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THE LONG WHITE CLOUD

AO TEA ROA

By William Pember Reeves

Agent-General In London for New Zealand

1899






[Illustration: Frontispiece.

TE REINGA WATERFALL, GISBORNE

Photo by W.F. CRAWFORD.]




Preface

I believe that there is amongst the people of the Mother Country a
minority, now ceasing to be small, which takes a quickening interest
in the Colonies. It no longer consists merely of would-be investors,
or emigrants who want to inquire into the resources, industries, and
finances of one or other of the self-governing parts of the Empire.
Many of its members never expect to see a colony. But they have come
to recognise that those new-comers into the circle of civilized
communities, the daughter nations of Britain, are not unworthy of
English study and English pride. They have begun to suspect that
the story of their struggles into existence and prosperity may be
stirring, romantic, and interesting, and that some of their political
institutions and experiments may be instructive, though others may
seem less safe than curious. Some of those who think thus complain
that it is not always easy to find an account of a colony which shall
be neither an official advertisement, the sketch of a globe-trotting
impressionist, nor yet an article manufactured to order by some honest
but untravelled maker of books. They ask--or at least some of them, to
my knowledge, ask--for a history in which the picturesque side of the
story shall not be ignored, written simply and concisely by a writer
who has made a special study of his subject, or who has lived and
moved amongst the places, persons, and incidents he describes.

I have lived in New Zealand, have seen it and studied it from end to
end, and have had to do with its affairs: it is my country. But I
should not have presumed to endeavour to supply in its case the want
above indicated had any short descriptive history of the colony from
its discovery to the present year been available. Among the many
scores of books about the Islands--some of which are good, more of
which are bad--I know of none which does what is aimed at in this
volume. I have, therefore, taken in hand a short sketch-history of
mine, published some six months ago, have cut out some of it and have
revised the rest, and blended it with the material of the following
chapters, of which it forms nearly one-third. The result is something
not quite so meagre in quantity or staccato in style, though even now
less full than I should have liked to make it, had it been other than
the work of an unknown writer telling the story of a small archipelago
which is at once the most distant and well-nigh the youngest of
English states. I have done my best in the later chapters to describe
certain men and experiments without letting personal likes and
dislikes run away with my pen; have taken pains to avoid loading my
pages with the names of places and persons of no particular interest
to British readers; and at the same time have tried not to forget the
value of local colour and atmosphere in a book of this kind.

If _The Long White Cloud_ should fail to please a discerning public,
it will not prove that a good, well-written history of a colony like
New Zealand is not wanted, and may not succeed, but merely that I have
not done the work well enough. That may easily be, inasmuch as until
this year my encounters with English prose have almost all taken the
form of political articles or official correspondence. Doubtless these
do not afford the best possible training. But of the quality of the
material awaiting a capable writer there can be no question. There,
ready to his hand, are the beauty of those islands of mid-ocean, the
grandeur of their Alps and fiords, the strangeness of the volcanic
districts, the lavishness, yet grace, of the forests; the mixture of
quaintness, poetry, and ferocity in the Maori, and the gallant drama
of their struggle against our overwhelming strength; the adventures
of the gold-seekers and other pioneers; the high aims of the colony's
founders, and the venturesome democratic experiments of those who have
succeeded them. If in these there is not the stuff for a fine book,
then I am most strangely mistaken. And if I have failed in the
following pages, then let me hope that some fellow-countryman, and
better craftsman, will come to the rescue, and will do with a firmer
hand and a lighter touch the work attempted here.



NOTE OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT


I have to thank Major-General Robley, not only for drawing the
tail-piece to the second chapter, and thereby giving the book a minute
but correct pattern of the Maori _moko_ or face-tattooing, but for
kindly lending me photographs and drawings from which several other
illustrations have been taken. Two or three of the tail-pieces are
after designs in Mr. Hamilton's _Maori Art_. I have also to thank
Mr. A. Martin of Wanganui for his kind permission to use his fine
photograph of Mount Egmont and a view on a "papa" river. Mr. W.F.
Crawford was good enough to put at my disposal his photograph of
the Te Reinga waterfall, a view which will be new even to most New
Zealanders. The portrait of Major Kemp and that of a Muaopoko Maori
standing by a carved canoe-prow were given to me by Sir Walter Buller.
"A New Zealand Settler's Home" was the gift of Mr. Winckleman of
Auckland, well known amongst New Zealand amateur photographers. I have
also gratefully to acknowledge the photographs which are the work
of Mr. Josiah Martin of Auckland, Messrs. Beattie and Sanderson of
Auckland, Mr. Iles of the Thames, and Mr. Morris of Dunedin, and to
thank Messrs. Sampson, Low and Co. for the use of the blocks from
which the portraits of Sir Harry Atkinson and the Hon. John McKenzie
are taken.




Contents


  Chapter I
  THE LONG WHITE CLOUD

  Chapter II
  THE MAORI

  Chapter III
  THE MAORI AND THE UNSEEN

  Chapter IV
  THE NAVIGATORS

  Chapter V
  NO MAN'S LAND

  Chapter VI
  MISSION SCHOONER AND WHALE BOAT

  Chapter VII
  THE MUSKETS OF HONGI

  Chapter VIII
  "A MAN OF WAR WITHOUT GUNS"

  Chapter IX
  THE DREAMS OF GIBBON WAKEFIELD

  Chapter X
  IN THE CAUDINE FORKS

  Chapter XI
  THROUGH WEAKNESS INTO WAR

  Chapter XII
  GOOD GOVERNOR GREY

  Chapter XIII
  THE PASTORAL PROVINCES

  Chapter XIV
  LEARNING TO WALK

  Chapter XV
  GOVERNOR BROWNE'S BAD BARGAIN

  Chapter XVI
  _TUPARA_ AGAINST ENFIELD

  Chapter XVII
  THE FIRE IN THE FERN

  Chapter XVIII
  GOLD-DIGGERS AND GUM-DIGGERS

  Chapter XIX
  THE PROVINCES AND THE PUBLIC WORKS POLICY

  Chapter XX
  IN PARLIAMENT

  Chapter XXI
  SOME BONES OF CONTENTION

  Chapter XXII
  EIGHT YEARS OF EXPERIMENT

  Chapter XXIII
  THE NEW ZEALANDERS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY



List of Illustrations


Te Reinga Waterfall

A Western Alpine Valley

The White Terrace, Rotomahana

On a River--"Papa" Country

Maori and Carved Bow of Canoe

A Maori Maiden

Stern of Canoe

Maori Wahiné

Carved Gateway of Maori Village

Mount Egmont, Taranaki

View of Nelson

Sir George Grey

The Curving Coast

War Map

Rewi

Major Kemp

Kauri Pine Tree

The Hon. John Mackenzie

Sir Harry Atkinson

A New Zealand Settler's Home

Picton--Queen Charlotte's Sound

The Hon. John Balance

  Te Waharoa.  Henare Kaihau, M.H.R.  Hon. James Carroll,
  M.H.R.  Right Hon. R.J. Seddon (_Premier_). Mahuta (_The
  Maori "King"_)

Maoris Conveying Guests in a Canoe

A Rural State School

Map of New Zealand






Chapter I


THE LONG WHITE CLOUD[1]

[Footnote 1: Ao-Tea-Roa, the Maori name of New Zealand.]

  "If to her share some female errors fall,
  Look on her face--and you'll forget them all."

Though one of the parts of the earth best fitted for man, New Zealand
was probably about the last of such lands occupied by the human race.
The first European to find it was a Dutch sea-captain who was looking
for something else, and who thought it a part of South America, from
which it is sundered by five thousand miles of ocean. It takes its
name from a province of Holland to which it does not bear the remotest
likeness, and is usually regarded as the antipodes of England, but is
not. Taken possession of by an English navigator, whose action, at
first adopted, was afterwards reversed by his country's rulers, it was
only annexed at length by the English Government which did not want
it, to keep it from the French who did. The Colony's capital bears the
name of a famous British commander, whose sole connection with the
country was a flat refusal to aid in adding it to the Empire. Those
who settled it meant it to be a theatre for the Wakefield Land
System. The spirit of the land laws, however, which its settlers have
gradually developed is a complete negation of Wakefield's principle.
Some of the chief New Zealand settlements were founded by Church
associations; but the Colony's education system has long been purely
secular. From the first those who governed the Islands laboured
earnestly to preserve and benefit the native race, and on the whole
the treatment extended to them has been just and often generous--yet
the wars with them were long, obstinate, and mischievous beyond
the common. The pioneer colonists looked upon New Zealand as an
agricultural country, but its main industries have turned out to be
grazing and mining. From the character of its original settlers it was
expected to be the most conservative of the colonies; it is just now
ranked as the most democratic. Not only by its founders, but for many
years afterwards, Irish were avowedly or tacitly excluded from the
immigrants sent to it. Now, however, at least one person in eight in
the Colony is of that race.

It would be easy to expand this list into an essay on the vanity
of human wishes. It would not be hard to add thereto a formidable
catalogue of serious mistakes made both in England and New Zealand by
those responsible for the Colony's affairs--mistakes, some of which,
at least, seem now to argue an almost inconceivable lack of knowledge
and foresight. So constantly have the anticipations of its officials
and settlers been reversed in the story of New Zealand that it becomes
none too easy to trace any thread of guiding wisdom or consistent
purpose therein. The broad result, however, has been a fine and
vigorous colony. Some will see in its record of early struggles,
difficulties and mistakes endured, paid for and surmounted, a signal
instance of the overruling care of Providence. To the cynic the tale
must be merely a minor portion of the "supreme ironic procession with
laughter of gods in the background." To the writer it seems, at least,
to give a very notable proof of the collective ability of a colonizing
race to overcome obstacles and repair blunders. The Colony of New
Zealand is not a monument of the genius of any one man or group of
men. It is the outcome of the vitality and industry of a people
obstinate but resourceful, selfish but honest, often ill-informed and
wrong, but with the saving virtue of an ability to learn from their
own mistakes.

From one standpoint the story of New Zealand ought not to take long to
tell. It stretches over less time than that of almost any land with
any pretensions to size, beauty, or interest. New Zealand was only
discovered by Europeans in the reign of our King Charles I., and even
then the Dutch explorer who sighted its lofty coasts did not set foot
upon them. The first European to step on to its shores did so only
when the great American colonies were beginning to fret at the ties
which bound them to England. The pioneers of New Zealand colonization,
the missionaries, whalers, and flax and timber traders, did not come
upon the scene until the years of Napoleon's decline and fall. Queen
Victoria had been on the throne for three years before the Colonial
Office was reluctantly compelled to add the Islands to an Empire which
the official mind regarded as already overgrown.

Yet so striking, varied, and attractive are the country's features, so
full of bustle, change and experiment have its few years been, that
lack of material is about the last complaint that need be made by a
writer on New Zealand. The list of books on the Colony is indeed so
long that its bibliography is a larger volume than this; and the chief
plea to be urged for this history must be its brevity--a quality none
too common in Colonial literature.

A New Zealander writing in London may be forgiven if he begins by
warning English readers not to expect in the aspect of New Zealand
either a replica of the British Islands or anything resembling
Australia. The long, narrow, mountainous islands upon which Abel
Jansen Tasman stumbled in December, 1642, are so far from being the
antipodes of Britain that they lie on an average twelve degrees nearer
the equator. Take Liverpool as a central city of the United Kingdom;
it lies nearly on the 53rd parallel of north latitude. Wellington, the
most central city of New Zealand, is not far from the 41st parallel of
southern latitude. True, New Zealand has no warm Gulf Stream to wash
her shores. But neither is she chilled by east winds blowing upon her
from the colder half of a continent. Neither her contour nor climate
is in the least Australian. It is not merely that twelve hundred miles
of ocean separate the flat, rounded, massive-looking continent from
the high, slender, irregular islands. The ocean is deep and stormy.
Until the nineteenth century there was absolutely no going to and
fro across it. Many plants are found in both countries, but they are
almost all small and not in any way conspicuous. Only one bird of
passage migrates across the intervening sea. The dominating trees of
Australia are myrtles (called eucalypts); those of New Zealand are
beeches (called birches), and various species of pines. The strange
marsupials, the snakes, the great running birds, the wild dogs
of Australia, have no counterpart in New Zealand. The climate
of Australia, south of Capricorn, is, except on the eastern and
south-eastern coast, as hot and dry as the South African. And the
Australian mountains, moderate in height and flattened, as a rule, at
the summit, remind one not a little of the table-topped elevations so
familiar to riders on the veldt and karroo. The western coast of New
Zealand is one of the rainiest parts of the Empire. Even the drier
east coast only now and then suffers from drought On the west coast
the thermometer seldom rises above 75° in the shade; on the other not
often above 90°. New Zealand, too, is a land of cliffs, ridges, peaks,
and cones. Some of the loftier volcanoes are still active, and the
vapour of their craters mounts skyward above white fields of eternal
snow. The whole length of the South Island is ridged by Alpine ranges,
which, though not quite equal in height to the giants of Switzerland,
do not lose by comparison with the finest of the Pyrenees.

No man with an eye for the beautiful or the novel would call Australia
either unlovely or dull. It is not, however, a land of sharp and
sudden contrasts: New Zealand is.

The Australian woods, too, are park-like: their trees, though
interesting, and by no means without charm, have a strong family
likeness. Their prevailing colours are yellow, brown, light green, and
grey. Light and heat penetrate them everywhere.

The cool, noiseless forests of New Zealand are deep jungles, giant
thickets, like those tropic labyrinths where traveller and hunter have
to cut their path through tangled bushes and interlacing creepers.
Their general hue is not light but dark green, relieved, it is true,
by soft fern fronds, light-tinted shrubs, and crimson or snow-white
flowers. Still the tone is somewhat sombre, and would be more
noticeably so but for the prevalent sunshine and the great variety of
species of trees and ferns growing side by side. The distinction of
the forest scenery may be summed up best in the words dignity and
luxuriance. The tall trees grow close together. For the most part
their leaves are small, but their close neighbourhood hinders this
from spoiling the effect. The eye wanders over swell after swell, and
into cavern after cavern of unbroken foliage. To the botanist who
enters them these silent, stately forests show such a wealth of
intricate, tangled life, that the delighted examiner hardly knows
which way to turn first.

[Illustration: A WESTERN ALPINE VALLEY

Photo by MORRIS, Dunedin.]

As a rule the lower part of the trunks is branchless; stems rise up
like tall pillars in long colonnades. But this does not mean that they
are bare. Climbing ferns, lichens, pendant grasses, air-plants, and
orchids drape the columns. Tough lianas swing in air: coiling roots
overspread the ground. Bushes, shrubs, reeds and ferns of every size
and height combine to make a woven thicket, filling up and even
choking the spaces between trunk and trunk. Supple, snaky vines writhe
amid the foliage, and bind the undergrowth together.

The forest trees are evergreens, and even in mid-winter are
fresh-looking. The glowing autumnal tints of English woods are never
theirs; yet they show every shade of green, from the light of the
puriri to the dark of the totara, from the bronze-hued willow-like
leaves of the tawa to the vivid green of the matai, or the soft
golden-green of the drooping rimu. Then, though the ground-flowers
cannot compare in number with those of England or Australia,[1]
the Islands are the chosen land of the fern, and are fortunate in
flowering creepers, shrubs, and trees. There are the koromiko bush
with white and purple blossoms, and the white convolvulus which covers
whole thickets with blooms, delicate as carved ivory, whiter than
milk. There are the starry clematis, cream-coloured or white, and the
manuka, with tiny but numberless flowers. The yellow kowhai, seen
on the hillsides, shows the russet tint of autumn at the height of
spring-time. Yet the king of the forest flowers is, perhaps, the
crimson, feathery rata. Is it a creeper, or is it a tree? Both
opinions are held; both are right. One species of the rata is an
ordinary climber; another springs sometimes from the ground, sometimes
from the fork of a tree into which the seed is blown or dropped.
Thence it throws out long rootlets, some to earth, others which wrap
round the trunk on which it is growing. Gradually this rata becomes a
tree itself, kills its supporter, and growing round the dead stick,
ends in almost hiding it from view.

[Footnote 1: The Alps, however, show much floral beauty, and the
ground-flowers of the Auckland Islands, an outlying group of New
Zealand islets, impressed the botanist Kirk as unsurpassed in the
South Temperate Zone.]

In the month of February, when the rata flowers in the Alps, there are
valleys which are ablaze for miles with

  "Flowers that with one scarlet gleam
  Cover a hundred leagues, and seem
  To set the hills on fire."

But the most gorgeous of all flowering trees, as distinguished from
creepers, is the sea-loving pohutu kawa. When the wind is tossing its
branches the contrast is startling between its blood-red flowers and
the dark upper side and white, downy under side of its leaves.

Like the Australians, New Zealand Colonists call their forest "bush."
What in England might be called bush or brushwood is called "scrub" in
the Colonies.

The wood of many of the trees is not only useful timber, but when cut
and polished is often beautiful in grain. Unhappily, their destruction
goes on with rapid strides. The trees, as is usually the case with
those the wood of which is hard, grow slowly. They feel exposure to
wind, and seem to need the society and shelter of their fellows. It is
almost impossible to restore a New Zealand forest when once destroyed.
Then most of the finest trees are found on rich soil. The land is
wanted for grazing and cultivation. The settler comes with axe and
fire-stick, and in a few hours unsightly ashes and black funereal
stumps have replaced the noble woods which Nature took centuries
to grow. No attempt is made to use a great part of the timber. The
process is inevitable, and in great part needful, frightfully wasteful
as it seems. But the forest reserves of the Colony, large as they are,
should be made even more ample. Twelve hundred thousand acres are not
enough--as the New Zealanders will regretfully admit when a decade or
so hence they begin to import timber instead of exporting it. As for
interfering with reserves already made, any legislator who suggests
it should propose his motion with a noose round his neck, after the
laudable custom followed in a certain classic republic.

New Zealand is by no means a flat country, though there are in it some
fair-sized plains, one of which--that of Canterbury--is about as flat
a stretch of one hundred miles as is to be found in the world. On the
whole, however, both North and South Islands are lands of the mountain
and the flood, and not only in this, but in the contour of some of
their peaks and coast-line, show more than a fanciful resemblance to
the west of Scotland. But the New Zealand mountains are far loftier
than anything in the British Islands. The rocky coasts as a rule rise
up steeply from the ocean, standing out in many places in bold bluffs
and high precipices. The seas round are not shallow, dull, or turbid,
but deep, blue, wind-stirred, foam-flecked, and more often than not
lit by brilliant sunshine. The climate and colouring, too, are not
only essentially un-English, but differ very widely in different parts
of the Islands. For New Zealand, though narrow, has length, stretching
through 13 degrees of latitude, and for something like 1,100 miles
from north to south. As might be looked for in a mountainous country,
lying in the open ocean, the climate is windy, and except in two or
three districts, moist. It is gloriously healthy and briskly cheerful.
Summed up in one word, its prevailing characteristic is light!

Hot as are many summer days, they are seldom sultry enough to breed
the heavy, overhanging heat-haze which shrouds the heaven nearer the
tropics. Sharp as are the frosts of winter nights in the central and
southern part of the South Island, the days even in mid-winter
are often radiant, giving seven or eight hours of clear, pleasant
sunshine. For the most part the rains are heavy but not prolonged;
they come in a steady, business-like downpour, or in sharp, angry
squalls; suddenly the rain ceases, the clouds break, and the sun is
shining from a blue sky. Fogs and mists are not unknown, but are rare
and passing visitors, do not come to stay, and are not brown and
yellow in hue but more the colour of a clean fleece of wool. They
do not taste of cold smoke, gas, sulphur, or mud. High lying and
ocean-girt, the long, slender islands are lands of sunshine and the
sea. It is not merely that their coast-line measures 4,300 miles, but
that they are so shaped and so elevated that from innumerable hilltops
and mountain summits distant glimpses may be caught of the blue salt
water. From the peak of Aorangi, 12,350 feet in air, the Alpine
climber Mannering saw not only the mantle of clouds which at that
moment covered the western sea twenty miles away, but a streak of blue
ocean seventy miles off near Hokitika to the north-west, and by the
hills of Bank's Peninsula to the north-east, a haze which indicated
the Eastern Ocean. Thus, from her highest peak, he looked right across
New Zealand. The Dutch, then, its discoverers, were not so wrong in
naming it Zealand or Sea-land.

Next to light, perhaps the chief characteristic of the country and its
climate is variety. Thanks to its great length the north differs much
from the south. Southland is as cool as northern France, with an
occasional southerly wind as keen as Kingsley's wild north-easter. But
in gardens to the north of Auckland I have stood under olive trees
laden with berries. Hard by were orange trees, figs, and lemon trees
in full bearing. Not far off a winding tidal creek was fringed with
mangroves. Exotic palm trees and the cane-brake will grow there
easily. All over the North Island, except at high altitudes, and in
the more sheltered portions of the South Island, camellias and azaleas
bloom in the open air. The grape vine bids fair to lead to wine-making
in both islands--unless the total abstainers grow strong enough to put
their foot on the manufacture of alcohol in any form in an already
distinctly and increasingly sober Colony.

But in New Zealand not only is the north in marked contrast with the
south, but the contrast between the east and west is even more sharply
defined. As a rule the two coasts are divided by a broad belt of
mountainous country. The words "chain" and "spine" are misnomers, at
any rate in the South Island, inasmuch as they are not sufficiently
expressive of breadth. The rain-bringing winds in New Zealand blow
chiefly from the north-west and south-west. The moisture-laden clouds
rolling up from the ocean gather and condense against the western
flanks of the mountains, where an abundant rainfall has nourished
through ages past an unbroken and evergreen forest. Nothing could well
be more utterly different than these matted jungles of the wet west
coast--with their prevailing tint of rich dark green, their narrow,
rank, moist valleys and steep mountain sides--and the eastern scenery
of the South Island. The sounds or fiords of the south-west are
perhaps the loveliest series of gulfs in the world. Inlet succeeds
inlet, deep, calm, and winding far in amongst the steep and towering
mountains. The lower slopes of these are clothed with a thick tangle
of forest, where foliage is kept eternally fresh and vivid by rain and
mist. White torrents and waterfalls everywhere seam the verdure and
break the stillness.

Cross to the east coast.

Scarcely is the watershed passed when the traveller begins to enter a
new landscape and a distinct climate. The mountains, stripped of their
robe of forest, seem piled in ruined, wasting heaps, or stand out
bleak and bare-ribbed,

  "The skeletons of Alps whose death began
  Far in the multitudinous centuries."

Little is left them but a kind of dreary grandeur. The sunshine falls
on patches of gleaming snow and trailing mist, and lights up the grey
crags which start out like mushrooms on the barren slopes. On all
sides streams tear down over beds of the loose shingle, of which they
carry away thousands of tons winter after winter. Their brawling is
perhaps the only sound you will hear through slow-footed afternoons,
save, always, the whistle or sighing of the persistent wind. A stunted
beech bush clothes the spurs here and there, growing short and thick
as a fleece of dark wool. After a storm the snow will lie powdering
the green beech trees, making the rocks gleam frostily and sharpening
the savage ridges till they look like the jagged edges of stone axes.
Only at nightfall in summer do the mountains take a softer aspect.
Then in the evening stillness the great outlines show majesty; then
in the silence after sunset rivers, winding among the ranges in many
branches over broad, stony beds, fill the shadowy valleys with their
hoarse murmur.

To the flock-owner, however, this severe region is what the beautiful
West is not--it is useful. Sheep can find pasture there. And as the
mountains decline into hills, and the hills into downs and flats, the
covering of herbage becomes less and less scanty. When the colonists
came to the east coast, they found plains and dales which were open,
grassy, almost treeless. Easy of access, and for the most part
fertile, they were an ideal country for that unaesthetic person,
the practical settler. Flocks and herds might roam amongst the pale
tussock grass of the slopes and bottoms without fear either of man,
beast, climate, or poisonous plant.[1] A few wooden buildings and
a certain extent of wire fencing represented most of the initial
expenses of the pioneer. Pastoral settlement speedily overran such a
land, followed more slowly and partially by agriculture. The settler
came, not with axe and fire to ravage and deform, but as builder,
planter and gardener. Being in nineteen cases out of twenty a Briton,
or a child of one, he set to work to fill this void land with
everything British which he could transport or transplant His gardens
were filled with the flowers, the vegetables, the fruit trees of the
old land. The oak, the elm, the willow, the poplar, the spruce, the
ash grew in his plantations. His cattle were Shorthorns, Herefords,
and Devons. His farm horses were of the best Clydesdale and Suffolk
Punch blood. The grasses they fed upon were mixtures of cocks-foot,
timothy, rye-grass, and white clover. When it was found that the red
clover would not flourish for want of penetrating insects, the humble
bee was imported, and with compete success, as many a field now ruddy
with crimson blossom testifies. The common English bee is found
wild in the forest, where it hives in hollow trees, and robs its
competitors--the honey-eating native birds--of much of their food.
The hedges round the fields aforesaid are also English, but with a
difference. The stunted furze which beautifies English commons is at
the other end of the earth a hedge plant, which makes a thick barrier
from five to eight feet high, and, with its sweet-smelling blooms, has
made the New Zealand fields "green pictures set in frames of gold."
The very birds which rise from the clover or wheat, and nest in
the trees or hedgerows of furze or quickset, are for the most part
English--the skylark, the blackbird, finches, green and gold,
thrushes, starlings, and that eternal impudent vagabond the
house-sparrow. Heavy is the toll taken by the sparrow from the
oat-crops of his new home; his thievish nature grows blacker there,
though his plumage often turns partly white. He learns to hawk for
moths and other flying insects. Near Christchurch rooks caw in the
windy skies. Trout give excellent sport in a hundred streams, though
in the lakes they grow too gross to take the fly. Many attempts have
so far failed to acclimatise the salmon. The ova may be hatched out
successfully, but the fish when turned out into the rivers disappears.
The golden carp, however, the perch, and the rainbow trout take
readily to New Zealand. The hare increases in size and weight, and has
three and four leverets at a birth. The pheasant has spread from
end to end of the Colony. The house-fly drives back the loathsome
flesh-fly or blue-bottle, to the salvation of blankets and fresh meat.
The Briton of the south has indeed taken with him all that he could of
the old country.

