tribal ownership, but the attributes pertaining to a Rangatira or chief were necessarily something more, especially when he was the recognized head among the chiefs.
The groans of Sir W. Martin, besides exposing (in “Remarks” on the Revised Notes) what he deemed defiance of the Treaty, arraigned the acts of the local Government on general grounds. “It is not lawful for the Executive Government to use force in a purely civil question without the authority of a competent judicial tribunal. In this case no such authority has been obtained, no such tribunal has
Such a voice from the learned, the wise, and good, was unanswerable in the realms of reason. How would the reader think it was responded to? A member of the Government declared that Sir W. Martin's reasoning was “a public danger,” and the Governor promulgated a notice that the right of discussion was “dangerous” some times, and that “such an occasion exists now in this colony.” Thus piteously appealed to, Sir W. Martin, though his Remarks were privately printed, “abstained for the present from giving publicity within the colony” to them. The reader will observe that as my object is to set forth the condition of the Maoris and not to animadvert upon those who brought it about. I often abstain from using names of wrong-doers, except when they are needed to make the narrative intelligible. Of course in history, events must be told with greater fulness and precision. Mr. Maning, author of Old New Zealand, assured me that at this period he was implored not to publish his opinion that one of the acknowledged rights of a chief in
“I have argued (he wrote) that the people of Waitara, being subjects of the Crown, have not been dealt with as subjects of the Crown.” The Treaty of Waitangi guaranteed to them “all the rights and privileges of British subjects,” and those rights “must mean at any rate the opposite of despotism.” What was it that the Governor's advisers “called by the name of the Crown” in the Waitara case? “The Governor judging in this case is simply and in fact Mr. Parris… The Majesty of the Royal word, and the largeness of the national undertaking issue in the decision of an assistant Land Purchase Commissioner.”
The war which followed the rape of the Waitara was not prosecuted without appeals or groans from the Bishop. But he was rudely told by a Minister that the latter denied the right of the clergy or Bishop to “interfere between Her Majesty's Government and her native subjects.”
The noble Bishop replied that when others support a “policy which we believe to be unjust, we should be guilty of betraying the Native race, who resigned their independence upon our advice, if we did not claim for them all the rights and privileges of British subjects, as guaranteed to them by the Treaty of Waitangi.”
No judicial enquiry as to
It has become a common practice with those who write without knowledge to assert, that so long as English troops were employed in
Nothing can be farther from the truth. Ten thousand British troops smote down the Maoris in the war of 1863–4, after which period there was no organized resistance amongst the tribes.
It is believed that even in that war the Maoris had on no occasion so many as 600 men in their camp, or rather within their defences, in any one place, and it was not wonderful that from fortress to fortress, from Mere mere to Orakau, the English army swept the Waikato tribes from their path. Of Orakau the English General wrote: “It is impossible not to admire the heroic courage and devotion of the natives in defending themselves so long against overwhelming numbers. Surrounded closely on all sides, cut off from their supply of water, and deprived of all hope of succour, they resolutely held their ground for more than two days, and did not abandon their position until the sap had reached the ditch of their last entrenchment.” When they did abandon their position they marched, in a phalanx, melting under fire, through a portion of the lines which surrounded them. Again, when near Tauranga, the British troops annihilated an inferior force of the Maoris at Te Ranga, Colonel Greer reported that the latter “fought with desperation, and when at length compelled by the bayonet to quit the trenches, in which they left more than a tenth of their number dead, it was strange to see them slowly climb up, and disdaining to run, walk away under a fire that mowed them down, some halting and firing as they retired, others with heads bent down stoically and proudly receiving their inevitable fate.”
The British army thus crushed the Maori forces in 1864, and never afterwards was there any general resistance on the part of the natives. It may be added that in 1864, there were nearly ten thousand men in local forces acting with the British troops.
He who studies the annals of the time will find that while doing their duty many British soldiers regretted the necessity which compelled them to destroy men who had been forced to fight for their land of which the Treaty of Waitangi had guaranteed their peaceful possession, but which some greedy persons coveted. Colonel Carey's testimony as to the demeanour of the soldiery, as compared with that of some other persons, has been cited.
After the Maoris were crushed in 1864, there were terrible scenes in New Zealand. The Hau Hau superstition rose like an evil spirit from the ashes of past injustice and strife and stained the land. new element of the confiscation of land it acquired a bitterness unknown before.”
To soften the horrors of war, to attend to the wounded, he had him self accompanied the English troops in 1864, and he wrote to a friend that his doing so had exposed him “to the imputation of having led the troops. This has thrown me back in native estimation, more, I
Letter to Rev. E. Coleridge, 26 Dec., 1865. “Life of Selwyn.’ London, 1879.
What the Bishop deplored as “the new element of the confiscation of land,” would not have been cast into the cauldron if the wise advice of the Secretary of State, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Cardwell had been taken.
When the British soldiery had taken the field in force, and the discomfiture of the Waikato tribes was a matter of certainty, the New Zealand Ministry (known as the Whitaker-Fox Ministry) introduced Bills called the “Suppression of Rebellion Bill,” and the “New Zealand Settlements Bill,” 1863. They became Acts.
Under the first, “suspected” persons might be tried by Court Martial. Nothing done under it could be investigated in the Supreme Court; the Habeas Corpus Act was dispensed with; and indemnity was given for all unlawful things already done.
The second enabled the Governor in Council to proclaim districts wherever “any native tribe, or section of a tribe (after 1st January, 1863), or any considerable number thereof, had been engaged in rebellion;”—and within such districts the Governor in Council might seize upon lands for settlement. Compensation to robbed Maoris might be awarded—excepting those who had warred or had “counselled, advised, induced, enticed, persuaded, or conspired with any person,” to levy war.
As suspected owners might be hanged under the Suppression of Rebellion Act, the compensation provided by the Settlements Act might be kept down to a low rate; but the astute Whitaker devised a mode of defeating the operation of the compensation clause. It was provided that no claim should be “entertained unless preferred in writing to the Colonial Secretary within six months” (if the claim-ant were residing in the Colony) after proclamation of his land. (27 Vic. No 8. Sec. 7.)
Outlawed Maoris who had taken refuge from British bayonets, from rifles, from shot, and shell, by fleeing to distant fastnesses, were invited to enter into correspondence about their land; although, when they had done so before, in appealing to the Treaty of Waitangi, their letters had been thrust aside, and troops had been sent to drive them from their homes.
It so happened that in many tribes among the Maoris there were fast friends to the English, who had adhered to them through good and evil report. Notably at Taranaki, though it was only a minority which sided with Ihaia and
A natural consequence was, that no land could be confiscated without a breach of faith to those tribesmen who were still deemed loyal subjects.
Admitting that it was decent to break the Treaty, to rob a Maori, and to confiscate his share in land, for his resistance, there remained the difficulty that his share was only a joint right, and that on his death or removal, it accrued to the remainder of the tribe. He had no separate right which could be seized. All that he had was merged in the tribal stock.
Such a condition would have made most men adopt i.e., cession by tribal arrangement; and not by rough contempt of Maori law—not by confiscation and seizure—which defied the rights guaran teed by the Treaty of Waitangi.
For the latter reason they were not pleasing to the section of the Colonists of whom recte si possint, si non, quocunque modo.”
The official defence of the Settlements Act, by Messrs.
The Attorney General (Whitaker) remarked that as Maoris owned little personal property, “the permanent loss of their landed possessions” was that which they would feel the most. “It will be observed,” he added, “that the provisions of the Act may be made to include lands belonging to persons who have not justly forfeited their rights by rebellion. In order to carry out the scheme this is absolutely necessary.… The New Zealand native tenure of land is for the most part, in fact, with little or no exception, tribal; and if the principle were admitted that the loyalty or neutrality of a few individuals would preserve the lands of a tribe, the Act would for the most part be a dead letter, and that in districts where it is most required, and in which its operation would be perfectly just.” In other words, when a man covets his neighbour's goods, and cannot obtain them by doing that which is lawful and right, it is absolutely necessary for him to do wrong.
retain possession of immense tracts of land, that they neither use nor allow others to use, and which maintains them in a state of isolation from the European civilization,” was “most “prejudicial to the natives,” and contributed “to the rapid extinction of the native race.” Let it not be imagined that this was irony on the part of
Sir W. Martin declared that he emitted this groan with a “feeling of sorrow, if not of shame;” but Sir W. Martin admitted (as I have always urged) that the majority of Colonists in New Zealand, ignorant of Maori history and rights, were comparatively innocent of those acts of which
Sir Blue Book, 1883, c. 3689, p. 39.
Words which should indeed be graven in brass! and which, with the dire facts confuting them, I hope to preserve in these pages from the ravages of time.
The groans of the Maoris under these so-called laws, in 1864, I may well leave to the imaginations of my readers. But terrible tales might be unfolded. The homesteads of the Maoris were laid waste. Their very burial grounds were desecrated and rifled. I have stood with a Ngatimaniapoto chief by the spot where, in 1863, were his ancestral treasures, and where, in 1879, we found the site with difficulty on an allotment, seized under the name of confiscation, and occupied by a purchaser.
Was it wonderful that desperate thoughts filled some Maori minds? Colonel Greer described how some of their warriors proudly met their inevitable fate on the field. A portion of the race plunged into fanatical orgies attended with unspeakable horrors.
Singularly enough, Sir W. Martin had in 1846 warned the Governor of such an effect as probable. He then wrote with regard to plan of confiscation or seizureb be once acted on, and all this will be at an end. The worst surmises of the natives will have become realities. To them we shall appear to be a nation of liars. All our means of exercising a moral influence over this people will have ceased, together with all the hopes (which
It was a dreary prophecy, and it was woefully accomplished in the Paimarire or Hau Hau superstition, into which a portion of the Maoris plunged, after their countrymen's groans for justice had been spurned, their land seized, and their blood shed in vain efforts to defend it.
One unqualified source of thankfulness remained. No Maori Gobel brought shame upon his profession of faith. One horror of France in 1793 was not repeated in Maori land.
It is hard to practise all the virtues when one's native soil is seized, the graves of one's ancestry are desecrated and rifled, and one's countrymen have fallen, as Colonel Greer described, before superior numbers and more destructive appliances of war.
Let those who will cast stones at the fallen Maori. My task is now to record his groans. I have not shrunk from recording his faults.
When
It was to be of brief duration, and he trusted in the will and capacity of the Governor, Sir George Grey, so to administer it as to foil evil desires of those who might strive to wrest the Act to manifest wrong-doing. “Considering that the defence of the Colony is at present effected by an Imperial force, I should perhaps have been justified in recommending the disallowance of an Act couched in such sweeping terms, capable therefore of great abuse, unless its practical operation were restrained by a strong and resolute hand; and calculated if abused to frustrate its own objects, and to prolong instead of terminating the war. But not having received from you any expression of your disapproval, and being most unwilling to weaken your hands in the moment of your military success, Her Majesty's
They are led to this conclusion not merely by a desire to sustain the authority of the Colonial Government, but also in no small degree by observing that no confiscation can take effect without your personal concurrence, and by the reliance which they so justly place on your sagacity, firmness, and experience, and your long-recognized regard as well for the interests of the colonists as for the fair rights and expectations of the native race.” But cession, not confiscation, was desirable. Cession of lands should be obtained on condition of Her Majesty's clemency being extended. Only if cession should be found impossible, the Settlements Act might be brought into operation subject to reservations. It must be limited as to duration. A Commission, not removable with the Ministry, should enquire as to lands to be obtained and the Governor's concurrence was to be no per-functory assent, but to be withheld from any proposals unless he should be satisfied that they were just and moderate.
“I trust (wrote the wise Cardwell) that in accepting any cession, or authorizing confirmation of any forfeiture of land, you will retain in your own hands ample power of doing substantial justice to every class of claimant for restitution or compensation.”
These instructions of the Secretary of State must be borne in mind in reading the terms of the Proclamation promulgated by Sir George Grey. Terms, which might be passed by without sufficient attention, become cogent axioms when studied with due regard to the principles by which their framer was bound.
But even at the time tbere were mutterings. Mr. (now Sir W.) Fox denounced
For my present purpose it has been necessary to show under what limitations the Governor issued his Proclamations, and thus to make clear the meaning of the qualifying expressions they will be found to contain.
The Whitaker-Fox ministry did not live to see the Governor's Proclamation issued. They resented
In May 1864 they had submitted sweeping schemes to him, but he shrunk from them; declining to confound the innocent with the guilty, and to leave innocent families homeless.
The arrival of
After discussion and wranglings in which Sir G. Grey declared that he would not seize any man's land more largely than justice would warrant merely because it might be wished to plant settlements,
Nevertheless, as the Treasurer of the Colony, Mr.
On the 26th July (reminding the Governor of the above injunctions)
Generally, such important despatches were promptly published for information in the Colony, but Whitaker and Fox resisted the usual
The Proclamation issued after It is contained in a New Zealand Parliamentary paper, 1879, A. — 8. A subsequent Proclamation, of 2nd September, 1865, described the area at Taranaki. That Proclamation, with a Proclamation of Peace of the same date, is in a New Zealand Parliamentary paper, 1879, A.—8. A.
The site of Orakau, far in the Waikato district, the Gulf of the Thames, the Waikato Heads, named in the Proclamation, attest the wideness of its terms. But there was a profession of respect for the rights of the loyal.
“The land of those natives who have adhered to the Queen, sh allbe secured to them; and to those who have rebelled, but who shall at once submit to the Queen's authority, portions of the land will be given back for themselves and their families.
The Governor will make no further attack on those who remain quiet.… To all those who have remained and shall continue in friendship, the Governor assures the full benefit and enjoyment of their lands.”
One paragraph intimated that the Governor would confiscate “between Wanganui and New Plymouth, and in the Province of Taranaki, such land belonging to the rebels as he may think fit.”
It was not until the 2nd September, 1865, that the threatened Proclamation defining the land to be seized at Taranaki was issued. Then, under the “New Zealand Settlements Act, 1863 (or rather under an Amending Act), Sir George Grey, in Council, declared that he was “satisfied that certain Native tribes, or sections of tribes, having landed properties,” had been “engaged in rebellion;” and schedules to the Proclamation specified the area to be seized, at Waitara, Mount Egmont, Whanganui River, &c.
The Proclamation declared, nevertheless, “that It cannot be said that intelligent persons misunderstood the Proclamation. no land of any loyal inhabitant within the said districts, whether held by native custom or under Crown grant, will be taken, except so much as may be absolutely necessary for the security of the country, compensation being given for all land so taken; and further that all rebel inhabitants of the said districts who come in within a reasonable time and make submission to the Queen, will receive a sufficient quantity of land within the said district under grant from the Crown.” Thus Sir G. Grey complied with
Simultaneously with this Proclamation of (qualified) confiscation, appeared a Proclamation of Peace.
The war was declared to be at an end. Excepting persons concerned in certain imputed murders, “all others are forgiven.”
“Out of the lands which have been confiscated in the Waikato, and at Taranaki, and Ngatiruanui the Governor will Doubtless the Governor was sincere in these promises in the name of the Queen. But it will be seen that they were never performed, and that finally in 1881 a large armed force, acting without law, destroyed a peaceful village, robbed its inhabitants, dragged them away by force, and obtained an Act of Indemnity for its misdeeds.at onceforthwith into the Waikato, and the country about Taranaki, and between that place and Whanganui, who will put the natives who may desire it upon lands at once, and will mark out the boundaries of the blocks which they are to occupy… Her Majesty the Queen desires that equal laws and equal rights and liberties may be enjoyed by all her subjects in this Island, and to that end the Governor in the name of the Queen publishes this Proclamation.”
I have said that no judicial investigation of Sir George Grey was not the Governor of the Colony when the Waitara land was seized in 1860. He became Governor for a second time in 1861, and finding, after inquiry through Captain Nugent (58th Regt.) that the seizure had been improper, he resolved to restore the block. But he could not abolish the war and its consequences. His opinion was assailed, and had no effect on the general state of affairs.
The land was seized: the chief brooded in seclusion over his broken fortunes, and reflected how ill his exertions to save the settlement at Wellington in former years, had been rewarded.
But the spoil had to be divided. The false
The Proclamation of September, 1865, had in a qualified manner confiscated a large district which comprised the Waitara block, but it promised that the Governor would at once restore land to natives desirous to “settle down upon their lands.” . . The promised Commissioners were not sent forthwith, but Governors cannot always be blamed for a breach of faith which sometimes their ministers cause.
For many long years the promise was set at nought But, though a legal trial of
There was a Native Lands Court, and there was a Compensation Court. Mr. Fenton presided in both of them.
When an amended Native Lands Act was passed (in the administration of
Some influence was exercised by
He warned the Governor (October, 1865) that in cases touching the honour or interests of the Crown, the adherence to treaties entered into by Her Majesty, and other matters of an analogous kind, the Royal power of disallowing Acts was not abandoned, and would be exercised unless the ministry would moderate their demands, and limit the duration of the Settlements Act to a definite period.
Through his means the Act of 1863 was amended in 1864, and as it was still unsatisfactory,
The Compensation Court, under
The Judges found a difficulty which they had no means of solving. The Confiscation Proclamation of 1865 had declared that “no land (of any loyal native) would be taken except so much as may be absolutely necessary for the security of the country, compensation being given for all land so taken.”
It had proclaimed also that the Governor would “at once restore” lands to those natives who wished “to settle down upon their lands.”
This promise had not been complied with. On the contrary,
The “military settlers” did not settle. It was admitted that the majority of them secured their allotments merely to sell them. The children of the soil were cursed at by some persons for groaning when they saw their birthplace thus rent and gambled with.
A chief groaned over this injustice and breach of faith. “I demand that our compensation be within the block; the blood of my relations is on the land. Remember my services during the war. My cattle, my sheep, my pigs, and all my property went in the war; my wheat and my cultivations; and I never received any compensation for them, though the Pakehas (the Europeans) have all been compensated. What I did was not rewarded. Let the Government now fulfil its promises.”
A Mr. Atkinson, Crown Agent, opposed the chief and his brethren. The Court examined their claims and found that seventy-six claimants were entitled to 7400 acres in the block, but that the Government Agents had so squandered the land that justice could not be done by the Court to the native rightful claimants.
Their own words (New Zealand P. Paper 1866. A. No. 13) were— “Having thus arrived at the, to us, unavoidable conclusion that the claimants before us were entitled to 7400 acres of good land in this block, and having accepted Mr. Atkinson's assertions that the whole of the available land, except 2,500 acres had been appropriated to military settlers, the question then arose, What are we to do? We thought that possibly the Government were not aware of the large majority of owners of this land who had remained loyal, and reflecting on the great public calamity which would be caused, and the serious embarrassment which would occur to the Government if we issued orders of the Court extending, as they would have done, over the lands of considerable numbers of these military settlers, we determined to despatch one of our number to Wellington to place the state of affairs before the Government and give them an opportunity of availing themselves of the power given to the Colonial Secretary by the 9th Clause of the Act of 1865.”
The upshot was that the Minister for Native Affairs returned with the Judge and “effected an arrangement with the claimants.” “What the terms were, the Court did not think it their duty to enquire. In consequence of this agreement having been come to no adjudication was made by the Court, as our jurisdiction was gone.”
The groans of the chief, the blood of whose “relatives was on the land,” availed not to restore him to his birthright.
Those who despised his groans poured upon
But they who thus assailed the Bishop were not of the class of which ordinary mobs are composed. They belonged to that section of
recte si possint, si non quocunque modo;” and they have possessed them—and they dislike exposure.
