No. 103.
Copy of a Despatch from Governor Sir G. F. Bowen to the Right Hon. the Earl of Kimberley.

In my Despatches Nos. 20, 21, 28, 31, and 37, of this year, I gave some account of the progress and present condition of the Provinces of Otago and Canterbury and of the County of Westland, which I visited during my recent official tour in the South of this colony. I propose now to make a similar report respecting the Province of Auckland, in which I am at present residing. Soon after my return to Wellington next month, I hope to transmit like information respecting the remaining provinces of New Zealand, viz., "Wellington, Nelson, Taranaki, Hawke's Bay, and Marlborough.

• 2. The Province of Auckland, which embraces the larger half of the North Island of New Zealand, celebrates as the anniversary of its settlement the 29th January, that being the date of the arrival, in 1840, of the first Governor, Captain Hobson, E.N. The first seat of Government was the Town of Kororareka (afterwards named Russell), in the Bay of Islands, where a few hundred Europeans had established themselves before the cession of the sovereignty of the country to the British Crown by the Treaty of Waitangi, on 5th February, 1840. But in September, 1840, Captain Hobson removed to the site which he selected for the future capital of the colony, on the Harbour of Waitemata. The city which he there founded was named Auckland, in honour of Lord Auckland, then at the head of the Admiralty. It continued to be the seat of the General Government of the colony until 1864, when Wellington was adopted in preference, in accordance with the views of a majority of the New Zealand Parliament, and on account of its central position in Cook Strait, which separates the two principal Islands.
• 3. The Province of Auckland has had to contend with great and peculiar difficulties, for it contains the large majority of the Maori race, including those clans which still remain hostile to the British Crown. It was, moreover, the chief field of the operations of the first and of the second Maori wars. While the Native title to land was extinguished by purchase many years ago in the provinces of the Middle Island, somewhat more than two-thirds, i.e., about eleven-sixteenths, of the entire area of the Province of Auckland is held by the Native owners; a considerable number of whom, being adherents of the so-called Maori King, refuse to permit the further settlement of Europeans, and, indeed, to hold any intercourse whatsoever with them. The map transmitted with my Despatch No.49, of 1868 (see New Zealand Papers presented to the Imperial Parliament in July, 1869, pages 130–39), shows the territory enclosed by the aukati, in which your Lordship will recognize a "pale," in the sense familiar in Irish history, though (as I remarked on a previous occasion) with the important difference that in Ireland the "pale" was set up by the, colonists against the natives, whereas in New Zealand it is set up by the natives against the colonists.
• 4. When the above and other powerful obstacles to the rapid advance of colonization in this province are taken into account, the progress and present condition of Auckland cannot be described as otherwise than satisfactory. The census taken in last February shows a European population of 62,335, being an increase of 14,014 on the population as shown by the census taken in December, 1867; and 37,915 on the population of 1861. Thus it appears that during the last ten years the population of this province has advanced at the rate of 155 per cent. The City of Auckland, with its suburbs, now contains about 21,000 inhabitants. This is about the amount of the population of Dunedin, the capital of the Province of Otago. The two next largest towns in New Zealand are Christchurch, with nearly 11,000, including the suburbs; and Wellington, with nearly 8,000 inhabitants.
• 5. The latest official statistics prove the annual public revenue of the Province of Auckland from all sources to be, in round numbers, £300,000; and the annual trade; including imports and exports, to the amount in value of nearly two millions and a quarter. The shipping, inwards and outwards, in 1870 showed 532 vessels, with crews of 9,369 men, and 173,452 tonnage.page 108
• 6. The number of stock held by the colonists in Auckland is far less than in the great pastoral communities of the South; but it is steadily increasing. Of horses, there are in 1871 in this province 11,620, against 9,436 in 1867; of horned cattle, there are 80,443, for 53,066; and of sheep, 210,760, for 172,030 at the last enumeration four years ago. These figures do not include the horses and other stock in the possession of the Maoris, of which it is impossible to furnish a reliable estimate.
• 7. The Maoris in the Province of Auckland are supposed not to exceed at the present from twenty-five to thirty thousand souls; but these figures are little more than guesswork, for it is of course impossible to calculate accurately the numbers residing in the country of the so-called Native King. Moreover, in estimating the relative strength of the two races in this part of the colony, it should be borne in mind, among other considerations, that the Maoris are for the most part entrenched (so to speak) in the mountains of the interior, while the English dwell chiefly in the seaport towns, and in small settlements and isolated farms dispersed along a coast-line of, in the single Province of Auckland, above a thousand miles. It will be remembered that I have already described, in a series of previous despatches, my repeated visits during the past three years to all the principal Maori clans-to the Ngapuhis, the Ngatiwhatuas, and the Rarawas, in the north of this province; to the Ngatitamateras, the Ngaiterangis, the Arawas, and the Ngatiporous, in the east and south; and to the Waikatbs and, Ngatihauas, in the central and western districts.
• 8. The principal exports of the Province of Auckland include, in addition to gold, wool, flax, and other articles common to it with the southern provinces, the timber and gum of the kauri pine (Dammara australis). These two last-named articles are peculiar to this province, for the kauri pine is found only in the northern districts of the North Island. It is hoped that measures will be taken for the preservation of the forests of this magnificent tree. The value of kauri spars for ships has long been known in Europe. The gum or resin produced by the kauri resembles amber in appearance. It is used for glazing calico and in various manufactures, and is largely exported both to England and to the United States.
• 9. Before concluding this brief and imperfect sketch, it seems proper to refer once more to the rapid development of the gold field discovered in 1867 near the River Thames, between forty and fifty miles from the City of Auckland. In my Despatches No. 6, of the 10th, and No. 8, of the 15th January, 1870, as also in other reports, I have already transmitted full information respecting this gold field, and the liberal payments made by the Colonial Government to the Native owners of the soil for their consent to its being thrown open to the enterprise and industry of the colonists. The value of the gold exported from the Thames Gold Field alone, since the 1st August, 1867 (when it was first proclaimed), already amounts to nearly a million and a half pounds sterling. Some of the auriferous quartz recently found at the Thames is said to be the richest hitherto discovered in any part of the world.
• 10. I may take this opportunity of mentioning that the aggregate exportation of gold from all parts of New Zealand up to the present time is valued at nearly twenty-three millions sterling. I hope to be able shortly to forward full official statistics on this subject.
• 11. Most of the gold hitherto exported from New Zealand is the produce of the gold fields of the Middle Island^* during the last ten years; but the earliest discovery took place so far back as in 1852, at the Harbour of Coromandel^† (so called from the name of the English ship that first visited it), about twenty miles north of the mouth of the River Thames. Much excitement at that time arose among both the colonists and the Natives, and fears of a dangerous collision between the two races were entertained. However, Te Taniwha, the principal chief of the district, convened a meeting of his countrymen to decide the terms on which the Europeans should be allowed to dig for the precious metals on Maori land. Lieutenant-Governor Wynyard, Chief Justice Martin, Bishop Selwyn, and other prominent English functionaries and settlers were invited to be present; and, through the influence of Te Taniwha, an equitable arrangement was promptly and peaceably made, the requisite permission being granted by the Maoris on payment of a moderate license-fee by each miner. Mr. Swainson, a former Attorney-General of New Zealand, has put on record (see Mr. Swainson's "New Zealand and its Colonization," Chapter I.) a graphic description of the remarkable scene presented by the above-mentioned meeting. He writes: "The presence of the aged chie^† Te Taniwha, the last of his race, who could tell the date of the white man's first arrival in New Zealand, his remarkable appearance, and the occasion itself, gave to the meeting au unusual interest. Though bowed down and enfeebled by age, the old man still retained the use of his faculties, and in a remarkable degree possessed that bold outline of head and face which formerly distinguished the chieftains of the country. There stood the last living link between the past and present of New Zealand: one who in time long past had himself stood face to face with England's honoured navigator, and who then still lived to tell of Captain Cook's first visit to New Zealand; how the Natives all thought that his ship was a whale with wings, and that his crew were gods; how for some time he. Te Taniwha himself, then but a little boy, was afraid to go on board; how Captain Cook spoke little-less than the other officers —but took more notice of the children, patting them kindly on the head; and how he gave them the first potatoes they had seen;^§