[Footnote 1: The _tutu_, a danger to inexperienced sheep and cattle,
was not eaten by horses. The berries were poisonous enough to kill an
imported elephant on one occasion. Would that they had done as much
for the rabbit!]

He has also brought a few things which he wishes he had left behind.
The Hessian fly, the wire-worm, the flea, and grubs and scale insects
thrive mischievously. The black and grey rats have driven the native
rat into the recesses of the forest. A score of weeds have come, mixed
with badly-screened grass-seed, or in any of a hundred other ways. The
Scotch thistle seemed likely at one stage to usurp the whole grass
country. Acts of Parliament failed to keep it down. Nature, more
effectual, causes it to die down after running riot for a few years.
The watercress, too, threatened at one time to choke half the streams.
The sweetbriar, taking kindly to both soil and climate, not only grows
tall enough to arch over the head of a man on horseback, but covers
whole hillsides, to the ruin of pasture. Introduced, innocently
enough, by the missionaries, it goes by their name in some districts.
Rust, mildew, and other blights, have been imported along with plant
and seed. The rabbit, multiplying in millions, became a very terror
to the sheep farmers, is even yet the subject of anxious care and
inspection, and only slowly yields to fencing, poison, traps, dogs,
guns, stoats, weasels, ferrets, cats, and a host of instruments of
destruction. In poisoning the rabbit the stock-owners have well-nigh
swept the native birds from wide stretches of country. The weka, or
wood-hen, with rudimentary wings like tufts of brown feathers, whose
odd, inquisitive ways introduce it so constantly to the shepherd
and bushman, at first preyed upon the young rabbits and throve. Now
ferrets and phosphorus are exterminating it in the rabbit-infested
districts. Moreover, just as Vortigern had reason to regret that he
had called in the Saxon to drive out the Picts and Scots, so the
New Zealanders have already found the stoat and weasel but dubious
blessings. They have been a veritable Hengist and Horsa to more than
one poultry farmer and owner of lambs. In addition they do their full
share of the evil work of bird extermination, wherein they have active
allies in the rats and wild cats. On the whole, however, though
acclimatization has given the Colony one or two plagues and some minor
nuisances, it would be ridiculous to pretend that these for a moment
weigh in the scale against its good works. Most of the vegetable
pests, though they may flourish abnormally for a few years in the
virgin soil, soon become less vigorous. With the growth of population
even the rabbit ceases to be a serious evil, except to a few
half-empty tracts. The truth is that outside her forests and swamps
New Zealand showed the most completely unoccupied soil of any fertile
and temperate land on the globe. It seems possible that until about
five or six hundred years ago she had no human inhabitants whatever.
Her lakes and rivers had but few fish, her birds were not specially
numerous, her grasses were not to be compared in their nourishing
qualities with the English. Of animals there were virtually none.
Even the rat before mentioned, and the now extinct dog of the Maori
villages, were Maori importations from Polynesia not many centuries
ago.

Not only, therefore, have English forms of life been of necessity
drawn upon to fill the void spaces, but other countries have furnished
their quota. The dark eucalypt of Tasmania, with its heavy-hanging,
languid leaves, is the commonest of exotic trees. The artificial
stiffness and regularity of the Norfolk Island pine, and the
sweet-smelling golden blooms of the Australian wattle, are sights
almost as familiar in New Zealand as in their native lands. The sombre
pines of California and the macro carpa cypress cover thousands
of acres. The merino sheep brought from Spain, _viâ_ Saxony and
Australia, is the basis of the flocks. The black swan and magpie
represent the birds of New Holland. The Indian minah, after becoming
common, is said to be retreating before the English starling. The
first red deer came from Germany. And side by side with these
strangers and with the trees and plants which colonists call
specifically "English"--for the word "British" is almost unknown in
the Colony--the native flora is beginning to be cultivated in
gardens and grounds. Neglected by the first generation, it is better
appreciated by their children--themselves natives of the soil.

In the north and warmer island the traveller also meets sharp
contrasts. These, however, except in the provinces of Wellington and
Napier, where the Tararua-Ruahiné spine plays to some extent the part
taken by the Alps in the South Island, are not so much between east
and west as between the coasts and the central plateau. For the most
part, all the coasts, except the south-east, are, or have been,
forest-clad. Nearly everywhere they are green, hilly and abundantly
watered; windy, but not plagued with extremes of cold and heat. Frost
touches them but for a short time in mid-winter.

[Illustration: THE WHITE TERRACE, ROTOMAHANA]

The extreme south and north of the North Island could hardly, by any
stretch of imagination, be called rich and fertile. But the island
demonstrates the "falsehood of extremes," for between them is found
some of the finest and pleasantest land in the southern hemisphere.
Nearly all of this, however, lies within fifty miles of one or other
coast. When you have left these tracts, and have risen a thousand feet
or so, you come to a volcanic plateau, clad for the most part in dark
green and rusty bracken or tussocks of faded yellow. Right in the
centre rise the great volcanoes, Ruapehu, Tongariro and Tarawera,
majestic in their outlines, fascinating because of the restless fires
within and the outbreaks which have been and will again take place.
Scattered about this plateau are lakes of every shape and size,
from Taupo--called Te Moana (the sea) by the Maoris--to the tiniest
lakelets and ponds. Here are found pools and springs of every degree
of heat. Some are boiling cauldrons into which the unwary fall now and
again to meet a death terrible, yet--if the dying words of some of
them may be believed--not always agonizing, so completely does the
shock of contact with the boiling water kill the nervous system. Many
pools are the colour of black broth. Foul with mud and sulphur, they
seethe and splutter in their dark pits, sending up clouds of steam and
sulphurous fumes. Others are of the clearest green or deepest, purest
blue, through which thousands of silver bubbles shoot up to the
surface, flash, and vanish. But the main use of the hot
springs is found in their combination of certain chemical
properties,--sulphur-acid, sulphur-alkaline. Nowhere in the world,
probably, are found healing waters at once so powerful and so various
in their uses. Generations ago the Maori tribes knew something of
their effects. Now invalids come from far and near in hundreds and
thousands, and when the distractions and appliances of the sanitary
stations equal those of the European spas they will come in tens
of thousands, for the plateau is not only a health-resort but
a wonderland. Its geysers rank with those of Iceland and the
Yellowstone. Seen in the clear sunny air, these columns of water and
white foam, mounting, swaying, blown by the wind into silver spray,
and with attendant rainbows glittering in the light, are sights which
silence even the chattering tourist for a while. Solfataras, mud
volcanoes and fumaroles are counted in hundreds in the volcanic zone.
If there were not such curiosities, still the beauty of the mountains,
lakes, streams and patches of forest would, with the bright
invigorating air, make the holiday-maker seek them in numbers. Through
the middle of this curious region runs the Waikato, the longest and on
the whole most tranquil and useful of that excitable race the rivers
of New Zealand. Even the Waikato has its adventures. In one spot it is
suddenly compressed to a sixth of its breadth, and, boiling between
walls of rock, leaps in one mass of blue water and white foam into a
deep, tree-fringed pool below. This is the Huka Waterfall. It is but
one of the many striking falls to be met with in the Islands.

New Zealand is a land of streams of every size and kind, and almost
all these streams and rivers have three qualities in common--they are
cold, swift, and clear. Cold and swift they must be as they descend
quickly to the sea from heights more or less great. Clear they all
are, except immediately after rain, or when the larger rivers are in
flood. In flood-time most of them become raging torrents. Many were
the horses and riders swept away to hopeless death as they stumbled
over the hidden stony beds of turbid mountain crossings in the
pioneering days before bridges were. Many a foot-man--gold-seeker or
labourer wandering in search of work--disappeared thus, unseen and
unrecorded. Heavy were the losses in sheep and cattle, costly and
infuriating the delays, caused by flooded rivers. Few are the old
colonists who have not known what it is to wait through wet and weary
hours, it might be days, gloomily smoking, grumbling and watching
for some flood to abate and some ford to become passable. Even yet,
despite millions spent on public works, such troubles are not unknown.

It is difficult, perhaps, for those living in the cool and abundantly
watered British Islands to sympathise with dwellers in hotter
climates, or to understand what a blessing and beauty these continual
and never-failing watercourses of New Zealand seem to visitors from
sultrier and drier lands. The sun is quite strong enough to make men
thankful for this gift of abundant water, and to make the running
ripple of some little forest rivulet, heard long before it is seen
through the green thickets, as musical to the ears of the tired rider
as the note of the bell-bird itself. Even pleasanter are the sound and
glitter of water under the summer sunshine to the wayfarer in the open
grassy plains or valleys of the east coast. As for the number of the
streams--who shall count them? Between the mouths of the Mokau and
Patea rivers--a distance which cannot be much more than one hundred
miles of coast--no less than eighty-five streams empty themselves into
the Tasman Sea, of which some sixty have their source on the slopes
or in the chasms of Mount Egmont. Quite as many more flow down from
Egmont on the inland side, and do not reach the sea separately, but
are tributaries of two or three larger rivers.

It is true that travellers may come to the Islands and leave them with
no notion of a New Zealand river, except a raging mountain torrent,
hostile to man and beast. Or they may be jolted over this same torrent
when, shrunk and dwindled in summer heat to a mere glittering thread,
it meanders lost and bewildered about a glaring bed of hot stones. But
then railways and ordinary lines of communication are chiefly along
the coasts. The unadventurous or hurried traveller sticks pretty
closely to these. It happens that the rivers, almost without
exception, show plainer features as they near the sea.

He who wishes to see their best must go inland and find them as they
are still to be found in the North Island, winding through untouched
valleys, under softly-draped cliffs, or shadowed by forests not yet
marred by man. Or, in the South Island, they should be watched in the
Alps as, milky or green-tinted, their ice-cold currents race through
the gorges.

[Illustration: ON A RIVER--"PAPA" COUNTRY

Photo by A. MARTIN, Wanganui.]

Of forest rivers, the Wanganui is the longest and most famous, perhaps
the most beautiful. Near the sea it is simply a broad river, traversed
by boats and small steamers, and with grassy banks dotted with weeping
willows or clothed with flax and the palm-lily. But as you ascend it
the hills close in. Their sides become tall cliffs, whose feet the
water washes. From the tops of these precipices the forest, growing
denser and richer at every turn, rises on the flanks of the hills. In
places the cliffs are so steep and impracticable that the Maoris use
ladders for descending on their villages above to their canoes in the
rivers below. Lovely indeed are these cliffs; first, because of the
profusion of fern frond, leaf, and moss, growing from everything that
can climb to, lay hold of, or root itself in crack, crevice, or ledge,
and droop, glistening with spray-drops, or wave whispering in the
wind; next, because of the striking form and colour of the cliffs
themselves. They are formed of what is called "Papa." This is a
blue, calcareous clay often found with limestone, which it somewhat
resembles. The Maori word "papa" is applied to any broad, smooth,
flattish surface, as a door, or to a slab of rock. The smooth,
slab-like, papa cliffs are often curiously marked--tongued and
grooved, as with a gouge, channelled and fluted. Sometimes horizontal
lines seem to divide them into strata. Again, the lines may be winding
and spiral, so that on looking at certain cliffs it might be thought
possible that the Maoris had got from them some of their curious
tattoo patterns. Though pale and delicate, the tints of the rock are
not their least beauty. Grey, yellow, brown, fawn, terra-cotta, even
pale orange are to be noted. No photograph can give the charm of
the drapery that clothes these cliffs. Photographs give no light or
colour, and New Zealand scenery without light and colour is Hamlet
with Hamlet left out. How could a photograph even hint at the dark,
glossy green of the glistening karaka leaves, the feathery, waving
foliage of the lace bark, or the white and purple bloom of the
koromiko? How could black-and-white suggest the play of shade and
shine when, between flying clouds, the glint of sunlight falls upon
the sword-bayonet blades of the flax, and the golden, tossing plumes
of the toe-toe, the New Zealand cousin of the Pampas grass? Add to
this, that more often than the passenger can count as he goes along
the river, either some little rill comes dripping over the cliff,
scattering the sparkling drops on moss and foliage, or the cliffs are
cleft and, as from a rent in the earth, some tributary stream gushes
out of a dark, leafy tunnel of branches. Sometimes, too, the cliffs
are not cleft, but the stream rushes from their summit, a white
waterfall veiling the mossy rocks. Then there are the birds. In
mid-air is to be seen the little fan-tail, aptly named, zig-zagging
to and fro. The dark blue tui, called parson bird, from certain
throat-feathers like white bands, will sing with a note that
out-rivals any blackbird. The kuku, or wild pigeon, will show his
purple, copper-coloured, white and green plumage as he sails slowly
by, with that easy, confiding flight that makes him the cheap victim
of the tyro sportsman. The grey duck, less easy to approach, rises
noisily before boat or canoe comes within gunshot. The olive and
brown, hoarse-voiced ka-ka, a large, wild parrot, and green,
crimson-headed parakeets, may swell the list. Such is a "papa" river!
and there are many such.

Features for which the traveller in New Zealand should be prepared are
the far-reaching prospects over which the eye can travel, the sight
and sound of rapid water, and the glimpses of snow high overhead, or
far off--glimpses to be caught in almost every landscape in the South
Island and in many of the most beautiful of the North. Through the
sunny, lucid atmosphere it is no uncommon thing to see mountain peaks
sixty and eighty miles away diminished in size by distance, but with
their outlines clearly cut. From great heights you may see much longer
distances, especially on very early mornings of still midsummer days.
Then, before the air is heated or troubled or tainted, but when night
seems to have cooled and purged it from all impurity, far-off ridges
and summits stand out clean, sharp and vivid. On such mornings, though
standing low down by the sea-shore, I have seen the hills of Bank's
Peninsula between sixty and seventy miles off, albeit they are not
great mountains. Often did they seem to rise purple-coloured from the
sea, wearing "the likeness of a clump of peaked isles," as Shelley
says of the Euganean hills seen from Venice. On such a morning from
a hill looking northward over league after league of rolling virgin
forest I have seen the great volcano, Mount Ruapehu, rear up his 9,000
feet, seeming a solitary mass, the upper part distinctly seen, blue
and snow-capped, the lower bathed and half-lost in a pearl-coloured
haze. Most impressive of all is it to catch sight, through a cleft
in the forest, of the peak of Mount Egmont, and of the flanks of the
almost perfect cone curving upward from the sea-shore for 8,300 feet.
The sentinel volcano stands alone. Sunrise is the moment to see him
when his summit, sheeted with snow, is tinged with the crimson of
morning and touched by clouds streaming past in the wind. Lucky is the
eye that thus beholds Egmont, for he is a cloud-gatherer who does not
show his face every day or to every gazer. Almost as fine a spectacle
is the sight of the "Kaikouras," or "Lookers-on." When seen from the
deck of a coasting steamer they seem almost to hang over the sea
heaving more than 8,000 feet below their summits. Strangely beautiful
are these mighty ridges when the moonlight bathes them and turns the
sea beneath to silver. But more, beautiful are they still in the calm
and glow of early morning, white down to the waist, brown to the feet
with the sunshine full on their faces, the blue sky overhead, and the
bluer sea below.

If the Southern Alps surpass the Kaikouras in beauty it is because of
the contrast they show on their western flanks, between gaunt grandeur
aloft, and the softest luxuriance below. The forest climbs to the snow
line, while the snow line descends as if to meet it. So abrupt is the
descent that the transition is like the change in a theatre-scene.
Especially striking is the transformation in the passage over the
fine pass which leads through the dividing range between pastoral
Canterbury and Westland. At the top of Arthur's Pass you are among the
high Alps. The road winds over huge boulders covered with lichen,
or half hidden by koromiko, ferns, green moss, and stunted beeches,
grey-bearded and wind-beaten. Here and there among the stones are
spread the large, smooth, oval leaves and white gold-bearing cups of
the shepherd's lily. The glaciers, snowfields, and cliffs of Mount
Rolleston lie on the left. Everything drips with icy water. Suddenly
the saddle is passed and the road plunges down into a deep gulf. It is
the Otira Gorge. Nothing elsewhere is very like it. The coach zig-zags
down at a gentle pace, like a great bird slowly wheeling downwards to
settle on the earth. In a few minutes it passes from an Alpine desert
to the richness of the tropics. At the bottom of the gorge is the
river foaming among scarlet boulders--scarlet because of the lichen
which coats them. On either side rise slopes which are sometimes
almost, sometimes altogether precipices, covered, every inch of them,
with thick vegetation. High above these tower the bare crags and peaks
which, as the eye gazes upwards, seem to bend inwards, as though a
single shock of earthquake would make them meet and entomb the gorge
beneath. In autumn the steeps are gay with crimson cushion-like masses
of rata flowers, or the white blooms of the ribbon-wood and koromiko.
Again and again waterfalls break through their leafy coverts; one
falls on the road itself and sprinkles passengers with its spray. In
the throat of the gorge the coach rattles over two bridges thrown from
cliff to cliff over the pale-green torrent.

In an hour comes the stage where lofty trees succeed giant mountains.
As the first grow higher the second diminish. This is the land of
ferns and mosses. The air feels soft, slightly damp, and smells
of moist leaves. It is as different to the sharp dry air of the
Canterbury ranges as velvet is to canvas; it soothes, and in hot
weather relaxes. The black birch with dark trunk, spreading branches,
and light leaves, is now mingled with the queenly rimu, and the stiff,
small-leaved, formal white pine. Winding and hanging plants festoon
everything, and everything is bearded with long streamers of moss,
not grey but rich green and golden. Always some river rushes along in
sight or fills the ear with its noise. Tree ferns begin to appear and
grow taller and taller as the coach descends towards the sea, where in
the evening the long journey ends.

On the western coast glaciers come down to within 700 feet of the
sea-level. Even on the east side the snow is some 2,000 feet lower
than in Switzerland. This means that the climber can easily reach the
realm where life is not, where ice and snow, rock and water reign, and
man feels his littleness.

Though Aorangi has been ascended to the topmost of its 12,349 feet,
still in the Southern Alps the peaks are many which are yet unsealed,
and the valleys many which are virtually untrodden. Exploring parties
still go out and find new lakes, new passes, and new waterfalls. It
is but a few years since the Sutherland Falls, 2,000 feet high, were
first revealed to civilized man, nor was there ever a region better
worth searching than the Southern Alps. Every freshly-found nook and
corner adds beauties and interests. Falls, glaciers and lakes are on a
grand scale. The Tasman glacier is eighteen miles long and more than
two miles across at the widest point; the Murchison glacier is more
than ten miles long; the Godley eight. The Hochstetter Fall is a
curtain of broken, uneven, fantastic ice coming down 4,000 feet on to
the Tasman glacier. It is a great spectacle, seen amid the stillness
of the high Alps, broken only by the occasional boom and crash of a
falling pinnacle of ice.

Of the many mountain lakes Te Anau is the largest, Manapouri the
loveliest. Wakatipu is fifty-four miles long, and though its surface
is 1,000 feet above the sea-level, its profound depth sinks below it.
On the sea side of the mountains the fiords rival the lakes in depth.
Milford Sound is 1,100 feet deep near its innermost end.

But enough of the scenery of the Colony. This is to be a story, not a
sketch-book. Enough that the drama of New Zealand's history, now in
the second act, has been placed on one of the most remarkable and
favourable stages in the globe. Much--too much--of its wild and
singular beauty must be ruined in the process of settlement. But very
much is indestructible. The colonists are also awakening to the truth
that mere Vandalism is as stupid as it is brutal. Societies are being
established for the preservation of scenery. The Government has
undertaken to protect the more famous spots. Within recent years three
islands lying off different parts of the coast have been reserved as
asylums for native birds. Two years ago, too, the wild and virgin
mountains of the Urewera tribe were by Act of Parliament made
inalienable, so that, so long as the tribe lasts, their ferns, their
birds and their trees shall not vanish from the earth.




Chapter II


THE MAORI

  "The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
  Moves on. Nor all your piety or wit
  Can lure it back to cancel half a line,
  Nor all your tears wash out a word of it."

The first colonists of New Zealand were brown men from the South Seas.
It was from Eastern Polynesia that the Maoris unquestionably came.
They are of the same race as the courteous, handsome people who
inhabit the South Sea Islands from Hawaii to Rarotonga, and who, in
Fiji, mingle their blood with the darker and inferior Melanesians
of the west. All the Polynesians speak dialects of the same musical
tongue. A glance at Tregear's Comparative Maori-Polynesian Dictionary
will satisfy any reader on that point. The Rarotongans call themselves
"Maori," and can understand the New Zealand speech; so, as a rule, can
the other South Sea tribes, even the distant Hawaiians. Language alone
is proverbially misleading as a guide to identity of race. But in
the case of the Polynesians we may add colour and features, customs,
legends, and disposition. All are well though rather heavily built,
active when they choose, and passionately fond of war and sport. The
New Zealanders are good riders and capital football players. The
Samoans are so fond of cricket that they will spend weeks in playing
gigantic matches, fifty a side. Bold as seamen and skilful as
fishermen, the Polynesians are, however, primarily cultivators of
the soil. They never rose high enough in the scale to be miners or
merchants. In the absence of mammals, wild and tame, in their islands,
they could be neither hunters nor herdsmen. Fierce and bloodthirsty in
war, and superstitious, they were good-natured and hospitable in peace
and affectionate in family life.

There is no reason to think that the New Zealanders are more akin to
the modern Malays than they are to the Australian blacks; nor have
attempts to connect them with the red men of America or the Toltecs
of Mexico succeeded. They are much more like some of the Aryans of
Northern India. But the truth is, their fortunes before their race
settled in Polynesia are a pure matter of guess-work. Some centuries
ago, driven out by feuds or shortness of food, they left their isles
of reef and palm, and found their way to Ao-tea-roa, as they called
New Zealand.

On the map their new home seems at first sight so isolated and remote
from the other groups of Oceania as to make it incredible that even
the most daring canoe-men could have deliberately made their
way thither. But this difficulty disappears upon a study of the
ascertained voyages of the Polynesians. Among the bravest and most
venturesome navigators of the ocean, the brown mariners studied and
named the stars, winds and currents. As allies they had those friends
of the sailor, the trade-winds. In cloudy weather, when the signs in
the sky were hidden, the regular roll of the waves before the steady
trade-wind was in itself a guide.[1] Their large double-canoes joined
by platforms on which deck-houses were built were no despicable
sea-boats, probably just as good as the vessels in which the
Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa. Even their single canoes were
sometimes between 100 and 150 feet long, and the crews of these,
wielding their elastic paddles, kept time in a fashion that has won
respect from the coxswain of a University eight. For their long
voyages they stored water in calabashes, carried roots and dried fish,
and had in the cocoa-nut both food and drink stored safely by nature
in the most convenient compass. In certain seasons they could be
virtually sure of replenishing their stock of water from the copious
tropical or semi-tropical rains. Expert fishermen, they would miss no
opportunity of catching fish by the way. They made halting-places of
the tiny islets which, often uninhabited and far removed from the
well-known groups, dot the immense waste of the Pacific at great
intervals. The finding of their stone axes or implements in such
desolate spots enables their courses to be traced. Canoe-men who could
voyage to solitary little Easter Island in the wide void towards
America, or to Cape York in the distant west, were not likely to find
insuperable difficulties in running before the north-east winds to New
Zealand from Rarotonga, Savaii or Tahiti. The discovery in the new
land of the jade or greenstone--far above rubies in the eyes of men of
the Stone Age--would at once give the country all the attractiveness
that a gold-field has for civilized man.