The Compensation Court was called upon to hear evidence at Taranaki in 1866, respecting that block of land at Waitara which
The claims of the paramount chief
In examining those claims the Court was constrained to regard the abstract rights of
The examination proved how righteous had been the protests of
On the 3rd September, 1885, Mr. Fenton while giving evidence before the Committee on Native Affairs in Wellington, referred to the fact of his having examined the Waitara case in 1866.
A New Zealand Parliamentary Paper (I 2B. 1885) reports thus: “770. Sir G. Grey. You said that you heard the Waitara case? A. Yes.
771. Did you finish it? A. We finished it, but we did not give any judgment. There were three of us. Judge Monro, Judge Rogan, and myself.
772. Did you ascertain whether William King (i.e.
A European cannot understand it. However, this man, seven or eight generations back had two daughters whose names I do not
The reader who cares to do so, will find the names on a genealogical table (quoted by me elsewhere) in a New Zealand Parliamentary Paper. 1866. A. 23. He may find also an extract from an Auckland Newspaper showing that in 1879 a reporter saw mana of the land came to William King.
773. I assume that you mean that power over the tribe and over the land vested in him? A. He had the principal ‘say’ to use a somewhat vulgar term.
774. It had been overlooked in previous investigations? A. If there ever was one. The thing is perfectly clear; there is no doubt whatever about it.
775. This has never been put upon record, and I am anxious to have it put on record. I will therefore put it in this way, so that there may be no misapprehension: Was William King (i.e.
789. “When the Crown Officer appeared in Court and objected to Te
Such was the result of that kind of enquiry which
With Mr. Fenton's plain statement before us now, it is hard for any one not acquainted with New Zealand affairs to believe that when the Governor had been urged to seize the Waitara by force, one of his advisers, a lawyer, in an official memorandum (20th March, 1860,) demanding troops, wrote—” An occasion has now arisen on which it has become necessary to support the Governors authority by a military
Blue Book 1861. (1341) Recent Disturbances in New Zealand, p. 274. “Copy of Memorandum from Mr. The issue has been carefully chosen—the particular question being as favourable a one of its class as could have been selected.”
2. That military force shall not be employed till the civil power shall have been tried and shall have been found insufficient to carry out the judgment of the Court.”
Sir W. Martin's protests were equally noble and equally disregarded. Those who care to study the matter after seeing that a Judge who heard the case, pronounced
On the 17th and 18th March, 1860, artillery, rockets, and other appliances were brought to bear to drive Blue Book, 1861 (1341), p. 16.
On the 27th March the Maoris retaliated by killing “three settlers and two boys.” ib., p. 24.
On the 11th April, the Rev.
Karamoa said: “Alas! for me; my affliction is great. I have talked about land till I am weary, now I sit in my grief; my very vitals move. I shake like the leaves of the weeping fern-tree for my children. Come you, and tell us of death; you have come from the scenes of death. Bring your grief to us; pour out your sorrow. I am here sympathizing and weeping for my children… Am I not a man? The very fountain of blood in the heart will burst with the depth of my feeling.” ib. p. 39.
Such were the groans heard at the beginning of the strife caused
Despair made the worser spirits amongst them savage, and the abominable superstition of Hauhauism reared its head, proving the truth of Sir W. Martin's prediction of the consequence of linking the Government with oppression and falsehood.
But always there were some who appealed to the Queen to interpose mercifully, and allow law to prevail.
One hundred and seventy chiefs at Napier sent their petition to her: “Mother, do not listen to the false reports which, perhaps, are sent to you. They are false. Know, then, that the quarrel relates to the land only. We think it desirable that you should appoint a Judge for this quarrel, that it may be put an end to.” Their petition was vilipended in the Colony, and probably never seen by the Queen.
On one point, in 1862, the Secretary of State, the
The New Zealand Ministry desired to seize Maori lands for roads, in defiance of the Treaty of Waitangi. Mr.
The Duke wrote that he would “hesitate to admit as a strict matter of law that Her Majesty had the power, without any legislative sanction, of appropriating for any purpose the acknowledged property of her subjects. But even if it were true that the peculiar legal condition of New Zealand authorized the application of this arbitrary principle, I am of opinion that the question cannot be dealt with as one of strict law.” Policy and justice required that the Treaty of Waitangi should be respected by the Government, and in a war undertaken to seize land for roads, however convenient for the settlers at Taranaki, “Her Majesty's troops ought not to be employed.”
The reader will find that in later years a Secretary of State,
Departments, like men, may become familiar with that which once presented to them a hateful mien.
But ever and anon, some strong man signalizes his presence. Such was
The groans which reached
When war was resumed in 1863, it was reported that some volunteers desecrated a native burial-ground at Papakura. The upright
Can it be wondered at that the Maoris groaned over these things, or that some of them resorted to savage and unjustifiable revenge?
There is something touching in the words of
The English troops had always Maori allies, and after the capture of Rangiriri with more than 180 of its Maori garrison, in 1863, one of these allies—the well-known, high-bred chief,
Mindful, perhaps, of the deeds condemned by Swainson, they handed to All the fighters were, perhaps, included in the term. Colonel Carey's statement as to the different conduct of the soldiers and settlers at Taranaki has been quoted. At Rangiriri, in Waikato, when the remnant of the Maori garrison surrendered—“the soldiers sprang in amongst them, and commenced shaking hands with the Maoris” —and General Cameron wrote to the Governor: “I hope the prisoners will be treated generously, for everyone must admire the gallant manner in which they defended their position to the last.” History shows that the prisoners were not treated generously, and that Sir George Grey had much contention with his Ministers on the subject.
History tells how the submission was slighted, and how, groaning over the result, a friendly chief wrote to one of the Ministers that some Maoris distrusted the Government, fearing ill-treatment after surrender. “This is the cause of their sadness, and in persisting in their evil course until death.”
The Minister was not affected by the appeal, and considered the friendly suppliant “not disinterested,” because some of his relatives were prisoners of war.
Fighting or groaning, the Maori gained nothing.
Let it not be supposed, however, that no noble spirits yearned for nobler treatment of the Maoris. Even in 1862
If
Some attempt to respect it was embodied in the terms of Sir George Grey's Proclamation of Peace in 1865 (already quoted), but as those
The War in New Zealand was practically ended in 1864, but there were desultory operations afterwards. In 1865 troops were employed on the West Coast, and
The groans of the Maoris reached the General's ears; but could not of course, arrest him in the execution of duty.
There can be no doubt that some horrors occurred which the commanding officers strove to prevent. When General Cameron was in the Waikato in 1864, and
A chief,
When a petition from
Whitiora's speech is in the English Blue Book of 1870, C. 83 p. 30.
In 1865 the atrocities committed by the Hau-haus induced other military operations, and many friendly Maoris co-operated in putting down their fanatical countrymen.
In September, 1865, the Governor's Proclamation of Peace declared that absolute war was at an end.
In 1866 the Governor, Sir George Grey, had peaceful interviews with Maoris recently at war on the East Coast and at Waikato. The king-maker,
After his promise (made in May, 1866) there were encounters at the East and at the West.
Near Napier, Mr.
Also at Pungarehu on the West Coast a village was surprised and burnt. Twenty-one dead bodies were counted, but it was reported that “others could not be counted as they were buried in the burning ruins of the houses.” (Blue Book, 1869, (307,) p.29.)
Lord Carnarvon (28 Dec. 1866,) called for some explanation about the attacks on Omaranui and Pungarehu, which the newspapers spoke of. Mr. (now Sir)
The groans of the women and children were piteous, but they were not heard in England; whether any of them were stifled at Pungarehu, is not reported.
Even desultory warfare was at an end in 1866, and the Governor, Sir George Grey, visited the districts where it had raged in 1864, at Tauranga and Waikato.
A proclamation of peace was issued, and a Bill of Indemnity for all severities practised against the Maoris was passed. It was so
They deplored the seizure of their lands; they knew not whether the confiscations had been sanctioned by the Queen. Could not some at least, of the land be restored? They complained that no Maori voice could be raised in the legislature against wrong, and thus evils were perpetuated. The Land Court was odious;—“An unjust Court is summoned and much money is wasted; the Court sits and all is in confusion—the spirit is wearied… O Queen! let your love for us be expressed. (They had fought for her.) If you behold this letter let your reply float over the ocean to us—to your loving children.”
Loyal as
One part of their prayer was accomplished soon afterwards.
That which
Maori members took their seats in the Parliament of New Zealand on the 9th of July, 1868, and they could officially record their groans, even though they might fail to remedy wrong. Sir G. Grey proposed in 1865 to “obtain a parliamentary representation of the native race.” and within three years his object was attained.
He was Governor when the enabling Act was passed (10th October, 1867), and the man who carried it through its different stages in the House was Mr.
During operations on the East Coast against the Hau-haus in 1865,
A member of the New Zealand Parliament procured a Return which
They behaved in the most exemplary manner; but at the expiration of the two years they were informed that they were not to be set at liberty, whereupon a look of despair at once came over them, as if every hope they had of life had been cut off.”
Mr. Ritchie, a resident at the Chatham Islands, urged, in April 1868, that enquiry should be made about their cases, but the Premier, Mr. (now Sir Edward) Stafford, made light of Mr. Ritchie's requests.
In July 1868,
The atrocities of
Daring and active as he was in guerilla warfare,
With the help of Ropata, the Ngatiporou chief, the Colonial forces attacked
The official return of the result is contained in one grim line—
“3rd and 5th January 1869.
Ngatapa
;killed 136; captured none; total 136.”N. Z. Parl Papers, 1869. A. No. 3. G. The Return is also in the English Blue Book C. 83 of 1870, p. 78.
As the women accompanied
In a work, "
The official report of the commander of the Colonial forces thanked Mr.
In July 1868 a newspaper in Wellington (Wellington Independent 21 July) had recommended that “no prisoner should be taken. Let a price be put on the head of every rebel, and let them be slain without scruple, wherever the opportunity is afforded. We must smite and spare not.”
Another paper said, “Give a reward for every rebel's head that is brought to head quarters. “The Hawke's Bay Times said, in December 1868, ‘The fatal clause which requires the rebels to be brought in alive will completely nullify the effect intended.’ Soon after-wards it seems that the misnamed clause was modified. Statements about it found their way to England, and Lord Granville wrote (26 Feb. 1869—“I find it said that the escape of a large proportion of the prisoners from the Chatham Islands is to be ascribed to the fact that they had been taken there with the expectation or promise that they should be brought back to New Zealand after a given time; that it was only when this expectation or promise was left unfulfilled that they made their escape, and that on their return to their country they did not offer any violence to the settlers till attempts were made to hunt them down.” (This refers to
I find it also said that the disturbances on the West Coast arose from an arbitrary seizure of two natives as pledges or hostages for the return of two horses which were retaken by the natives after having been captured by Most of these facts are in the English Blue Books, 1869. (307) and 1870, C. 83. The Native Minister reported (as to the Maoris wrongfully arrested as horse-stealers)—“Two of the prisoners were quickly released as nothing could be proved against them; the third was detained, but subsequently made his escape.” (Blue Book, 1869 (307.)p. 159.)
“I see it stated in the newspapers that you (Governor Sir Blue Book, 1870 (C. 83.) p. 184.
The inept reply of the Governor is to be found in the English Blue
Ministers regret if this offer has not been reported in the copious Minutes of events furnished to His Excellency for transmission by every mail. It is now right to add that a similar reward on the same terms has been offered for the body of
The Despatches of the time contain many requests from the Governor that the 18th Regiment might remain in the Colony.
So serious was the result of provoking
On the 20th of April, 1869, The Earl wrote Blue Book, 1869. Papers relating to New Zealand, p 430.
“I trust (the earl added) you will be able to inform me that it is“untrue, and I am led to hope this, both by the doubtful words of the writer, and by the circumstance that you have not reported to
There was indeed nothing left for the Maori to do but to fight with desperation, or to groan, or to die without groaning (as an eye-witness informed me that he saw an old chief die on the steep of Ngatapa when put to death in cold blood on the occasion animadverted upon by
Sir
The “private note” is to be found in an English Blue Book 1870 [C. 83] p. 39. I regret that it is one of those documents which I cannot cite in extenso.
Mr. Richmond had paid £50 for the head of Nikora, and had offered £5 for “every one of the Chatham Island prisoners brought in alive” —“one of the men so captured was afterwards killed”—“a thousand pounds was on the same day offered for Kooti the ringleader of the murderers and marauders, and would certainly have been paid for his body, dead or alive.”
The official return that the killed Maoris at Ngatapa were 136, and that there were no prisoners, coupled with Mr. Gudgeons' description of the killing of prisoners two days after the capture of Ngatapa, sheds a lurid light upon Mr. Richmond's “private note” which Sir
Something more than a “private note” was deemed desirable, and a still longer despatch of 7th July, 1869, enclosing Blue Book (C. 83.) 1870, p. 54.
“When rebellion has assumed such proportions (Mr. Prendergast wrote) that those who are in arms against the Sovereign would be able if forced to do so by the conduct of the Sovereign towards them, to take such reprisals upon those who adhere to the Sovereign as to insist upon the observance of the usages of war, then probably those in rebellion should be treated as enemies with whom the usages of war should be observed. The adoption of such a course is forced upon the Sovereign with a view to confining the effects of war to narrower limits. Acting from such motives, prisoners taken by the Sovereign would not be put to death as rebels, whether with or without trial,
No doubt in such a case the consequences of such violation of the rules of war ought to be confined to those who are responsible for and have taken part in them and ought not to be extended to those who taking no part in them, are nevertheless implicated in the rebellion. The Maoris now in arms have put forward no grievance for which they seek redress. Their object so far as it can be collected from their acts is murder, cannibalism, and rapine. They form themselves into bands, and roam the country seeking a prey.
In punishing the perpetrators of such crimes, is the sovereign to be restrained by the rules which the Lord Chief Justice Cockburn had a short time before Mr. Prendergast wrote this opinion laid down, in a charge printed in 1867, what appears a different doctrine. He denounced (p. 22) “tribunals which are to create the laws which they have to administer, and to determine upon the guilt or innocence of persons brought before them, with a total disregard of all those rules and principles which are of the very essence of justice, and without which there is no security for innocence.” Advocates of martial law put forward (p. 23.) “doctrines so repugnant to the genius of our people, to the spirit of our laws and institutions, to all we have been accustomed to revere and hold sacred” that before such doctrines are “countenanced and upheld in an English Court of Justice, we ought to see that there is sufficient authority for the assertion that British subjects can be thus treated.” . . (p. 46.) It is true that after the battle of Culloden horrible barbarities were perpetrated—but not by virtue of martial law.… I rejoice to think that in respect of cruelties which never can be forgotten while English history lasts, and which out raged and indignant humanity never can forgive—I rejoice, I say to think that these things were done without even the pretence of martial law. I rejoice to think that the name of law, even of martial law, was not profaned and polluted by being associated with such atrocities as these… (p. 108.) But it is said that as the necessity of suppressing rebellion is what justifies the exercise of martial law, and as, to this end, the example of immediate punishment is essential, the exhibition of martial law in its most summary and terrible form is indispensable. If by this it is meant that examples are to be made without taking the necessary means to discriminate between guilt and innocence, and that in order to inspire terror, men are to be sacrificed whose guilt remains uncertain, I can only say I trust no Court of Justice will ever entertain laws of nature and of nations have declared applicable in the wars between civilized nations? Clearly not.so fearful and odious a doctrine. There are considerations more important than even the shortening the temporary duration of an insurrection. Among them are the eternal and immutable principles of justice, principles which never can be violated without lasting detriment to the true interests and well-being of a civilized community.” Charge, &c., W. Ridgway London, 1867.or has yet reached such proportions as to enable it to be said that those who having taken part in it, are captured, ought to be treated as prisoners of war. I see no reason why they should not be treated as persons guilty of levying war against the Crown.… Unfortunately, however, the revolt has
Mr. Prendergast referred to
“This measure does not seem open to any objection in the case of a Government engaged in the suppression of a revolt, accompanied as such revolt has been with all the unrelenting cruelty of savage nature.… Even in the case of a foreign enemy who violates the laws of nature and the usages of war, the utmost severities are permitted as a punishment for his crimes.”
Thus did Mr. Prendergast justify what had been done, and inform
There was another hard condition which caused groans amongst the Maoris. By their customs of old time it was incumbent upon a chief (called upon to assist another) either to fight against the demander of aid, or join in his campaign.
He added that Tauroa had never joined in the barbarities imputed to
The followers of Tauroa had cause to groan, whichsoever way they turned. Their traditionary law compelled them to obey and to act with him. He was compelled to act with
Whether
Such as it was his career has been recorded by me elsewhere.
Without doubt there was much alarm amongst the colonists when
Blue Book, 1869 (307) p. 272. ib. p. 277.
In November, 1868, ib. p. 295. ib. p. 308.
“ Copy of a Letter from Sub-Inspector Newland to Col. Whitmore
Head Quarters, Woodall's Redoubt.27 th November, 1868.Sir,I have the honour to inform you that I marched this morning with all the cavalry, being sixty-six of all ranks and corps, three hours before daylight to Wairoa, and remained five or six hours at that place, returning at 11
A.M.with despatches from Captain Hawes.I reached Nukumaru graveyard at about 1
P.M., and, in accordance with your orders, remained in concealment until an opportunity presented itself to act.After waiting about an hour and a half, perceiving a considerable number of Hauhaus about Mr. Handley's woolshed, I directed some of the men to advance dismounted, and followed with the rest of the force on horseback. Unfortunately a carbine went off accidentally which gave the alarm, and prevented our being as completely successful as we had hoped; but as soon as possible we mounted the dismounted men and charged, killing eight with sabre, revolver or carbine, besides wounding others.
I wish particularly to mention the extreme gallantry of Sergeant G. Maxwell of the Kai Iwi Cavalry, who himself sabred two and shot one of the enemy, and was conspicuous throughout the affair. Many others of all corps behaved extremely well, but I think it would be invidious to particularize further. The enemy turned out immediately and kept up a sharp fire, following us about three miles.
In accordance with my instructions I did not risk any further engagement, as the horses were tired, and the infantry were still at some distance.
The enemy is encamped in large force in rear of Nukumaru, near the bush, and has six bell tents erected.
I returned to camp at 6
P.M.I must acknowledge the assistance rendered to me by Captain O'Halloran of the Patea Yeomanry Cavalry,and Lieutenant Bryce commanding Kai Iwi and Wanganui Cavalry. These gentlemen were prominent in this affair, and set their men a gallant example.
I have, & c. “W. Newland,Sub-Inspector, A.C.”. The Hon. Colonel Whitmore
One of his ministers sent
There was, however, to my knowledge, no publication of the Maori account until 1883. In 1882 a version of it, unhappily incorrect but presumably derived from the Maoris, reached me while I was writing my History of New Zealand.
After applying for and obtaining further written information, I came to the conclusion that the “extreme gallantry” lauded by Newland consisted in attacking unarmed persons, and in running away as soon as armed persons hastened from a pah (1½ mile distant) to rescue their little ones; and I accordingly framed a paragraph on the subject, the inaccuracy of which I have never ceased to regret from the moment that I became acquainted with a statement made by an eyewitness, Uru Te Angina.
In the written information furnished to me, (which purported to have been derived from Dr. Featherston, Superintendent of the Province of Wellington in 1868), it was stated that women were amongst the unarmed persons against whom the act of gallantry was performed.