  And soothed with gifts and greeted with a smile
  The simple native of the new-found isle.

  And now this venerable chief, as the crowning act of a long and eventful life, and confiding in the justice of the British Crown, came forward to welcome the Queen's vicegerent to the new-found fields of gold. When the first specimens were shown him of the gold discovered on his land he said he should now be content to die: that he had lived many days, but that this was the brightest of them page 109all. He did not seem to value the consideration of the gain it would be to him, so much as the thought that his land, the land of his ancestors, should be the first to produce the precious metal for which the white man so carefully sought. Glancing at the time-honoured peak of Motu Tere, and turning to the setting sun, he appeared to commune with the generation that he had outlived."
• 12. The aggregate yield of gold at Coromandel has hitherto been comparatively small, and has been entirely eclipsed (as we have seen) by the rich produce of the gold fields discovered, at a later period, near the River Thames in the same neighbourhood, and in Otago, Westland, Nelson, and other quarters of the Middle Island. But valuable quartz reefs are now being worked at Coromandel as well as on the Thames. On this subject one of the daily journals published at Auckland recently made the following comments: "Many causes have contributed to retard the development of certain features of colonization in our midst. Not the least influential of these disturbing elements has been the large production of gold. But though this, for obvious reasons, has invariably at first a tendency to distract attention from other more sober but less lucrative pursuits, there will be few to doubt that the present enormous production of gold within the Province of Auckland will ultimately give a great impulse to settlement and production of every kind; and great as has been the increase of population in the past, and unmistakable as have been the signs of progress, we have the strongest reasons for believing that the next enumeration of our people and our wealth will show results to which the past affords no parallel."