[Footnote 1: S. Percy Smith on _The Geographical Knowledge of the
Polynesians_.]

The Maori stories of their migration to New Zealand are a mixture of
myth and legend. Among them are minute details that may be accurate,
mingled with monstrous tales of the utterly impossible. For example,
we are told that one chief, on his canoe first nearing the coast,
saw the feathery, blood-red rata-flowers gleaming in the forest, and
promptly threw overboard his Polynesian coronet of red feathers,
exclaiming that he would get a new crown in the new land. Such an
incident might be true, as might also the tale of another canoe
which approached the shore at night. Its crew were warned of the
neighbourhood of land by the barking of a dog which they had with them
and which scented a whale's carcass stranded on the beach. On the
other hand we are gravely told that the hero Gliding-Tide having
dropped an axe overboard off the shore, muttered an incantation so
powerful that the bottom of the sea rose up, the waters divided, and
the axe returned to his hand. The shoal at any rate is there, and is
pointed out to this day. And what are we to say to the tale of another
leader, whose canoe was upset in the South Seas, and who swam all the
way to New Zealand?

The traditions say that the Maori Pilgrim Fathers left the island
of Hawaiki for New Zealand about the beginning of the 15th century.
Hawaiki is probably one of the "shores of old romance." Other
Polynesian races also claim to have come thence. Mr. Percy Smith gives
good reasons for the suggestion that the ancestors of the Maoris
migrated from the Society Islands and from Rarotonga, and that their
principal migration took place about five hundred years ago. It seems
likely enough, however, that previous immigrants had gone before them.
One remnant of these, the now almost extinct Moriori, colonised the
Chatham Islands, whither they were not followed by the conquering
Maori until the present century. The two most famous of the great
double canoes of the Maori settlers were the Arawa (shark), and the
Tainui (flood-tide). On board thereof, with the men, women, and
children, were brought dogs, rats, the gourd and taro root, and the
invaluable kumara or sweet potato. The karaka tree, whose glossy,
almost oily-looking leaves were in after days to be seen in every
village, was another importation. With these tradition ranks the green
parakeet and blue pukeko or swamp-hen, two birds whose rich plumage
has indeed something in it of tropical gaudiness, at any rate in
contrast with the sober hues of most New Zealand feathers. The Tainui
canoe was said to have found its last resting-place near the mouth of
the Mokau river. A stone still lies there which is treasured by the
natives as the ancient anchor of their sacred craft. Some years ago,
when a European carried this off, they brought an action against him
and obtained an order of the Court compelling him to restore it. Not
far away stands a grove of trees alleged to have sprung from the
Tainui's skids. Certainly Sir James Hector, the first scientific
authority in the Colony, finding that these trees grow spontaneously
nowhere else in New Zealand, named them _Pomaderris Tainui_. But
though, for once, at any rate, science was not indisposed to smile
on tradition and Maori faith triumphed, and the unbeliever was for
a while confounded, it unhappily seems now quite certain that the
congener of _Pomaderris Tainui_ is found only in Australia, one of the
few lands nigh the Pacific which cannot have been Hawaiki.

It will be safe to say that the Maori colonists landed at different
points and at widely different dates, and that later immigrants
sometimes drove earlier comers inland or southward. More often,
probably, each small band sought out an empty territory for itself. On
this tribes and sub-tribes grew up, dwelling apart from each other.
Each district became the land of a clan, to be held by tomahawk and
spear. Not even temporary defeat and slavery deprived a tribe of its
land: nothing did that but permanent expulsion followed by actual
seizure and occupation by the conquerors. Failing this, the right
of the beaten side lived on, and could be reasserted after years of
exile. The land was not the property of the _arikis_ or chiefs, or
even of the _rangatiras_ or gentry. Every free man, woman and child
in each clan had a vested interest therein which was acknowledged and
respected. The common folk were not supposed to have immortal souls.
That was the distinction of the well born. But they had a right to
their undivided share of the soil. Even when a woman married into
another tribe, or--in latter days--became the wife of a white, she
did not forfeit her title, though sometimes such rights would be
surrendered by arrangement, to save inconvenience. Trade never entered
into Maori life. Buying and selling were unknown. On and by the land
the Maori lived, and he clung to it closely as any Irish peasant. "The
best death a man can die is for the land," ran a proverb. "Let us die
for the land!" shouted a chieftain, haranguing his fighting men before
one of their first battles with the English. No appeal would be more
certain to strike home.

Though the tribal estate was communal property in so far that any
member could go out into the wilderness and fell trees and reclaim the
waste, the fruits of such work, the timber and plantations, at once
became personal property. The fields, houses, weapons, tools, clothes,
and food of a family could not be meddled with by outsiders. The
territory, in a word, was common, but not only products but usufructs
were property attaching to individuals, who could transfer them by
gift.

Though in time they forgot the way to "Hawaiki," and even at last the
art of building double-canoes, yet they never wanted for pluck or
seamanship in fishing and voyaging along the stormy New Zealand
coasts. Their skill and coolness in paddling across flooded rivers may
still sometimes be witnessed.

Always needing fish, they placed their villages near the sea beaches
or the rivers and lakes. In their canoes they would paddle as far as
twelve miles from land. Amongst other fish they caught sharks, killing
them before they hauled them into the crank canoes; or, joining
forces, they would sweep some estuary with drag nets, and, with much
yelling and splashing, drive the fish into a shallow corner. There
with club and spear dog-fish and smooth-hound would be done to death
amid shouts and excitement. Then would come a gorge on a grand scale,
followed by business--the cutting into strips and drying of the
shark-meat for winter food. In the forests they found birds, and,
not having the bow-and-arrow, made shift to snare and spear them
ingeniously. To add to the vegetable staples which they had brought
with them from their Polynesian home, they used the root of the
fern or bracken, and certain wild fruits and berries--none of them
specially attractive. What between fish, birds and vegetables, with
occasional delicacies in the shape of dogs and rats, they were by no
means badly provisioned, and they cooked their food carefully and
well, chiefly by steaming in ovens lined with heated stones. Without
tea, coffee, sugar, alcohol or tobacco, they had also but seldom the
stimulant given by flesh meat. Their notorious cannibalism was almost
confined to triumphal banquets on the bodies of enemies slain in
battle. Without the aid of metals or pottery, without wool, cotton,
silk or linen, without one beast of burden, almost without leather,
they yet contrived to clothe, feed and house themselves, and to make
some advance in the arts of building, carving, weaving and dyeing.

[Illustration: MAORI AND CARVED BOW OF CANOE]

The labour and patience needed to maintain some degree of rude comfort
and keep up any kind of organised society with the scanty means at
their disposal were very great indeed. The popular notion of the
lazy savage basking in the sunshine, or squatting round the fire
and loafing on the labour of his women, did not fairly apply to the
Maori--at any rate to the unspoiled Maori. As seen by the early
navigators, his life was one of regular, though varied and not
excessive toil. Every tribe, in most ways every village, was
self-contained and self-supporting. What that meant to a people
intelligent, but ignorant of almost every scientific appliance, and
as utterly isolated as though they inhabited a planet of their own,
a little reflection will suggest. The villagers had to be their own
gardeners, fowlers, fishermen and carpenters. They built their own
houses and canoes, and made every tool and weapon. All that they wore
as well as what they used had to be made on the spot. They did not
trade, though an exchange of gifts regulated by strict etiquette
amounted to a rude and limited kind of barter, under which inland
tribes could supply themselves with dried sea-fish and sea-birds
preserved in their melted fat, or northern tribes could acquire the
precious greenstone found in the west of the South Island.

Without flocks and herds or domestic fowls, theirs was the constant
toil of the cultivator. Their taro and their kumara fields had to be
dug, and dug thoroughly with wooden spades. Long-handled and pointed
at the end, these implements resembled stilts with a cross-bar about
eighteen inches from the ground on which the digger's foot rested. Two
men worked them together. The women did not dig the fields, but theirs
was the labour almost as severe of carrying on their backs the heavy
baskets of gravel to scatter over the soil of the plantations.

Almost the only staple article of Maori vegetable food which grew
wild and profusely was the fern or bracken _(pteris aquilina_ var.
_esculenta_), which indeed was found on every hill and moor and in
every glade, at any rate in the North Island. But the preparation of
the fibrous root was tedious, calling as it did for various processes
of drying and pounding.

Fishing involved not only the catching of fish, but the manufacture of
seine nets, sometimes half a mile long, of eel-weirs, lines made of
the fibre of the native flax, and of fish-hooks of bone or tough
crooked wood barbed with human bone. The human skeleton was also laid
under contribution for the material of skewers, needles and flutes.

The infinite patience and delicacy requisite in their bird-snaring and
spearing are almost beyond the conception of the civilized townsmen
untrained in wood-craft. To begin with, they had to make the slender
bird spears, thirty feet long, out of the light wood of the _tawa_
tree. A single tree could provide no more than two spears, and the
making of them--with stone tools of course--took many months. Think of
the dexterity, coolness and stealth required to manage such a weapon
in a jungle so dense and tangled that white sportsmen often find a
difficulty in handling their guns there! The silent adroitness needed
to approach and spear the wild parrot or wood-pigeon without stirring
the branch of a tree would alone require a long apprenticeship to
wood-craft.

Maori house-building showed a knowledge of architecture decidedly
above that of the builders of Kaffir kraals, to say nothing of the
lairs of the Australian blacks. The poorest huts were definitely
planned and securely built. The shape was oblong, the walls low, the
roof high pitched and disproportionately large, though not so much so
as in some of the South Sea Islands. The framework was of the durable
totara-wood, the lining of reeds, the outside of dried rushes. At the
end turned to the sunshine was a kind of verandah, on to which opened
the solitary door and window, both low and small. The floor was
usually sunk below ground, and Maori builders knew of no such thing
as a chimney. Though neither cooking nor eating was done in their
dwelling-houses, and offal of all kinds was carefully kept at a decent
distance, the atmosphere in their dim, stifling interiors was as a
rule unendurable by White noses and lungs. Even their largest tribal
or meeting halls had but the one door and window; the Maori mind
seemed as incapable of adding thereto, as of constructing more than
one room under a single roof. On the other hand, the dyed patterns
on the reed wainscoting, and the carvings on the posts, lintel and
boards, showed real beauty and a true sense of line and curve.

Still less reason is there to find fault with their canoes, the larger
of which were not only strangely picturesque, but, urged by as many as
a hundred paddles, flew through the water at a fine speed, or under
sail made long coasting voyages in seas that are pacific only in name.
To the carving on these crafts the savage artists added decoration by
red ochre, strips of dyed flax, gay feathers and mother-o'-pearl. Both
the building of the canoes and their adornment entailed long months of
labour. So did the dressing of the fibre of the flax and palm-lily,
and the weaving therefrom of "mats" or mantles, and of kirtles. Yet
the making of such ordinary clothing was simple indeed compared to the
manufacture of a chief's full dress mat of _kiwi_ feathers. The soft,
hairy-looking plumage of the _kiwi_ (apteryx) is so fine, each feather
so minute, that one mantle would occupy a first-rate artist for two
years. Many of these mantles, whether of flax, feathers or dog-skin,
were quaintly beautiful as well as warm and waterproof.

Nor did Maori skill confine itself to ornamenting the clothing of
man. The human skin supplied a fresh and peculiar field for durable
decoration. This branch of art, that of Moko or tattooing, they
carried to a grotesque perfection. Among the many legends concerning
their demi-god Maui, a certain story tells how he showed them the way
to tattoo by puncturing the muzzle of a dog, whence dogs went with
black muzzles as men see them now. For many generations the patterns
cut and pricked on the human face and body were faithful imitations
of what were believed to be Maui's designs. They were composed of
straight lines, angles, and cross-cuts. Later the hero Mataora taught
a more graceful style which dealt in curves, spirals, volutes and
scroll-work. Apart from legend it is a matter of reasonable certitude
that the Maoris brought tattooing with them from Polynesia. Their
marking instruments were virtually the same as those of their tropical
cousins; both, for instance, before the iron age of the nineteenth
century, often used the wing-bones of sea-birds to make their tiny
chisels. Both observed the law of _tapu_ under which the male
patients, while undergoing the process of puncturing, were sacred,
immensely to their own inconvenience, for they had to dwell apart, and
might not even touch food with their hands. As to the source of the
peculiar patterns used by the New Zealanders, they probably have some
relation with the admirable wood-carving before mentioned. Either
the Moko artists copied the style of the skilful carvers of panels,
door-posts, clubs, and the figure-heads on the prows of canoes, or the
wood-carvers borrowed and reproduced the lines and curves of the Moko.
The inspiration of the patterns, whether on wood or skin, may be found
in the spirals of sea-shells, the tracery on the skin of lizards and
the bark of trees, and even, it may be, in the curious fluting and
natural scroll-work on the tall cliffs of the calcareous clay called
_papa_.

But, however the Moko artist learned his designs, he was a painstaking
and conscientious craftsman in imprinting them on his subject. No
black-and-white draughtsman of our time, no wood-cutter, etcher, or
line-engraver, worked with slower deliberation. The outlines were
first drawn with charcoal or red ochre. Thus was the accuracy of curve
and scroll-work ensured. Then, inch by inch, the lines were cut or
pricked out on the quivering, but unflinching, human copper-plate.
The blood was wiped away and the _narahu_ (blue dye) infused. In the
course of weeks, months, or years, as leisure, wealth, or endurance
permitted, the work was completed. In no other society did the artist
have his patron so completely at his mercy. Not only was a Moko expert
of true ability a rarity for whose services there was always an
"effective demand," but, if not well paid for his labours, the
tattooer could make his sitter suffer in more ways than one. He could
adroitly increase the acute anguish which had, as a point of honour,
to be endured without cry or complaint; or he could coolly bungle the
execution of the design, or leave it unfinished, and betake himself to
a more generous customer. A well-known tattooing chant deals with the
subject entirely from the artist's standpoint, and emphasises the
business principles upon which he went to work. It was this song that
Alfred Domett (Robert Browning's Waring) must have had in his mind
when, in his New Zealand poem, he thus described the Moko on the face
of the chief Tangi-Moana:--

  "And finer, closer spirals of dark blue
  Were never seen than in his cheek's tattoo;
  Fine as if engine turned those cheeks declared
  No cost to fee the artist had been spared;
  That many a basket of good maize had made
  That craftsman careful how he tapped his blade,
  And many a greenstone trinket had been given
  To get his chisel-flint so deftly driven."

When, however, the slow and costly agony was over, the owner of an
unusually well-executed face became a superior person. He united in
himself the virtues and vices of a chieftain of high degree (shown by
the elaborateness of his face pattern), of a tribal dandy, of a brave
man able to endure pain, of the owner of a unique picture, and of an
acknowledged art critic. In the rigid-looking mask, moreover, which
had now taken the place of his natural face were certain lines by
which any one of his fellow-tribesmen could identify him living or
dead. In this way the heads of Maori chiefs have been recognised
even in the glass cases of museums. On some of the earlier deeds and
agreements between White and Maori, a chief would sign or make his
mark by means of a rough reproduction of his special Moko.

The Maori _pas_ or stockaded and intrenched villages, usually perched
on cliffs and jutting points overhanging river or sea, were defended
by a double palisade, the outer fence of stout stakes, the inner of
high solid trunks. Between them was a shallow ditch. Platforms as
much as forty feet high supplied coigns of vantage for the look-out.
Thence, too, darts and stones could be hurled at the besiegers. With
the help of a throwing-stick, or rather whip, wooden spears could
be thrown in the sieges more than a hundred yards. Ignorant of the
bow-and-arrow and the boomerang, the Maoris knew and used the sling.
With it red-hot stones would be hurled over the palisades, among the
rush-thatched huts of an assaulted village, a stratagem all the more
difficult to cope with as Maori _pas_ seldom contained wells or
springs of water. The courage and cunning developed in the almost
incessant tribal feuds were extraordinary. Competent observers thought
the Maoris of two generations ago the most warlike and ferocious race
on earth. Though not seldom guilty of wild cruelty to enemies, they
did not make a business of cold-blooded torture after the devilish
fashion of the North American Indians. Chivalrous on occasion, they
would sometimes send warning to the foe, naming the day of an intended
attack, and abide thereby. They would supply a starving garrison with
provisions in order that an impending conflict might be a fair trial
of strength. War was to them something more dignified than a mere
lawless struggle. It was a solemn game to be played according to rules
as rigidly laid down and often as honourably adhered to as in
the international cricket and football matches of Englishmen and
Australians.

As is so often the case with fighting races capable of cruelty, they
were strictly courteous in their intercourse with strangers. Indeed,
their code of manners to visitors was so exact and elaborate as to
leave an impression of artificiality. No party of wayfarers would
approach a _pa_ without giving formal notice. When the strangers were
received, they had the best of everything, and the hosts, who saw that
they were abundantly supplied, had too much delicacy to watch them
eat. Maori breeding went so far as to avoid in converse words or
topics likely to be disagreeable to their hearers.

Their feeling for beauty was shown not merely in their art, but in
selecting the sites of dwelling-places, and in a fondness for shady
shrubs and trees about their huts and for the forest-flowers. The
natural images and similes so common in their wild, abrupt, unrhymed
chants and songs showed how closely they watched and sympathised with
nature. The hoar-frost, which vanishes with the sunrise, stood with
them for ephemeral fame. Rank without power was "a fountain without
water." The rushing stream reminded the Maori singer, as it did the
Mantuan, of the remorseless current of life and human fate.

  "But who can check life's stream?
     Or turn its waters back?
        'Tis past,"

cried a father mourning for his dead son. In another lament a grieving
mother is compared to the drooping fronds of the tree-fern. The maiden
keeping tryst bids the light fleecy cloudlets, which in New Zealand so
often scud across the sky before the sea-wind, to be messengers to her
laggard gallant.

  "The sun grows dim and hastes away
  As a woman from the scene of battle,"

says the lament for a dead chief.[1] The very names given to hills,
lakes, and rivers will be witnesses in future days of the poetic
instinct of the Maori--perhaps the last destined to remain in his
land. Such names are the expressive Wai-orongo-mai (Hear me, ye
waters!); Puké-aruhé (ferny hill); Wai-rarapa (glittering water);
Maunga-tapu (sacred mount); Ao-reré (flying cloud). Last, but not
least, there is the lordly Ao-rangi (Cloud in the heavens), over which
we have plastered the plain and practical "Mount Cook."

[Footnote 1: The Maori is deeply imbued with the poetry of the woods.
His commonest phraseology shows it. 'The month when the pohutu-kawa
flowers'; 'the season when the kowhai is in bloom'; so he punctuates
time. And the years that are gone he softly names' dead leaves!'--HAY,
_Brighter Britain_.]

Many of the Maori chiefs were, and some even now are, masterly
rhetoricians. The bent of the race was always strongly to controversy
and discussion. Their ignorance of any description of writing made
them cultivate debate. Their complacent indifference to time made
deliberative assembly a prolonged, never-wearying joy. The chiefs
met in council like Homer's heroes--the commons sitting round and
muttering guttural applause or dissent. The speeches abounded in short
sententious utterances, in proverbs, poetic allusions and metaphors
borrowed from legends. The Maori orator dealt in quotations as freely
as the author of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, and his hearers caught
them with as much relish as that of a House of Commons of Georgian
days enjoying an apt passage from the classics. Draped in kilt and
mantle, with spear or carved staff of office in the right hand, the
speakers were manly and dignified figures. The fire and force of their
rhetoric were not only aided by graceful gesture but were set out in a
language worthy of the eloquent. If we cannot say of the Maori tongue
as Gibbon said of Greek, that it "can give a soul to the objects of
sense and a body to the abstractions of philosophy," we can at any
rate claim for it that it is a musical and vigorous speech. Full of
vowel-sounds, entirely without sibilants, but rich in guttural and
chest notes, it may be made at will to sound liquid or virile, soft or
ringing.

The seamy side of Maori life, as of all savage life, was patent to the
most unimaginative observer. The traveller found it not easy to dwell
on the dignity, poetry and bravery of a race which contemned washing,
and lived, for the most part, in noisome hovels. A chief might be an
orator and skilled captain, but, squatting on the ground, smeared with
oil, daubed with red ochre and grimly tattooed, he probably impressed
the white visitor chiefly as an example of dirt and covetousness. The
traveller might be hospitably entertained in a _pa_ the gate of which
was decorated with the smoke-dried heads of slain enemies by a host
whose dress might include a necklace of human teeth,[1] the owner of
which he had helped to eat. Though a cannibal feast was a rare orgie,
putrid food was a common dainty. Without the cringing manner of the
Oriental, the Maori had his full share of deceitfulness. Elaborate
treachery is constantly met with in the accounts of their wars. If
adultery was rare, chastity among the single women was rarer still.
The affection of parents for young children was requited by no
kindness on the part of youth for old age. Carving never rose higher
than grotesque decoration. The attempts at portraying the human face
or form resulted only in the monstrous and the obscene.

[Footnote 1: At any rate among the Ngatiporou tribe.]

[Illustration: A MAORI MAIDEN

Photo by ILES, Thames]

The Maori men are as a rule tall and bulky, long-bodied and
short-legged, and with fairly large pyramidal skulls, showing
well-developed perceptive faculties. Their colour varies from maize to
dusky olive, and their features from classic to negroid; but usually
the nose, though not flat, is wide, and the mouth, though not
blubber-lipped, is heavy and sensual. Shorter and more coarsely built
than the males, the women, even when young, are less attractive to the
European eye, despite their bright glances and black, abundant hair.
It might well be thought that this muscular, bulky race, with ample
room to spread about a fertile and exceptionally healthy country,
would have increased and multiplied till it had filled both islands.
It did not, however. It is doubtful whether it ever numbered more than
a hundred and fifty thousand. Except on the shores of Cook's Straits,
it only planted a few scattered outposts in the South Island. Yet that
is the larger island of the two. It is also the colder, and therein
lies at least one secret of the check to the Maori increase. They were
a tropical race transplanted into a temperate climate. They showed
much the same tendency to cling to the North Island as the negroes in
North America to herd in the Gulf States. Their dress, their food and
their ways were those of dwellers on shores out of reach of frost and
snow. Though of stout and robust figure, they are almost always weak
in the chest and throat. Should the Maoris die out, the medical
verdict might be summed up in the one word tuberculosis.

The first European observers noted that they suffered from "galloping"
consumption. Skin disorders, rheumatism and a severe kind of influenza
were other ailments.

In the absence equally of morality and medical knowledge among their
unmarried women, it did not take many years after the appearance of
the Whites to taint the race throughout with certain diseases. A
cold-blooded passage in Crozet's journal tells of the beginning of
this curse. Though not altogether unskilful surgeons, the Maoris knew
virtually nothing of medicine. Nor do they show much nervous power
when attacked by disease. Cheerful and sociable when in health, they
droop quickly when ill, and seem sometimes to die from sheer lack
of the will to live. Bright and imaginative almost as the Kelts of
Europe, their spirits are easily affected by superstitious dread.
Authentic cases are known of a healthy Maori giving up the ghost
through believing himself to be doomed by a wizard.

There are, however, other evil influences under which this attractive
and interesting people are fading away. Though no longer savages, they
have never become thoroughly civilized. Partial civilization has been
a blight to their national life. It has ruined the efficacy of their
tribal system without replacing it with any equal moral force and
industrial stimulus. It has deprived them of the main excitement of
their lives--their tribal wars--and given them no spur to exertion
by way of a substitute. It has fatally wounded their pride and
self-respect, and has not given them objects of ambition or preserved
their ancient habits of labour and self-restraint. A hundred years ago
the tribes were organized and disciplined communities. No family or
able-bodied unit need starve or lack shelter; the humblest could count
on the most open-handed hospitality from his fellows. The tribal
territory was the property of all. The tilling, the fishing, the
fowling were work which could not be neglected. The chief was not a
despot, but the president of a council, and in war would not be given
the command unless he was the most capable captain. Every man was a
soldier, and, under the perpetual stress of possible war, had to be a
trained, self-denying athlete. The _pas_ were, for defensive reasons,
built on the highest and therefore the healthiest positions. The
ditches, the palisades, the terraces of these forts were constructed
with great labour as well as no small skill. The fighting was hand to
hand. The wielding of their weapons--the wooden spear, the club,
the quaint _meré_[1] and the stone tomahawk--required strength and
endurance as well as a skill only to be obtained by hard practice. The
very sports and dances of the Maori were such as only the active and
vigorous could excel in. Slaves were there, but not enough to relieve
the freemen from the necessity for hard work. Strange sacred customs,
such as _tapu_ (vulgarly Anglicized as taboo) and _muru_, laughable as
they seem to us, tended to preserve public health, to ensure respect
for authority, and to prevent any undue accumulation of goods and
chattels in the hands of one man. Under the law of _muru_ a man
smitten by sudden calamity was politely plundered of all his
possessions. It was the principle under which the wounded shark is
torn to pieces by its fellows, and under which the merchant wrecked on
the Cornish coast in bye-gone days was stripped of anything the waves
had spared. Among the Maoris, however, it was at once a social duty
and a personal compliment. If a man's hut caught fire his dearest
friends clustered round like bees, rescued all they could from the
flames, and--kept it. It is on record that a party about to pay a
friendly visit to a neighbour village were upset in their canoe as
they were paddling in through the surf. The canoe was at once claimed
by the village chief--their host. Moreover they would have been
insulted if he had not claimed it. Of course, he who lost by _muru_
one week might be able to repay himself the next.