Though the account given to me stated that several persons were killed (which coincided with Mr. Newland's account), I refrained, or at least endeavoured to refrain, from saying more than that they were “cut down.” After the publication of my History (early in 1883) a native chief,
…” We publish to-day an account given by Uru Te Angina of the affair at Handley's Woolshed. We may say that Uru was in the Taurangaika pah at the time, and his statement may be accepted as the Native view of the affair. We vouch for the accuracy of the translation of Uru's words :—
” ‘The tribes were all gathered at our pah, Taurangaika, waiting for the enemy, the Pakeha, to attack us.… One day a number of our children, lads,… left our camp unknown to us, and without the leave of their parents… About twelve boys made up the party, and away they stole off… When they reached the house . . they succeeded in catching several geese, and went into the empty house to pluck the feathers off. They had not been long at this
when a body of troopers rode over an eminence very suddenly and fired at the boy on the house who was acting as sentry. He slid off at once, and ran into the scrub. Several more shots were fired at the house, but the lads inside thought the boys outside were throwing stones at the roof and sides, which were of iron; but as the noise increased the boys ran out, and found themselves amongst a body of mounted men, who at once began to slash and cut away at them as they ducked under the horses to avoid the sword-thrusts and the revolver-shots fired at them. The lads ran hither and thither. Two were killed on the spot, and several were more or less wounded; but these, with the others, escaped the slaughter One lad, about ten years old, was killed by a stroke from a sword that cut his head in two halves, one half falling down over his shoulder; he had some revolver-shots in his chest and stomach besides. Subsequent enquiry at Wanganui showed that the shots were fired at a distance—variously guessed at 400 or 350 yards, or less—from the Woolshed (which Uru or his translator called a “house”).
“Another lad, about twelve years old, was killed by many strokes of a sword, and was much cut about, and shot with carbines. Neither of these lads had arrived at the age of puberty. Another boy, of about twelve years of age, was cut over the head with a sword, and would have been killed, only that he clasped his hands above and on his head to save himself; but the sword cut off some of his fingers, and he fell at full length under the horse's feet. The trooper then fired his revolver at him, and the ball penetrated his thigh; and then left him for dead. This boy lived, and is alive now. He is a relative of mine . . Another boy hid in some water, like a little crawfish . . None of this young party had guns, pistols, tomahawks, or any weapons; they may have had a pocket-knife or so with them to cut flax. None of us at the pah knew they had gone away hunting, and we did not know of their absence until we saw some of them returning, bleeding and crying . . We at once mustered a strong party and hastened to the scene of action where our children had fallen . . We carried them home to our pah, and buried the two dead lads . . This account is a strictly true one, and can be verified by many hundreds of men and women who saw the bodies. As I said before none of these lads who formed the party had arrived at the age of puberty. Trooper Maxwell was shot soon afterwards in a very foolish attempt to carry off a flag we had attached to our double-partitioned and entrenched pah. He met the fate of a brave man, but it was the act of a lot of fools to ride up as they did, especially after killing our little ones who only went out to catch a few geese.”
To those who accept the above version, and as a rule Maori chiefs are scrupulously truthful, it furnishes a singular commentary on Newland's report that after the “killing eight with sabre, &c.” Newland “did not risk any further engagement” but fled with his gallant comrades, pursued, “about three miles,” by the armed Maoris who issued from the pah to succour the children.
A copy of the ‘Yeoman’ was sent to me, and it convinced me that
The fact that I had framed an erroneous statement, even though it was founded on written informatiou, was intensely vexatious to me.
I had already printed one list of errata, and was preparing an enlarged list, as from time to time, any inaccuracy in my History became known to me. Uru Te Angina's statement induced me to add the following correction:—Vol. II., p. 504 in line 28 from top, omit “women and.”
In 1884 an action was instituted against me on account of two passages which referred inter alia to the transaction described so differently by Newland and Uru Te Angina.
Of the action itself I desire to say nothing here. Il fatto non si puo disfare; and personal affairs are beneath the dignity of history.
As a historian it is proper to show to my readers the manner in which I endeavoured to fulfil my functions.
I do not desire to refer in any other sense to my History—which has been withdrawn from sale by the publishers.
My purpose can be effected without comment upon the trial, which took place in March, 1886. in London.
In 1885, I prepared for my advisers some printed Notes, which were in their hands several months before the trial took place. One passage in those Notes shows the spirit in which I worked:—
” The precision of Uru Te Angina's statement, with regard to the presence of children only among those who were “cut down” at Handley's Woolshed, prompted me at once to add to the errata of my History a correction to the effect that the words “women and” should be omitted from the paragraph (at p. 504, vol. ii.) referring to the transaction. I did in fact prepare, and cause to be printed, an amended list of errata accordingly. But soon after the reception of Uru Te Angina's statement in England, came paragraphs (in New Zealand journals) intimating that (proceedings against me were contemplated.)
Thereupon, I consulted a lawyer, and did not issue an amended list of errata. My advisers will remember that—urging that accuracy at all hazards is the first duty of an historian—I once had a consultation with them and with counsel on the subject, and that in this matter I have acted entirely under advice. It is quite true that the inclusion of the words “women and” was strictly in accordance with information in my hands, the authority for which was Dr. Featherston; and that therefore I could not be charged with “setting down ought in malice;” but he who finds that he has been misled, even in a matter of detail, is bound to correct an error, and ought to be glad to do so if he can.”
The foregoing sentences, having been in print long before the trial, sufficiently explain my earnestness to be accurate without reference to any outside pressure.
Though I felt myself precluded by advice from formally supplying the new corrections to the publishers, (who had stopped the sale of
It is of course difficult to remember at what particular time one may have done such things, and I took occasion to refer (in 1886) to three friends who had as I thought, copies of my History.
All three confirmed my recollection, and I am permitted to refer to their letters. One copy was in the Library of the
22, Albemarle Street,
March15th, 1886.Dear Mr. Rusden,On receiving your note this morning, I referred to the History of New Zealand, published by you in 1883, and in the first Volume, I find a printed page of errata—clearly intended for inclusion in the book when bound—with the following passage among several others:—
Vol. II p. 14. * * * * *
Vol. II p. 41. * * * * *
Vol. II p. 504, in line 28 from top, omit “women and.”
Yours sincerely ,F. J. Goldsmid.G. W. ,RusdenEsq.Athenæum Club.
Mr. Onslow answered thus:
Send Grove, Woking Surrey.
May5th, 1886.My Dear Rusden,In answer to your letter enquiring whether the erratum—Vol. II, p. 504, omit “women and,”—in your History, is inserted in the slip of errata in the copy of your History of New Zealand in my library, I have to inform you that it is so inserted. It was affixed by you on one of your visits to my house but I cannot tell when.
As your last visit was in September 1885, it must have been affixed then or at some earlier date.
Yours sincerely ,A. P. Onslow.
Receiving a similar letter from a friend in Dorsetshire, I made no enquiry elsewhere. As his letter adverted to the trial (as have many other gracious letters from friends and eminent persons) I abstain from quoting its terms.
It was well known among my friends that I was willing to correct any error. I sent to two friends, one in New Zealand and another in New South Wales, several printed copies of letters which I requested them to show and to publish in the newspapers.
In one, dated September 1st, 1883, I said that if any passage were erroneous “it would be my first duty to make all reparation in my power.… Every writer is bound to examine facts with a desire to make no idle statements, but there are certain persons, such as Dr. Featherston, whose names might make it almost superfluous to go beyond them.”
In the other (to the Hon.
After this brief allusion to the manner in which I have aboured, To a careless person it may signify little if an error be discovered in his work But to one who has seriously laboured to avoid error, the discovery of an error is a pang. The late Matahau, after unheard of perseverance. If all the statements in the forthcoming History have been verified with the same care, what an amount of patient labour you must have bestowed upon it! “My good friend has now passed to the land of spirits, but it is one of my comforts to remember that he lived to commend my “minute and accurate knowledge of the affairs of New Zealand.”
Colonel Whitmore, who commanded the colonial forces, commended his “gallantry, coolness, and determination to hold the post of honour.” His “behaviour was beyond all praise,” at Moturoa, when the local forces sustained defeat at the hands of Blue Book, 1869. (307), p.p. 288, 289, 291.
A gentleman, who afterwards went to that part of the country to make enquiries, assured me that he was horrified at learning from the lips of those who had lived in the neighbourhood that at one time every Maori creature old or young, “omnis sexus, omnis ætas,” was
This gentleman was educated at an English University and a member of a liberal profession.
This of course is but hearsay, after the facts; and too much stress should not be laid upon it. But an officer who led a marauding party through the district, after settlements, cultivations, eelweirs, and of every kind of “stock we could not eat.”
Even if women and children were killed anywhere in the manner reported to the gentleman whose words I have quoted, it would be impossible now to prove it, for who would condemn himself, or plead guilty to having screened such crimes?
Mr. Gudgeon in his Reminiscences of the War in New Zealand, Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, London, 1879.
(Page 266) “Captain Bryce was sent forward next day and ascended the river ten miles farther, until he came upon three men in a canoe. The men escaped, but the canoe fell into our hands.
By this time the column had penetrated sixty miles up the river, and had destroyed or carried off every thing portable, but the main object of the expedition had failed as the Hauhaus were evidently on their guard and had retired to the Upper Wanganui. Such being the case Major Noake retired to the Weraroa where the loot was sold for the benefit of the men engaged.
On the 20th April, 1869, Captain Hawes . . started with ninety men . . to scour the country inland of the Whenuakura River. No sign of recent occupation was seen… The Waitotara and Whenuakura districts had now been searched unsuccessfully, and there only remained the Patea; this was left to Colonel Lyon, who, on the 3rd May, crossed the river at Hukatere and camped at Otauto, where fresh tracks were seen. A party of Ngatiporou scouts under Te Hata were sent in pursuit, and came across three men, two of whom were caught and shot.
On the following day two others were seen, and met the same fate; one of them proved to be a woman dressed in mens' clothes.”
These “Reminiscences” may be deemed of doubtful authority by some persons, even though their author was personally engaged in many transactions he describes.
There is, however, a remarkable official description of the district which justifies the most sad reflections. In 1880, a Royal Commission consisting of Sir Blue Book, 1882. C. 3382, pp. 50, 51. The map will show the great extent of this coast line. Through length and breadth there had once been habitations.All their pahs and cultivations had been utterly destroyed. There was not a native of the rebel tribes to be seen from Waitotara to Waingongoro,”
Before the settlers would return to the farms from which This policy was sternly carried out. News having come in that small parties of went out and shot two of the men and captured a woman. At another place, some miles up the Waitotara river, another native was shot, and a second woman taken. For a time this severity deterred the insurgents from renewing any attempt to re-occupy their country… Early in 1870 the settlers still desired that no native should be suffered to come back. Perhaps it was not unnatural that the exasperation to which they had been driven should have tempted many to distort the promise of the Prime Minister from rebel native into any native. But the promise could, of course, have no application to men like i.e.
Commenting on this passage—the admission that it was their country to which poor creatures thus lawlessly shot desired to return —the strange statement that it was perhaps not unnatural for the settlers to make no distinction between Maoris formerly hostile and Maoris always friendly—the addition that when seen Maoris were shot—I once wrote—“These words reveal how the use which is second nature prevented that which would have been a ghastly phenomenon elsewhere from appearing odious in New Zealand!”
In thus writing I desired to arouse a keener sense of justice in New Zealand, where many people, living (like my friend in Wellington) far from Waitotara, knew not how the word ‘civilization’ had been profaned there;—how indeed the woeful words imputed by
from which the natives had disappeared, in which their dwellings and cultivations had been destroyed, to which British subjects demanded that no native should be allowed to return, and in which when a poor creature came back to seek for a resting-place he was shot without enquiry and apparently without exciting remark until, in later years, a Royal Commission recorded the occurrence without condemnation.
The Commissioners spoke of reported slaughters. How many unreported slaughters were there? They say two women were captured. How many were dealt with as my friend who visited the West Coast was informed?
Who can adequately pourtray the horrors of the time? Who can even faintly imagine, how desperate had been the groans of the Maoris, where in a once populous district, larger than some English counties, not one living soul remained? Strong and feeble,—old and young,—children of both sexes—all were gone.
On the map the district appeared as “confiscated land.” What did not appear on the map was the fact that by the proclamation of confiscation peaceful possession of their lands was guaranteed to all loyal natives.
Until
Blue Book, 1870. C. 83. p. 61.
Apprehending such junction, Fox, then Prime Minister, made a piteous appeal to the Governor ib. p. 80. The troops in the Colony at the time consisted of one Regiment, the 18th. Small as was their number the hopes of Sir
The Maoris had some confidence in McLean, and to him must be ascribed the better relations which were established with them from 1869 to 1876, when, shortly before his death, he resigned office.
He obtained distinctions for Maori officers who had been eminent in the field against
He qualified as soon as he could the grievous condition to which the Waitotara district had been reduced when he took office.
As some cruel acts done there at a later date will demand notice, it is well to record here, before passing to other subjects, what McLean did at the West Coast.
Not long after his entering upon office some of the scattered tribes returned to the old haunts in which their homes had been laid waste. A minute (Dec. 1871) by an Under Secretary in McLean's Department shows on what terms the return of the exiles took place—“With regard to the Ngaruahine ( Blue Book, 1882, C. 3382, p. 53.i.e. hapu) I think it would be politically undesirable, and I fear, practically impossible, to attempt to prevent their re-occupying the country north of Waingongoro, the confiscation of that country having been abandoned by the Government, as long as they behave themselves and keep the compact about not crossing the Waingongoro.” This minute was approved by Sir
On 20th January 1872, McLean issued instructions with regard to the district. In them he said “The lands north of the Waingongoro as far as Stoney River, although nominally confiscated, are with the exception of 1400 acres at Opunake, quite unavailable for settlement, until arrangements are made with the natives for lands sufficient for their own requirements. Mr. (Commissioner) Parris will . . com pensate the Native owners for all lands… they may relinquish … at rates not exceeding 5s. per acre.” New Zealand Parliamentary Paper, 1880. G. 2. Appendix A. p. 3. (On 12th April, 1876 (N. Z. P. P., G 2, Appendix A. p. 4) McLean in writing to Major Brown, Civil Commissioner “authorized him to offer sums amounting “to 2s. 6d. more than the 5s. already mentioned (in
In February, 1872, McLean formally reported, and the Governor sent to the Secretary of State, the terms which had been agreed upon. N. Z. Parliamentary Paper, 1872. A. No. I, p.p. 62, 63.
Maclean had seen
“Arrangements have also been entered into with a view to a more accurate definition of Native rights within the confiscated territory, and for the acquisition, by purchase, with the good will of the Natives, of such portions of land as they hold within it, but do not require for their own use and which appear desirable for European settlements.”
Trusting in the honour of McLean. the Maoris re-entered upon their birth place. He recognized their prior rights, and the qualifying terms of Sir George Grey's Proclamations; Vide supra. pp. 31,32. Blue Book, C. 3382. p. 58.acquire by purchase any land required for European settlements in the district. The Governor exulted in McLean's report of his proceedings and the Secretary of State formally approved. Accordingly, in subsequent years, land was purchased from the Maoris under formal deeds ofcession,
A New Zealand Parliamentary Paper 1879. A.—8A. p. 3.
As it was reported that in 1881 the Government sold land in the district at more than £6 an acre, McLean's bargains cannot be deemed wasteful.
He also maintained peace. How it was broken by others must be told hereafter.
One long standing grievance exists in the Middle or South Island. When the Maoris sold to the New Zealand Company (in 1844) a block of land at Otago, the Governor commissioned a Crown Agent Mr.
The Company had bound themselves to the Government in England to secure as reserves for the natives one-tenth of all lands which they were permitted to purchase. In this case Symonds wrote—” I left the further choice of reserves,—namely, the tenth part of all land sold by the New Zealand Company—to be decided by His Excellency the Governor.”
A Proclamation by the Governor in 1844 declared that “of all land purchased from the Aborigines by reason of the Crown's right of pre-emption being waived, one-tenth part, of fair average value as to position and quality, is to be conveyed by the purchaser to Her Majesty for public purposes, especially the future benefit of the Aborigines.” Blue Book, 1845.
Will it be believed that for more than forty years, the Maoris have vainly pleaded for fulfilment of these solemn undertakings, and that though a Royal Commission reported favourably to their claims in 1881, the Maoris are vainly pleading still?
The Government was doubly bound to do justice to them; for when the New Zealand Company surrendered its charter in 1850 it was officially declared that “Her Majesty's Government take the lands of the Company subject to existing contracts :”—and the contract to
In 1848 Mr. Mackay's Compendium, Vol. I. p. 211.
Not only
Subsequently and the repudiated promises which form the subject of this letter.” . . By promise of more valuable recompense in schools—in hospitals for their sick—and in constant solicitude for their welfare, and general protection on the part of the Imperial Government—I procured the cession of these lands for small cash payments. The Colonial Government has neglected to fulfil these promises.… I trust that Her Majesty's Government will take such steps as will relieve me from the painful position of having been the channel of promises which have been at least forgotten, and secure my Native clients in the possession of advantages which have been so long withheld from them.”
Mr. Mackay's Compendium, &c. Vol. II., pp. 81–88.
To this day are the Maoris groaning for relief from the injustice thus done on the spot, and thus winked at by a Secretary of State.
There are many just and kindly persons in New Zealand, but they have not been able to control the dealings of the Government with the Maoris. Those who desire to study the question of the Middle or
These cover many thousand pages, however, and for those who have not time for lengthy research, a few lines will present one or two salient cases.
In 1874,
In May, 1882, New Zealand Hansard, 1882. Vol. XLI., p. 62.
A petition on the subject was referred in 1882 to the Native Affairs Committee, which reported upon it. A member moved that the Report be referred “to the Government for consideration.” (There are Greek calends in New Zealand.)
The Report was referred back (Mr. Duncan informing the House that the condition of some of the Natives dependent on the result was “a disgrace to any Government,” ib. Vol. XLIII., p. 563. ib., p. 800.
repeated promises have been made to the natives by Ministers none of which have been fulfilled.”
Mr. Daniel was sorry that the Minister was “putting his foot down on the Native race again. They only want their just rights.… I do not see why justice should not be given to them… A great injustice has been done to the Natives of the Middle Island. Not only has their land been taken from them, but they have been deprived of the Reserves promised to them… I am sorry that the Native Minister should make such an attack upon the Native members. I know that on the Committee they give their decisions the same as other honourable gentlemen do, and I have not seen that they have been biassed in the least.”
There was a division in the House on the matter, and
The natives who were left in a condition which Mr. Daniel described as “a disgrace to any Government,” are still, so far as I know, left to groan, or to die.
This was the fate of those who made compacts with regard to their lands. Sometimes those who refused to make compacts were haled to prison, as was the case at Parihaka, in 1881.
Sometimes (as in the Waikato country, where the authority of
New Zealand Hansard, 1885. Vol. LI., p. 277. ib., p. 405.
The manner in which solemn promises made to the Maoris in the Middle Island were broken was not calculated to induce their brethen in the North to abandon their homes and leave the burial-grounds of their ancestors to be desecrated at the command of any Native Minister.
One case may be cited to show the difficulties under which the Maoris laboured, even when their cases went before a Court of law.