[Footnote 1: Tasman thought the meré resembled the _parang_, or heavy,
broad-bladed knife, of the Malays. Others liken it to a paddle, and
matter-of-fact colonists to a tennis-racket or a soda-water bottle
flattened.]

Certain colonial writers have exhausted their powers ridicule--no very
difficult task--upon what they inaccurately call Maori communism. But
the system, in full working order, at least developed the finest race
of savages the world has seen, and taught them barbaric virtues which
have won from their white supplanters not only respect but liking.
The average colonist regards a Mongolian with repulsion, a Negro with
contempt, and looks on an Australian black as very near to a wild
beast; but he likes the Maoris, and is sorry that they are dying out.

No doubt the remnants of the Maori tribal system are useless, and
perhaps worse than useless. The tribes still own land in common, and
much of it. They might be very wealthy landlords if they cared to
lease their estates on the best terms they could bargain for. As it
is, they receive yearly very large sums in rent. They could be rich
farmers if they cared to master the science of farming. They have
brains to learn more difficult things. They might be healthy men
and women if they would accept the teachings of sanitary science
as sincerely as they took in the religious teachings of the early
missionaries. If they could be made to realize that foul air,
insufficient dress, putrid food, alternations of feast and famine, and
long bouts of sedulous idleness are destroying them as a people and
need not do so, then their decay might be arrested and the fair hopes
of the missionary pioneers yet be justified. So long as they soak
maize in the streams until it is rotten and eat it together with dried
shark--food the merest whiff of which will make a white man sick;
so long as they will wear a suit of clothes one day and a tattered
blanket the next, and sit smoking crowded in huts, the reek of which
strikes you like a blow in the face; so long as they will cluster
round dead bodies during their _tangis_ or wakes; so long as they
will ignore drainage--just so long will they remain a blighted and
dwindling race, and observers without eyes will talk as though there
was something fateful and mysterious in their decline. One ray of hope
for them has quite lately been noted. They are caring more for the
education of their children. Some three thousand of these now go
to school, not always irregularly. Very quaint scholars are the
dark-eyed, quick-glancing, brown-skinned little people sitting tied
"to that dry drudgery at the desk's dull wood," which, if heredity
counts for anything, must be so much harder to them than to the
children of the _Pakeha_.[1] Three years ago the Government
re-organized the native schools, had the children taught sanitary
lessons with the help of magic lanterns, and gave power to committees
of native villagers to prosecute the parents of truants. The result
has been a prompt, marked and growing improvement in the attendance
and the general interest. Better still, the educated Maori youths are
awakening to the sad plight of their people. Pathetic as their regrets
are, the healthy discontent they show may lead to better things.

[Footnote 1: Foreigner.]

[Illustration]




Chapter III


THE MAORI AND THE UNSEEN

                          "Dreaming caves
  Full of the groping of bewildered waves."

The Maori mind conceived of the Universe as divided into three
regions--the Heavens above, the Earth beneath, and the Darkness under
the Earth. To Rangi, the Heaven, the privileged souls of chiefs and
priests returned after death, for from Rangi had come down their
ancestors the gods, the fathers of the heroes. For the souls of the
common people there was in prospect no such lofty and serene abode.
They could not hope to climb after death to the tenth heaven, where
dwelt Rehua, the Lord of Loving-kindness, attended by an innumerable
host. Ancient of days was Rehua, with streaming hair. The lightning
flashed from his arm-pits, great was his power, and to him the sick,
the blind, and the sorrowful might pray.

It was not the upper world of Ao or Light, but an under world of Po or
Darkness, to which the spirit of the unprivileged Maori must take its
way. Nor was the descent to Te Reinga or Hades a _facilis descensus
Averni_. After the death-chant had ceased, and the soul had left the
body--left it lying surrounded by weeping blood-relations marshalled
in due order--it started on a long journey. Among the Maoris the dead
were laid with feet pointing to the north, as it was thither that the
soul's road lay. At the extreme north end of New Zealand was a spot
_Muri Whenua_--Land's End. Here was the Spirits' Leap. To that the
soul travelled, halting once and again on the hill-tops to strip off
the green leaves in which the mourners had clad it. Here and there by
the wayside some lingering ghost would tie a knot in the ribbon-like
leaves of the flax plant--such knots as foreigners hold to be made
by the whipping of the wind. As the souls gathered at their goal,
nature's sounds were hushed. The roar of the waterfall, the sea's
dashing, the sigh of the wind in the trees, all were silenced. At the
Spirits' Leap on the verge of a tall cliff grew a lonely tree, with
brown, spreading branches, dark leaves and red flowers. The name of
the tree was Spray-Sprinkled.[1] One of its roots hung down over
the cliff's face to the mouth of a cavern fringed by much sea-weed,
floating or dripping on the heaving sea. Pausing for a moment the
reluctant shades chanted a farewell to their fellow-men and danced a
last war-dance. Amid the wild yells of the invisible dancers could be
heard the barking of their dogs. Then, sliding down the roots, the
spirits disappeared in the cave. Within its recesses was a river
flowing between sandy shores. All were impelled to cross it. The
Charon of this Styx was no man, but a ferrywoman called Rohé. Any
soul whom she carried over and who ate the food offered to it on the
further bank was doomed to abide in Hades. Any spirit who refused
returned to its body on earth and awoke. This is the meaning of what
White men call a trance.

[Footnote 1: _Pohutu-kawa_.]

As there were successive planes and heights in Heaven, so there were
depths below depths in the Underworld. In the lowest and darkest the
soul lost consciousness, became a worm, and returning to earth, died
there. Eternal life was the lot of only the select few who ascended to
Rangi.

Yet once upon a time there was going and coming between earth and the
place of darkness, as the legend of the origin of the later style of
tattooing shows. Thus the story runs. The hero Mata-ora had to wife
the beautiful Niwa Reka. One day for some slight cause he struck her,
and, leaving him in anger, she fled to her father, who dwelt in the
Underworld. Thither followed the repentant Mata-ora. On his way he
asked the fan-tail bird whether it had seen a human being pass. Yes, a
woman had gone by downcast and sobbing. Holding on his way, Mata-ora
met his father-in-law, who, looking in his face, complained that he
was badly tattooed. Passing his hand over Mata-ora's face he wiped out
with his divine power the blue lines there, and then had him thrown
down on the ground and tattooed in a novel, more artistic and
exquisitely agonizing fashion. Mata-ora in his pain chanted a song
calling upon his wife's name. Report of this was carried to Niwa Reka,
and her heart was touched. She forgave her husband, and nursed him
through the fever caused by the tattooing. Happier than Orpheus and
Eurydice, the pair returned to earth and taught men to copy the
patterns punctured on Mata-ora's face. But, alas! in their joy they
forgot to pay to Ku Whata Whata, the mysterious janitor of Hades, Niwa
Reka's cloak as fee. So a message was sent up to them that henceforth
no man should be permitted to return to earth from the place of
darkness. In the age of the heroes not only the realms below but the
realms above could be reached by the daring. Hear the tale of Tawhaki,
the Maori Endymion! When young he became famous by many feats, among
others, by destroying the submarine stronghold of a race of sea-folk
who had carried off his mother. Into their abode he let a flood of
sunshine, and they, being children of the darkness, withered and died
in the light. The fame of Tawhaki rose to the skies, and one of the
daughters of heaven stole down to behold him at night, vanishing away
at dawn. At last the celestial one became his wife. But he was not
pleased with the daughter she bore him and, wounded by his words, she
withdrew with her child to the skies. Tawhaki in his grief remembered
that she had told him the road thither. He must find a certain tendril
of a wild vine which, hanging down from the sky to earth, had become
rooted in the ground. Therefore with his brother the hero set out on
the quest, and duly found the creeper. But there were two tendrils.
The brother seized the wrong one; it was loose, and he was swung away,
whirled by the wind backwards and forwards from one horizon to the
other. Tawhaki took the right ladder, and climbed successfully.[1] At
the top he met with adventures, and had even to become a slave, and
carry axes and firewood disguised as a little, ugly, old man. At last,
however, he regained his wife, became a god, and still reigns above.
It is he who causes lightning to flash from heaven.

[Footnote 1: Another version describes his ladder as a thread from
a spider's web; a third as the string of his kite, which he flew so
skilfully that it mounted to the sky; then Tawhaki, climbing up the
cord, disappeared in the blue vault.]

The man in the moon becomes, in Maori legend, a woman, one Rona by
name. This lady, it seems, once had occasion to go by night for water
to a stream. In her hand she carried an empty calabash. Stumbling in
the dark over stones and the roots of trees she hurt her shoeless feet
and began to abuse the moon, then hidden behind clouds, hurling at
it some such epithet as "You old tattooed face, there!" But the
moon-goddess heard, and reaching down caught up the insulting Rona,
calabash and all, into the sky. In vain the frightened woman clutched,
as she rose, the tops of a ngaio-tree. The roots gave way, and Rona
with her calabash and her tree are placed in the front of the moon for
ever, an awful warning to all who are tempted to mock at divinities in
their haste.

All beings, gods, heroes and men, are sprung from the ancient union of
Heaven and Earth, Rangi and Papa. Rangi was the father and Earth the
great mother of all. Even now, in these days, the rain, the snow, the
dew and the clouds are the creative powers which come down from Rangi
to mother Earth and cause the trees, the shrubs and the plants to grow
in spring and flourish in summer. It is the self-same process that is
pictured in the sonorous hexameters:--

  "Tum pater omnipotens fecundis imbribus Aether
  Coniugis in gremium laetae descendit, et omnes
  Magnus alit, magno commixtus corpore, fetus."

But in the beginning Heaven lay close to the Earth and all was dim
and dark. There was life but not light. So their children, tired of
groping about within narrow and gloomy limits, conspired together
to force them asunder and let in the day. These were Tu, the
scarlet-belted god of men and war, Tané, the forest god, and their
brother, the sea-god. With them joined the god of cultivated food,
such as the kumara, and the god of food that grows wild--such as the
fern-root. The conspirators cut great poles with which to prop up
Heaven. But the father and mother were not to be easily separated.
They clung to each other despite the efforts of their unnatural sons.
Then Tané, the tree-god, standing on head and hands, placed his feet
against Heaven and, pushing hard, forced Rangi upwards. In that
attitude the trees, the children of Tané, remain to this day. Thus was
the separation accomplished, and Rangi and Papa must for ever remain
asunder. Yet the tears of Heaven still trickle down and fall as
dew-drops upon the face of his spouse, and the mists that rise in the
evening from her bosom are the sighs of regret which she sends up to
her husband on high.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sir George Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_.]

Vengeance, however, fell upon the conspirators. A sixth brother had
had nothing to do with their plot. This was Tawhiri-Matea, the god
of winds and storms. He loyally accompanied his father to the realms
above, whence he descended on his rebel brothers in furious tempests.
The sea-god fled to the ocean, where he and his children dwell
as fishes. The two gods of plant-food hid in the Earth, and she,
forgiving mother that she was, sheltered them in her breast. Only Tu,
the god of mankind, stayed erect and undaunted. So it is that the
winds and storms make war to this day upon men, wrecking their canoes,
tearing down their houses and fences and ruining all their handiwork.
Not only does man hold out against these attacks, but, in revenge for
the cowardly desertion of Tu by his weaker brethren, men, his people,
prey upon the fish and upon the plants that give food whether wild or
cultivated.

Space will scarcely permit even a reference to other Maori myths--to
the tale, for instance, of the great flood which came in answer to the
prayers of two faithful priests as punishment for the unbelief, the
discords and the wickedness of mankind; then all were drowned save a
little handful of men and women who floated about on a raft for eight
moons and so reached Hawaiki. Of the creation of man suffice it to say
that he was made by Tiki, who formed him out of red clay, or, as some
say, out of clay reddened by his own blood. Woman's origin was more
ethereal and poetic; her sire was a noonday sunbeam, her mother a
sylvan echo. Many are the legends of the hero, Maui. He lassooed the
sun with ropes and beat him till he had to go slower, and so the day
grew longer. The first ropes thus used were of flax, which burned and
snapped in the sun's heat. Then Maui twisted a cord of the tresses of
his sister, Ina, and this stayed unconsumed. It was Maui who went to
fetch for man's use the fire which streamed from the finger-nails of
the fire goddess, and who fished up the North Island of New Zealand,
still called by the Maoris _Te Ika a Maui_, the fish of Maui. He first
taught tattooing and the art of catching fish with bait, and died in
the endeavour to gain immortality for men. Death would have been done
away with had Maui successfully accomplished the feat of creeping
through the body of a certain gigantic goddess. But that flippant and
restless little bird, the fan-tail, was so tickled at the sight of the
hero crawling down the monster's throat that it tittered and burst
into laughter. So the goblin awoke, and Maui died for man in vain.

Such are some of the sacred myths of the Maori. They vary very greatly
in different tribes and are loaded with masses of detail largely
genealogical. The religious myths form but one portion of an immense
body of traditional lore, made up of songs and chants, genealogies,
tribal histories, fables, fairy-tales and romantic stories. Utterly
ignorant as the Maoris were of any kind of writing or picture-drawing,
the volume of their lore is amazing, and is an example of the power of
the human memory when assiduously cultivated. Very great care was,
of course, taken to hand it down from father to son in the priestly
families. In certain places in New Zealand, notably at Wanganui,
sacred colleges stood called Whare-kura (Red-house). These halls had
to be built by priestly hands, stood turned to the east, and could
only be approached by the purified. They were dedicated by sacrifice,
sometimes of a dog, sometimes of a human being. The pupils, who were
boys of high rank, went, at the time of admission, through a form
of baptism. The term of instruction lasted through the autumns and
winters of five years. The hours were from sunset to midnight. Only
one woman, an aged priestess, was admitted into the hall, and she only
to perform certain incantations. No one might eat or sleep there, and
any pupil who fell asleep during instruction was at once thrust
forth, was expected to go home and die, and doubtless usually did so.
Infinite pains were taken to impress on the pupils' memories the exact
wording of traditions. As much as a month would be devoted to constant
repetitions of a single myth. They were taught the tricks of
the priestly wizard's trade, and became expert physiognomists,
ventriloquists, and possibly, in some cases, hypnotists. Public
exhibitions afterwards tested the accuracy of their memories and
their skill in witchcraft. On this their fate depended. A successful
_Tohunga_, or wizard, lived on the fat of the land; a few failures,
and he was treated with discredit and contempt.

Though so undoubted an authority as Mr. William Colenso sums up the
old-time Maori as a secularist, it is not easy entirely to agree with
him. Not only had the Maori, as already indicated, an elaborate--too
elaborate--mythology, but he had a code of equally wide and minute
observances which he actually did observe. Not only had he many gods
both of light and evil, but the Rev. James Stack, a most experienced
student, says that he conceived of his gods as something more than
embodiments of power--as beings "interested in human affairs and able
to see and hear from the highest of the heavens what took place on
earth." Mr. Colenso himself dwells upon the Maori faith in dreams,
omens, and charms, and on the universal dread felt for _kehuas_
or ghosts, and _atuas_ or demon spirits. Moreover, the code of
observances aforesaid was no mere secular law. It was the celebrated
system of _tapu_ (taboo), and was not only one of the most
extraordinary and vigorous sets of ordinances ever devised by
barbarous man, but depended for its influence and prestige not mainly
upon the secular arm or even public opinion, but upon the injunction
and support of unseen and spiritual powers. If a man broke the _tapu_
law, his punishment was not merely to be shunned by his fellows or--in
some cases--plundered of his goods. Divine vengeance in one or other
form would swiftly fall upon him--probably in the practical shape of
the entry into his body of an evil spirit to gnaw him to death with
cruel teeth. Men whose terror of such punishment as this, and whose
vivid faith in the imminence thereof, were strong enough to kill them
were much more, or less, than secularists.

The well-known principle that there is no potent, respected, and
lasting institution, however strange, but has its roots in practical
usefulness, is amply verified in the case of _tapu_. By it authority
was ensured, dignity hedged about with respect, and property and
public health protected. Any person, place or thing laid under _tapu_
might not be touched, and sometimes not even approached. A betrothed
maiden defended by _tapu_ was as sacred as a vestal virgin of Rome; a
shrine became a Holy Place; the head of a chief something which it was
sacrilege to lay hands on. The back of a man of noble birth could not
be degraded by bearing burdens--an awkward prohibition in moments when
no slave or woman happened to be in attendance on these lordly beings.
Anything cooked for a chief was forbidden food to an inferior. The
author of _Old New Zealand_ tells of an unlucky slave who unwittingly
ate the remains of a chiefs dinner. When the knowledge of this
frightful crime was flashed upon him, he was seized with internal
cramps and pains and, though a strong man, died in a few hours. The
weapons and personal effects of a chief were, of course, sacred even
in the opinion of a thief, but _tapu_ went further. Even the fire a
chief had lit might not be used by commoners. As for priests, after
the performance of certain ceremonies they for a time had perforce to
become too sacred to feed themselves with their hands. Food would be
laid down before them and kneeling, or on all-fours like dogs, they
had to pick it up with their teeth. Perhaps their lot might be so far
mitigated that a maiden would be permitted to convey food to their
mouths on the end of a fern-stalk--a much less disagreeable process
for the eater. Growing fields of the sweet potato were sacred for
obvious reasons, as were those who were working therein. So were
burial-places and the bones of the dead. The author above-mentioned
chancing one day on a journey to pick up a human skull which had been
left exposed by a land-slide, immediately became an outcast shunned by
acquaintances, friends and his own household, as though he were a very
leper. Before he could be officially cleansed and readmitted into
decent Maori society, his clothing and furniture had to be destroyed,
and his kitchen abandoned. By such means did this--to us--ridiculous
superstition secure reverence for the dead and some avoidance of
infection. To this end the professional grave-digger and corpse-bearer
of a Maori village was _tapu_, and lived loathed and utterly apart.
Sick persons were often treated in the same way, and inasmuch as the
unlucky might be supposed to have offended the gods, the victims
of sudden and striking misfortune were treated as law-breakers and
subjected to the punishment of _Muru_ described in the last chapter.

Death in Maori eyes was not the Great Leveller, as with us. Just
as the destiny of the chief's soul was different from that of the
commoner or slave, so was the treatment of his body.

A slave's death was proverbially that of a dog, no man regarded it.
Even the ordinary free man was simply buried in the ground in a
sitting posture and forgotten. But the departure of a chief of rank
and fame, of great _mana_ or prestige, was the signal for national
mourning. With wreaths of green leaves on their heads, friends sat
round the body wailing the long-drawn cry, _Aué! Aué!_ or listening to
some funeral chant recited in his praise. Women cut themselves with
sharp sea-shells or flakes of volcanic glass till the blood ran down.
The corpse sat in state adorned with flowers and red ochre and clad in
the finest of mantles. Albatross feathers were in the warrior's
hair, his weapons were laid beside him. The onlookers joined in the
lamenting, and shed actual tears--a feat any well-bred Maori could
perform at will. Probably a huge banquet took place; then it was held
to be a truly great _tangi_. Often the wives of the departed killed
themselves in their grief, or a slave was sacrificed in his honour.
His soul was believed to mount aloft, and perhaps some star was
henceforth pointed out as his eye shining down and watching over
his tribe. The tattooed head of the dead man was usually reverently
preserved--stored away in some secret recess and brought out by the
priest to be gazed upon on high occasions. The body, placed in a
canoe-shaped coffin, was left for a time to dry on a stage or moulder
in a hollow tree. After an appointed period the bones were scraped
clean and laid away in a cavern or cleft known only to a sacred few.
They might be thrown down some dark mountain abyss or _toreré_. Such
inaccessible resting-places of famous chiefs--deep well-like pits or
tree-fringed chasms--are still pointed out to the traveller who climbs
certain New Zealand summits. But, wherever the warrior's bones were
laid, they were guarded by secrecy, by the dreaded _tapu_, and by the
jealous zeal of his people. Even now no Maori tribe will sell such
spots, and the greedy or inquisitive _Pakeha_ who profanely explores
or meddles with them does so at no small risk.

Far different was the fate of those unlucky leaders who fell in
battle, or were captured and slaughtered and devoured thereafter.
Their heads stuck upon the posts of the victor's _pa_ were targets for
ribaldry, or, in later days, might be sold to the _Pakeha_ and carried
away to be stared at as oddities. Their bones might be used for flutes
and fishing-hooks, for no fisherman was so lucky as he whose hook was
thus made; their souls were doomed to successive stages of deepening
darkness below, and at length, after reaching the lowest gulf, passed
as earth-worms to annihilation.

[Illustration]




Chapter IV


THE NAVIGATORS

  "A ship is floating on the harbour now,
  A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow.
  There is a path on the sea's azure floor,
  No keel hath ever ploughed that path before."

Nearly at the end of 1642, Tasman, a sea captain in the service of the
Dutch East India Company, sighted the western ranges of the Southern
Alps. He was four months out from Java, investigating the extent of
New Holland, and in particular its possible continuation southward as
a great Antarctic continent. He had just discovered Tasmania, and was
destined, ere returning home, to light upon Fiji and the Friendly
Islands. So true is it that the most striking discoveries are made by
men who are searching for what they never find. In clear weather the
coast of Westland is a grand spectacle, and even through the dry,
matter-of-fact entries of Tasman's log we can see that it impressed
him. He notes that the mountains seemed lifted aloft in the air. With
his two ships, the small _Heemskirk_ and tiny _Zeehan_, he began to
coast cautiously northward, looking for an opening eastward, and
noting the high, cloud-clapped, double range of mountains, and the
emptiness of the steep desolate coast, where neither smoke nor men,
ships nor boats, were to be seen. He could not guess that hidden in
this wilderness was a wealth of coal and gold as valuable as the
riches of Java. He seems to have regarded New Zealand simply as a
lofty barrier across his path, to be passed at the first chance.
Groping along, he actually turned into the wide opening which,
narrowing further east into Cook's Strait, divides the North and South
Islands. He anchored in Golden Bay; but luck was against him. First of
all the natives of the bay paddled out to view his ships, and, falling
on a boat's crew, clubbed four out of seven of the men. Tasman's
account--which I take leave to doubt--makes the attack senselessly
wanton and unprovoked.

He tells how a fleet of canoes, each carrying from thirteen to
seventeen men, hung about his vessels, and how the strongly-built,
gruff-voiced natives, with yellowish-brown skins, and with white
feathers stuck in their clubbed hair, refused all offers of
intercourse. Their attack on his boat as it was being pulled from the
_Zeehan_ to the _Heemskirk_ was furious and sudden, and the crew
seem to have been either unarmed or too panic-stricken to use their
weapons. Both ships at once opened a hot fire on the canoes, but hit
nobody. It was not until next day, when twenty-two canoes put out to
attack them, that the Dutch marksmen after much more firing succeeded
in hitting a native. On his fall the canoes retired. Satisfied with
this Tasman took no vengeance and sailed away further into the strait.
Fierce north-westerly gales checked for days his northward progress.
The strait, it may be mentioned, is still playfully termed "the
windpipe of the Pacific." One night Tasman held a council on board the
_Heemskirk_, and suggested to the officers that the tide showed that
an opening must exist to the east, for which they had better search.
But he did not persevere. When next evening the north wind died away
there came an easterly breeze, followed by a stiff southerly gale,
which made him change his mind again. So are discoveries missed.

He ran on northward, merely catching glimpses, through scud and cloud,
of the North Island. Finally, at what is now North Cape, he discerned
to his joy a free passage to the east. He made one attempt to land, in
search of water, on a little group of islands hard by, which, as it
was Epiphany, he called Three Kings, after Caspar, Melchior, and
Balthasar. But the surf was rough and a throng of natives, striding
along, shaking spears and shouting with hoarse voices, terrified his
boat's crew. He gave up the attempt and sailed away, glad, no doubt,
to leave this vague realm of storm and savages. It says something
for his judgment that amid such surroundings he saw and noted in his
log-book that the country was good. He had called it Staaten Land, on
the wild guess that it extended to the island of that name off the
coast of Terra del Fuego. Afterwards he altered the name to New
Zealand. The secretive commercial policy of the Dutch authorities
made them shroud Tasman's discoveries in mystery. It is said that his
discoveries were engraved on the map of the world which in 1648 was
cut on the stone floor of the Amsterdam Town Hall. The full text of
his log has only been quite recently published. His curt entries
dealing with the appearance of the New Zealand coast and its natives
seem usually truthful enough. The tribe which attacked his boat was
afterwards nearly exterminated by invaders from the North Island.
This would account for the almost utter absence among the Maoris of
tradition concerning his visit. It is noteworthy that he describes
the natives of Golden--or, as he named it, Murderers'--Bay as having
double-canoes. When the country was annexed, two hundred years
afterwards, the New Zealanders had forgotten how to build them.

The Dutch made no use of their Australian discoveries. They were
repelled by the heat, the drought, and the barrenness of the
north-western coasts of New Holland. For a century and a quarter after
Tasman's flying visit, New Zealand remained virtually unknown. Then
the veil was lifted once and for all. Captain James Cook, in the
_Endeavour_, sighted New Zealand in 1769. He had the time to study the
country, and the ability too. On his first voyage alone nearly six
months were devoted to it. In five visits he surveyed the coast,
described the aspect and products of the islands, and noted down a
mass of invaluable details concerning the native tribes. Every one may
not be able to perceive the literary charm which certain eulogists
have been privileged to find in Cook's admirable record of interesting
facts. But he may well seem great enough as a discoverer and observer,
to be easily able to survive a worse style--say Hawkesworth's. He
found New Zealand a line on the map, and left it an Archipelago, a
feat which many generations of her colonists will value above the
shaping of sentences. The feature of his experiences which most
strikes the reader now, is the extraordinary courage and pugnacity of
the natives. They took the _Endeavour_ for a gigantic white-winged
sea-bird, and her pinnace for a young bird. They thought the sailors
gods, and the discharge of their muskets divine thunderbolts. Yet,
when Cook and a boat's crew landed, a defiant war-chief at once
threatened the boat, and persisted until he was shot dead. Almost all
Cook's attempts to trade and converse with the Maoris ended in the
same way--a scuffle and a musket-shot. Yet the savages were never
cowed, and came again. They were shot for the smallest thefts. Once
Cook fired on the crew of a canoe merely for refusing to stop and
answer questions about their habits and customs, and killed four of
them--an act of which he calmly notes that he himself could not, on
reflection, approve. On the other hand he insisted on discipline, and
flogged his sailors for robbing native plantations. For that age he
was singularly humane, and so prudent that he did not lose a man on
his first and most troubled visit to New Zealand. During this voyage
he killed ten Maoris. Later intercourse was much more peaceful, though
Captain Furneaux, of Cook's consort, the _Adventure_, less lucky, or
less cautious, lost an entire boat's crew, killed and eaten.

Cook himself was always able to get wood and water for his ships, and
to carry on his surveys with such accuracy and deliberation that they
remained the standard authority on the outlines of the islands for
some seventy years. He took possession of the country in the name of
George the Third. Some of its coast-names still recall incidents of
his patient voyaging. "Young Nick's Head" is the point which the boy
Nicholas Young sighted on the 6th of October, 1769--the first bit of
New Zealand seen by English eyes. At Cape Runaway the Maoris, after
threatening an attack, ran away from a discharge of firearms. At Cape
Kidnappers they tried to carry off Cook's Tahitian boy in one of
their canoes. A volley, which killed a Maori, made them let go their
captive, who dived into the sea and swam back to the _Endeavour_ half
crazed with excitement at his narrow escape from a New Zealand oven.
The odd name of the very fertile district of Poverty Bay reminds us
that Cook failed to get there the supplies he obtained at the Bay of
Plenty. At Goose Cove he turned five geese ashore; at Mercury Bay he
did astronomical work. On the other hand, Capes North, South, East,
and West, and Capes Brett, Saunders, Stephens, and Jackson, Rock's
Point, and Black Head are neither quaint nor romantic names. Cascade
Point and the Bay of Islands justify themselves, and Banks' Peninsula
may be accepted for Sir Joseph's sake. But it could be wished that
the great sailor had spared a certain charming haven from the name of
Hicks's Bay, and had not rechristened the majestic cone of Taranaki as
a compliment to the Earl of Egmont.

He gave the natives seed potatoes and the seeds of cabbages and
turnips. The potatoes were cultivated with care and success. One tribe
had sufficient self-control not to eat any for three years; then they
had abundance. Gradually the potato superseded amongst them the taro
and fern-root, and even to some extent the kumara. The cabbages and
turnips were allowed to run wild, and in that state were still found
flourishing fifty years afterwards. The Maoris of Poverty Bay had a
story that Cook gave to one of their chiefs a musket with a supply of
powder and lead. The fate of the musket was that the first man to fire
it was so frightened by the report and recoil that he flung it away
into the sea. The powder the natives sowed in the ground believing it
to be cabbage seed. Of the lead they made an axe, and when the axe
bent at the first blow they put it in the fire to harden it. When it
then ran about like water they tried to guide it out of the fire with
sticks. But it broke in pieces, and they gave up the attempt. With
better results Cook turned fowls and pigs loose to furnish the
islanders with flesh-meat. To this day the wild pigs which the
settlers shoot and spear in the forests and mountain valleys, are
called after Captain Cook, and furnish many a solitary shepherd and
farmer with a much more wholesome meal than they would get from "tame"
pork. The Maoris who boarded Cook's ships thought at first that pork
was whale's flesh. They said the salt meat nipped their throats,
which need not surprise us when we remember what the salt junk of
an eighteenth century man-of-war was like. They ate ship's biscuit
greedily, though at first sight they took it for an uncanny kind of
pumice-stone. But in those days they turned with loathing from wine
and spirits--as least Crozet says so.

What Captain Cook thought of the Maori is a common-place of New
Zealand literature. Every maker of books gives a version of his notes.
What the Maori thought of Captain Cook is not so widely known. Yet it
is just as interesting, and happily the picture of the great navigator
as he appeared to the savages has been preserved for us. Among the
tribe living at Mercury Bay when the _Endeavour_ put in there was a
boy--a little fellow of about eight years old, but possessing the
name of Horeta Taniwha (Red-smeared Dragon)--no less. The child lived
through all the changes and chances of Maori life and warfare to more
than ninety years of age. In his extreme old age he would still tell
of how he saw Kapene Kuku--Captain Cook. Once he told his story to
Governor Wynyard, who had it promptly taken down. Another version is
also printed in one of Mr. John White's volumes.[1] The two do not
differ in any important particular. The amazing apparition of the huge
white-winged ship with its crew of goblins, and what they said, and
what they did, and how they looked, had remained clearly photographed
upon the retina of Taniwha's mind's-eye for three-quarters of a
century. From his youth up he had, of course, proudly repeated the
story. A more delightful child's narrative it would be hard to find.

[Footnote 1: _Ancient History of the Maori_, vol. v., p. 128.]

The people at Mercury Bay knew at once, says Taniwha, that the English
were goblins, because a boat's crew pulled ashore, rowing with their
backs to the land. Only goblins have eyes in the backs of their heads.
When these creatures stepped on to the beach all the natives retreated
and the children ran into the bush. But seeing that the wondrous
beings walked peaceably about picking up stones and grasses and
finally eating oysters, they said to each other, "Perhaps these
goblins are not like our Maori goblins," and, taking courage, offered
them sweet potatoes, and even lit a fire and roasted cockles for them.
When one of the strangers pointed a walking-staff he had in his hand
at a cormorant sitting on a dead tree, and there was a flash of
lightning and a clap of thunder, followed by the cormorant's fall
there was another stampede into the bush. But the goblins laughed so
good-humouredly that the children took heart to return and look at the
fallen bird. Yes, it was dead; but what had killed it? and still the
wonder grew!

The _Endeavour_ lay in the bay for some time, and a brisk trade grew
up between ship and shore. On one great, never-to-be-forgotten day
little Taniwha and some of his play-fellows were taken out in a canoe
and went on board the magic ship. Wrapped in their flax cloaks they
sat close together on the deck, not daring to move about for fear they
might be bewitched in some dark corner, and so might never be able
to go away and get home again. But their sharp brown eyes noted
everything. They easily made out the leader of the goblins. He was a
_tino tangata_ (a very man--emphatically a man). Grave and dignified,
he walked about saying few words, while the other goblins chatted
freely. Presently the goblin-captain came up to the boys and, after
patting their heads and stroking their cloaks, produced a large nail
and held it up before them temptingly. The other youngsters sat
motionless, awe-struck. But the bolder Taniwha laughed cheerfully and
was at once presented with the prize. The children forthwith agreed
amongst themselves that Cook was not only a _tino tangata_, but
a _tino rangatira_--a combination of a great chief and a perfect
gentleman. How otherwise could he be so kind to them, and so fond of
children, argued these youthful sages?

Then they saw the captain draw black marks on the quarter-deck and
make a speech to the natives, pointing towards the coast. "The goblins
want to know the shape of the country," said a quick-witted old chief,
and, rising up, he drew with charcoal a map of The Fish of Maui, from
the Glittering Lake at the extreme south to Land's End in the far
north. Then, seeing that the goblins did not understand that the
Land's End was the spot from which the spirits of the dead slid down
to the shades below, the old chief laid himself down stiffly on the
deck and closed his eyes. But still the goblins did not comprehend;
they only looked at each other and spoke in their hard, hissing
speech. After this little Taniwha went on shore, bearing with him his
precious nail. He kept it for years, using it in turns as a spear-head
and an auger, or carrying it slung round his neck as a sacred
charm.[1] But one day, when out in a canoe, he was capsized in the
breakers off a certain islet and, to use his own words, "my god was
lost to me, though I dived for it."

[Footnote 1: _Heitiki_.]

Taniwha describes how a thief was shot by Lieutenant Gore for stealing
a piece of calico. The thief offered to sell a dog-skin cloak, but
when the calico was handed down over the bulwarks into his canoe which
was alongside the _Endeavour_, he simply took it, gave nothing in
return, and told his comrades to paddle to land.

  "They paddled away. The goblin went down into the hold of
  the ship, but soon came up with a walking-stick in his hand, and
  pointed it at the canoe. Thunder pealed and lightning flashed,
  but those in the canoe paddled on. Then they landed; eight rose
  to leave the canoe, but the thief sat still with his dog-skin mat and
  the goblin's garment under his feet. His companions called him,
  but he did not answer. One of them shook him and the thief fell
  back into the hold of the canoe, and blood was seen on his clothing
  and a hole in his back."

What followed was a capital example of the Maori doctrine of _utu_,
or compensation, the cause of so many wars and vendettas. The tribe
decided that as the thief had stolen the calico, his death ought not
to be avenged, but that as he had paid for it with his life _he_
should keep it. So it was buried with him.

The French were but a few months behind the English in the discovery
of New Zealand. The ship of their captain, De Surville, just
missed meeting Cook at the Bay of Islands. There the French made a
fortnight's stay, and were well treated by the chief, Kinui, who acted
with particular kindness to certain sick sailors put on shore to
recover. Unfortunately one of De Surville's boats was stolen, and in
return he not only burnt the nearest village and a number of canoes,
but kidnapped the innocent Kinui, who pined away on shipboard and died
off the South American coast a few days before De Surville himself was
drowned in the surf in trying to land at Callao.

For this rough-handed and unjust act certain of De Surville's
countrymen were destined to pay dearly. Between two and three years
afterwards, two French exploring vessels under the command of Marion
du Fresne entered the Bay of Islands. They were in want of masts and
spars, of wood and water, and had many men down with sickness.
The expedition was on the look-out for that dream of so many
geographers--the great south continent. Marion was a tried seaman, a
man of wealth and education, and of an adventurous spirit. It is to
Crozet, one of his officers, that we owe the story of his fate. Thanks
probably to the Abbé Rochon, who edited Crozet's papers, the narrative
is clear, pithy, and business-like: an agreeable contrast to the
Hawkesworth-Cook-Banks motley, so much more familiar to most of us.

For nearly five weeks after Marion's ships anchored in the bay all
went merry as a marriage bell, though the relations of the French tars
with the Maori _wahiné_ were not in the strict sense matrimonial. The
Maoris, at first cautious, soon became the best of friends with the
sailors, conveying shooting parties about the country, supplying
the ships with fish, and showing themselves expert traders, keenly
appreciative of the value of the smallest scrap of iron, to say
nothing of tools. Through all their friendly intercourse, however,
it was ominous that they breathed no word of Cook or De Surville.
Moreover, a day came on which one of them stole Marion's sword. Crozet
goes out of his way to describe how the kindly captain refused to put
the thief in irons, though the man's own chief asked that it should be
done. But it leaks out--from the statement of another officer--that
the thief was put in irons. We may believe that he was flogged also.

[Illustration: STERN OF CANOE]

Crozet marked the physical strength of the Maori, and was particularly
struck with the lightness of the complexions of some, and the European
cast of their features. One young man and a young girl were as white
as the French themselves. Others were nearly black, with frizzled
hair, and showed, he thought, Papuan blood. To the Frenchman's eye the
women seemed coarse and clumsy beside the men. He was acute enough to
notice that the whole population seemed to be found by the sea-shore;
though he often looked from high hill-tops he saw no villages in the
interior. Children seemed few in number, the cultivations small, and
the whole race plainly lived in an incessant state of war. He admired
the skilful construction of the stockades, the cleanliness of the
_pas_, the orderly magazines of food and fishing gear, and the
armouries where the weapons of stone and wood were ranged in precise
order. He praises the canoes and carving--save the hideous attempts
at copying the human form. In short he gives one of the most valuable
pictures of Maori life in its entirely primitive stage.

A camp on shore was established for the invalids and another for the
party engaged in cutting down the tall kauri pines for masts. Crozet
calls the kauri trees cedars, and is full of praises of their size and
quality. He was the officer in charge of the woodcutters. On the 13th
June he saw marching towards his camp a detachment from the ship fully
armed and with the sun flashing on their fixed bayonets. At once it
occurred to him that something must be amiss--otherwise why fixed
bayonets? Going forward, Crozet bade the detachment halt, and quietly
asked what was the matter. The news was indeed grave. On the day
before M. Marion with a party of officers and men, seventeen strong,
had gone on shore and had not been seen since. No anxiety was felt
about them until morning; the French had often spent the night at
one or other of the _pas_. But in the morning a terrible thing had
happened. A long-boat had been sent ashore at 7 a.m. for wood and
water. Two hours later a solitary sailor with two spear-wounds in his
side swam back to his ship. Though badly hurt he was able to tell
his story. The Maoris on the beach had welcomed the boat's crew as
usual--even carrying them pick-a-back through the surf. No sooner were
they ashore and separated than each was surrounded and speared or
tomahawked. Eleven were thus killed and savagely hacked to pieces. The
sole survivor had fought his way into the scrub and escaped unnoticed.

Crozet promptly dismantled his station, burying and burning all that
could not be carried away, and marched his men to the boats. The
natives met them on the way, yelling, dancing, and shouting that their
chief had killed Marion. Arrived at the boats, Crozet says that he
drew a line along the sand and called to a chief that any native who
crossed it would be shot. The chief, he declares, quietly told the
mob, who at once, to the number of a thousand, sat down on the ground
and watched the French embark. No sooner had the boats pushed out than
the natives in an access of fury began to hurl javelins and stones
and rushed after them into the water. Pausing within easy range, the
French opened fire with deadly effect and continued to kill till
Crozet, wearying of the slaughter, told the oarsmen to pull on. He
asks us to believe that the Maoris did not understand the effect of
musketry, and yet stood obstinately to be butchered, crying out and
wondering over the bodies of their fallen.

The French next set to work to bring off their sick shipmates from
their camp. Strange to say they had not been attacked, though the
natives had been prowling round them.

Thereafter a village on an islet close by the ship's anchorage was
stormed with much slaughter of the inhabitants. Fifty were slain and
the bodies buried with one hand sticking out of the ground to show
that the French did not eat enemies. Next the ship's guns were tried
on canoes in the bay. One was cut in two by a round shot and several
of her paddle-men killed.

A day or two later the officers recovered sufficient confidence to
send a party to attack the village where their captain had presumably
been murdered. The Maoris fled. But Marion's boat-cloak was seen
on the shoulders of their chief, and in the huts were found more
clothing--blood-stained--and fragments of human flesh.

The ships were hurriedly got ready for sea. The beautiful "cedar"
masts were abandoned, and jury-masts set up instead. Wood and water
were taken in, and the expedition sailed for Manila, turning its back
upon the quest of the great southern continent. Meanwhile the Maoris
had taken refuge in the hills, whence the cries of their sentinels
could be heard by day and their signal fires be descried by night.

Crozet moralizes on the malignant and unprovoked treachery of these
savages. He pours out his contempt on the Parisian _philosophes_ who
idealized primitive man and natural virtue. For his part he would
rather meet a lion or a tiger, for then he would know what to do! But
there is another side to the story. The memory of the _Wi-Wi_,[1] "the
bloody tribe of Marion," lingered long in the Bay of Islands. Fifty
years after Captain Cruise was told by the Maoris how Marion had
been killed for burning their villages. Thirty years later still,
Surgeon-Major Thomson heard natives relating round a fire how the
French had broken into their _tapu_ sanctuaries and put their chiefs
in irons. And then there were the deeds of De Surville. Apart from
certain odd features in Crozet's narrative, it may be remarked that he
errs in making the Maoris act quite causelessly. The Maori code was
strange and fantastic, but a tribal vendetta always had a reason.

[Footnote 1: _Out-Out_.]

Thus did the Dutch, English, and French in succession discover New
Zealand, and forthwith come into conflict with its dauntless and
ferocious natives. The skill and moderation of Cook may be judged by
comparing his success with the episodes of De Surville's roughness and
the troubles which befel Tasman, Furneaux, and Marion du Fresne. Or we
may please ourselves by contrasting English persistency and harsh
but not unjust dealing, with Dutch over-cautiousness and French
carelessness and cruelty. One after the other the Navigators revealed
the islands to the world, and began at the same time that series
of deeds of blood and reprisal which made the name of New Zealand
notorious for generations, and only ended with the massacre of Poverty
Bay a long century afterwards.

[Illustration]




Chapter V


NO MAN'S LAND

"The wild justice of revenge."

The Maoris told Cook that, years before the _Endeavour_ first entered
Poverty Bay, a ship had visited the northern side of Cook's Strait and
stayed there some time, and that a half-caste son of the captain was
still living. In one of his later voyages, the navigator was informed
that a European vessel had lately been wrecked near the same part of
the country, and that the crew, who reached the shore, had all been
clubbed after a desperate resistance. It is likely enough that many a
roving mariner who touched at the islands never informed the world of
his doings, and had, indeed, sometimes excellent reasons for secrecy.
Still, for many years after the misadventure of Marion du Fresne, the
more prudent Pacific skippers gave New Zealand a wide berth. When
D'Entrecasteaux, the French explorer, in his voyage in search of the
ill-fated _La Perouse_, lay off the coast in 1793, he would not even
let a naturalist, who was on one of his frigates, land to have a
glimpse of the novel flora of the wild and unknown land. Captain
Vancouver, in 1791, took shelter in Dusky Bay, in the sounds of
the South Island. Cook had named an unsurveyed part of that region
Nobody-Knows-What. Vancouver surveyed it and gave it its present name,
Somebody-Knows-What. But the chief act for which his name is noted in
New Zealand history is his connection with the carrying off of two
young Maoris--a chief and a priest--to teach the convicts of the
Norfolk Island penal settlement how to dress flax. Vancouver had been
asked by the Lieutenant-Governor of Norfolk Island to induce two
Maoris to make the voyage. He therefore sent an officer in a
Government storeship to New Zealand, whose notion of inducement was to
seize the first Maoris he could lay hands on. The two captives, it
may be mentioned, scornfully refused to admit any knowledge of the
"woman's work" of flax-dressing. Soothed by Lieutenant-Governor King,
they were safely restored by him to their people loaded with presents.
When in Norfolk Island, one of them, at King's request, drew a map of
New Zealand, which is of interest as showing how very little of his
country a Maori of average intelligence then knew. Of even more
interest to us is it to remember that the kindly Lieutenant-Governor's
superior officer censured him for wasting time--ten whole days--in
taking two savages back to their homes.

For two generations after Cook the English Government paid no
attention to the new-found land. What with losing America, and
fighting the French, it had its hands full. It colonized Australia
with convicts--and found it a costly and dubious experiment. The
Government was well satisfied to ignore New Zealand. But adventurous
English spirits were not The islands ceased to be inaccessible when
Sydney became an English port, from which ships could with a fair wind
make the Bay of Islands in eight or ten days. In the seas round New
Zealand were found the whale and the fur-seal. The Maoris might be
cannibals, but they were eager to trade. In their forests grew trees
capable of supplying first-class masts and spars. Strange weapons,
ornaments, and cloaks, were offered by the savages, as well as food
and the dressed fibre of the native flax. An axe worth ten shillings
would buy three spars worth ten pounds in Sydney. A tenpenny nail
would purchase a large fish. A musket and a little powder and lead
were worth a ton of scraped flax. Baskets of potatoes would be brought
down and ranged on the sea-beach three deep. The white trader would
then stretch out enough calico to cover them. The strip was their
price. The Maoris loved the higgling of the market, and would enjoy
nothing better than to spend half a day over bartering away a single
pig. Moreover, a peculiar and profitable, if ghastly, trade sprang up
in tattooed heads. A well-preserved specimen fetched as much as twenty
pounds, and a man "with a good head on his shoulders" was consequently
worth that sum to any one who could kill him. Contracts for the sale
of heads of men still living are said to have been entered into
between chiefs and traders, and the heads to have been duly delivered
"as per agreement." Hitherto hung up as trophies of victory in the
_pas_, these relics of battle were quickly turned to account, at first
for iron, then for muskets, powder, and lead. When the natural supply
of heads of slain enemies ran short, slaves, who had hitherto never
been allowed the aristocratic privilege and dignity of being tattooed,
had their faces prepared for the market. Sometimes, it is recorded, a
slave, after months of painful preparation, had the audacity to run
away with his own head before the day of sale and decapitation. Astute
vendors occasionally tried the more merciful plan of tattooing "plain"
heads after death in ordinary course of battle. But this was a species
of fraud, as the lines soon became indistinct. Such heads have often
been indignantly pointed at by enthusiastic connoisseurs. Head-sellers
at times would come forward in the most unlikely places. Commodore
Wilkes, when exploring in the American _Vincennes_, bought two heads
from the steward of a missionary brig. It was missionary effort,
however, which at length killed the traffic, and the art of tattooing
along with it. Moved thereby, Governor Darling issued at Sydney, in
1831, proclamations imposing a fine of forty pounds upon any one
convicted of head-trading, coupled with the exposure of the offender's
name. Moreover, he took active steps to enforce the prohibition. When
Charles Darwin visited the mission station near the Bay of Islands
in 1835, the missionaries confessed to him that they had grown so
accustomed to associate tattooing with rank and dignity--had so
absorbed the Maori social code relating thereto--that an unmarked face
seemed to them vulgar and mean. Nevertheless, their influence led the
way in discountenancing the art, and it has so entirely died out that
there is probably not a completely tattooed Maori head on living
shoulders to-day.

Cook had found the Maoris still in the Stone Age. They were far too
intelligent to stay there a day after the use of metals had been
demonstrated to them. Wits much less acute than a Maori's would
appreciate the difference between hacking at hardwood trees with a
jade tomahawk, and cutting them down with a European axe. So New
Zealand's shores became, very early in this century, the favourite
haunt of whalers, sealers, and nondescript trading schooners.
Deserters and ship-wrecked seamen were adopted by the tribes. An
occasional runaway convict from Australia added spice to the mixture.

The lot of these unacknowledged and unofficial pioneers of our race
was chequered. Some castaways were promptly knocked on the head and
eaten. Some suffered in slavery. In 1815 two pale, wretched-looking
men, naked, save for flax mats tied round their waists threw
themselves on the protection of the captain of the _Active_, then
lying in the Bay of Islands. It appeared that both had been convicts
who had got away from Sydney as stowaways in a ship bound for New
Zealand, the captain of which, on arrival, had handed them over to the
missionaries to be returned to New South Wales. The men, however, ran
away into the country, believing that the natives would reverence them
as superior beings and maintain them in comfortable idleness. They
were at once made slaves of. Had they been strong, handy agricultural
labourers, their lot would have been easy enough. Unfortunately for
them, one had been a London tailor, the other a shoemaker, and the
luckless pair of feeble Cockneys could be of little use to their
taskmasters. These led them such a life that they tried running away
once more, and lived for a time in a cave, subsisting chiefly on
fern-root. A period of this diet, joined to their ever-present fear
of being found out and killed, drove them back to Maori slavery. From
this they finally escaped to the _Active_--more like walking spectres
than men, says an eye-witness--and resigned, if needs must, to endure
once more the tender mercies of convict life in Botany Bay.