The Native Land Court was sitting at Christchurch in April, 1868. A Cabinet Minister, Mr. (now Sir John) Hall, was in attendance; and
In giving judgment on one (the Rapaki) case, the Judge said “The court feels that it would be leaving its duty only half discharged if it failed to notice the character of the deeds purporting to extinguish the Native title to this island which have been produced before it. Whether the deed called the “Ngaitahu Deed” can have any effect whatever in law is not a question upon which it is necessary to pronounce any opinion, but having been compelled in the course of these proceedings to consider the terms and stipulations in this and other deeds produced, the Court could not fail to be struck with the remarkable reservation by the vendors of all their “pahs, residences, cultivations, and burial places, which were to be marked off by surveys, and remain their own property.”
This provision has not, according to the evidence, been effectually and finally carried out to the present day, nor has any release been sought for by the Crown… Conflicting instructions from the
Compendium of official Documents, &c. Compiled by
This was in 1868—and as the unfulfilled promises of the Crown in the Middle Island provoked the scene (just alluded to) in the New Zealand Parliament (in 1882) and are yet repudiated or postponed, it does not seem that the honour and advantage of the Crown have been taken to heart by those whose duty it was to respect them.
The Judge had another notable case before him at Christchurch in 1868
Evidence was taken, on 28th April, and “after some conversation with the Honourable Mackay's Compendium, Vol. 2, p. 205.
In the morning no settlement had been made, and counsel for the Crown proposed to “hand in a document signed by The Native Lands Act of 1867, provided that lands referred to in Sec. 83, of the Native Lands Act, 1865 should, unless otherwise directed, be excluded from the operation of the Act of 1865; but it left power to “the Governor” to refer agreements about land to the Land Court.
Mr. Williams handed in a document referring to the Ngaitahu Deed of 1848, and concluding thus:—
“Now, therefore, the said agreement is hereby referred in accordance with the above mentioned Acts to the Native Lands Court.
Every one knew that the Governor (Sir now placed more entirely at the discretion of the Maori owners.”
Such was Sir Mackay Vol. 2. p. 206.because it was going unfavourably to them, tell the Court that it must not proceed further with it. Such a proceeding would be an act of the greatest injustice.”ex post facto… There was “nothing to prove that the Order of Reference was authorized by the Governor. He would propose putting it in evidence that the Governor had never authorized
“The Chief Judge said the Court was bound to presume that the order of reference was duly authorized by the Governor. The Governor's signature was not necessary; and it was presumed that presume what is known not to be the fact; but when a Maori is in the case, strange presumptions take place].
“The order of reference was admitted, Mr. Cowlishaw objecting. The Chief Judge said he would proceed with the case with increased powers.” The hearing of the case was soon concluded, but it did not tend to confirm Sir
The judgment given for the Crown was a notable instance of neglect of those principles which
The efficacy of
In 1868, the Legislature passed a “Ngaitahu Reference Validation Act” to “remove doubts as to the sufficiency of a certain order of reference” signed “as by command and on behalf of the Governor,” and enacted that the order should be deemed as “valid and effectual to all intents and purposes as if the same had been made by and given under the hand of the Governor”; and “to have been a valid agreement for the extinguishment of the Native title… “
And yet this same
One more instance of denial of justice in the Middle Island must suffice for these pages, which will not hold a thousandth part of those which are calculated to cause groans among the Maoris.
A few large cases find their way into Courts and Parliaments. Unnumbered cases which involve the misery of the poor are usually unrecorded. It is fortunate that amongst the settlers in New Zealand there has been more kindness than has been displayed by some of those who, dressed in a little brief authority, have brought their acts within the scope of these pages.
In Dec. 1852, Most of the facts about the Prince's Street Reserve for the Maoris at Dunedin are in Mr. Mackay's Compendium of official Documents relative to Native Affairs, in Vol. I. pp., 107 to 195, and unless otherwise mentioned, the text is generally quoted from his book.
There is much to be said about both reserves, but that at Dunedin is a sufficient sample for these pages.
On the 6th June, 1853, the Governor, Sir G. Grey, formally approved of the reserve “as recommended.”
It might have been thought that the small remnant of their lands
In 1853, the colony was divided into Provinces under an Imperial Constitution Act Vide supra. p. 7. In this statute
The General Assembly, or Parliament of New Zealand, was not convened under the Constitution Act until 1854. It was, of course, paramount to the Provincial Legislatures, and the Governor of New Zealand being still Governor over the Provinces was resorted to for certain purposes by the Superintendents of the Provinces.
In June, 1855,
In this year,
Particulars having been obtained at last, certain grants were issued in 1858.
In 1858,
In 1862, he supported a petition from persons desirous to rent the Reserve, and Sir George Grey (who had become Governor for a second time) acceded to the request.
The rent of frontages varied from £6 16s. to £3 19s. per foot, and amounted to £2525 16s. a year.
The rent was not handed to the Maoris, but (Cutten wrote) “paid into a separate account to be dealt with according to instructions.”
He applied for leave to pay £604 to the Town Board of Dunedin for “making a footpath along the front of the Reserve on the East side of Prince's St. Dunedin.”
The suspicions of an Assistant Law Officer were aroused, and he
The Superintendent of the Province, and
The Prime Minister,
Mr. Clarke without delay “waited upon His Honour the Superintendent, and
To a formal request in writing, he received no reply. He reported (Oct., 1864) that as the original Deed of Otago specially provided for the making of such Reserves for the Maoris he presumed that it should “set the question at rest.”
The new Native Minister was
In January, 1865,
Action and not evasion had become necessary to deprive the Maoris of the Reserve. The Postmaster General,
Richardson wrote him a letter on the 13th April, 1865, which was answered by Harris on the same day. Richardson movingly told Harris that the failure of “a Mr. Clarke” to extract information from the Provincial Government in 1864 had led the General Government to conclude that the claims of the Province were unfounded, and
“It will be evident to your Honour that should any claim exist in the part of the Provincial Government not a mail should be lost in making it known to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary.”
No time was lost. On the day that Richardson wrote to Harris, Harris answered Richardson lengthily, and sent the correspondence to
Mr. Harris wrote a long reply, which he may have thought a justification, and which is contained in Mr. Mackay's Compendium. He brought before Richardson a new fact, viz.: that £6031 18s. 9d. accumulated rents for the Reserve, had been by order of the Government, transferred from a special account to the “General Goverment account.”
Richardson was soon at Wellington, interchanging memoranda with
In June, 1865 the Attorney General (Sewell) gave his opinion that the land had been “duly reserved as a Native Reserve” and that he did not “see any ground upon which either the Provincial Government of Otago, or any municipal body constituted in Dunedin, or any private individual could impugn” the appropriation.
The Attorney General was then a Cabinet Minister, and in most countries such an opinion from such a man would have been decisive.
But Maori lands have been subject to influences not common in other countries.
There were two cogent reasons for struggle. The land, and the thousands of pounds of accumulated rent.
The Superintendent of Otago begged that the Prime Minister would “let the question rest” till the Provincial Government of Otago could appeal to the Parliament, or General Assembly, of New Zealand.
The Government did not promise to comply with the request, but in effect nothing was done.
The assembly met on the 26th July; and
A select committee in which issued in favour of the Municipality of Dunedin.”
In the House,
There may have been persons for whom such a consummation had attractions. But there seemed some hesitancy about openly consummating the wrong recommended by the Select Committee. The highly respected
Be that as it may,
But the mode of action adopted seemed like that of a man who thinks that by wearing a mask he qualifies his acts for the better.
On the 4th November 1865, a Crown Grant Clerk at Dunedin, sent by order, “for His Excellency's signature two Crown Grants to the Superintendent of Otago” “as per accompanying Schedule.” Without being specified one of these was the Maori Reserve at Dunedin. Its description in the Schedule was, “Piece of land situate in Prince's Street, Dunedin.” “Public utility” was assigned as the “Nature of Reserve.” (Mackay, vol. i., p. 142).
At this period of the transaction, events occurred which none of the actors have been able to explain, though an examination conducted in 1877 before the Native Affairs Committee sheds some light upon them.
What is clear, is that the Crown Grant was put before the Governor for signature on the 11th January, 1866.
Sir George Grey's evidence proves that the subject of the Grant had been previously discussed and that it was deemed wrong to sign it.
He said (in 1877) “Discussions had taken place between myself and law officers and I had resolved that I ought not to sign the Grant until the matter had been fully discussed. A number of Grants were presented… I believed that one of them… was the Grant for this land, but I could not positively identify it; and as the Colonial Secretary (Stafford) who presented the Grant to me was perfectly satisfied that it was not the Grant for this reserve, I signed it. sent off that day in a vessel going to Otago, and in that way the land passed…
very probable that this Grant may have come up inadvertently with a number of others, and in the same way may have been sent on by me to the Governor for his signature. I use the word inadvertently because I have some recollection, I will not be quite positive about it, that I had given a special instruction that that Grant should not be sent on for signature without my attention being called to the fact… I believe although I will not be absolutely positive at this length of time, that I gave such instructions… I have been informed that Sir George Grey who was then Governor has stated that he put some questions to me with regard to this Grant. I have no recollection (that he) ever put questions to me about any Grant whatever at any time. But if Sir George Grey says he is perfectly certain he did put such questions to me, I am not at this length of time prepared to say that he did not, but I have certainly no recollection of (his) having at any time questioned me as to a Grant, and I think if such an occurrence had taken placo I should have recollected it.” Two things are proved by these statements. special instruction to prevent a surprise, and the Governor had come to a conclusion, after consultation with advisers, that the Grant ought not to be signed.
Another thing is clear, viz.: that when the Governor's signature had been surreptitiously procured it was the duty of
Another thing which is not so clear may be inferred from the swiftness with which the Grant was hurried away when signed. A hearsay rumour has reached me that it was this part of the transaction which gave the greatest pleasure to the actors in it, and that they were proud of having thus obtained the honoured name of the Queen to crown their proceedings.
It was then thought safe to drop the mask. Until January, 1866, the Dunedin plotters had usually spoken of the Maori Reserve, as “a Reserve in Prince's Street” or “on the east side of Prince's Street,” or “a piece of land situate in Prince's Street:” but having obtained
On the 29th January, 1866 the Town Clerk boldly applied for the back-rents, or “certain monies in the hands of the General Government on account of the Reserve lately known as the Maori Reserve,disrespect to the Provincial Government in advising the original Reserve. He advised it, in 1852, before there was any Provincial Government, before indeed the boundaries of the Provinces had been proclaimed by the Governor; (as they were in 1853.)
This seems to have been at first thought audacious.
A Bill will be submitted to the General Assembly next session for determining doubts as to the appropriation of the land and the funds arising out of it.”
English readers may be inclined to ask why the Maoris were not asked what they wished to say upon the subject before their Reserve was thus shuffled out of their possession. carried through important stages in one day a Bill “to declare the Superintendent of the Province of Otago to be entitled to certain Rents received on account of a Reserve situate in Prince's Street in the city of Dunedin.” (Vol. i., p. 162).
There were, fortunately, two Houses of Legislature; and on the 28th September, the Legislative Council ordered the Bill to be “read a second time, this day six months.”
If there had been a plot to ratify by a law in September the abstraction from the Maoris of the land (for which both the Governor and the Prime Minister testified, that “by mistake” a Grant had been procured for the Otago Superintendent in January of the same year) the plot had failed. But it is to be hoped that the attempt to pass the Bill was but another mistake—of the same kind.
The first note of the Maori feelings on the subject which
Be that as it may, we find in Mr. Mackay's Official Documents, (Vol. I. p. 143) a letter from the Chief
But trials, especially fair trials, were never palatable to that section of the Colonists, which deemed the Maoris fit objects for pillage or maltreatment. Dick replied, 30th October, 1866, “on behalf of this Government (i.e. the Government of the Province Otago) I decline to try the validity of the Crown Grant by the course proposed, on the ground that the Provincial Government cannot recognize any Maori right or title to the reserve in question, which point it was understood, had already been definitely decided by the General Assembly.”
To any one ignorant of the curious way in which people can persuade themselves that their conduct is right, when they set aside in their own favour the weightier matters of the law—judgment and faith—it may appear unaccountable that such letters could pass at such a time between Stafford and Dick:—but they stand printed in Mr. Mackay's valuable “
The next important document contained in it, is a letter addressed by no less than sixteen Members of Parliament to the Prime Minister on the 12th July, 1867. can be legally effected.” On the 24th July he wrote to
But proceedings were threatened with a view to obtain a declaration of the invalidity and cancellation of the Crown Grant' and Stafford required, before paying the money to Macandrew, an undertaking for the return of the money, if the proceedings should be successful, or any other person than Macandrew should be found entitled to the money. On the 25th July Macandrew declined such a responsibility:— “however improbable it may be that the Supreme Court will give other than an equitable decision in this case, yet I am not warranted in committing the Province to the chances of such a contingency.” Macandrew added that after consultation with other members it was thought desirable that Mr. (now Sir)
But an obstacle had already intervened. A Maori Chief,
The sum was not large, and it would have to be paid from funds derived from the patrimony of the Maoris, but the tone of the letter was kindly.
scire facias in the case he replied, 6th August, “Upon the usual bond being given to the Registrar of the Supreme Court, let the Writ issue.”
Mr. Richmond's reply was neither prompt nor gracious. On the 19th August, 1867, he wrote:—(Mackay p. 149).
“Sir, referring to my letter of the 25th July last, agreeing to guarantee up to a certain amount the costs of a suit as to the ownership of the Prince's Street Reserves, Dunedin, I regret to be under the necessity of informing you that the Government having at or near the time of
my promiseentered intoan arrangement altogether inconsistent therewith, have considered it proper towithdrawthe guarantee in question so far as the future is concerned…” (They would however pay costs already incurred).J. C. Richmond.”,The Hon. W. B. D. Mantell, M.L.C.
Wellington.
After brief interlocutions, Mackay's Compendium, Vol. I., p. 172. It appears that on its introduction the Bill was framed, so as to validate the grant; but on the 23rd August amendments were made to avoid such an interpretation. But on what ground could the accrued rents be paid over to the quasi grantees if the grant was vicious? ib. pp. 152–172.
On the 10th September it was passed in the Lower House, and was sent to the Upper, where, in technical phrase, it “lapsed.”
A Select Committee of the Lower House reported in 1868 thus: ib. p. 172.
The significance of Mr. Richmond's abandonment of the promise made by the Government to the Maoris is more easily understood by observing that after the promise was made on the 25th July by Richmond, his colleague,
It was while the Bill was before the Lower House, that
“Whether that unfortunate chief can ‘withdraw’ this guarantee with the facility which you appear to believe attends a similar but far less justifiable act on the part of the Government, the Attorney General can inform you… It seems scarcely necessary to inform you that after this experience of the ways of your Government towards the weak, I decline to take any further action in this matter on behalf of the Government. You will, of course, address any further communication to Mr. Izard, who, with Mr. Allan, on your letter and guarantee, undertook the conduct and charges of the case —my correspondence with you ending, I trust, here.
“To me the case is but too clear; on the one hand the Natives require from you, out of the funds received by you as their self-constituted guardians, sufficient to enable them, as encouraged by the Queen's Representative and by yourselves to try in the Courts of the Colony to recover property long recognized as theirs,… . on the other, a demand for these funds is made on behalf of the body which now holds that grant, supported by no argument that has not yet been fairly met, but preferred by sixteen members having votes in the Legislature.… And in this dilemma the Government proposes now to assume a position of absolute passiveness, withholding from suitors of its own creation enough of their own money to pay their expenses… Of the choice thus made by the Government there is, I fear, but one opinion open to any man who cares for the reputation of the Colony and his own honour.” Mr. Richmond retorted that some of the “topics” in
Mr. Mantell 's letter were of “a purely personal kind, and call for no official reply; although the injurious character of some of your remarks and insinuations will require notice when time shall enable a more temperate view to be taken on the subject.”
The manipulation of the matter required almost the art of a Joseph Surface, and it is well that
On the 25th July, Macandrew refused to enter into an obligation to refund the rents if the Supreme Court should decide that he ought not to have received them.
On the 27th August he proposed to hand over another piece of land to the Maoris instead of the Princes' Street Reserve, and Mr. Mackay's Official Documents, p. 156, Vol. I.
In September the Bill to enable him to receive the accrued rents was arrested in the Upper House.
On the 12th September a Committee reported to the Legislative
On the same day Mr. Richmond wrote to Macandrew that another member of Parliament had suggested “in conversation” with Richmond, that Macandrew would probably accept the rents, and give (what he had formerly refused) a guarantee “to refund the same if the result of proceedings at law or in equity should be to upset the Grant.” (Mackay, Vol I. p. 157.
On that same day, and apparently in a hurry, Macandrew informed Richmond “officially” that he was .‘prepared to give the necessary undertaking to refund the accrued rents,” and naturally enough suggested that if he could thus obtain possession of the funds, there would be “no object in pressing the Bill now before the Legislative Council.” If pressed, it might have been defeated in accordance with the determination to accede to the prayer of Patuki; and as its object was to put the money into Macandrew's hands, he did not require the Bill if Richmond would give him the money without it.
Accordingly, on the 24th September, 1867, the accrued rents (£6,031 18s. 9d.) were paid to the Superintendent of Otago, he giving the required guarantee. In 1868 a Select Committee of the Lower House reported that they had “not been able to satisfy themselves that this undertaking would be a security in the absence of an appropriation for the purpose by the Provincial Council of Otago. Mackay, Vol. I. p. 172. But the hurry of Messrs. Richmond and Macandrew made it impossible for them to allow reference to Otago functionaries.
If Banquo had been in New Zealand, he might have said to the successful Province:—
But there was no Banquo at hand.
Patuki's petition to the Queen was presented by
It was not until the 5th October that Mr. Richmond furnished a memorandum to be forwarded with it to the Secretary of State.
Both Sir George Grey and Mr. Richmond alluded to the manner of the Grant. Sir George Grey said: “My responsible advisers at a meeting of the Executive Council inadvertently advised me to sign a Crown Grant dated 11th January, 1866.” Mr. Richmond said: “In the meantime inadvertently as regards His Excellency and the Colonial Secretary (Stafford) a Grant which had been prepared on the authority of the resolution of the House of Representatives was presented for signature and issued.”
Mr. Richmond's memorandum obscured the facts. The Governor wrote that he had “sincerely desired” that the case should have been “compromised in a generous spirit towards the natives of the Middle Island, who parted with large tracts of land to this Government for an almost nominal consideration.” The Secretary of State dismissed Patuki's petition by saying he was “unable to advise Her Majesty to take any steps in relation to it.”
Sir George Grey encountered difficulty in endeavouring to arrange the matter before quitting his post as Governor.
He told Mr. Memorandum by Mr. Richmond. Mackay's Compendium, vol. i., p. 155.
Soon after these arrangements were made in 1867 the Native Lands Court sat (April, 1868) at Christchurch, and the extinction of Maori titles.
From Christchurch the judge proceeded to Otago, and there the question of the Maori Reserve at Prince's Street was raised before the Court.
An official return Mackay's Compendium, vol. ii. p. 243.
It was not unnatural that the Maoris should think the Native Lands Court the proper tribunal to resort to, with regard to their land; but they are not the only persons who have formed erroneous notions as to the redress obtainable in a court of law.
They did not understand the law, but they knew something about equity and about human nature. They collected, as best they could, funds with which to sustain their cause; and the account was called “The Naboth's Vineyard Account.”
After a time the case went before the Supreme Court at Dunedin, and Judge Ward decided on technical grounds against the Maoris.
They were not allowed to put the merits of their case before the Court, and therefore none of their champions could complain of being treated more shabbily than they were. There were the usual technical proceedings; and Judge Ward decided that the Maori “declaration” was bad.
There was an appeal to the Court of Appeal sitting at Wellington, on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th November, 1869. The declaration had set out a writ in form of a scire facias, and long arguments were used on both sides. Much mint and cummin were expended, but some weightier matters were not dwelt upon. The case was called The Queen, Plaintiff in error v.
The proceedings occupy a score of pages in Mr. Mackay's copious compendium, where those who do not shrink from the unsavoury task can read them.
The appeal was in progress in 1872, and it may be that an exposure of the facts in England was not deemed desirable. It may have been thought that an English tribunal would closely investigate the Maori case; and deal with its merits, rather than stifle it in the wrappings of technicalities.
Messrs. Stafford, Richmond, and Richardson, were not at this time in office.
Mr. Izard had “every hope of succeeding” in the appeal, but consented to compromise, and after sketching terms with
Mr. Izard wrote to
Whence indeed when there is a powerful syndicate leagued together to wage war with combined funds against the Maoris and their friends?
Thus the title to the land passed away—at a time when its value was estimated at £100,000, and when a member of the New Zealand Parliament said that the condition of the Maori victims of “unfulfilled promises” in the Middle Island was a disgrace to any Government.
In the absence of some apprehension that an English tribunal would do justice without fear or favour, it may even be doubted whether the Maoris would have received any compensation at all.
What, then, must have been the appetite of the Province of Otago which had swallowed almost all the land of which the Reserve was but a fragment, and sought that sweet morsel in the manner by which Sir George Grey's signature was obtained for the grant?
Is it to be wondered at, that, seeing how his people groaned,
The Report said that “even failure in this respect cannot be the subject of pecuniary compensation. Such compensation would be as incapable of calculation as the consequential damages in the Alabama claims.” It quoted a legal maxim to support the rejection of the groans of the Ngaitahu people.
Taiaora obtained leave to lay a written comment on the report upon the table. He criticized it as “confused.” “You refer to the Europeans having brought peace. I reply to that, I would be rather dead than live to witness the distress and pain which my people suffer through the deceitful and unfulfilled words of the false-speaking race the Europeans. You say qui sentit commodum, sentire debet et onus; but I have not seen any benefit derived by myself and my people from the Europeans.… The words of the report are merely grumbling words; they have no force. They are deceitful and delusive; (Kahore e pono) they are not true. Mr. Fenton refers to that vessel “the Alabama.” Is the same course to be taken with the Middle Island as with that vessel? What was done about her? Did not England pay on her account to the American Government, because she was built on English soil?” Sensitive people may blame such language, but can they wonder at it?
Having obtained for his suffering people the money paid by the Otago Province to stay the appeal to the Privy Council about the title,
In 1874,
In 1875
In 1876
If that had been the case it would have been easy to say so in the first instance; and in that case also it would have been supererogatory to endeavour to procure
A sum of £5,000 was put on the Estimates as “Final settlement of Native Claims to the Dunedin Prince's Street Reserve,” and was passed on the 6th December by 28 votes against 23.
Numerous avocations,—public and private,—prevent large numbers of persons from examining closely all the questions on which they are called upon to vote, and the duty of making no unfair demands upon their supporters ought to weigh heavily upon ministries.
Such was the end of the Maori Reserve at Dunedin, so small, so coveted and—to use Pistol's language—so conveyed.
Speaking of the proposal of certain theorists “to confiscate, either openly, or under the thin disguise of a predatory use of the taxing power, every man's freehold, Professor False Hopes. By
What language would the learned Professor have used about the Maori Reserve at Dunedin, if the facts had come within his knowledge? There, not only the ordinary obligation to do right existed. England had only obtained a footing in New Zealand by a Treaty in which she guaranteed to the Maoris all the rights of British subjects, and acquired a power of pre-emption by the Crown of such lands as the Maoris might wish to sell. Under that Treaty the Crown acquired by Deeds of cession all the land in the Middle Island at a nominal cost,
When Taiaora moved for a Select Committee on the unfulfilled promises, a member was shocked. The motion “might cover a claim for two millions of acres in the Middle Island.” In other words the largeness of an obligation is a reason for setting it aside altogether!
The Prince's Street Reserve, however, was specially allotted to the Maoris.
It cannot be denied that the elaborate and curious manner in which it was wrested from them after “solemn and repeated guarantees” and pledges of protection from the Crown, deserves exposure in these pages. It has caused many groans, some pathetic, and some indignant.
The exposure of wrongs done is easy when circumstances have caused them to be officially recorded. A chief like
Some Reserves were lost in gloom; but those who should have been the beneficiaries were no less pillaged and had no less cause for grief than the Ngaitahu of Otago.
In 1882 in debate on a Native Reserves Bill, Captain Fraser (New Z. Hansard, Vol. 43 p. 637) said in the Upper House that “four Native Reserves were totally lost in Hawkes' Bay; nobody knew what had become of them.” And a newspaper remarked, “In spite of trustees, laws, regulations, red tape … they have been blotted from the map Not a creature from the Native Minister (
And yet some people are willing to swear that the Maoris are under great obligations for the justice and kindness with which they have always been treated ! and some other people without further enquiry, believe them.
Well might the old chief Parore say in a petition to the Queen in 1882:—"These things, and many of the laws which are being carried into effect, are, according to Maori ideas, very unjust, creating disorder amongst us, giving heart pangs and sadness of spirit to your Maori children, who are ever looking towards you, Most Gracious Queen; and it is averred by men of wisdom that these matters, which weigh so heavily upon us, are in opposition to the great and excellent principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.”
Lord Kimberley, forgetful of, or vilipending the Treaty, and the oft-repeated and solemn assurances of his predecessors that it should be religiously and scrupulously respected,—arrested the course of their petition, and told its bearers that “it was not the duty of the Colonial Office to advise the Queen in reference to local matters like the present.” Blue Book 1882. C 3382. p.291. The Earl's ideas about the honour and good faith of England and England's Queen on this occasion, help us to understand how it was that he was willing to sever Ireland from the United Kingdom and to abandon the Queen's loyal subjects to the yoke of those whom
The seizure of the Maori Reserve at Dunedin was special, and the arts of a Provincial, aided by the powers of a General, Government succeeded in abstracting from the Maoris, under the forms but against the spirit of law, the coveted vineyard of Naboth.
But even the forms of law were not always respected; and the time came in 1881, when deeds were done for which it was not even pretended that there was any legal sanction.
When my censure of those deeds provoked indignation against me, I hoped that by showing how unlawful they were, I should justify a certain portion of what I had written; but, the contention of my counsel on this point was overruled in 1886, in a court of law, on the ground that though the seizure of dwellings at Parihaka might have “been a very arbitrary act” the Judge thought (counsel on the other side) “quite justified in saying ‘I will not go into that question.’” In another part of the summing up, the learned Judge said: “No doubt that Parihaka affair would open, and did open, a strong observation about the position of the Natives and about the repressive measures which were to be taken against them. With reference to that I think it would be advisable as far as we can, to keep clear of all that discussion.” I quote these words from a printed report of the case which has been sold in New Zealand, but I know not who authorized the publication.
It is the manifest duty of all loyal subjects to obey the law, and I do not desire to complain here, of the manner in which the law was laid down by the learned Judge in 1886.
Accepting implicitly the condition that the arbitrariness or unlawfulness of acts done at Parihaka in 1881 could not be represented on my behalf before an English jury in 1886 as I wished, I may still present the facts historically to that tribunal—public opinion—for which these pages, are written.
If critical censure were prohibited there would be practically no check upon brutal or unlawful acts; for there is no process of Impeachment possible in a colony.
The far-seeing Keiley & Carson. Moore's Privy Council Reports, vol. 4, p. 89.
The colonial office saw no way to comply with Wentworth's demand, and no such way has since been found.
To the wider court of public opinion, therefore, must all friends of their fellow-creatures resort when they seek to denounce, and thereby to prevent, oppression.
In previous pages (31, 32) I have shown under what circumstances, in 1865, a Proclamation of Confiscation—saving the rights of loyal holders—was issued with regard to the West Coast, and simultaneously with it another Proclamation guaranteeing to “at
once restore considerable quantities of land to those of the Natives who wish to settle down upon their lands.”
The desolation of the district in 1869, as described by Sir
It is necessary to explain briefly now in what way the Government, with armed men, invaded the peaceful homes thus seemingly secured for the Maoris, trampled over tilled fields, destroyed stores of food, haled away women and children; imprisoned their beloved chief (or, as they deemed him, prophet); denied him a trial; and, when they nominally released him under a special Act, retained under it the power of re-arresting him and imprisoning him without even an allegation of his having in any way offended.
The story of
Their numbers increased so much, that it was stated that at no part of New Zealand had there ever been, within European knowledge, so large and compact an area of land cultivated by Maoris.
The Governor, Sir Blue Book, 1882, C. 3382, p. 118.
Two Royal Commissioners, Sir Ib. p. 45. Ib. p. 69. At page 68 they said: “In the case of a chief like e.g. “The influence of
The Governor, Sir Ib. p. 277.
Testimony as to the industrious character of
When, by advice of his Ministers, Governor Sir These fields, I was informed, are in the land proposed to be put up for sale by the Government. … Parihaka shows no sign of fortification” (p. 109). “
Parihaka was therefore situated thus:—in compliance with N. Z. Parl. Paper, 1879. A.—8A.
Construing this Proclamation, Sir N. Z. Hansard, 1879. Vol. xxxiv., p. 864. Sir
“It was untrue to say that the whole of the land between the Waitotara and the White Cliffs had been confiscated. It never had been confiscated. The only instrument by which the claim of confiscation was ever set up, was the proclamation bearing the signatures of Sir George Grey as Governor, and of
Mr. Fitzgerald as Native Minister, inMr. Weld 's Government. What did that say? It confiscated the land of those in rebellion: but it not only did not confiscate the land of those who remained loyal, it conserved their rights, and made the express promise to them that their land should not be taken. That was an undeniable fact. He could not conceive how any one acquainted with the history of the country could deny that these promises existed from the very inception of the confiscation. And it was equally true that none of the promises had been kept. They remained to this day in the same state in which they were in 1865, and the natives who were at that time in loyal obedience to the Crown, and had never been in rebellion since, had never had their land given to them yet.”
After other Native ministers had done more or less mischief, Sir
The Governor reported McLean's arrangements “for the New acquisition by purchase, with the goodwill of the Natives, of such portion of land as they hold within it, but do not require for their own use, and which appear desirable for European settlements.
McLean's “arrangements” were approved by the Secretary of State. The district was largely occupied; and especially under
How it came to pass that in 1881 a notable tragedy was enacted and his village was laid waste by the New Zealand Government must now be briefly told.
After McLean's retirement and death the district to which he had restored peace underwent rapid change.
In 1877, Major Atkinson being Premier, Whitaker Attorney General, and
It was certified by a public officer (Mr. Brown, Civil Commissioner) West Coast Commission Report. N.Z. Parl. Paper, 1880. Evidence in Appendix. Answer 671. Another witness, the surveyor employed, said (Answer 1016) “it was very unfortunate that this line should run through their cultivations, as Blue Book, 1882. C 3382. p. 62.
the whole country is strewn with unfulfilled promises.”
In May, 1879, Ib. p. 67. “ib.)
The ploughmen were arrested, and submitted to imprisonment without murmuring.
Before many weeks had elapsed nearly 200 captives had been sent to various prisons.
When the Parliament assembled in July, 1879, a vote of censure was carried against the Government on the motion of Sir
Mr. Swanson declared that N. Z. Hansard 1879. Vol 31. p. 553.
One empowered the Governor “to fix the date and trial of certain Maori prisoners,” and thus delayed if it did not deny justice.
This Bill was passed by both Houses, and was called a law. Mr Macfarlane protested against it as “abominable.” Mr. Stewart called it a gross infraction of the Great Charter.
The other Bill was called a Peace Preservation Bill. It belied its title. It enabled the Government—to issue Proclamations ordering Maoris to withdraw from their abodes; to imprison the non-compliant with or without hard labour; it denied bail; it denied trial without an order from the Governor; and specially suspended the Habeas Corpus Act. The lower House passed the Bill without delay.
When it reached the Upper House, Sir N. Z. Hansard, 1879, Vol. 31, p. 544.great an outrage on our civilization, so perfidious a reversal of the promises of the Crown, so gross and unwarrantable an injustice to those who have never committed a crime as to pass such an act as this, so surely will you have bloodshed the moment you try to enforce it. I will not say, as members of the other House have said, that I shall wash my hands of it, but I shall record my protest against so utterly shameless an Act.… Until I hear the statement made (that the Governor had promised his assent) I shall not hesitate to say that under the Royal Instructions he cannot give his assent to the Bill. It is of a nature expressly violating all former Royal Instructions.”
Mr. Waterhouse declared the Bill to be “the most monstrous, the most iniquitous proposal that was ever submitted to the Legislature of any country. Hundreds, even thousands, of people occupying a large tract of country under the assurance conveyed by a Proclamation of the Governor (would under the Bill be made) liable to a year's imprisonment. I would sooner submit to have my right arm cut off than be a party to it.”
By sixteen votes against six, the Upper House supported these noble protests, and for a time the honour of the country was saved.
The Parliament was prorogued on the 11th August, with a view to immediate dissolution; and as It is difficult for those who have not seen a Maori chief of ancient lineage and high character, to appreciate the Maori race, in which there is a large range from the highest to the lowest. The testimony of Sir Speaking at a meeting of the Royal Colonial Institute, on the 10th May, 1887, Sir William said: “I have the honour to preside over what is called the Legislative Council—an Upper House–and in that Council there are three members of the Native race, and I can assure you that those gentlemen behave One of the gentlemen thus characterized by Sir I heard Sir Sir After the wanton seizure of the Waitara block in 1860, and the war which ensued, it was felt by some persons that the settlers in other districts were completely at the mercy of the Maoris; and many distrustful and uncomplimentary expressions were hurled at the Maoris, coupled with confidence that “British Troops will throw themselves between us and the merciless savages not yet satiated with blood and murder.” Sir To some minds it is more congenial, when much is owing, to cancel rather than redeem. Vide the manifesto in the Appendix. just as well as any of their English colleagues.”
This Panui, or manifesto, was not only sent to Blue Book, 1882. C. 3382, p. 68.
If, therefore, there had been a desire to test the legal position of the Government and of the Maoris, no difficulty was to be apprehended.
But some persons prefer making new laws to obeying those which exist.
After the elections, Sir George Grey's ministry encountered an adverse vote, and a new ministry was formed in October, 1879. Mr.
In December, 1879—the Maori prisoners not having been tried— a “Confiscated Lands Enquiry and Maori Prisoners’ Trial Bill” was passed. Ib. p. 41. N.Z. Hansard. Vol. xxxiv. p. 621, 784, 787, 798.
(By various Proclamations the trials were postponed to April, June and July, 1880, and were then further denied by a new and singular measure).
The Confiscated Lands Inquiry part of the Bill of 1879, enabled the Governor to appoint three Commissioners to conduct an enquiry on the West Coast.
One was to be a Maori. Sir
Fox and Bell were therefore the only Commissioners and they with the full knowledge of the Governor, Sir M. S. letter to the author at the time,
This stipulation appears to have been broken almost as soon as made. The Commissioners commenced their labours in January 1880, and in that month the Native Minister sent a large armed force into the district. The newspapers commented upon the action as a direct provocation to disturbance or war.
No official remonstrance against it by the Commissioners has, so far as I know, been published.
One can only surmise that some objections must have been made. Sir N. Z. Hansard 1879. Vol. xxxiv. p. 864.
The Native Minister's conduct must have jarred against these views. Describing the affair subsequently to his constituents he said—
“I moved the Armed Constabulary across the Waingongoro River… People felt convinced that it meant war, and from various influential quarters the government were urged not to advance the Constabulary across the River until the Royal Commission had completed its labours… One may not regard it so now but at that time it was very generally regarded as a most important step, a step which would not improbably lead to war . . I settled my plans in anxiety… I, acting of course for the government, moved the Constabulary across the river; I made roads, and I made them without the consent of the Maoris; I completed the telegraph line which Blue Book 1882. C. 3382. pp 127, 128.
Thus,—in spite of the stipulation made by the Commissioners Fox and Bell, in spite of the understanding made known to the Governor Sir
Madman as some called
Still he preached, and still they hung upon his words, though there was apprehension, if not belief in some minds, that if his patience
In February the Commissioners were busy in the district. They announced to the Maoris who appeared before them that promises made by the government would be fulfilled, and reserves would be made for the Maoris; but they did not say that all existing holdings occupied by Maoris would be secured to them.
On the general question they reported— “We of course knew from the first that the legality of the confiscation would be contested before us by the adherents of Blue Book. 1882. C. 3382. p. 79.
This decision of course frustrated the intention of
The marching of an armed force to the threshold of
it must not be.… I do not want war, but the Pakehas want war. The flashes of their guns have singed our eyelashes, and they say they do not want war… Referring to me what do they say? They say I am a fanatic, a fool, and a mad man; but I am neither. The land is yours, but what I have seen lately is enough to turn the brains within my head into the brains of a fanatic. Still we must cause no more trouble to come upon the land by any action of our own.”
The Royal Commissioners made Reports on 15 March, 14 July, and 5 August 1880. It seems that when Sir Blue Book 1882. C 3382. p. 128.
ib. 129.
Sir
The delay is explained by a Paper N.Z. Par. Pap. 1882 A 8. p 16.not presented to the House of Commons, but to the New Zealand Parliament
The Despatch itself was presented to the House of Commons. late in 1882, but not the secret cause of delay, which was thus explained in New Zealand:—
On the 13th July 1881 Mr. (now Sir)
The Governor complied, and the answer of Lord Kimberley is thus given in the New Zealand Parliamentary Papers:—
“The Secretary of State replied that he would delay publication if possible; but that, as the papers had been promised, they must be published, if pressed for.”
It was more than a year before the Despatch was produced in England, and then only after Sir Michael Hicks Beach had publicly asked for it.
Such was the concert of Lord Kimberley with the New Zealand Ministers. They were intent on suppressing
They procecded with their work of carving out the land for sale, and laying out roads with disregard of Maori occupants.
The Commissioners, Fox and Bell, made three Reports, which are contained in an English Blue Book (1882, C. 3382), the last being dated 5th August, 1880.
In the Session of 1880 several measures were passed which must have caused groans among the Maoris, and were denounced in the New Zealand Parliament.
On July 15th, 1880, when already two Reports (of March 15th and July 14th) had been signed by Fox and Bell, with regard to their labours on the West Coast Commission, and had shown the manifest injustice under which the Maoris had laboured, the Native Minister's “Maori Prisoners' Bill New Zealand Hansard, Vol. XXXVI., p. 251.
Some of the prisoners had been sent by him to the Dunedin gaol; and as Dunedin was colder than their native place,
On July 16th, the Native Minister Ib. 285.
The Maori members of the house pathetically implored that a trial might be vouchsafed to their countrymen and boldly denounced the Bill.
Tomoana saidN. Z. Hansard 1880, vol. xxxvi. p. 288. The succeeding quotations are from the same Volume, extending as far as page 363 as regards “the Maori Prisoners' Bill, 1880.”
Mr. Stewart denounced the deprivation of the right to a writ of habeas corpus.