More valuable whites were admitted into the tribes, and married to
one, sometimes two or three, wives. The relatives of these last
occasionally resorted to an effectual method of securing their
fidelity by tattooing them. One of them, John Rutherford, survived and
describes the process. But as he claims to have had his face and part
of his body thoroughly tattooed in four hours, his story is but one
proof amongst a multitude that veracity was not a needful part of the
equipment of the New Zealand adventurer of the Alsatian epoch. Once
enlisted, the _Pakehas_ were expected to distinguish themselves in the
incessant tribal wars. Most of them took their share of fighting with
gusto. As trade between whites and Maoris grew, each tribe made a
point of having a white agent-general, called their _Pakeha_ Maori
(Foreigner Maorified), to conduct their trade and business with his
fellows. He was the tribe's vassal, whom they petted and plundered as
the mood led them, but whom they protected against outsiders. These
gentry were for the most part admirably qualified to spread the vices
of civilization and discredit its precepts. But, illiterate ruffians
as most of them were, they had their uses in aiding peaceful
intercourse between the races. Some, too, were not illiterate. A
Shakespeare and a Lemprière were once found in the possession of a
chief in the wildest part of the interior. They had belonged to his
_Pakeha_ long since dead. Elsewhere a tattered prayer-book was shown
as the only relic of another. One of the kind, Maning by name, who
lived with a tribe on the beautiful inlet of Hokianga, will always be
known as _the_ Pakeha Maori. He was an Irish adventurer, possessed not
only of uncommon courage and acuteness, but of real literary talent
and a genial and charming humour. He lived to see savagery replaced by
colonization, and to become a judicial officer in the service of the
Queen's Government. Some of his reminiscences, embodied in a volume
entitled _Old New Zealand_, still form the best book which the Colony
has been able to produce. Nowhere have the comedy and childishness of
savage life been so delightfully portrayed. Nowhere else do we get
such an insight into that strange medley of contradictions and
caprices, the Maori's mind.

We have already seen that a lieutenant in Her Majesty's service
thought it no crime in 1793 to kidnap two chiefs in order to save a
little trouble. We have seen how Cook shot natives for refusing to
answer questions, and how De Surville could seize and sail away with a
friendly chief because some one else had stolen his boat. When in
1794 that high and distinguished body, the East India Company, sent
a well-armed "snow" to the Hauraki gulf for kauri spars she did not
leave until her captain had killed his quota of natives,--two men and
a woman,--shot, because, forsooth, some axes had been stolen. If such
were the doings of officials, it came as a matter of course that the
hard-handed merchant-skippers who in brigs and schooners hung round
the coasts of the Islands thought little of carrying off men or women.
They would turn their victims adrift in Australia or on some South Sea
islet, as their humour moved them. With even more cruel callousness,
they would sometimes put Maoris carried off from one tribe on shore
amongst another and maybe hostile tribe. Slavery was the best fate
such unfortunates could expect. On one occasion the missionaries in
the Bay of Islands rescued from bondage twelve who had in this fashion
been thrown amongst their sworn enemies. Their only offence was that
they had happened to be trading on board a brig in their own port when
a fair wind sprang up. The rascal in command carried them off rather
than waste any of the wind by sending them on shore.

An even more heartless piece of brutality was the conduct of a certain
captain from Sydney, who took away with him the niece of a Bay of
Islands chief, and after living with her for months abandoned her on
shore in the Bay of Plenty, where she was first enslaved and finally
killed and eaten by the local chief. The result was a bitter tribal
war in which she was amply avenged.

Another skipper, after picking up a number of freshly-cured tattooed
heads, the fruit of a recent tribal battle, put into the bay of the
very tribe which had been beaten in the fighting. When a number of
natives came on board to trade, he thought it a capital joke--after
business was over--to roll out on the deck a sackful of the heads of
their slain kinsfolk. Recognising the features, the insulted Maoris
sprang overboard with tears and cries of rage.

[Illustration: MAORI WAHINÉ

Photo by GENERAL ROBLEY.]

A third worthy, whilst trading in the Bay of Islands, missed some
articles on board his schooner. He at once had the chief Koro Koro,
who happened to be on board, seized and bound hand and foot in the
cabin. Koro Koro, who was noted both for strength and hot temper,P
Land. They were varied by tragedies on a larger scale. In 1809 the
_Boyd_, a ship of 500 tons--John Thompson, master--had discharged a
shipload of English convicts in Sydney. The captain decided to take in
a cargo of timber in New Zealand, and accordingly sailed to Whangaroa,
a romantic inlet to the north of the Bay of Islands. Amongst the crew
were several Maoris. One of these, known as George, was a young chief,
though serving before the mast. During the voyage he was twice flogged
for refusing to work on the plea of illness. The captain added insult
to the stripes by the words, "You are no chief!" The sting of this lay
in the sacredness attached by Maori custom to a chief's person, which
was _tapu_--_i.e._ a thing not to be touched. George--according to his
own account[1]--merely replied that when they reached New Zealand the
captain would see that he was a chief. But he vowed vengeance, and on
reaching Whangaroa showed his stripes to his kinsfolk, as Boadicea
hers to the Britons of old. The tribesmen, with the craft of which the
apparently frank and cheerful Maori has so ample a share, quietly laid
their plans. The captain was welcomed. To divide their foes, the Maori
beguiled him and a party of sailors into the forest, where they killed
them all. Then, dressing themselves in the clothes of the dead, the
slayers made off to the _Boyd_. Easily coming alongside in their
disguises, they leaped on the decks and massacred crew and passengers
without pity. George himself clubbed half a dozen, who threw
themselves at his feet begging for mercy. Yet even in his fury he
spared a ship's boy who had been kind to him, and who ran to him
for protection, and a woman and two girl-children. All four were
afterwards rescued by Mr. Berry, of Sydney, and took refuge with a
friendly neighbouring chief, Te Pehi. Meanwhile, the _Boyd_ had been
stripped and burned. In the orgie that followed George's father
snapped a flint-lock musket over a barrel of gunpowder, and, with the
followers round him, was blown to pieces. Nigh seventy lives were lost
in the _Boyd_ massacre. Of course the slain were eaten.

[Footnote 1: As given by him to J.L. Nicholas five years afterwards.
See Nicholas' _Voyage to New Zealand_, vol. i., page 145. There are
those who believe the story of the flogging to be an invention of
George. Their authority is Mr. White, a Wesleyan missionary who lived
at Whangaroa from 1823 to 1827, and to whom the natives are said to
have admitted this. But that must have been, at least, fourteen years
after the massacre, and George was by that time at odds with many of
his own people. He died in 1825. His last hours were disturbed by
remorse arising from an incident in the _Boyd_ affair. He had not, he
thought, properly avenged the death of his father--blown up by the
powder-barrel. Such was the Maori conscience.]

Then ensued a tragedy of errors. The captains of certain whalers lying
in the Bay of Islands, hearing that the survivors of the _Boyd_ were
at Te Pehi's village, concluded that that kindly chief was a partner
in the massacre. Organizing a night attack, the whalers destroyed
the village and its guiltless owners. The unlucky Te Pehi, fleeing
wounded, fell into the hands of some of George's people, who,
regarding him as a sympathiser with the whites, made an end of him.
Finally, to avenge him, some of the survivors of his tribe afterwards
killed and ate three seamen who had had nothing to do with any stage
of the miserable drama.

Less well known than the fate of the _Boyd_ is the cutting-off of the
brig _Hawes_ in the Bay of Plenty in 1829. It is worth relating, if
only because it shows that the Maoris were not always the provoked
party in these affairs, and that, moreover, vengeance, even in No
Man's Land, did not always fall only on the guiltless. In exchange for
fire-arms and gunpowder the captain had filled his brig with flax and
pigs. He had sailed out to Whale Island in the Bay, and by a boiling
spring on the islet's beach was engaged with some of his men in
killing and scalding the pigs and converting them into salt pork.
Suddenly the amazed trader saw the canoes of his friendly customers
of the week before, headed by their chief "Lizard," sweep round and
attack the _Hawes_. The seamen, still on board, ran up the rigging,
where they were shot. The captain, with those on the islet, rowed away
for their lives. The brig was gutted and burnt. The Maoris, perplexed
by finding a number of bags of the unknown substance flour, emptied
the contents into the sea, keeping the bags.[1]

[Footnote 1: Judge Wilson's _Story of Te Waharoa_.]

Certain white traders in the Bay of Islands resolved to bring "Lizard"
to justice, in other words to shoot him. They commissioned a schooner,
the _New Zealander_, to go down to the scene of the outrage. A
friendly Bay of Islands chief offered to do the rest. He went with the
schooner. On its arrival the unsuspecting "Lizard" came off to trade.
At the end of a friendly visit he was stepping into his canoe when his
unofficially appointed executioner stepped quietly forward, levelled
his double-barrelled gun, and shot "Lizard" dead.

As a matter of course the affair did not end there: "Lizard's" tribe
were bound in honour to retaliate. But upon whom? The _Pakehas_ who
had caused their chiefs death were far out of reach in the north.
Still they were not the only _Pakehas_ in the land. In quite a
different direction, in the harbour which Captain Cook had dubbed
Hicks's Bay, lived two inoffensive Whites who had not even heard of
"Lizard's" death. What of that? They were Whites, and therefore of the
same tribe as the _Pakehas_ concerned! So the village in which they
lived was stormed, one White killed at once, the other captured.
As the latter stood awaiting execution and consumption, by an
extraordinary stroke of fortune a whaling ship ran into the bay.
The adroit captive offered, if his life were spared, to decoy his
countrymen on shore, so that they could be massacred. The bargain was
cheerfully struck; and when an armed boat's crew came rowing to land,
the _Pakeha_, escorted to the seaside by a murderous and expectant
throng, stood on a rock and addressed the seamen in English. What
he told them to do, however, was to get ready and shoot his captors
directly he dived from the rock into the water. Accordingly his plunge
was followed by a volley. The survivors of the outwitted Maoris turned
and fled, and the clever _Pakeha_ was picked up and carried safely on
board.

At that time there was living among "Lizard's" people a certain Maori
from the Bay of Islands. This man, a greedy and mischievous fellow,
had instigated "Lizard" to cut off the _Hawes_. This became known, and
Waka Néné, a Bay of Islands chief, destined to become famous in New
Zealand history, punished his rascally fellow-tribesman in a very
gallant way. On a visit to the Bay of Plenty he bearded the man
sitting unsuspecting among his partners in the piracy, and, after
fiercely upbraiding him, shot him dead. Nor did any present venture to
touch Waka Néné.

The South Island had its share of outrages. On December 12, 1817, the
brig _Sophia_ anchored in Otago Harbour. Kelly, her captain, was a man
of strength and courage, who had gained some note by sailing round
Tasmania in an open boat. He now had use for these qualities. The day
after arrival he rowed with six men to a small native village outside
the harbour heads, at a spot still called Murdering Beach. Landing
there, he began to bargain with the Maoris for a supply of potatoes. A
Lascar sailor, who was living with the savages, acted as interpreter.
The natives thronged round the seamen. Suddenly there was a yell, and
they rushed upon the whites, of whom two were killed at once. Kelly,
cutting his way through with a bill-hook he had in his hand, reached
the boat and pushed out from the beach. Looking back, he saw one of
his men (his brother-in-law, Tucker) struggling with the mob. The
unhappy man had but time to cry, "Captain Kelly, for God's sake don't
leave me!" when he was knocked down in the surf, and hacked to death.
Another seaman was reeling in the boat desperately wounded. Kelly
himself was speared through one hand.

The survivors regained their ship. She was swarming with natives, who
soon learned what had happened and became wildly excited. Kelly drew
his men aft and formed them into a solid body. When the Maoris, headed
by their chief Karaka--Kelly spells it Corockar--rushed at them, the
seamen beat them off, using their large sealing-knives with such
effect that they killed sixteen, and cleared the decks. The remaining
natives jumped overboard. A number were swept away by the ebb-tide and
drowned. Next day the crew, now only fourteen in number, repulsed an
attempt made in canoes to take the vessel by boarding, and killed
Karaka. Emboldened by this, they afterwards made an expedition to the
shore and cut up or stove in all their enemies' canoes lying on the
beach. This was on Christmas Eve. On Boxing Day they landed and burnt
the principal native village, which Kelly calls the "beautiful city of
Otago of about six hundred fine houses"--not the only bit of patent
exaggeration in his story. Then they sailed away.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Transactions New Zealand Institute_, vol. xxviii.]

What prompted the attack at Murdering Beach is uncertain--like so much
that used to happen in No Man's Land. It is said that Tucker had been
to Otago some years previously and had stolen a baked head from the
Maoris. It is hinted that an encounter had taken place on the coast
not long before in which natives had been shot and a boat's crew cut
off. As of most occurrences of the time, we can only suspect that
lesser crimes which remained hidden led to the greater, which are more
or less truthfully recorded.

[Illustration]




Chapter VI


MISSION SCHOONER AND WHALE BOAT

  "Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy."--_Text of Samuel
  Marsden's first sermon at the Bay of Islands, Christmas Day_, 1814.

Maoris, shipping before the mast on board whalers and traders, made
some of the best seamen on the Pacific. They visited Sydney and
other civilized ports, where their fine physique, bold bearing, and
strangely tattooed faces, heightened the interest felt in them as
specimens of their ferocious and dreaded race. Stories of the Maoris
went far and wide--of their fierce fights, their cannibal orgies,
their grotesque ornaments and customs, their lonely, fertile, and
little-known country. Humane men conceived the wish to civilize and
Christianize this people. Benjamin Franklin had planned something of
the kind when the news of Cook's discovery first reached England.
Thirty years later, Samuel Marsden, a New South Wales chaplain,
resolved to be the Gregory or Augustine of this Britain of the South.
The wish became the master-passion of his life, and he lived to fulfil
it. How this resolve was carried out makes one of the pleasantest
pages of New Zealand history. The first step was his rescue of
Ruatara. In 1809 a roaming Maori sailor had worked his passage to
London, in the hope of seeing the great city and--greatest sight of
all--King George III. The sailor was Ruatara, a Bay of Islands chief.
Adventurous and inquiring as he was intelligent and good-natured,
Ruatara spent nearly nine years of his life away from his native land.
At London his captain refused to pay him his wages or to help him to
see King George, and solitary, defrauded, and disappointed, the young
wanderer fell sick nigh unto death. All the captain would do for him
was to transfer him to the _Ann_, a convict ship bound for Sydney.
Fortunately Marsden was among her passengers. The chaplain's heart
was touched at the sight of the wan, wasted Maori sitting dull-eyed,
wrapped in his blanket, coughing and spitting blood. His kindness
drew back Ruatara from the grave's brink and made him a grateful and
attached pupil. Together they talked of the savage islands, which one
longed to see and the other to regain. Nor did their friendship end
with the voyage. More adventures and disappointments awaited Ruatara
before he at last reached home. Once in a whale ship he actually
sighted the well-beloved headlands of the Bay of Islands, and brought
up all his goods and precious presents ready to go on shore. But the
sulky captain broke his promise and sailed past the Bay. Why trouble
to land a Maori? Ruatara had to choose between landing at Norfolk
Island or another voyage to England. Cheated of his earnings and
half-drowned in the surf, he struggled ashore on the convict island,
whence he made his way to Sydney and to Marsden's kindly roof. The
whaling captain went on towards England. But Justice caught him on the
way. He and his ship were taken by an American privateer.

Ruatara gained his home at the next attempt. There he laboured to
civilize his countrymen, planted and harvested wheat, and kept in
touch with Marsden across the Tasman Sea. Meanwhile the latter's
official superiors discountenanced his venturesome New Zealand
project. It was not until 1814 that the Governor of New South Wales at
last gave way to the chaplain's persistent enthusiasm, and allowed him
to send the brig _Active_ to the Bay of Islands with Messrs. Hall and
Kendall, lay missionaries, as the advance party of an experimental
mission station. Ruatara received them with open arms, and they
returned to Sydney after a peaceful visit, bringing with them not only
their enthusiastic host, but two other chiefs--Koro Koro and Hongi,
the last-named fated to become the scourge and destroyer of his race.

At last Marsden was permitted to sail to New Zealand. With Kendall,
Hall, and King, the three friendly chiefs, and some "assigned"
convict servants, he reached New Zealand in December, 1814. With
characteristic courage he landed at Whangaroa, among the tribe who had
massacred the crew of the unhappy _Boyd_. Going on shore there, he met
the notorious George, who stood to greet the strangers, surrounded by
a circle of seated tribesmen, whose spears were erect in the ground.
But George, despite a swaggering and offensive manner, seems to have
been amicable enough. He rubbed noses with Hongi and Ruatara, and
shook hands with Marsden, who passed on unharmed to the Bay of
Islands. There, by Ruatara's good offices, he was enabled to preach
to the assembled natives on the Sunday after arrival, being Christmas
Day, from the text printed at the head of this chapter. The Maoris
heard him quietly. Koro Koro walked up and down among the rows of
listeners keeping order with his chief's staff. When the service
ended, the congregation danced a war dance as a mark of attention to
the strangers.

Marsden settled his missionaries at Rangihu, where for twelve axes he
bought two hundred acres of land from a young _rangatira_ named Turi.
The land was conveyed to the Church Missionary Society by a deed of
sale. As Turi could not write, Hongi made the ingenious suggestion
that his _moko_, or face-tattoo, should be copied on the deed. This
was done by a native artist. The document began as follows:

"Know all men to whom these presents shall come, That I, Ahoodee O
Gunna, King of Rangee Hoo, in the Island of New Zealand, have, in
consideration of twelve axes to me in hand now paid by the Rev. Samuel
Marsden, of Paramatta, in the territory of New South Wales, given,
granted, bargained and sold, and by this present instrument do give,
grant, bargain and sell," etc., etc.

The deed is not only the first New Zealand conveyance, but has an
interest beyond that. It is evidence that, at any rate in 1815, a
single Maori, a chief, but of inferior rank, could sell a piece of
land without the specific concurrence of his fellow-tribesmen, or of
the tribe's head chief. Five and forty years later a somewhat similar
sale plunged New Zealand into long years of war.

After this Marsden returned to Sydney. The _Active_ took back spars
and dressed flax to the value of £450. The flax was sold at £110 a
ton. Kauri timber brought half a crown a foot, and the duty charged on
it at the Sydney customs house was a shilling a foot. The day of Free
Trade there was not yet. One cloud was hanging over the mission when
Marsden sailed. Ruatara lay dying. He had been seized with a fever,
and the natives, believing him to be attacked by a devouring demon,
placed him under _tapu_, and kept food, medicine, and his white
friends from him. When Marsden, by threatening to bombard the village
obtained access to the sick man, it was too late; he found his friend
past hope. Thus was the life of this staunch ally--a life which might
have been of the first value to the Maori race--thrown away. Though
the missionary's friend, Ruatara died a heathen, and his head wife
hung herself in customary Maori form.

Such was the setting up of the first mission station. Its founders
were sterling men. Kendall had been a London schoolmaster in good
circumstances. King, a master carpenter, had given up £400 a year to
labour among the savages. Marsden, though he made seven more voyages
to the country, the last after he had reached threescore years and
ten, never settled there. Henry Williams, however, coming on the
scene in 1823, became his chief lieutenant. Williams had been a naval
officer, had fought at Copenhagen, and had in him the stuff of which
Nelson's sailors were made. Wesleyan missionaries, following in the
footsteps of Marsden's pioneers, established themselves in 1822, and
chose for the place of their labours the scene of the _Boyd_ disaster.
Roman Catholic activity began in 1838.

It took ten years to make one convert, and up to 1830 the baptisms
were very few. After that the work began to tell and the patient
labourers to reap their harvest. By 1838 a fourth of the natives
had been baptized. But this was far from representing the whole
achievement of the missionaries. Many thousands who never formally
became Christians felt their influence, marked their example, profited
by their schools. They fought against war, discredited cannibalism,
abolished slavery. From the first Marsden had a sound belief in the
uses of trade and of teaching savages the decencies and handicrafts
of civilized life. He looked upon such knowledge as the best path to
religious belief. Almost alone amongst his class, he was far-sighted
enough to perceive, at any rate in the latter years of his life, that
the only hope of New Zealand lay in annexation, and that any dream
of a Protestant Paraguay was Utopian. Quite naturally, but most
unfortunately, most missionaries thought otherwise, and were at the
outset of colonization placed in antagonism to the pioneers. Meanwhile
they taught the elements of a rough-and-ready civilization, which the
chiefs were acute enough to value. But the courage and singleness of
purpose of many of them gave them a higher claim to respect. To do the
Maoris justice, they recognised it, and the long journeys which the
preachers of peace were able to make from tribe to tribe of cannibals
and warriors say something for the generosity of the latter as well as
for the devotion of the travellers. For fifty years after Marsden's
landing no white missionary lost his life by Maori hands. Almost
every less serious injury had to be endured. In the face of hardship,
insult, and plunder, the work went on. A schooner, the _Herald_, was
built in the Bay of Islands to act as messenger and carrier between
the missionary stations, which--pleasant oases in the desert of
barbarism--began to dot the North Island from Whangaroa as far south
as Rotorua among the Hot Lakes. By 1838 there were thirteen of them.
The ruins of some are still to be seen, surrounded by straggling plots
run to waste, "where once a garden smiled." When Charles Darwin,
during the voyage of the _Beagle_, visited the Bay of Islands, the
missionary station at Waimate struck him as the one bright spot in
a gloomy and ill-ordered land. Darwin, by the way, was singularly
despondent in his estimate both of Australia and New Zealand. Colonial
evolution was clearly not amongst his studies.

[Illustration: CARVED GATEWAY OF MAORI VILLAGE

_From a Sketch by_ GENERAL ROBLEY.]

Colonists as a rule shrug their shoulders when questioned as to the
depth of Maori religious feeling. It is enough to point out that a
Christianity which induced barbarian masters to release their slaves
without payment or condition must have had a reality in it at which
the kindred of Anglo-Saxon sugar-planters have no right to sneer. Odd
were the absurdities of Maori lay preachers, and knavery was
sometimes added to absurdity. Yet these dark-skinned teachers carried
Christianity into a hundred nooks and corners. Most of them were
honest enthusiasts. Two faced certain death in the endeavour to carry
the Gospel to the Taupo heathen, and met their fate with cheerful
courage. Comic as Maori sectarianism became, it was not more
ridiculous than British. It is true that rival tribes gloried in
belonging to different denominations, and in slighting converts
belonging to other churches. On one occasion, a white wayfarer, when
asking shelter for the night at a _pa_, was gravely asked to name his
church. He recognised that his night's shelter was at stake, and had
no notion what was the reigning sect of the village. Sharpened by
hunger, his wit was equal to the emergency, and his answer, "the true
church," gained him supper and a bed. Too much stress has been laid on
the spectacle of missionaries engaging in public controversies, and
of semi-savage converts wrangling over rites and ceremonies and
discussing points of theology which might well puzzle a Greek
metaphysician. Such incidents were but an efflorescence on the surface
of what for a number of years was a true and general earnestness.

The missionaries, aided by Professor Lee, of Cambridge, gave the Maori
a written language. Into this the Scriptures were translated, chiefly
by William Williams, who became Bishop of Waiapu, and by Archdeacon
Maunsell. Many years of toil went to the work, and it was not
completed until 1853. In 1834 a printing press was set up by the
Church Mission Society at the Bay of Islands, in charge of Mr. William
Colenso. Neither few nor small were the difficulties which beset this
missionary printer. At the outset he got his press successfully from
ship to shore by lashing two canoes together and laying planks across
them. Though the chiefs surveyed the type with greedy eyes and hinted
that it would make good musket-balls, they did not carry it off. But
on unpacking his equipment Colenso found he had not been supplied
with an inking-table, composing-sticks, leads, galleys, cases,
imposing-stone, or printing-paper. A clever catechist made him an
imposing-stone out of two boulders of basalt found in a river-bed hard
by. Leads he contrived by pasting bits of paper together, and with the
help of various make-shifts, printed on February 21, 1835 the first
tract published in New Zealand. It consisted of the Epistles to the
Ephesians and Philippians in Maori, printed on sixteen pages of
writing-paper and issued in wrappers of pink blotting-paper. Much the
most capable helpers whom the lonely printer had in his first years
were two one-time compositors who had turned sailors and who, tiring
of foc'sle life under Yankee captains, made up their minds to resume
the stick and apron in the cannibal islands. Impish Maori boys made
not inappropriate "devils." With such assistants Colenso, working
on, had by New Year's Day, 1838, completed the New Testament and was
distributing bound copies to the eager Maoris, who sent messengers for
them from far and near. Pigs, potatoes, flax were offered for copies
of the precious volume, in one case even that rarest of curiosities in
No Man's Land--a golden sovereign.