Mr. Turnbull declared that Sir
Sir George Grey regarded the Bill as “a cruel measure, and as an unnecessary measure. It violates almost every principle of the law.”
With dim consciousness of the truth to which the New Zealand Government was doing violence, Captain Russell, a supporter of the Bill, declared—“In days to come, when historians write the annals of this country, they will view the struggle which has taken place from a very different standpoint from that which we can take who are mixed up in its turmoil and disagreements. The men whom we look upon as rebels will to my mind occupy a brighter page of history than many of those men whom we look upon as faithful . .”
Mr. Hutchison said he was “irresistibly driven to the conclusion that the Bill is an outrage upon both law and justice;” and he wondered how the Governor could reconcile with the terms of his commission the sanction of such a measure.
Mr. Ireland could not vote for the Bill “without violating his conscience.”
Mr. Speight declared that in the “unjust form” of the Bill, “cuting as it does at the root of all our liberties,” he must vote against it.
Mr. Tole (who afterwards became a Cabinet Minister in New Zealand) entered his “most serious and solemn protest against the Bill.”
Major Harris thought the Bill “the most wanton piece of cruelty that ever was proposed in any part of the country.”
The prisoners should be tried, and “if innocent taken back to the land.”
Mr. Andrews delared that the treatment of the prisoners was “most severe, most harsh, most unjust, and cruel. I do not know that in my reading of history I have ever come across a parallel case. Certainly in English history there is nothing like a parallel case… I never knew a Maori to break faith.”
The Bill was supported by many adherents of the Ministry, and was carried by fifty votes against thirty-four, including pairs.
On the following day the Bill was passed through committee and read a third time, the Native Minister and his friends resisting successfully an amendment, providing that before discharge from custody a native should have lawful trial.
The Upper House passed the Bill, and it obtained the Royal assent on July 23rd, 1880. The Act is in the Blue Book, 1882. C. 3382, p. 28.
It was to remain in force till Oct. 31st, 1880, but power was given
All captive natives were to be “deemed and taken to have been lawfully arrested, and to be in lawful custody.” (Sec. 3.)
No court, judge, justice, or other person was to discharge or bail a captive without an order from the Governor in Council and in that Council the Native Minister was the authority on native affairs. (Sec. 4.)
Not content with these powers, the Ministry introduced, through that functionary, on July 30th, 1880, a “Maori Prisoners' Detention Bill,” which he hoped the House would pass “without discussion through all its stages.”N. Z. Hansard, 1880, Vol. XXXVII. p. 16.
He had thought it necessary to make some arrests, “and might have to continue making more arrests in the same way.” The prisoners taken or to be taken in this manner were to be “deemed to have been and to be detained under the provisions of the (previous) Maori Prisoners' Act, as effectually as if such natives were included within the terms of that Act.”
Major N. Z. Hansard. Vol. XXXVII. p. 19.
The Native Minister replied that the Government accepted the fullest responsibility, and it must be evident that they “had no intention of shrinking from responsibility because they had already taken these prisoners without any form of law.”
They were, in fact, at the time arresting Maoris whom they found fencing in plots of ground within that territory to which Sir acquisition by purchase with the goodwill of the natives, of such portions of land as they hold within it, but do not require for their own use. . .”N. Z. P. P. 1872, A. No. 1. p. 63.
This was the land on which armed men were seizing the Maoris, and the Native Minister informed the House that seizures were made without any form of law.”N. Z. Hansard. Vol. XXXVII. p. 19.
Mr. Speight said “he knew of nothing which would bring the blush of shame to their cheeks in after days so much as the passing of this Bill would, unless they were past feeling shame altogether”
Major Harris said that the “West Coast Commissioners (Sir
Mr. Seddon said that the Bill was “unconstitutional and vicious in the extreme.”
Sir G. Grey pointed out that women and children might be arrested —“without any charge made”—under the Bill. “In the worst days of the French Revolution such a power was never sought, never given, and never attempted to be taken… This measure would be a constant reproach to the Assembly of New Zealand if it were passed in its present form… It was too much to ask that the lives of many women and children and men should be dependent on the will of one man. He would still ask the hon. member to consider what he was doing. He asked him not to compel the House to pass a Bill which must reflect disgrace upon it.”
The Native Minister “could only say now that he felt ashamed of the action N. Z. Hansard, ib. p. 26.
But further powers were demanded by the Ministry. What was called a “West Coast Settlement Bill” was introduced on the 10th August.
It contained four clauses under the heading of “offences.” These clauses gave almost absolute power to the Government.
Any orders which might “seem necessary, or fit to preserve the public peace,” might be given.
Breaking or removing fences, buildings, pegs, &c., digging, ploughing or disturbing surface of land, whereby (what a Native Minister might call) lawful occupation of land might be obstructed; erecting fences on land, breaking up the surface of land which might be declared to be a highway; persons assembling together “armed or unarmed,” “with or without tools or implements,” “for the purpose of aiding, assisting, or countenancing the commission of any such” acts, or who
being present may reasonably be Suspected to be present for all or any of such purposes or objects”—all these were acts, or conditions, or suspicions, which were to enable a Native Minister to harry the inhabitants in a district to which, in the name of the Government, a previous Native Minister (Sir D. McLean) had invited them to return, and in which the Government had given pledges that they would be unmolested.
Offenders, or suspected persons, might be arrested “without warrant.”
A curious clause enacted that “Natives who have been arrested or shall hereafter be arrested (under) ‘the Maori Prisoners’ Detention Act, 1880,' shall be deemed and taken to be in custody under ‘the Maori Prisoners’ Act, 1880,' and shall be detained accordingly.”
Thus, men arrested under one of these persecuting Acts were to be deemed arrested under another, in accordance with the terms of a third —and all three Acts were passed in a few weeks in one session.
Yet, while advocating the last of them, the Native Minister bore witness, that “however perplexing the tactics of the natives on the coast have been, I do say that those tactics indicate that they do not wish to proceed to hostilities.” N.Z. Hansard, 1880. Vol. XXXVII., p. 482.
All the crime the natives were guilty of was the re-erection of fences around that which they believed to be their own property based on their own usage from time immemorial which is to them as sacred as any number of parchment deeds that all the lawyers in New Zealand could draw up… I should lose my respect for the colonists of New Zealand, and for the country from which we came, if they sanctioned the enforcement by the Government of such an abominable and despotic Act as this I hold in my hand.”
N.Z. Hansard, 1880. Vol. XXXVII., p. 487.
The Native Minister (in reply) said, “I have always taken up the position that these Maoris do not intend to provoke hostilities… (but) if these Maoris went on private lands and began ploughing, and Ib. p. 524.induced armed men with guns in their hands, and those guns in many instances at full cock, to drive them off by violence, those acts would lead to hostilities whether they were so intended or not.”
One who read these speeches in 1880 was reminded of the fable of the wolf and the lamb.
The Bill did not pass through the Upper House without eliciting from the Honourable Captain Fraser the statement that its “second part” (as to offences) “breathed the harsh and hostile spirit of the Native Minister towards the native race.” Ib. p. 652.
The reader may judge whether a harsh and hostile spirit existed in some minds, by the following remarks of Mr. Scotland in the Council in debate on native claims at the West Coast.
He quoted the following phrases from a West Coast newspaper of June 14th, 1879 (N.Z. Hansard, 1880. Vol. XXXV., p. 308.):—
“Perhaps all things considered, the present difficulty will be one of the greatest blessings ever New Zealand experienced, for without doubt it will be a war of extermination…
“The time has come in our minds when New Zealand must strike for freedom, and this means a death-blow to the Maori race.” “Good Heavens” (exclaimed Mr. Scotland, himself from Taranaki), “a war of extermination a blessing!… That is only a specimen of the Taranaki press.”
The West Coast Settlement Bill became law on September 1st, 1880, and is printed in the Blue Book, 1882 (C. 3382), p. 29.
During the Parliamentary Session of 1880, many Maoris were arrested for fencing in the Parihaka district. The armed road party pulled down a fence on 15th July, and their commander Colonel Roberts reported, Blue Book, 1882. Despatch of the Governor. C. 3382. p. 123.
Day by day, until more than 200 had been arrested and despatched to various prisons, the vain attempt to save crops was persisted in. But, on the 12th November, the “Maoris instead of as usual erecting a solid fence . . put up slip rails, which of course sufficed to keep animals out of the growing corn, yet which could be taken down to allow the passage of any horse or waggon using the road. Colonel Roberts telegraphed for instructions, and was very wisely told to allow the slip-rails to remain.” Ib. p. 124.
Thus Governor Sir
But they were so discontented with his temperate report, that, as has been seen, they implored the Secretary of State to withhold it from the House of Commons, and it was withheld from the House until late in 1882, when
Governor Sir
The objection was over-ruled, and the judge sentenced the prisoners to two years' imprisonment with hard labour, in Lyttelton gaol, and to find a surety in £50 each, to keep the peace for six months after the expiration of the sentence. He also told the interpreter to tell the prisoners that whether they would serve the full term of their sentences dependedNew Zealand Herald, 24th September, 1880.
Is it a daring supposition that as the prisoners had always desired to be at peace, and were nevertheless imprisoned, they uttered groans when transported from their native island, under a sentence of which the duration was contingent not upon their own conduct, but on that of others?
Yet according to Sir supra p. 27.
Whether reasonably or unreasonably there is no doubt that they often groaned, and their grievances deserve to be recorded.
While Prendergast was Administrator, in September 1880, it appears that the Native Minister desired to march upon
In the same speech to his constituents which has been already quoted with regard to sending an armed force into The speech is fully reported in the English Blue Book. 1882. C. 3382. pp 127—129.
The scruples of the ministry gave a qualified breathing time to
The New Zealand Herald reported in November 1880 that “a large portion of the Waimate Plain has been sold at high prices,”—some at £6 an acre “for cash, and £7 on deferred payments.”
Who the extruded Maori proprietors were, and how they groaned, no newspaper told.
Sir to fulfil the promises of former governments—besides 25,000 acres at the Waimate Plains, and 25,000 acres of Parihaka for
The award of that Commission must have surprised some persons. New Zealand, Hansard, 1879. Vol XXXII. p 358.probably no grievances to speak of on what is known as the Waimate Plains proper;”
In 1880 the Commissioners found many grievances and said “the story ought to fill us all with shame.” Blue Book, 1882. C. 3382, p 72.
When the new Governor, Sir himself he has always preached peace.” (Blue Book. 1882. C. 3382. p. 103).
The Ministry advised the Governor to send a letter to
Captain Knollys described how roads had been forced through cultivated grounds—how ib. p. 113.
A newspaper remarked at the time that
Sir
In September, 1881, while the Houses were in session, Sir
Some persons had said that
The New Zealand Herald of 26th September, placed the words, “The sudden increase of the Armed Constabulary Force”—at the head of an article.
Another paragraph mentioned that Maoris were ploughing “on land bought at the late sale by Mr. Hunter. It is one of their old cultivations.”
Nevertheless the military body, the Armed Constabulary, was largely increased.
At the end of August it was returned as 678 in number.
At the end of September the number was 802.
On the 31st October it was 1074. New Zealand, Hansard 1886. Vol. L., p. 372.
On the 5th October i.e., making a raid upon Parihaka.
Meantime
“Every year I have been saying—Be patient… The gun will not be a protection for man in these days. Man must not look to the
gun, the sword, or the spear, for safety… We are like a brood of chickens left in the nest by the parents. We have no one to assist us, but though the Almighty has permitted trouble to pervade the land do not fear… Though the land be overrun by a multitude they shall vanish. My heart is sad. The people are dead, and the land is gone. There is no quietness, no peace of mind in these days. I always counselled you to be manawanui, (full of courage, fortitude, and patience). We will in time overcome all difficulties… Guns and powder shall no longer be the protection for man… God has protected and will protect the people and the land—not guns and powder… I alone know how to guide you all.”
Peaceful as the speech was, it did not deter the New Zealand ministry from their intended raid.
The newspapers reported that Blue Book, 1883. C 3689, p. 47, where Sir
He had told him, 26th September, of the augmentation of the Armed Constabulary Force; that settlers were being enrolled and armed, that a vote for £100,000 had been taken, and that “war with the Maoris was regarded as almost inevitable.” Blue Book 1882. C. 3382. p. 165.
He, however, on receipt of Mr. Murray's letter, determined to return at once to New Zealand, and as a vessel was sailing from Fiji to Sydney he sent thither a telegram to be forwarded thence to Lady Gordon at Wellington.
It arrived there on the 16th October, announcing the Governor's “immediate return.” On the morning of the 19th Mr. Murray's memorandum is set out in full in the Blue Book. 1883. C. 3689. pp. 56–57.might be looked for at any moment.” “My intention (Mr. Murray wrote) was to convey to
That this information quickened the movements of the Government cannot be demonstrated, but they could hardly have been quicker or more irregular than they were.
At half-past five in the afternoon, when official hours were past, Mr. Murray received a note from Sir eight o'clock the same evening.” “I sent out the summons as directed, and then went to see Sir
Did Mr. Murray expect too much? Would he have expected so much if he had known some earlier events in the history of New Zealand as to the applicability of the laws of nature and of nations in dealing with the Maoris?
The nocturnal council was held. Hall submitted a memorandum imputing blame to
The haste of the nocturnal council spread to the departments. That night the Proclamation of war (as some called it) was printed and furnished to the newspapers. Telegrams scattered it abroad, and on the morrow it was widely disseminated.
But something else was done at night by Sir
And where, meanwhile, was the Queen's Representative? Mr. Murray had truly warned Prendergast and Hall that Sir
Not only on the spot but in Australia the electric telegraph on the 20th October described the nocturnal deeds of the New Zealand Ministers. Knowing of
“I cannot express to you the pang which it gave me to see that you had resigned the post of Native Minister, and had been succeeded by “It would be impertinent in me to advise, but I may entreat you to reflect upon what must be the judgment of posterity if the marauding schemes of the New Zealand Company—the robbery at the Waitara, the persistent sharping at the Dunedin Prince's Street reserve, the confessed broken promises on the West Coast—are wound up by an attack on “I have been intending to write to you for some weeks to ask you to let me have any fresh printed papers about the West Coast; but I have now little heart in the matter. I trusted in your supervision: ὄμμα γαρ δωματος δεσποτου σωρουσια—but if you shut your eye, and brutal force is used, woe be to the reputation of New Zealand! I wrote on the same day to
“ Melbourne Club, Melbourne,
October 21st, 1881.
My dear Mr. Rolleston,
“Yours sincerely and sadly,
The Hon. W. Rolleston,
Wellington, New Zealand.”
I received no answer, nor did I expect one after I saw an account of
When Sir
The haste of the mid-night council seems to have exhausted the
Blue Book, 1882, C. 3382, p. 166.
It was rumoured that there was difference between the Governor and his advisers, and a Wellington newspaper, opposed to what it called “pandering to Maori idiosyncrasies,” said—“The Governor will interfere at his peril.”
Peculiar “Idiosyncrasies” had once made the Wellington Independent say (21st July, 1868) “no mercy should be shown. No prisoner should be taken. Let a price be put upon the head of every rebel, and let them be slain without scruple wherever the opportunity is afforded. We must smite and spare not.… We must treat them as a species of savage beasts which must be exterminated to render the colonization of New Zealand possible.”
Between such an “idiosyncrasy,” and the feelings of honourable Englishmen there was necessarily a wide gulf.
It must not be supposed that only the Governor respected the claims of humanity and duty. On the 26th October, 1881, Mr. Lautour, a member of the N. Z. Parliament, wrote to a newspaper:—“No pious uplifting of the hands and committal of the Maoris to the help of God amidst the plaudits of the multitude can wash our hands in innocency, and put the sin we contemplate upon the few ignorant and foolish men whose blood Taranaki means to have if their living bodies are not continuously confined in Southern gaols.… What is the South to gain by the extermination of the natives on the West Coast? Extermination is not my word. Major Atkinson Major Atkinson was a Minister in October, 1881. It is fair to add that at a later date, 10th June, 1882, he denied the accuracy of the newspaper report (7th June, 1879) of his speech. Blue Book, 1882. C. 3382, p. 285.
“Every Maori or European shot, and every European woman and child subsequently massacred in revenge for such shooting, in consequence of the injudicious and unreasonable ultimatum of October 19th, if indeed it be carried out, will be a human soul murdered for no better reason than this: that successive Ministries have been as fruitful to promise as they have been slow to perform their promises.”
Mr. (now Sir)
“I suppose, amidst the general rejoicings at the prospect of a Maori war, it is useless for any one to raise his voice against
Sir
All that occurred when violent hands were laid upon
An advocate of the Government measures had written (9th September) to the London Times that in spite of vide Times, 25th October, 1881) the sale of their cultivated fields was calculated to cause many groans among the dispossessed.
What was to be done at Parihaka would appear to have been left to the Native Minister's discretion, or indiscretion. When the Governor asked I have not been successful in my search for this document in the English Blue Books. It is to be found at page 2 of a New Zd. Parliamentary Paper, 1883, A. 4. The ministry which gave this carte noire to
Armed forces were collected under the Native Minister's orders.
Blue Book, 1882. C. 3382. p.p, 191–193.
Early in November the Wanganui Chronicle reported that
“What matters it? My object is accomplished; peace reigns. I am willing to become a sacrifice for my object.… Oh, hard-hearted people! I am here to be taken. Take me for the sins of the island! Why hesitate? Am I not here? Though I am killed, I yet shall live; and, though dead, will yet live in my object—which is peace. The future is mine, and little children will answer in the future when questioned as to the author of peace; they will say,
On November 4th the Native Minister issued an order prohibiting civilians from being present with his army on the 5th.
A few newspaper correspondents The interest excited in the minds of the correspondents may be inferred from the fact that one of them wrote—“Of the Taranaki contingent (of the colonial forces) it was said with a frankness that made the blood run cold, that twenty men were Ib. p. 227. In the same page the writer says “The whole spectacle was saddening in the extreme; it was an industrious, law-abiding, moral and hospitable community, calmly awaiting the approach of the men sent to rob them of everything dear to them.”sworn to shoot down the first Maori that chance placed it within their power to kill.” Blue Book, 1882. C. 3382, p. 225.
The army arrived. Ib. p. 228.
Ib. p. 228.
The Riot Act was read, the bugle sounded an advance; an officer was reported to have told his men “if any Maori flashed a tomahawk to shoot him down instantly.” Ib. p. 228.
Ib. p. 228.
Some of an “arresting party,” of about one hundred armed men marched through the men, women and children and laid hands on Ib. p. 229.
I refrain from characterizing these proceedings in these pages. Criticism might offend any, if such there be, who, having been enriched at the expense of the Maoris, would not only wrongly win, but would enjoy their gains unchallenged.
I may, however, quote what was written by a gentleman who had observed the conduct of “the army” as it tramped among women and children, and laid hands on their peaceful chief.
The reporters emerged after Ib. p. 229.
The newspapers published narratives; but the local government still withheld information in New Zealand, and Lord Kimberley still obeyed their behests, and kept back information from the Imperial Parliament. I must be brief, and refrain from comment here. Those who wish to trace the proceedings in detail, will find them in the English
A few extracts from those documents, and from newspapers, will sufficiently describe the treatment of
“Comment is freely being made, both among the troops and civilians, upon the fact that on the day of taking possession of Parihaka, Colonel Roberts was placed simply in the position of an aide-de-camp to ib. p. 231.
The Maoris were described on the 6th November, as sitting disconsolate, in sad contrast to the gaiety and light-heartedness that usually reigned in Parihaka. “Still they are as polite in demeanour as ever.” ib. ib.
Newspapers commented openly upon what their activity had exposed. The Ib. p. 214–215.Lyttelton Times (8th November) said:—“The Native Minister organizes a demonstration against a native village, and he contrives to attain to a pinnacle of absurdity which no one has even imagined in dreams. After carefully collecting a huge force of soldiery from all parts of the colony he has to read the Riot Act to a peaceful population, calmly seated in their own market place .…… . Every one is aware of the discreditable trick which the ministers played off upon the Governor, taking advantage of his absence to hurry out a most ill-advised Proclamation. That Proclamation was, probably, illegal. In it the name of the Queen's Representative was made to endorse one statement so disingenuous as to be dangerously near to falsehood, and another of which the truth never has been, and never will be evident to any candidly reasonable capacity.… If the consequence should be the taking of a single acre of the lands in cultivation at Parihaka, as threatened in the Proclamation, that taking will be an act of simple spoliation.”
On the 9th November, the same paper declared that a statement in a ministerial organ was “tantamount to an official admission that ministers conspired to play Sir ib. p. 217. ib. p. 218. ib. 218.
On the 8th November the Native Minister told the Maoris “to disperse.” Assuming that they were trespassers, and that their only lawful abodes were such as he might appoint, he issued a proclamation ordering them to “return to their own settlement, there to await the instructions of the Government concerning them.” (Blue Book, 1882, c. 3382, p. 235.) His verbal order was reported in these words:—“Go away, all of you; pack up your belongings. Go and leave the place.” (ib. p. 234.)
Parihaka was then subjected to a curious and perhaps unexampled process, “
While the pillage went on, one or other chief implored the woeful Maoris to “remember the advice of
It was “truly pitiable to see the Maoris calmly and patiently looking on while their homes were being rifled” (ib.) . . “the feeling of sympathy for New Zealand Herald (6th November), said:—
“I saw
On the 8th November, while This charge appeared at once in the New Zealand press. Judge Gillies' last remark (in the text) is quoted in the Blue Book, 1882, C. 3382, p. 220.constitutional principle that the employment of an armed force was only justifiable either under the authority of Parliament in repelling armed aggression, or in aid of the civil arm of the law, when that arm had proved powerless to enforce the law's mandates; in any other case the use of armed force was illegal, and a menace, if not an outrage, upon the liberties of the people.”
Commenting on the Judge's dictum, the Lyttelton Times said, 10th November:—“The behaviour of the Maoris at Parihaka is the most striking feature of the story of the last few days. Such a feat of dignified, passive resistance has never been performed by a savage race. Such completeness of good temper under circumstances of great provocation has never been paralleled in history.” (Blue Book, 1882, C. 3382, p. 219.)
The demeanour of the Maoris and the censure of a Judge worked no change upon the Government. Various neighbouring settlements were “ransacked” on the 9th November (ib. p. 237).
On the 11th November, “arresting operations were resumed . . under the immediate supervision of
“Bryce to Hall, November 11th, 1881 .“The danger of retaliation in the case of burning whares [dwellings] must have occurred to every one, because retaliation would be easy. I never intended to burn, although I have thought and
think that it may be necessary to destroy every whare in the villageif the Maoris hold out. It would be very difficult to distinguish between the whares of the different tribes. This is the so-called Waikato quarters, and the Wanganui quarters, but of the 350 huts in the village Icould not have ten identified with certaintyas belonging to any particular tribe. Then again we are told that the Wanganui, &c., should be ordered to their homes. Well, I have ordered them to their homes emphatically enough, and apparently I might as well called from the vasty deep [sic].“Then as for their apprehension and selection into tribes, people seem to think that each one has the name of his tribe written on his forehead. To show the difficulty, I may mention that yesterday I wanted to arrest Taputepeora, a Ngaruaun [
sic] chief of note, and there was not a man in camp could identify him. If there is difficulty in such a case as that, consider what it must be with the 2,000 men, and women, and children, who are nobodies.… I am pointing out these difficulties, not because I think them insuperable, but that you may be aware of them and consider them when you hear of my doing things which do not altogether recommend themselves to your mind. I may be forced into a choice of objectionable courses. Consider, here are 2,000 people sitting still, absolutely declining to give me any indication of where they belong to, or who they belong to, they will sit still where they are, and do nothing else.… If I take the whole lot prisoners, as Atkinson recommends, the operationper sewill be difficult, and in that case the unfortunate result will happen that the whole of their personal properties, such as drays, ploughs, &c., cattle and so forth, will be lost to them. Moreover, it isextremely probable that wives would be separated from their husbands, children from parents, and so on.Notwithstanding these difficulties, this thing has to be settled, and I am confident I can do it if I am not stopped.That the manner in which I do it will be free from objections is more than I can promise, but I hope that you and my colleagues will put themost favourable construction on things. I send copy of this to Whitaker.” On the 12th, he telegraphed to another colleague (ib. 241):—“I have great difficulty in selecting them, although I have the services of a half-caste belonging to the Alexander troop… Mete King, if he comes, may be able to assist in this. The question is between going with their property and going without, but go they must.”
Will any reader picture to himself the aspect of an English village, recognized as the most sober and industrious of its kind, dealt with in such a manner?
On the 13th (p. 247) “I shall to-morrow complete the apprehension of the Wanganui tribe, and begin marching them down to Wanganui. I do not propose, unless their own conduct compels me, to place these prisoners on their trial. I intend to send them to Wanganui with an escort… and to release them unless they intimate an intention of returning. In that case I shall, I suppose, indict them for a breach of the West Coast Act.”
On the 14th (ib.) he telegraphed:—”Probably we have made a few mistakes, but the number of these tribes now arrested is certainly over eighty. A great difficulty now remains, for it is impossible to identify women and children as we have done the men, and they, like the men, remain impassible. After the men had dinner, I directed Mr. Booth to tell the women to go and take their things out of the Wanganui quarters, as we were about to pull it down. [On the 11th it has been seen that the Native Minister admitted that he could not have identified ten out of 350 dwellings with certainty as belonging to any particular tribe.] They, however, made no sign. We have pulled down the whole of the Wanganui quarters, just removing the things belonging to the natives, and placing them in piles in front of each hut.… If the women go for the things as the Waikatos did, we may identify most of them by that means.… 1 suppose if I cannot get the women, I shall have to indict the men under the West Coast Act. I may add that I ascertained with considerable [!] certainty that the whole of the huts destroyed belonged to the Wanganuis.”
On November 15th (ib.) he telegraphed: “The Wanganui Maori women have not brought away the things from the whares we pulled down yesterday, and they evidently intend to prevent us from making them join their husbands. I am now going to see what can be done, but there is more difficulty in identifying women than men.”
On November 15th (ib. 248) he telegraphed that “I have succeeded beyond my expectations, by the aid of Utiko, in selecting the Wanganui women and children.… It was a curious scene. We brought out into rows about 650 women and three or four hundred children, and then proceeded to separate them, the Wanganuis being put one by one in a corner.” The writer of a telegram for the Press Association said (Nov. 14th), (ib. 249) “
The same authority vouched, (ib. 251) on Nov. 16th, that, after arresting some Ngatiawa men, “attention was then directed to the women and children, and during the afternoon the whole tribe was placed in confinement. The number taken was 250 men, 109 women, and fifty children. Nine of the women, and between forty and fifty men were released this afternoon, as they had been taken in mistake. No resistance whatever was offered by the Maoris.… Several of the natives brought out from the pah refused to give their names. These were immediately handcuffed.… Unless the prisoners agree to select their property, it will, along with the whares, be destroyed by the Armed Constabulary, as return to their property.”
The Lyttelton Times correspondent telegraphed on November 15th: (ib. 249) “The measures taken for turning away strange (i.e., supposed to be strange) Maoris are still being carried out. The process is strangely like drafting sheep. To-day the Wanganui ewes were culled.” Another telegram declared that “there was much discussion last night about the way in which sixty-two Maoris were mustered like sheep from the pahs near Parapara, and driven up to Parihaka that the Wanganui ewes might be culled out.”
On November 18th the special correspondent of the New Zealand Herald (a paper friendly to the ministry) telegraphed that he found at Parihaka “a mob of about 200 prisoners—men, women, and children … all being escorted to Opunake.…
It seems very doubtful whether who these people are, or where they really belong to. Some of the women cried, and had to be forcibly put in the drays.”
Force applied to women, weeping of mothers, and sobs of children scattered to all quarters of the compass! Are these events to be washed in Lethe and forgotten?
On the 15th (p. 250) we read in the Blue Book:— Press Association Telegram.
To destroy food certainly deprives a locality of some attractions, but as the Courts of the Colony had solemnly recognized the Maori law of adoption, there were no alien tribes at Parihaka, and all the Maoris there were British subjects, to whom the Queen had guaranteed
At page 254 we read (18th November) “The Maoris are being arrested indiscriminately in many instances, neither their names nor that of the tribes to which they belong, being known. To-morrow a novel experiment is to be tried with a view to identifying male prisoners. They are to be paraded close to Parihaka, in the anticipation that their wives and other female relatives will come out and speak to them. If I understand the arrangement aright the object is not only to identify the male prisoners, but to trap the women and children, and thus render their wholesale arrest more easy. It is due to the armed constabulary to say that in private conversation most of them express themselves thoroughly disgusted with the work they are called upon to perform… Parihaka presents a most melancholy appearance. A large portion of the village has been torn down, without the slightest regard as to whether the owners had committed any offence, and homeless Maoris may be seen searching among the ruins for such of their household goods as have not been ruthlessly destroyed or stolen.”
At page 256 the same correspondent describes the rifling of houses far distant from Parihaka. A chief Motu, the door of whose storehouse for food was broken open, complained bitterly. Sir
At page 259 we read that “Tom Preston's” house was “broken open” (he being at work in his field), “and the axes applied to his boxes, and everything in the house was tossed about and smashed. Besides (guns, powder, &c.) he lost £5 4s. and two greenstone ornaments… He was very grieved, he declared that he had always been loyal to the core. He must give up the Government; he could follow them no longer. They might just as well burn his house over his head, and have done with it.”
George Kukapo was in like distress. Governor Gore Browne had presented a gun to him, to be kept as an heir-loom. “It was a reward for his valour, and he prized it. This had been taken from him and his whare damaged.”
The correspondent wrote sadly what he saw.
On the 18th November (Blue Book, 1882, C. 3382, p. 261) the Native Minister telegraphed—“Have taken nearly 400 prisoners in all today… 1 am going to mark the empty whares (houses) to-night a mid-night for destruction.” (ib. p. 261).
On the 20th (ib.) “I intend to pull down a number of whares
On the 21st November (ib. p. 262) he telegraphed to his colleague— ( Their place of worship, built by common effort, was, of course, more substantial than the private houses of the Maoris. I know not how a historian could refrain from commenting upon its wanton destruction.amongst the rest the sacred medicine-house, where people had to take off their shoes before entering. It was a great job to get it demolished, as it was very substantially built.”
Food was destroyed at Parihaka, and the subject was mentioned in the New Zealand Parliament by the Native Minister on 26th May, 1882, thus—(N.Z. Hansard, 1882, Vol. XLI., p. 116) “A great deal was said in the papers and elsewhere, about the pulling up of the Maori potatoes by the Constabulary. Now, Sir, if I had done what perhaps I ought to have done, I should have pulled up a great many more potatoes, so as to reduce the supply of food.… “
In the same session, a question having been asked as to the pulling down of some houses remaining at Parihaka, in April, 1882, the same functionary admitted (ib. p. 438) that his “orders were then carried out in respect to pulling down certain whares. About a dozen whares were pulled down… He was not aware whether
When these words were spoken
On such events it would seem that some persons demand that history should be silent; but silence which might in some cases become a commendation of crime, would be a reproach to the historian. We have seen that (in the Native Minister's own language) the total number of peaceful Maoris “brought up,” and haled away, amidst wailing and weeping, was two thousand, two hundred.
That, bereft of their prophet, they should groan under the inflictions they endured was natural; but that they rigidly obeyed his mandate to abstain from resentment extorted wonder from friend and foe.
It was said that some persons were disappointed because the absence of resistance deprived the Government of the occasion of sweeping
Soon after the raid upon Parihaka, the Native Minister was himself reported as having said at a banquet in his honour that if he had been shot, it “meant the death of the whole of the natives assembled there.” How many women and children would thus have fallen it is impossible to say, but one of the Native Minister's own telegrams (15th November) already quoted speaks of “about six hundred and fifty
Having seen the Maoris scattered, it is necessary to observe the treatment of
The charge of Judge Gillies on the 8th November to the Grand Jury at Taranaki already quoted, warned the public that the proceedings at Parihaka might be deemed “illegal and a menace to, if not an outrage upon, the liberties of the people.”
Nevertheless
An information against them had been sworn to by an interpreter, who, when reminded by a magistrate of some expressions contained in the information, replied (Blue Book 1882, C. 3382, p. 243) “I cannot swear to expressions I did not hear… I was not aware that I was responsible for all that appeared in the information or I would not have sworn it.”
It was asserted by Blue Book 1882, C. 3382 p. 164.
Tohu asked the interpreter if that functionary himself knew what was the proposed division of the land (ib. 244).
“Yes, I know it. “Did you tell us where it was?” “No.”
“Were you not supplied with a plan showing the land that had been reserved for the natives, and were you not instructed to show the boundaries to the natives?”
“Certainly not.”
“Mr. Parris. Remember you are on your oath.
“Mr. Carrington. I know that. You need not remind me of it.
“Mr. Parris. A plan was made out by Mr. Humphries, the chief surveyor, showing the reserves, and given to you.
“ This statement proves that the Government were well aware that cultivation was going on upon the lands about to be seized.Mr. Carrington. I received a plan of the reserves, but it was given me for the purpose of finding what natives were cultivating portions of the land coloured on the plan,
“Mr. Parris. Have the 25,000 acres ever been defined or pointed out?
“Mr. Carrington. Not that I know of.
“Mr. Parris. Were you not aware by the map that a portion of land seaward of Pungarehu was reserved for the natives?
“Mr. Carrington. I understood that without the map.
“Mr. Parris. And yet you never explained?
“Mr. Carrington. Certainly not.
“ I find in a scrap book a leading article of the Mr. Parris. Well, I recollect giving you those instructions myself.Lyttelton Times, November 16th, 1881, which says that Parris having been an agent for the Government in approaching
“Mr. Carrington. I never was told to point out the boundaries to the natives. It was altogether out of my line.”
When
Many Europeans have a smattering of the language. It has been seen that there were often doubts as to the meaning of
He asked Carrington: “Did I not tell you not to write down what I said at the meeting because you did not understand me?” And Carrington replied: “I remember you telling me not to write down your speech.”
Whatever might be the evidence, the committal of the chiefs was looked upon as a foregone conclusion.
In that “due course,” Lyttelton Times, of 17th November, 1881, remarked on the committal, “Every provocation has been given to the natives. The absence of bloodshed is owing to the very remarkable restraint, —unparalleled we believe—which at the bidding of
“The error throughout was to ignore the Supreme Court, which
The appeal of the Editor on behalf of the “noble qualities,” of New Zealand Herald reported the Native Minister as declaring to a great chief in the Waikato district—“I say that as the representative of the Government of the Colony, and as the representative of Her Majesty the Queen.”
Can it be deemed strange that some of Her Majesty's lieges failed to recognize in such language the accents of a beloved Queen? might not, to use Chief Justice Cockburn's words, an “honest indignation” be aroused in loyal breasts if they believed the report?
Before the time arrived for the trial of i.e. New Plymouth) in May, 1882, before Judge Gillies) the Attorney General (who had become Premier on the retirement of
Mr. (now Sir)
The Lyttelton Times (19th April 1882) thought that the “new so thoroughly disgraceful;”— but Mr. Stouts' prophecy was correct.
When the Special Bill (which some persons called an Attainder Bill) was brought in, in May 1882, many members denounced it, and Mr. Hutchison said:—” It appears to me that when the Attorney General… obtained leave to change the venue from New Plymouth to Christchurch, he must have been cognizant of the fact that there was no intention to try New Zealand Hansard. 1882. Vol. XLI., p. 120.
However, though
Among the Maoris arraigned, was New Zealand Herald.
It was not said, but it may be inferred, that the old man groaned under this treatment.
On the following day, (21st November) two events happened which may have caused exultation in some minds.
The Native Minister “demolished”
Dr. O'Carrol visited him this morning, and found him in tears, (
On the 25th November, the old man was taken before the magistrates on a charge of using threats (some time before his seizure at Parihaka) but as a witness, called against him, said:—“He was only joking.
This was deemed by some persons equivalent to permanent imprisonment, unless the Supreme Court should intervene.
On the 1st May, 1882,
They were to be tried on “charges of obstruction,” under “the West Coast Settlements Act, 1880,” which made an offender of “any person who wilfully and unlawfully obstructs any person authorized by the Governor to do or perform any act or thing in pursuance of this Act, or for the purpose of carrying out the provisions thereof.” “In the present case” (the judge said) “the natives merely sat still, and did not go away when ordered to do so. This may, or may not according to the circumstances, amount to the crime of obstruction. It would at most be a passive obstruction, if there is proof that a person authorized by the Governor had ordered them to move. To make this act a crime it is necessary that the order to remove should be given by a person authorized by the Governor. It would not be sufficient for some Minister verbally to give such an authority. It must be the official act of the Governor, through a minister, authorizing some special person to do some particular act in pursuance of the provisions of the statute. So far as the depositions show, there appears to have been no special authority from the Governor to
The Grand Jury found true Bills, and the Judge was publicly railed at in newspapers for his Charge.
But there must have been a foregone conclusion that he was right in law, and would be upright in doing his duty.
No such “official act of the Governor,” as was needful to warrant the arrest of When asked in Court, in England, in 1886, “Were any of the proceedings which
Failing to produce the needed authority the Ministry ordered the Crown Prosecutor to take such steps as would elude a decision, and a nolle prosequi was entered.
On the 8th May, Judge Gillies said from the Bench, (Blue Book, p. 283) “I understand the Attorney General (Whitaker, the Premier) has ordered the Crown Prosecutor to enter a When sending to the Secretary of State these extracts from the Judge's observations, the Governor wrote that “his Honour informs me” that the report of his remarks “is substantially correct.” (Blue Book. 1882. C. 3382, p. 282.)nolle prosequi in the two native cases under the West Coast Settlements Act. I have no right to interfere in the matter in any way, except to express my surprise at such a course being taken. That prisoners should be brought up on a serious charge under a special Act, that they should be kept in prison for six months on that grave charge, and that the Crown Prosecutor should then apply to enter a nolle prosequi, seems a very extraordinary proceeding on the part of the Government, more especially when I see that two of the indictments have been quashed on account of insufficiency in the face of them.” (Then, addressing Rangi, he said) “The Government have determined not to bring you to be tried on the charge. You have already been in prison six months, waiting for trial, nor does the Government offer any evidence. You are therefore free to go where you will.”to understand the situation, but left the box.”
The situation was not easy for any one to understand without careful watching. But by collating various reports at the time, it was possible to comprehend why it was that Lord Kimberley in England, and the Ministry in New Zealand, strove to withhold from the public the despatches which would have enabled it to “understand the situation.”