Not the least debt, which any one having to do with New Zealand owes
the missionaries and Professor Lee, is a scholarly method of writing
Maori. In their hands the spelling of the language became simple,
systematic, and pleasant to the eye. What it has done to save the
names of the country's places and persons from taking fantastic and
ridiculous shapes, a few examples will show. For sixty years after
Cook's discovery every traveller spelt these names as seemed good to
him. The books of the time offer us such things of beauty as Muckeytoo
(Maketu), Kiddy-Kiddy (Keri-Keri), Wye-mattee (Waimate), Keggerigoo
(Kekerangu), Boo Marray and Bowmurry (Pomaré), Shunghee and E'Ongi
(Hongi), Corroradickee (Kororáreka). The haven of Hokianga figures
alternately as Showkianga, Sukyanna, Jokeeangar and Chokahanga. Almost
more laughable are Towackey (Tawhaki), Wycaddie (Waikare), Crackee
(Karakia), Wedder-Wedder (Wera-Wera), and Rawmatty (Raumati).

These, however, are thrown into the shade by some of the courageous
attempts of the two Forsters, Cook's naturalists, at the names of
native birds. It must have taken some imaginative power to turn
pi-waka-waka into "diggowaghwagh," and kereru into "haggarreroo,"
but they achieved these triumphs. Their _chef-d'oeuvre_ is perhaps
"pooadugghiedugghie," which is their version of putangi-tangi, the
paradise-duck. After that it is not so easy to smile at the first
sentences of an official statement drawn up by Governor King, of New
South Wales, relative to the carrying off to Norfolk Island of the two
New Zealanders before mentioned, which begins:

  "Hoodoo-Cockoty-Towamahowey is about twenty-four years
  of age, five feet eight inches high, of an athletic make, and very
  interesting. He is of the district of Teerawittee ... Toogee
  Teterrenue Warripedo is of the same age as Hoodoo, but about
  three inches shorter."

Poor Huru, poor Tuki!

While the missionaries were slowly winning their way through respect
to influence in the northern quarter of the country, and were giving
the Maori a written language and the Bible, very different agents were
working for civilization further south. From the last decade of
the eighteenth century onwards the islands were often sought by
whaling-ships. Gradually these came in greater numbers, and, until
about the year 1845, were constantly to be seen in and about certain
harbours--notably the Bay of Islands. But not by the utmost stretch of
charity could their crews be called civilizing agencies. To another
class of whalers, however, that title may not unfairly be given. These
were the men who settled at various points on the coast, chiefly from
Cook's Straits southward to Foveaux Straits, and engaged in what
is known as shore-whaling. In schooners, or in their fast-sailing,
seaworthy whale boats, they put out from land in chase of the whales
which for so many years frequented the New Zealand shores in shoals.
Remarkable were some of the catches they made. At Jacob's River eleven
whales were once taken in seventeen days. For a generation this
shore-whaling was a regular and very profitable industry. Only the
senseless slaughter of the "cows" and their "calves" ruined it.

Carried on at first independently by little bands of adventurers, it
in time fell into the hands of Sydney merchants, who found the capital
and controlled and organized whaling-stations. At these they erected
boiling-down works, shears for hoisting the huge whales' carcasses out
of the water, stores, and jetties. As late as 1843 men were busy at
more than thirty of these stations. More than five hundred men were
employed, and the oil and whalebone they sent away in the year were
worth at least £50,000. Sometimes the profits were considerable. A
certain merchant, who bought the plant of a bankrupt station for £225
at a Sydney auction, took away therefrom £1,500 worth of oil in the
next season. But then he was an uncommon merchant. He had been a
sealer himself, and finally abandoned mercantile life in Sydney to
return to his old haunts, where he managed his own establishment,
joined farming to whaling, endowed a mission station,[1] and amazed
the land by importing a black-coated tutor and a piano for his
children. Moreover, the harpooners and oarsmen were not paid wages or
paid in cash, but merely had a percentage of the value of a catch, and
were given that chiefly in goods and rum. For this their employers
charged them, perhaps, five times the prices current in Sydney, and
Sydney prices in convict times were not low. Under this truck system
the employers made profits both ways. The so-called rum was often
inferior arrack--deadliest of spirits--with which the Sydney of those
days poisoned the Pacific. The men usually began each season with a
debauch and ended it with another. A cask's head would be knocked out
on the beach, and all invited to dip a can into the liquor. They were
commonly in debt and occasionally in delirium. Yet they deserved to
work under a better system, for they were often fine fellows, daring,
active, and skilful. Theirs was no fair-weather trade. Their working
season was in the winter. Sharp winds and rough seas had to be faced,
and when these were contrary it required no small strength to pull
their heavy boats against them hour after hour, and mile after mile,
to say nothing of the management of the cumbrous steering-oar,
twenty-seven feet in length, to handle which the steersman had to
stand upright in the stern sheets.

[Footnote 1: John Jones, of Waikouaiti. His first missionary found
two years at a whaling-station quite enough, if we may judge from his
greeting to his successor, which was "Welcome to Purgatory, Brother
Creed!" Brother Creed's response is not recorded.]

The harpooning and lancing of the whale were wild work; and when bones
were broken, a surgeon's aid was not always to be had. The life,
however, could give change, excitement, the chance of profit, and long
intervals of comparative freedom. To share these, seamen deserted
their vessels, and free Australians--nicknamed currency lads--would
ship at Sydney for New Zealand. Ex-convicts, of course, swelled their
ranks, and were not always and altogether bad, despite the convict
system. The discipline in the boats was as strict as on a man-of-war.
On shore, when "trying down" the blubber, the men had to work long and
hard. "Sunday don't come into this bay!" was the gruff answer once
given to a traveller who asked whether the Sabbath was kept. Otherwise
they might lead easy lives. Each had his hut and his Maori wife, to
whom he was sometimes legally married. Many had gardens, and families
of half-caste children, whose strength and beauty were noted by all
who saw them. The whaler's helpmate had to keep herself and children
clean, and the home tidy. Cleanliness and neatness were insisted on
by her master, partly through the seaman's instinct for tidiness and
partly out of a pride and desire to show a contrast to the reeking
hovels of the Maori. As a rule she did her best to keep her man sober.
Her cottage, thatched with reeds, was perhaps whitewashed with lime
made by burning the sea-shells. With its clay floor and huge open
fireplace, with its walls lined with curtained sleeping bunks, and its
rafters loaded with harpoons, sharp oval-headed lances, coils of
rope, flitches of bacon or bags of flour, it showed a picture of rude
comfort.[1]

[Footnote 1: Wakefield, _Adventures in New Zealand_; Shortland,
_Southern Districts of New Zealand_; S. Thomson, _Story of New
Zealand_: Sir W.T. Power, _Sketches in New Zealand_; G.F. Angas,
_Savage Scenes_.]

If the seats were the joints of a whale's backbone, there was always
food in plenty, washed down with grog or tea made from manuka sprigs.
Whale's heart was a delicacy set before guests, who found it rather
like beef. Maoris, sharks, and clouds of sea-gulls shared much of the
flesh of the captured whales' carcasses.

Maori relatives learned to envy and, to some extent, to copy what they
saw. They took service as oarsmen, and even bought and equipped boats
for themselves. They learned to be ashamed of some of their more
odious habits, and to respect the pluck and sense of fair play shown
by their whaling neighbours. As a rule, each station was held by
license from the chief of the proprietary tribe. He and tenants would
stand shoulder to shoulder to resist incursions by other natives.
Dicky Barrett, head-man of the Taranaki whaling-station, helped
the Ngatiawa to repulse a noteworthy raid by the Waikato tribe.
Afterwards, when the Ngatiawa decided to abandon their much-harried
land, Barrett moved with them to Cook's Straits, where, in 1839, the
Wakefields found him looking jovial, round, and ruddy, dressed in a
straw hat, white jacket, and blue dungaree trousers, and married to a
chief's daughter--a handsome and stately woman. It was Dicky Barrett
who directed Colonel Wakefield to what is now Wellington, and who,
in consequence, may be recorded as the guide who pointed out to the
pioneer of the New Zealand Company the future capital of the colony.

Nor was Barrett the only specimen of this rough race whom New
Zealanders may remember with interest. There was Stewart, ex-Jacobite,
sealer, and pilot, whose name still conceals Rakiura, and whose
Highland pride made him wear the royal tartan to the last as he sat
in Maori villages smoking among the blanketed savages. There was the
half-caste Chaseland, whose mother was an Australian "gin," and who
was acknowledged to be the most dexterous and best-tempered steersman
in New Zealand--when sober. He needed his skill when he steered an
open boat from the Chathams to Otago across five hundred miles of
wind-vexed sea. Chaseland's mighty thews and sinews were rivalled by
those of Spencer, whose claim to have fought at Waterloo was regarded
as doubtful, but whose possession of two wives and of much money made
by rum-selling was not doubtful. Another notable steersman was Black
Murray, who once made his boatmen row across Cook's Straits at night
and in a gale because they were drunk, and only by making them put out
to sea could he prevent them from becoming more drunk. A congener of
his, Evans--"Old Man Evans"--boasted of a boat which was as spick and
span as a post-captain's gig, and of a crew who wore uniform. Nor must
the best of Maori whalers be forgotten--the chief Tuhawaiki--brave in
war, shrewd and businesslike in peace, who could sail a schooner as
cleverly as any white skipper, and who has been most unfairly damned
to everlasting fame--local fame--by his whaler's nickname of "Bloody
Jack!" These, and the "hands" whom they ordered about, knocked down,
caroused with, and steered, were the men who, between 1810 and 1845,
taught the outside world to take its way along the hitherto dreaded
shores of New Zealand as a matter of course and of business. Half
heroes, half ruffians, they did their work, and unconsciously brought
the islands a stage nearer civilization. Odd precursors of English
law, nineteenth-century culture, and the peace of our lady the Queen,
were these knights of the harpoon and companions of the rum-barrel.
But the isolated coasts and savage men among whom their lot was cast
did not as yet call for refinement and reflection. Such as their time
wanted, such they were. They played a part and fulfilled a purpose,
and then moved off the stage. It so happened that within a few years
after the advent of the regular colonists whaling ceased to pay,
and the rough crew who followed it, and their coarse, manly life,
disappeared together.




Chapter VII


THE MUSKETS OF HONGI

  "He sang of battles, and the breath
  Of stormy war and violent death."

Marsden's notes help us to picture his first night in New Zealand. The
son of the Yorkshire blacksmith, the voyager in convict-ships, the
chaplain of New South Wales in the days of rum and chain-gangs, was
not the man to be troubled by nerves. But even Marsden was wakeful on
that night. Thinking of many things--thoughts not to be expressed--the
missionary paced up and down on the sea beach by which a tribe was
encamped. The air was pleasant, the stars shone brightly, in front of
him the sea spread smoothly, peacefully folded among the wooded hills.
At the head of the harbour the ripple tapped lightly upon the charred
timbers of the _Boyd_. Around lay the Maori warriors sleeping, wrapped
in their dyed mantles and with their spears stuck upright in the
ground. It was a quiet scene. Most of the scenes of that time which
have come down to us were not of quietness. Some of them have been
sketched in the last two chapters, and are examples of the condition
of things which the missionaries landed to confront, and amidst which
they worked. More have now to be described, if only to show things as
they were before annexation, and the miseries which the country, and
the Maori along with it, suffered before the influences of White
adventurers and their fatal gifts were tempered by a civilized
government.

From 1818 to 1838 was a time of war far surpassing in bloodshed and
ruin anything witnessed in the Islands before or since. For the
first time the Maoris used firearms. Probably a fourth of their race
perished in this ill-starred epoch. Hongi, the chief of the Ngapuhi
tribe, before referred to, is usually spoken of as the first to
introduce the musket into the tribal wars. This was not so. His tribe,
as the owners of the Bay of Islands and other ports frequented by
traders, were able to forestall their fellow-Maoris in getting
firearms. A war-party of the Ngapuhi, only one hundred and forty
strong, is said to have gone through the length and breadth of the
North Island putting all they met to flight with the discharge of
two old flint-lock guns. The cunning warriors always followed up the
awe-inspiring fire with a prompt charge in which spear and tomahawk
did the work for which panic had prepared the way. Another Ngapuhi
chief, the leader of an attack on the men of Tauranga, managed to
arm his men with thirty-five muskets, which they used with crushing
effect. This was in 1818. Hongi saw the bravest warriors run before
the new and terrible weapon. He never forgot the sight. To go to
England and get guns became the dream of his life. A hopeful pupil of
Marsden, in Sydney, he knew the ways of the white men. In 1820, he and
a brother chief were taken to England by Kendall to help Professor Lee
with his grammar and dictionary. The pair were lionized, and on all
sides presents were made to them. They were presented to King George
IV., who gave Hongi a suit of armour. On his return this grammarian's
assistant heard at Sydney that his tribe was at war with the natives
of the Hauraki or Thames district, and that one of his relatives had
been killed. Now was his time. He at once sold all his presents,
except the suit of armour, and bought three hundred muskets and a
supply of powder and bullets.

The Sydney Government did not prevent him. At Marsden's table, at
Parramatta, Hongi met a chief of the offending tribe. Grimly he warned
his fellow-guest to take himself home, make ready for war, and prepare
to be killed--and eaten. Landing in New Zealand, he determined to
imitate Napoleon. Allowing for the enormous difference in his arena,
he managed to be nearly as mischievous.

His luckless enemies, armed only with spears, tomahawks, stones and
clubs, were shot and enslaved by thousands and eaten by hundreds. Wide
districts were swept bare of people. No man cared for anything except
to procure a gun and thereby have a chance to save his life. A musket
was, indeed, a pearl of great price. It has been pleaded for Hongi
that he protected the missionaries, and that by forcing his race to
get guns at any price he unwittingly developed trade. It is indeed
true that in their desperate straits the tribes sold flax, timber,
potatoes, mats, tattooed heads, pigs--even their precious land--for
firearms. Without them their lives were not worth a month's purchase.
Men and women toiled almost frantically at growing and preparing flax
or providing anything exchangeable for muskets, powder and lead. An
old Brown Bess was worth three tons of scraped flax. Undoubtedly
whites were welcomed, both as traders and fighters, with a readiness
unknown before. In 1835, New Zealand exports to Sydney alone were
valued at £113,000, her imports at £31,000. It was a poor set-off
against an era of butchery.

Determined to carry out the threats he had made in Sydney, Hongi began
his campaigns by sailing southward with a great fleet of war-canoes.
Passing to the head of the Hauraki Gulf he sat down before the _pa_ of
Totara, the chief fortress of the Thames tribes--the men whom he had
doomed in Sydney. The place was well garrisoned, and commanded by the
head chief, Trembling-Leaf. Even the three hundred musketeers found
the _pa_ too strong for open assault, though those inside had but
one gun and no ammunition. Hongi fell back upon fraud and offered
honourable peace, if a certain sacred greenstone _mere_ were handed
to him as a trophy. It was solemnly handed over, and the principal
invaders were feasted in the _pa_. One of them, ashamed of the
intended treachery, whispered to an acquaintance in the garrison,
"Beware!" In vain. That night, as Hongi's victims were sleeping
securely, the Ngapuhi rushed the stockade and all within were killed
or taken. The dead were variously reckoned at from two hundred to a
thousand. One division of the Ngapuhi were sufficiently disgusted at
Hongi's deceit to refuse to join in the surprise, and Waikato, the
powerful chief who had accompanied him to England, declared he would
go afield with him no more. Even his own special clan, though they had
yielded to the furious exhortations of his blind wife Kiri, an Amazon
who followed him in all his fights, urged him to spare some of the
captives of rank. The pitiless victor spared none. Five he killed with
his own spear. The death songs of two have been preserved and are
quoted as choice specimens of Maori poetry.

Between 1821 and 1827 Hongi carried fire and sword into almost every
corner of what is now the Province of Auckland. At first none could
stand before him. He assailed in 1822 two large _pas_ near where the
suburbs of Auckland city now spread. In vain the terrified inmates
tried to buy off the savage with presents. Nearly all were slaughtered
or taken, and Hongi left naught in their villages but bones, with such
flesh on them "as even his dogs had not required." He invaded the
Waikato and penetrated to a famous _pa_--a triple stockade at
Mataki-taki (Look-out). To get there he dragged his war-canoes
overland across the Auckland isthmus, straightened winding creeks for
their passage, and, when the Waikatos felled large trees across one
channel, patiently spent two months in cutting through the trunks.
At length the Look-out fortress was stormed with horrible slaughter.
Defended on one side by a creek, on another by the Waipa river,
elsewhere by deep ditches and banks that were almost cliffs, the lofty
stronghold was as difficult to escape from as to enter. It was crowded
with women and children: ten thousand people were in it, says one
account. When the spear-men broke before the terrible musket-fire, the
mass of the despairing on-lookers choked the ways of escape. In their
mad panic hundreds of the flying Waikatos were forced headlong over
a cliff by the rush of their fellow-fugitives. Hundreds more were
smothered in one of the deep ditches of the defences, or were shot
by the merciless Ngapuhi, who fired down upon the writhing mass till
tired of reloading. It was the greatest of Hongi's victories, though
not bloodless for the conquerors, like that of Totara, where only one
Ngapuhi had been killed. Famous fighting men, the Waikato chiefs had
died bravely, despite the amazement caused by the mystery of firearms.
One had killed four Ngapuhi before he was shot.

Another of Hongi's triumphs was at Rotorua in the Hot Lakes
district--the land of the Arawa tribe. He began by defeating them on
the Bay of Plenty, and thence turning inland found the tribe gathered
in strength on the green island-hill of Mokoia, encircled by the
Rotorua lake. Hongi's war-canoes were twenty-five miles away on the
sea-beach, and the Mokoians ridiculed him as he lay encamped by the
edge of their lake, unable to get at them. Day after day they paddled
to within hailing distance and insulted him with yells and gestures.
But the Ngapuhi general was not to be stopped. Like Mahomet the
second, he made his slaves drag their craft overland, and the
astonished islanders saw his flotilla sweep across Rotorua bearing the
irresistible musketeers. On their exposed strand they were easily mown
down. Flying they were followed by the Ngapuhi, and few indeed were
the survivors of the day. Hongi's ravages reached far to the south and
east. Even the Ngatiporou, who dwelt between Cape Runaway and Poverty
Bay, felt his hand. Their _pas_ fell one after the other, and only
those were not slaughtered who fled to the mountains.

For a while it seemed as though Hongi's dream might come true, and all
New Zealand hail him as sole king. His race trembled at his name. But
his cruelty deprived him of allies, and the scanty numbers of his
army gave breathing time to his foes. He wisely made peace with the
Waikatos, who, under Te Whero Whero, had rallied and cut off more than
one Ngapuhi war-party. In the Hauraki country he could neither
crush nor entrap the chief Te Waharoa, as cunning a captain and as
bloodthirsty a savage as himself. His enemies, indeed, getting muskets
and gaining courage, came once far north of the Auckland isthmus to
meet him; and though he beat them there in a pitched battle, it cost
him the life of his eldest son. He became involved in feuds with
his northern neighbours, and finally marched to attack our old
acquaintances the Whangaroans of _Boyd_ notoriety. In a bush-fight
with them he neglected to wear the suit of chain armour, the gift of
George IV., which had saved his life more than once. A shot fired by
one of his own men struck him in the back and passed through a lung.
He did not die of the wound for fifteen months. It is said that he
used to entertain select friends by letting the wind whistle through
the bullet-hole in his body. Mr. Polack, who was the author of the
tale, was not always implicitly believed by those who knew him; but as
Surgeon-Major Thomson embodies the story in his book, perhaps a writer
who is not a surgeon ought not to doubt it.

Of Hongi's antagonists none were more stubborn or successful than Te
Waharoa, a fighting chief whose long life of warfare contains in it
many stirring episodes of his times. Born in 1773 in a village near
the upper Thames, he owed his life, when two years old, to a spasm
of pity in the heart of a victorious chief from the Hot Lakes. This
warrior and his tribe sacked the _pa_ of Te Waharoa's father, and
killed nearly all therein. The conqueror saw a pretty boy crying among
the ashes of his mother's hut, and struck with the child's face, took
him up and carried him on his back home to Lake Rotorua. "Oh! that
I had not saved him!" groaned the old chief, when, nearly two
generations later, Te Waharoa exacted ample vengeance from the Rotorua
people. After twenty years of a slave's life, Te Waharoa was allowed
to go back to his people. Though, in spite of the brand of slavery,
his craft and courage carried him on till he became their head, he was
even then but the leader of a poor three hundred fighting men.

To the north of him lay the Thames tribe, then the terror of half New
Zealand; to the south, his old enemies the Arawas of the Hot Lakes.
To the west the main body of the Waikatos were overwhelmingly his
superiors in numbers. Eastward the Tauranga tribe--destined in
aftertimes to defeat the Queen's troops at the Gate _Pa_--could in
those days muster two thousand five hundred braves, and point to a
thousand canoes lying on their beaches. But Te Waharoa was something
more than an able guerilla chief. He was an acute diplomatist. Always
keeping on good terms with the Waikatos, he made firm allies of the
men of Tauranga. Protected, indeed helped, thus on both flanks, he
devoted his life to harassing the dwellers by the lower Thames and the
Hauraki Gulf. One great victory he won over them with the aid of his
Waikato allies. Their chief _pa_, Mata-mata, he seized by a piece of
callous bad faith and murder. After being admitted there by treaty to
dwell as friends and fellow-citizens, his warriors rose one night and
massacred their hosts without compunction. Harried from the north by
Hongi, the wretched people of the Thames were between the hammer
and the anvil. When at last their persecutors--the Ngapuhi and Te
Waharoa--met over their bodies, Te Waharoa's astuteness and nerve were
a match for the invaders from the north. In vain the Ngapuhi besiegers
tried to lure him out from behind the massive palisades of Mata-mata,
where, well-provisioned, he lay sheltered from their bullets. When he
did make a sally it was to catch half a dozen stragglers, whom,
in mortal defiance, he crucified in front of his gateway. Then he
challenged the Ngapuhi captain to single combat with long-handled
tomahawks. The Northerners broke up their camp, and went home; they
had found a man whom even muskets could not terrify.

Te Waharoa's final lesson to the Ngapuhi was administered in 1831,
and effectually stopped them from making raids on their southern
neighbours. A war-party from the Bay of Islands, in which were two of
Hongi's sons, ventured, though only 140 strong, to sail down the Bay
of Plenty, slaying and plundering as they went. Twice they landed,
and when they had slain and eaten more than their own number the more
prudent would have turned back. But a blind wizard, a prophet of
prodigious repute, who was with them, predicted victory and speedy
reinforcement, and urged them to hold on their way. Disembarking on
an islet in the bay, the inhabitants of which had fled, they encamped
among the deserted gardens. Looking out next morning, they saw the
sea blackened with war-canoes. Believing these to be the prophesied
reinforcement, they rushed down to welcome their friends. Cruelly were
they undeceived as the canoes of Te Waharoa and his Tauranga allies
shot on to the beach. Short was the struggle. Only two of the Ngapuhi
were spared, and as the blind soothsayer's blood was too sacred to be
shed, the victors pounded him to death with their fists. Never again
did the Ngapuhi come southwards. So for the remaining years of his
life Waharoa was free to turn upon the Arawas, the men who had slain
his father and mother. From one raid on Rotorua his men came back
with the bodies of sixty enemies--cut off in an ambush. Not once did
Waharoa meet defeat; and when, in 1839, he died, he was as full of
fame as of years. Long afterwards his _mana_ was still a halo round
the head of his son Wiremu Tamihana, whom we shall meet in due time as
William Thompson the king-maker, best of his race.

Hongi once dead and the Ngapuhi beaten off, the always formidable
Waikato tribes began in turn to play the part of raiders. At their
head was Te Whero Whero, whom in the rout at Mataki-taki a friendly
hand had dragged out of the suffocating ditch of death. Without the
skill of Hongi, or the craft of Te Waharoa, he was a keen and active
fighter. More than once before Hongi's day he had invaded the Taranaki
country, and had only been forced back by the superior generalship of
the famous Rauparaha, of whom more anon. In 1831 Rauparaha could no
longer protect Taranaki. He had migrated to Cook's Strait, and was
warring far away in the South Island. Therefore it was without much
doubt that, followed by some three thousand men, Te Whero Whero set
his face towards Mount Egmont, and swept all before him. Only at a
strong hill-_pa_ looking down upon the Waitara river, did his enemies
venture to make a stand. They easily repulsed his first assaults, but
hundreds of women and children were among the refugees, and as was the
wont of the Maoris, no proper stock of provisions had been laid in.
On the thirteenth day, therefore, the defenders, weakened and half
starved, had to make a frantic attempt to break through the Waikatos.
Part managed to get away; most were either killed at once, or hunted
down and taken. Many women threw themselves with their children over
the cliff into the Waitara. Next day the captives were brought before
Te Whero Whero. Those with the best tattooed faces were carefully
beheaded that their heads might be sold unmarred to the White traders.
The skulls of the less valuable were cleft with tomahawk or _mere_.
Te Whero Whero himself slew many scores with a favourite greenstone
weapon. A miserable train of slaves were spared to labour in the
villages of the Waikato.