These declarations from the Bench came under my notice at the time, as reported in newspapers.
Perhaps it may be well at this point to quote briefly from Sir
On the 8th November, he asked the ministry to explain an insinuation in one of their memoranda, to the effect that
After more than five weeks of procrastination,
Such floundering excuses only proved the hopelessness of the ministry in defending their acts.
The Governor in a Despatch of 3rd December, 1881 (Blue Book, 1882, C. 3382, p. 267) which will repay perusal in full, told Lord Kimberley “It admits of no dispute that natives not excluding many who had borne arms against the Crown, have without molestation retained or resumed possession of much of the confiscated lands; Roughly the lands might thus be alluded to: but Sir A. Gordon had in his long-suppressed Despatch of 26th February 1881, quoted Sir Such an Act was passed in 1882. The above passage was not printed in italics in the Blue Book, but is worthy of them. At the risk of being thought iterative I must call attention to the fact that this despatch was received in Downing Street on January 14th, 1882, and was (faithlessly to the public, but) with sinister faithfulness to the employment of military force, the arbitrary arrest of hundreds of persons, the confiscation of private personal property, the destruction of dwellings and cultivation, and other measures for which an Act of Indemnity may not impossibly be required,appear to me unhappy methods of teaching that the statute law of the colony must take its course.… Had I therefore been in the colony I should have experienced great difficulty in complying with a recommendation to sign a proclamation which appears to me
vide C. 3382, 1882, p. 265).
This Despatch was received by Lord Kimberley, on the 14th January, 1882, but, true to his undertaking to “delay publication if possible,” the noble Lord kept it back from Parliament and the public.
“What (wrote Mr. Stout, 5th December, 1881) will the impartial future historian record against us as a race?”
What, the historian may add, may be the measure of hatred inspired in wrong doers by exposure of their deeds?
Soon after the discharge of
No despatches were produced with regard to the destruction of Parihaka: but the vice-regal speech proved that the worst suspicions were justified as to the intentions of the Ministry who, it was announced would produce a Bill “to render the trial of
The speech made no allusion to an Indemnity Bill, but after a few days the Ministry introduced one simultaneously with a Bill enabling them to keep
Both Bills were passed in the Lower House on June 9th, 1882; and, incredible as it may seem, it is shown by the New Zealand Hansard that even then information had been kept back from the House.
To the very last, the policy of the Ministry, if the commission of acts of violence and their concealment from public scrutiny can be dignified with the name of policy, seems to have been to prevent judicial or constitutional inquiry until it was too late to arrest wrong-doing.
On May 26th the Native Minister moved the second reading of the Attainder Bill.
On May 30th, May 31st, June 2nd, and June 9th, that Bill was discussed in the Lower House, and, together with a sweeping Indemnity Bill, was passed. The English Blue Books show that during the above period the question of producing information on the subject was deliberated upon by the Governor and his advisers. (1883. C. 3689. p.p. 59,60).
On May 31st they advised him to communicate “a portion” of the papers on West Coast Native affairs to both Houses; i.e., Sir A. Gordon's Report of February 26th, 1881, so long suppressed by Lord Kimberley in England, and by the New Zealand Government.
On June 8th, 1882, (by which time it must have been clear that the Lower House was ready to work the will of the Ministry without obtaining information) the Ministry withdrew their advice that papers should be produced. The Governor declined (8th June) to recall his order already given for the publication of his Report (of February 26th, 1881) to the Colonial Office, but yielded to the advice that other despatches should be kept back—notably his two despatches (both dated December 3rd, 1881), apprising Lord Kimberley of the raid upon Parihaka. (Blue Book, 1882, C. 3382, pp. 223, 265.)
In his memorandum of June 8th, the Governor observed “that there are few legislative bodies which before granting indemnity for past transactions, and adopting measures to restrict the liberty of particular individuals, would not have demanded full explanation;” and “probably few Governments which would not have hastened to anticipate such a demand by placing before Parliament the materials on which to form a judgment as to their conduct.” (Blue Book, 1883. C. 3689. p. 60).
It appears from remarks made in the Upper House on June 14th, by Sir New Z. Hansard, 1882, Vol. XLI. p. 429 ib. p. 428. ib. p. 429.
Thus adjured, the Council rejected
The struggles of the New Zealand Ministers to conceal them in New Zealand, even when demanding an Act of Indemnity for what they had done, showed great hardihood, and it has been seen that Lord Kimberley had, by special request, pledged himself to delay publication “if possible,” in England.
It must not be supposed that no protests were made in the New Zealand Parliament against the deeds done at Parihaka, and against their condonation procured by measures styled—but unworthy of the august name of—law.
Mr. De Lautour, in the debate on the Address, asked, “What was
On May 26th, without producing papers, the Native Minister moved the second reading of the Bill for attainder of
As introduced it enabled any justice of the peace to order any assembled “Maoris exceeding twenty in number” “to disperse;” on their failing to disperse, they were to be “deemed guilty of an offence;” any justice of the peace might sentence such offenders to “all or any of the punishments following:” a fine not exceeding 50l.; imprisonment with or without hard labour not exceeding twelve months; the finding of sufficient sureties for “good behaviour.”
The Bill applied to the whole district between the White Cliffs and the Waitotara river, and therefore to the whole of
The number twenty was afterwards raised to fifty, in compliance with suggestions in the House.
On moving the second reading of the Bill, the Native Minister made the usual complaint of the wolf against the lamb, and ventured to assert that the Maoris began the war on the West Coast in 1860.
It has been shown in a previous page (20) that this assertion is at variance with the testimony of an eye-witness, Colonel Carey, Colonel Carey's book on the war was published in London, 1863, Bentley.
Without presenting any papers to the House on the subject, the Native Minister after a long statement “to justify the policy of the Government on the West Coast,” added, “ This and subsequent quotations from the debate on the Bill, are taken from the New Zealand Hansard. 1882. Vol. XLI.
Mr. Bracken declared it “a monstrous thing “to hold the chiefs in custody at will, without trial. “Are we living in a free British colony, or under some petty local despot? Will the people of New Zealand allow any man, even though he hold the rank of Native Minister, to ride roughshod over the constitution? Will they allow
Mr. Hutchison was “not at all astonished at any statement made by the Native Minister,” but in his long statement there was nothing “to prove that any single overt act took place which was likely to lead to serioas riot. … It would require a very imaginative mind to make sedition out of the words he read to us. But suppose the words were used, who heard them used? The only evidence we have is the evidence of certain native interpreters, and I take it that the reports of these native interpreters, for the last few years, have been made to order. … I enter my protest against this wrong being perpetrated against these Maoris, because it reverses every rule of generosity by which the strong should be guided in dealing with the weak. With the gloomy reflection that must come across the minds of many members of this House in dealing with a question of this kind, there is one ray of comfort, and that is the illustration which this native question gives us of the power of mind over matter. Here is feted after his victory at Parihaka, and he said—I am only quoting from memory—that if a single shot had been fired, the time for
Mr. De Lautour, after demonstrating that “a fraud” had been practised against the Home Government as to alleged confiscation, and that Prendergast's proclamation of October 19th, 1881, presumed to annul all promises made to the West Coast natives “for the past fifteen years,” said: “It is no wonder, indeed, that
Mr. Bathgate declared that the Bill was “altogether an unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the subject. … I protest against the general principle of special Acts being passed to meet individual cases.”
Major
For trifling offences men were entitled to trial. But this is a “far more serious matter. The Government have also brought forward an Indemnity Bill, freeing them from any wrongs they have done at Parihaka, which means that the House should say that those actions taken at Parihaka were not wrong. It is therefore clear that the steps taken there were excessive, and that this Bill is brought forward to justify them.
… “These thousands of troops were sent up there under arms, amidst the weak and unoffending women and children.… The troops then burnt their houses and rooted up their crops. When
One of the friends of the ministry, Captain Mackenzie, bluntly described the position thus:—“I think we must all admit that if the foundation of a building is laid in injustice, that building will have to stand for all time upon a basis of injustice. I think the acquisition of land by the European population in this country has been in a great measure based on injustice; but, notwithstanding that, I say it is now impossible for us to hark back. The talk of justice and law now is, in my opinion, simple bunkum. I do not see what advantage is to be gained by such talk. It simply takes up our time to no purpose.”
If such were the arguments by which the Ministry was aided, can it be denied that in the page of history a balance of a different kind should be struck?
Mr. Holmes demanded that before the passing of the Bill the proclamation of October 19th, 1881 (Prendergast's), should be withdrawn. “That proclamation… remains in force a standing disgrace and shame to the Government; … we must have an assurance that that proclamation is withdrawn, not a mere promise but a Bill… before we pass the measure under discussion. Until that is done no honourable member will do well by his conscience, or act according to law, to truth, or to justice, if he supports a Bill which seeks to punish those whom the Government call wrong-doers, but to whom I say justice has not been, but should be, done—namely,
[Such a consummation as Mr. Holmes reprobated being what some persons desired, one of them immediately cried out, “Hear, hear,” and the sincerity of his applause of plundering was confirmed by a subsequent speech in favour of the Bill.]
Mr. Holmes proceeded to argue against the New Zealand Settlements Act of 1863, under which the alleged confiscation of the West Coast district had been made in 1865, and of which he said, “So gross an injustice, so iniquitous a measure would never be passed by any Legislature unaffected by utter fear.” (N. Z. Hansard, Vol. XLI. p. 184).
Mr. Steward, in supporting the Bill, was “sorry to say, and I say it with shame as a colonist of New Zealand and a member of this House, that in years past we have accumulated great store of broken promises, and we are now suffering the punishment which necessarily follows from the breaking of faith …. during a long series of years we have committed faults, and have done worse than committed faults—we have blundered in the grossest manner possible. We have blundered, and perhaps in times past we have plundered also. … I think it has been clearly shown to the House that sui generis. It has been shown that he is a man who wields a very extraordinary influence over the Maori mind. It has been shown that he is a man against whose
On June 1st,
The Native Minister declared that
Thus, declining to allow information to be put before the House (as has been shown from the English Blue Book, 1883, C. 3689, p. 60), the Ministry prevented a debate which might have afforded information from other sources. (N. Z. Hansard, 1882, Vol. XLI. p. 254.)
On June 2nd, Tomoana resumed the debate on the Bill, and asked that “
Mr. Turnbull spoke of the surveys conducted by the Government. “Indeed every desire appears to have been manifested to irritate the natives in every possible way. No reserves of their fisheries were made, no reserves of their places of cultivation, But “homes” at Parihaka had already been demolished.no reserves of their burial grounds. Everything that could insult and annoy the natives was done, and allowed to be done.… Acts of grosser cruelty were never before committed than those which were done to the Maoris with respect to their places of burial. Those places, so much endeared to them, were not secured, and nothing could be calculated to give the Maoris greater offence. In fact, the Government goaded them to rebellion. What do we find? That these reserves were never pointed out to them, that they were never made acquainted with them; and that is the reason of all the troubles that have since taken place.… The Bill asks this House, if I may judge from the language of the Native Minister in introducing it, to constitute ourselves a Court in the first place. Well, I say that is most unjust, and I object to it. We are not to have an opportunity of hearing evidence, but we are to try
Mr. Bracken asked the House to accede to Vide supra, p. 91. where Sir the finger of scorn to point for all time at this honourable House, and this adopted country of our race.”
Colonel Trimble, though he supported the Bill, said that he knew
But Colonel Trimble would vote for the Bill to outlaw Treaty of Waitangi, which I hope will in future be relegated to the waste-paper basket, which is about the only place it ought to be seen in.”
The Government rejected a suggestion that the deceptive words in the preamble—i.e., “that the said
The Native Minister also defended the contemplated reduction of the reserve at Parihaka. The Commissioners (Sir
“It is not,” he said, “the intention of the Government to allow a Bill to be passed in this House which shall give to these Maoris those reserves whether they behave themselves or not.”
If such was the language of a legislator in New Zealand, could any just historian treat it with indifference?
The Government had no difficulty in passing their Indemnity Bill.
thought the Government had not done wrong.”
There were, of course, many differences of opinion, and there was very general ignorance in men's minds even in New Zealand, as to the conduct of the Government.
The Native Minister appears to have seen nothing wrong in it.
Some persons admitted it was wrong, and yet supported it. Many neither knew nor enquired what was done. In a work published in 1883, I was careful to acquit the colonists of active complicity. I wrote (p. 107;) “The cumbering Maoris were to be destroyed. The bulk of the colonists had no such desires, but their humanity did not assume the form of controlling the inhumanity of others,” Ib. p. 460; “It may be that a wider revelation of the wrongs done in the name, but not by command of the Queen, may tend to lighten the oppression which has so long been inflicted upon a race which reposed its trust in her,” Not only in New Zealand but throughout Australasia, it may safely be declared that in proportion to its amount, the population has no superiors elsewhere. But in all countries, things are done which it cannot be said that the public conscience approves of: and exposure is the only process wich can be resorted to, to prevent their recurrence.
I say nothing here about any one who conscientiously believed that what was done at Parihaka was right.
But amongst the supporters of the Government, if not among its own members, there were some who admitted the wrong doing, and nevertheless abetted it. To any of them I would quote words used by Mr. Justice Lopes in an English Court in 1885:-” I cannot forget that you are an educated man and should have known that the law cannot be broken to promote any good or supposed good, and that the sanctity of private life cannot be invaded for the furtherance of views of an individual, who, I am inclined to believe, thinks that the end sanctifies the means.” Times 11th. Nov., 1885.
The Indemnity Bill, like the Attainder Bill began with a glaring mis-statement.
“Whereas large numbers of aboriginal natives frequently assembled at Parihaka, in the provincial district of Taranaki, and thereby produced undue excitement, breaches of the law, and disturbance of the public peace; and whereas with the object of preventing such meetings and preserving the peace, certain measures were adopted by the Government of New Zealand, and carried out under their authority, some of which measures may have been in excess of legal powers, and it is expedient that the persons acting therein should be indemnified. Be it therefore enacted…. Every person whosoever who shall at any time before the passing of this Act have acted under the authority of the Government of New Zealand given either before or after any act, matter, or thing done … or committing to prison of any person doing or being concerned in, or suspected of doing or being concerned in any of the acts, matters, or things following… (1) … (2) committing any of the offences specified in the West Coast Settlement (North Island) Act, 1880. (3) Assembling or holding meetings at Parihaka, in the provincial district of Taranaki … (4) attending any such meeting, and refusing or neglecting to disperse, &c, (5)… and any person who shall have damaged or destroyed any real or personal property, or searched for, seized, or taken possession of … shall be and is hereby freed, acquitted, released, indemnified… against all actions, suits.… prosecutions, liabilities, and proceedings, whatsoever.” To prevent doubt, the Governor was enabled by a special clause “to declare any act, matter, or thing done, to come within the provisions of this Act,” and all courts were to take judicial cognizance of such declaration.
In the Upper House the Attorney-General did not scruple to say that “the Government felt that if the Government was to put off the trial until after the meeting of the General Assembly.”
Thus the delay of justice, and its final denial, were attributed, not to any legal obstacles, but to the policy of the Government.
“The trial” (Whitaker said) “would not have answered our
policy of the Government, of which the Native Minister was the head and front with regard to native affairs. The Blue Books and the debates on the Bill for denying a trial to
The student of history may see a remarkable difference between the fate of this Indemnity Bill, and that of a similar Bill in 1866.
In 1865 a bill “for indemnifying persons acting in the native insurrection,” was sent to England, and Mr. (now Sir)
The Ministry in England did not at once advise the allowance or disallowance of the measure. There were two years within which such power might be exercised by the Crown. The Stafford Ministry passed a second Indemnity Bill in 1866.
The Secretary of State announced, in May, 1867, that the Bill of 1865 would be allowed, but that of 1866 would be disallowed:— “First, that it was so worded as to indemnify not only civil and military
Whether governments usually consult their law officers with regard to Indemnity Bills, I cannot say. The Attorney General in all and every other person and persons whomsoever who shall have done, or ordered, or directed any matter or thing to be done, &c. Secondly, that owing to the disjunctive form in which the 2nd and 3rd sections are drawn, the destruction of the property of a person suspected to be concerned in the insurrection would be covered by the Indemnity given by the Act, even though such destruction may have been wanton and reckless, and not inflicted or ordered in or about the suppressing or quelling of the insurrection. Thus if a private individual acting under no authority has wantonly or recklessly destroyed or ordered the destruction of the property of those whom he may have chosen to suspect… he would be protected under the terms of this Act, though such destruction in no way directly or indirectly tended to quell the insurrection, and though the person whose property was destroyed should have proved that he was in no way directly or indirectly concerned in it.”
Thus did a Secretary of State write, when the late
The Bill of 1866, had morever been preceded by war—unjust no doubt, but still war—, which was erroneously styled an insurrection.
In 1881, there was neither war, nor insurrection.
The attack upon
But in 1883,
The Indemnity Bill of 1882 was allowed to become law, without objection.
Yet it sinned against all those reasons for which the Bill of 1866 was disallowed; and all the unjust acts which it condoned were wantonly done in the invasion and desolation of a peaceful village.
In the Upper House, the Indemnity Bill was passed without difficulty, but more than one member objected to the allegations in the preamble to the Bill for denying a trial to
Mr. Buckley, a lawyer, asked the members “not to disgrace the Legislature by allowing themselves to pass, without a solemn protest, an Act for punishing people who cannot be punished by the present law.”
The Bill was passed by a large majority, although Sir
from the refusal or omission of the Government to place before this Council any official reports of those recent occurrences on the West Coast, which are alleged to require such legislation, it can only be inferred that those occurrences have not been of a nature to justify such severe provisions as are contained in this Bill.”
Captain Fraser also recorded his protest against the Bill—
-
As
ultra viresof the General Assemby of New Zealand, inasmuch as it is repugnant to the English statute law, and deprives British subjects of the privileges granted them by the Habeas Corpus Acts. -
It declares men guilty of sedition without trial, and
without any evidence of their guilt produced before the Parliament. -
It declares men guilty who have not been allowed to be heard in their defence before Parliament.
-
It will tend to create disaffection amongst the Maoris, and foment bitterness and strife amongst the colonists.
-
It is punishing Maoris, who, if guilty, would be punished by the judicial tribunals of the colony.
-
There is no reason for suspecting that if any evidence could
be produced against Te Whiti and Tohu before the Supreme Court a jury would not convict them.”These protests are printed in the Blue Book, 1883. C. 3689. p.p. 8. 9.
Prendergast was again administrator of the Government when these protests were transmitted to England on June 28th, 1882, and he slightingly told Lord Kimberley—“Ministers to whom I have communicated these protests before forwarding them to your lordship, desire to make no observations upon them.”
He enclosed a copy of the Act in his despatch of June 28th, and it was received by Lord Kimberley in August, 1882; but in the spirit of his promise to the New Zealand Ministry to delay publication of a former despatch about
The “West Coast Peace Preservation Act, 1882,” 46 Victoria, No. 5, alias the “Act of Attainder of re-arrest and imprison them at pleasure, in defiance of Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus Act, or any other safe guard of the liberties of the subjects of the Queen.
Whitaker resigned in September 1883, and Major Atkinson who had been Treasurer in the Hall and Whitaker ministries, became premier, his other colleagues remaining with him.
In August 1884, the Atkinson Ministry was expelled from office, and after some oscillations Mr. (now Sir)
In July, 1886,
In October, 1886 they were fined and imprisoned. Thus Sir R.
The wild and mystic language of