[Illustration: MOUNT EGMONT, TARANAKI

Photo by I.A. MARTIN, Wanganui]

Ahead of the victorious chieftain lay yet another _pa_. It was near
those quaint conical hills--the Sugar-Loaves--which, rising in and
near the sea, are as striking a feature as anything can be in the
landscape where Egmont's white peak dwarfs all else. Compared to
the force in the Waitara _pa_ the garrison of this last refuge was
small--only three hundred and fifty, including women and children. But
among them were eleven Whites. Some of these may have been what Mr.
Rusden acidly styles them all--"dissipated Pakeha-Maoris living with
Maori Delilahs." But they were Englishmen, and had four old ship's
guns. They decided to make a fight of it for their women and children
and their trade. They got their carronades ready, and laboured to
infuse a little order and system into the excitable mob around them.
So when the alarm-cry, _E! Taua! Taua!_ rang out from the watchmen of
the _pa_, the inmates were found resolute and even prepared. In vain
the invaders tried all their wiles. Their rushes were repulsed, the
firebrands they showered over the palisades were met by wet clay
banking, and their treacherous offers of peace and good-will declined.
Though one of the carronades burst, the others did good execution, and
when shot and scrap-iron failed, the artillerymen used pebbles. Dicky
Barrett, already mentioned, was the life and soul of the defence. The
master of a schooner which came upon the coast in the midst of the
siege tried to mediate, and stipulated for a free exit for the Whites.
Te Whero Whero haughtily refused; he would spare their lives, but
would certainly make slaves of them. He had better have made a bridge
for their escape. The siege dragged on. The childish chivalry of the
Maoris amazed the English. Waikato messengers were allowed to enter
the _pa_ and examine the guns and defences. On the other hand, when
the besiegers resolved on a last and grand assault they sent notice
thereof the day before to the garrison. Yet, after that, the latter
lay down like tired animals to sleep the night through, while Barrett
and his comrades watched and waited anxiously. The stormers came with
the dawn, and were over the stockade before the Whites could rouse the
sleepers. Then, however, after a desperate tussle--one of those sturdy
hand-to-hand combats in which the Maori fighter shone--the assailants
were cut down or driven headlong out. With heavy loss the astonished
Waikatos recoiled in disgust, and their retreat did not cease till
they reached their own country.

Even this victory could not save Taranaki. With the fear of fresh
raids in their mind the survivors of its people, together with their
White allies, elected to follow where so many of their tribes had
already gone--to Cook's Straits, in the footsteps of Rauparaha.
So they, too, chanted their farewells to their home, and turning
southward, marched away. When the Waikatos had once more swept down
the coast, and had finally withdrawn, it was left empty and desolate.
A remnant, a little handful, built themselves a _pa_ on one of the
Sugar-Loaves. A few more lurked in the recesses of Mount Egmont.
Otherwise the fertile land was a desert. A man might toil along the
harbourless beaches for days with naught for company but the sea-gulls
and the thunder of the surf; while inland,--save for a few birds,--the
rush of streams and pattering of mountain-showers on the leaves were
all that broke the silence of lifeless forests.

To the three warrior chiefs, whose feuds and fights have now been
outlined, must be added a fourth and even more interesting figure.
Rauparaha, fierce among the fierce, cunning among the cunning, was
not only perhaps the most skilful captain of his time, not only a
devastator second only to Hongi, but was fated to live on into
another era and to come into sharp and fatal collision with the early
colonists. One result among others is that we have several portraits
of him with both pen and pencil. Like Waharoa and Hongi he was small,
spare and sinewy; an active man even after three-score years and ten.
In repose his aquiline features were placid and his manners dignified.
But in excitement, his small, keen, deep-sunken eyes glared like a
wild beast's, and an overhanging upper lip curled back over long teeth
which suggested to colonists--his enemies--the fangs of a wolf. Born
near the picturesque inlet of Kawhia, he first won fame as a youth
by laying a clever ambuscade for a Waikato war-party. When later the
chief of his tribe was dying and asked doubt-fully of his councillors
who there was to take his place, Rauparaha calmly stepped forward and
announced himself as the man for the office. His daring seemed an
omen, and he was chosen. In 1819 he did a remarkable thing. He had
been on a raid to Cook's Straits, and when there had been struck with
the strategic value of the island of Kapiti--steep, secure from land
attacks, not infertile, and handy to the shore. It was the resort,
moreover, of the _Pakehas_ trading-ships. Like Hongi, Rauparaha saw
that the man with the most muskets must carry all before him in New
Zealand. Out of the way and overshadowed by the Waikato his small
tribe were badly placed at Kawhia. But if he could bring them and
allies along with them to Kapiti and seize it, he could dominate
central New Zealand.

He persuaded his people to migrate. Their farewell to their old
dwellings is still a well-known Maori poem. Joined by a strong
contingent of Waitara men under Wi Kingi--to be heard of again as late
as 1860--they won their way after many fights, adventures and escapes
to their goal at Kapiti. There Rauparaha obtained the coveted muskets.
Not only did he trade with the visiting ships but he protected a
settlement of whalers on his island who did business with him, and
whose respect for the craft and subtlety of "Rowbulla" was always
great. Rauparaha set out for Kapiti a year before Hongi sailed for
England on his fatal quest. From his sea-fortress he kept both coasts
in fear and turmoil for twenty years. More than once he was defeated,
and once his much-provoked foes attacked Kapiti with a united
flotilla. But though they "covered the sea with their canoes," they
parleyed after landing when they should have fought. By a union of
astuteness and hard fighting Rauparaha's people won, and signal was
the revenge taken on his assailants. Previous to this he had almost
exterminated one neighbour-tribe whose villages were built on small
half-artificial islets in a forest-girt lake. In canoes and by
swimming his warriors reached the islets, and not many of the lake
people were left alive.

More than one story is preserved of Rauparaha's resource and
ruthlessness. One night, when retreating with a weak force, he had the
Waikatos at his heels. He held them back by lighting enough
watchfires for a large host, and by arming and dressing his women as
fighting-men. Again, when he was duck-hunting near the coast of the
South Island, his enemies, led by the much-libelled "Bloody Jack,"
made a bold attempt to surround his party. Most of his men were cut
off. Rauparaha, lowered down a sea-cliff, hid among the kelp by the
rocks beneath. A canoe was found and brought, and he put to sea. It
was over-loaded with fugitives, and their chief therefore ordered half
to jump overboard that the rest might be saved. The lightened canoe
then carried him to a place of safety. Yet, after the capture of
Kaiapoi he showed generosity. Amongst the prisoners, who were lying
bound hand and foot waiting for the oven, was a young brave who had
killed one of Rauparaha's chiefs in a daring sortie. Him now the
conqueror sought out, spared his life, cut his bonds, and took him
into service and favour.

The most famous and far-reaching of Rauparaha's raids were among the
Ngaitahu, whose scattered bands were masters of nearly all the wide
half-empty spaces of the South Island. In one of their districts was
found the famous greenstone. On no better provocation than a report
which came to his ears of an insulting speech by a braggart southern
chief, Rauparaha, early in 1829, manned his canoes, and sailed down
the east coast to attack the boastful one's _pa_. The unsuspecting
natives thronged down to the beach to meet the raiders with shouts of
welcome, and on hospitable thoughts intent. Springing on to land, the
invaders ran amongst the bewildered crowd, and slew or captured all
they could lay hands on. Then they burned the village. Further south
lay a larger _pa_, that of Kaiapoi. Here the inhabitants, warned
by fugitives from the north, were on their guard. Surprise being
impossible, Rauparaha tried guile, and by assurances of friendship
worked upon the Kaiapois to allow his chiefs to go in and out of their
_pa_, buying greenstone and exchanging hospitalities. But for once he
met his match. The Kaiapois waited until they had eight of the chiefs
inside their stockades, and then killed them all. Amongst the dead was
Te Pehi, Rauparaha's uncle and adviser, who three years before had
visited England. Powerless for the moment, Rauparaha could but go
home, vow vengeance, and wait his opportunity. After two years it
came.

Pre-eminent in infamy amongst the ruffianly traders of the time was
a certain Stewart. At the end of 1830, he was hanging about Cook's
Straits in the brig _Elizabeth_. There he agreed to become Rauparaha's
instrument to carry out one of the most diabolical acts of vengeance
in even Maori annals. The appearance of Stewart, ripe for any
villainy, gave the Kapiti chief the chance he was waiting for. For
thirty tons of flax the _Elizabeth_ was hired to take Rauparaha and a
war-party, not to Kaiapoi, but to Akaroa, a beautiful harbour amongst
the hills of the peninsula called after Sir Joseph Banks. It lay many
miles away from Kaiapoi, but was inhabited by natives of the same
tribe. There, moreover, was living Tamai-hara-nui (Son-of-much-evil),
best-born and most revered chief in all the South Island. Him
Rauparaha determined to catch, for no one less august could be payment
for Te Pehi. Arrived at Akaroa, Rauparaha and his men hid below, and
waited patiently for three days until their victim came. Stewart, by
swearing that he had no Maoris in the brig, but merely came to
trade, tempted the chief and his friends on board. The unhappy
Son-of-much-evil was invited into the cabin below. There he stepped
into the presence of Rauparaha and Te Pehi's son. The three stared at
each other in silence. Then Te Pehi's son with his fingers pushed open
the lips of the Akaroa chief, saying, "These are the teeth which ate
my father." Forthwith the common people were killed, and the chief and
his wife and daughter bound. Rauparaha landed, fired the village, and
killed all he could catch. Coming on board again, the victors feasted
on the slain, Stewart looking on. Human flesh was cooked in the brig's
coppers. The entrapped chief was put in irons--lent by Stewart. Though
manacled, he signed to his wife, whose hands were free, to kill their
young daughter, a girl whose ominous name was Roimata (Tear-drops).
The woman did so, thus saving the child from a worse fate. Returning
to Cook's Straits, Rauparaha and comrades went on shore. A Sydney
merchant, Mr. Montefiore, came on board the _Elizabeth_ at Kapiti and
saw the chief lying in irons. As these had caused mortification to
set in, Montefiore persuaded Stewart to have them taken off, but the
unhappy captive was still held as a pledge until the flax was paid
over. It was paid over. Then this British sea-captain gave up his
security, who with his wife was tortured and killed, enduring his
torments with the stoicism of a North American Indian. The instrument
of his death was a red-hot ramrod.

The _Elizabeth_, with thirty tons of flax in her hold, sailed to
Sydney. But Stewart's exploit had been a little too outrageous, even
for the South Pacific of those days. He was arrested and tried by
order of Governor Darling, who, it is only fair to say, did his best
to have him hanged. But, incredible as it seems, public sympathy
was on the side of this pander to savages, this pimp to cannibals.
Witnesses were spirited away, and at length the prosecution was
abandoned. Soon after Stewart died at sea off Cape Horn. One authority
says that he dropped dead on the deck of the _Elizabeth_, and that his
carcass, reeking with rum, was pitched overboard without ceremony.
Another writes that he was washed overboard by a breaking sea. Either
way the Akaroa chief had not so easy a death.

Next year, Rauparaha, whose revenge was nothing if not deliberate,
organized a strong attack on Kaiapoi. With complete secrecy he brought
down his men from Cook's Straits, and surprised his enemies peacefully
digging in the potato grounds outside their stockade. A wild rush took
place. Most of the Kaiapois escaped into the _pa_, shut the gate and
repulsed a hasty assault. Others fled southward, and skulking amid
swamps and sand-hills got clear away, and roused their distant
fellow-tribesmen. A strong relieving force was got together, and
marching to the beleaguered _pa_, slipped past Rauparaha and entered
it at night, bending and creeping cautiously through flax and rushes
as they waved in a violent wind. But sorties were repulsed, and the
garrison had to stand on the defensive. Unlike most _pas_, theirs was
well supplied with food and water, and was covered on three sides by
swamps and a lagoon. A gallant attempt made on a dark night to burn
the besiegers' canoes on the sea-beach was foiled by heavy rain. At
last Rauparaha, reaching the stockade by skilful sapping, piled up
brushwood against it, albeit many of his men were shot in the process.
For weeks the wind blew the wrong way for the besiegers and they
could only watch their piles--could not fire them. All the while the
soothsayers in the beleaguered fort perseveringly chanted incantations
and prayed to the wind-god that the breeze might not change. At length
one morning the north-west wind blew so furiously away from the walls
that the besieged boldly set alight to the brushwood from their side.
But the wilder the north-west wind of New Zealand, the more sudden and
complete may be the change to the south-west. Such a shifting came
about, and in a moment the flames enveloped the walls. Shouting in
triumph, Rauparaha's men mustered in array and danced their frenzied
war-dance, leaping high in air, and tossing and catching their muskets
with fierce yells. "The earth," says an eye-witness, "shook beneath
their stamping." Then they charged through the burning breach, and the
defenders fell in heaps or fled before them. The lagoon was black with
the heads of men swimming for life. Through the dense drifting smoke
many reached the swamps and escaped. Hundreds were killed or taken,
and piles of human bones were witnesses many years after to the
massacre and feast which followed the fall of Kaiapoi.

Nearly seventy years have passed since these deeds were done. The
name Kaiapoi belongs to a pretty little country town, noted for its
woollen-mill, about the most flourishing of the colony. Kapiti,
Rauparaha's stronghold, is just being reserved by the Government as an
asylum for certain native birds, which stoats and weasels threaten
to extirpate in the North Island. Over the English grasses which now
cover the hills round Akaroa sheep and cattle roam in peace, and
standing by the green bays of the harbour you will probably hear
nothing louder than a cow-bell, the crack of a whip, or the creaking
wheels of some passing dray. Then it is pleasant to remember that
Rauparaha's son became a missionary amongst the tribes which his
father had harried, and that it is now nearly a generation since Maori
blood was shed in conflict on New Zealand soil.




Chapter VIII


"A MAN OF WAR WITHOUT GUNS"

  "Under his office treason was no crime;
  The sons of Belial had a glorious time."
                              _Dryden_.

Between 1830 and 1840, then, New Zealand had drifted into a new phase
of existence. Instead of being an unknown land, peopled by ferocious
cannibals, to whose shores ship-captains gave as wide a berth as
possible, she was now a country with a white element and a constant
trade. Missionaries were labouring, not only along the coasts, but in
many districts of the interior, and, as the decade neared its end, a
large minority of the natives were being brought under the influence
of Christianity. The tribal wars were dying down. Partly, this was a
peace of exhaustion, in some districts of solitude; partly, it was
the outcome of the havoc wrought by the musket, and the growing fear
thereof. Nearly all the tribes had now obtained firearms. A war had
ceased to be an agreeable shooting-party for some one chief with an
unfair advantage over his rivals. A balance of power, or at any
rate an equality of risk, made for peace. But it would be unjust
to overlook the missionaries' share in bringing about comparative
tranquillity. Throughout all the wars of the musket, and the dread
slaughter and confusion they brought about, most of the teachers held
on. They laboured for peace, and at length those to whom they spoke
began to cease to make themselves ready unto the battle. In the worst
of times no missionary's life was taken. The Wesleyans at Whangaroa
did indeed, in 1827, lose all but life. But the sack of their station
was but an instance of the law of _Muru_. Missionaries were then
regarded as Hongi's dependants. When he was wounded they were
plundered, as he himself was more than once when misfortune befel
him. In the wars of Te Waharoa, the mission-stations of Rotorua and
Matamata were stripped, but no blood was shed. The Wesleyans set up
again at Hokianga. Everywhere the teachers were allowed to preach, to
intercede, to protest. At last, in 1838, the extraordinary spectacle
was seen of Rauparaha's son going from Kapiti to the Bay of Islands to
beg that a teacher might come to his father's tribe; and accordingly,
in 1839, Octavius Hadfield, afterwards primate, took his life in his
hand and his post at a spot on the mainland opposite to the elder
Rauparaha's island den of rapine. By 1840 the Maoris, if they had
not beaten their spears into pruning hooks, had more than one old
gun-barrel hung up at the gable-end of a meeting-house to serve when
beaten upon as a gong for church-goers.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Taylor's _New Zealand, Past and Present_.]

By this time there were in the islands perhaps two thousand Whites,
made up of four classes--first, the missionaries; second, the _Pakeha_
Maoris; third, the whalers and sealers chiefly found in the South
Island; and fourth, the traders and nondescripts settled in the Bay
of Islands. Of the last-named beautiful haven it was truly said that
every prospect pleased, that only man was vile, and that he was
very vile indeed. On one of its beaches, Kororáreka--now called
Russell--formed a sort of Alsatia. As many as a thousand Whites lived
there at times. On one occasion thirty-five large whaling ships were
counted as they lay off its beach in the bay. The crews of these found
among the rum-shops and Maori houris of Kororáreka a veritable South
Sea Island paradise. The Maori chiefs of the neighbourhood shared
their orgies, pandered to their vices, and grew rich thereby. An
occasional murder reminded the Whites that Maori forbearance was
limited.

But even Kororáreka drew the line. In 1827 a brig, the _Wellington_,
arrived in the bay in the hands of a gang of convicts, who had
preferred the chances of mutiny to the certainties of Norfolk Island.
Forthwith Alsatia was up in arms for society and a triple alliance
of missionaries, whalers, and cannibals combined to intercept the
runaways. The ship's guns of the whalers drove the convicts to take
refuge on shore, where the Maoris promptly secured them. The captives
were duly sent to their fate in Sydney, and the services of the New
Zealanders gratefully requited by a payment at the rate of a musket
per convict.

Alsatia had its civil wars. In 1831 a whaling-captain deserted the
daughter of a chief in the neighbourhood in order to take to himself
another chief's daughter, also of a tribe by the Bay. The tribe of the
deserted woman attacked that of the favoured damsel. A village was
burnt, a benevolent mediator shot, and a hundred lives lost. Only the
arrival on the scene of Marsden, on one of his visits to the country,
restored peace. So outrageous were the scenes in the Bay that its own
people had to organize some sort of government. This took the form of
a vigilance committee, each member of which came to its meetings armed
with musket and cutlass. Their tribunal was, of course, that of Judge
Lynch. They arrested certain of the most unbearable offenders, tarred
and feathered them, and drummed them out of the township. When
feathers were lacking for the decoration, the white fluff of the
native bullrush made a handy substitute. In the absence of a gaol, the
Vigilants were known to keep a culprit in duress by shutting him up
for the night in a sea-chest, ventilated by means of gimlet-holes.

They were not, however, the only representatives of law and order in
New Zealand. The British authorities in New South Wales had all along,
perforce, been keeping their eye on this troublesome archipelago in
the south-east. In 1813 Governor Macquarie made Sydney shipmasters
sailing for the country give bonds for a thousand pounds not to kidnap
Maori men, take the women on board their vessels, or meddle with
burying grounds. In 1814 he appointed the chiefs Hongi and Koro Koro,
and the missionary Kendall, to act as magistrates in the Bay of
Islands. Possibly the two first-named magistrates were thus honoured
to induce them not to eat the third. No other advantage was gained
by the step. A statute was passed in England in 1817 authorizing the
trial and punishment of persons guilty of murder and other crimes in
certain savage and disturbed countries, amongst which were specified
New Zealand, Otaheite, and Honduras. Two others, in 1823 and 1828,
gave the Australian courts jurisdiction over Whites in New Zealand.
One White ruffian was actually arrested in New Zealand, taken back to
Sydney, and executed. But this act of vigour did not come till the end
of 1837. Then the crime punished was not one of the atrocities which
for thirty years had made New Zealand a by-word. The criminal, Edward
Doyle, paid the extreme penalty of the law for stealing in a dwelling
in the Bay of Islands and "putting John Wright in bodily fear."
Governor Bourke issued a special proclamation expressing hope that
Doyle's punishment would be a warning to evil-doers in New Zealand.
Governor Darling, as already mentioned, prohibited the inhuman traffic
in preserved and tattooed heads by attaching thereto a penalty of £40,
coupled with exposure of the trader's name.

In England more than one influential believer in colonies had long
been watching New Zealand. As early as 1825, a company was formed to
purchase land and settle colonists in the North Island. This company's
agent, Captain Herd, went so far as to buy land on the Hokianga
Estuary, and conduct thither a party of settlers. One of the first
experiences of the new-comers was, however, the sight of a native
war-dance, the terrifying effects of which, added to more practical
difficulties, caused most of them to fold their tents and depart to
Australia. Thus for the first time did an English company lose £20,000
in a New Zealand venture. The statesmen of the period were against any
such schemes. A deputation of the Friends of Colonization waited upon
the Duke of Wellington to urge that New Zealand should be acquired and
settled. The Duke, under the advice of the Church Missionary Society,
flatly refused to think of such a thing. It was then that he made the
historically noteworthy observation that, even supposing New Zealand
were as valuable as the deputation made out, Great Britain had already
colonies enough. When one reflects what the British Colonial Empire
was then, and what it has since become, the remark is a memorable
example of the absence of the imaginative quality in statesmen. But
the Duke of Wellington was not by any means alone in a reluctance
to annex New Zealand. In 1831 thirteen Maori chiefs, advised by
missionaries, had petitioned for British protection, which had not
been granted. The truth is, not only that the Empire seemed large
enough to others besides the Duke, but that the missionaries stood
in the way. As representing the most respectable and the only
self-sacrificing element amongst those interested in the islands, they
were listened to. It would have been strange had it been otherwise.
Nevertheless, the growing trade and the increasing number of
unauthorized white settlers made it necessary that something should be
done. Consequently, in 1832, Lord Goderich sent to the Bay of Islands
Mr. James Busby to reside there as British resident. He was paid a
salary, and provided with £200 a year to distribute in presents to the
native chiefs. He entered on his duties in 1833. He had no authority,
and was not backed by any force. He was aptly nicknamed "a man-of-war
without guns." He presented the local chiefs with a national flag.
Stars and stripes appeared in the design which the chiefs selected,
thanks, says tradition, to the sinister suggestion of a Yankee
whaling-skipper. H.M.S. _Alligator_ signalised the hoisting of the
ensign with a salute of twenty-one guns. After this impressive
solemnity, Mr. Busby lived at the bay for six years. His career was a
prolonged burlesque--a farce without laughter, played by a dull
actor in serious earnest. Personally he went through as strange an
experience as has often fallen to the lot of a British official. A man
of genius might possibly have managed the inhabitants of his Alsatia.
But governments have no right to expect genius in unsupported
officials--even when they pay them £300 a year. Mr. Busby was a
well-meaning, small-minded person, anxious to justify his appointment.
His Alsatians did not like him, and complained that his manners were
exclusive and his wit caustic. Probably this meant nothing more than
that he declined to join in their drinking-bouts. His life, however,
had its own excitements. A chief whom he had offended tried to shoot
him. Crouching one night in the verandah of the resident's cottage,
he fired at the shadow of Mr. Busby's head as it appeared on the
window-blind. As he merely hit the shadow, not the substance, the
would-be assassin was not punished, but the better disposed Maoris
gave a piece of land as compensation--not to the injured Busby, but to
his Government.

It has been well said of Mr. Busby that "his office resembled a
didactic dispatch; it sounded well, and it did nothing else."
Nevertheless, New Zealand was in a state such that, from time to time,
even the English Government had to do something, so urgent was the
need for action. After despatching their man-of-war without guns, they
next year sent a man-of-war with guns. Nor did the captain of the
_Alligator_ confine himself to the harmless nonsense of saluting
national flags. In 1834 the brig _Harriet_ was wrecked on the coast of
Taranaki. Her master, Guard, an ex-convict, made his way to Sydney,
asserting that the Maoris had flocked down after the wreck, and
attacked and plundered the crew; had killed some, and held Guard's
wife and children in captivity. As a matter of fact, it was the
misconduct of his own men which had brought on the fighting, and even
to his Sydney hearers it was obvious that his tale was not wholly
true. But the main facts were correct. There had been a wreck and
plunder; there were captives. The _Alligator_ was at once sent with
soldiers to the scene of the disaster to effect the rescue of the
prisoners by friendly and pacific means. Arrived on the scene, the
captain sent his only two interpreters on shore to negotiate. They
were Guard himself and a lying billiard-marker from Kororáreka. They
promised the natives ransom--a keg of gunpowder--if the captives were
released; an offer which was at once accepted. They did not tell the
captain of their promise, and he, most unwisely, refused to give the
natives anything. All the captives were at once given up except the
woman and the children, who were withheld, but kindly treated, while
the natives awaited the promised payment. A chief who came down to the
shore to negotiate with a boat's crew was seized, dragged on board,
and so savagely mishandled that the ship's surgeon found ten wounds
upon him. Yet he lived, and to get him back his tribe gave up Mrs.
Guard and a child. The other child was withheld by another chief.
Again a strong armed party was landed and was peacefully met by the
natives, who brought the child down, but still asked, naturally, for
the stipulated ransom. The sailors and soldiers settled the matter by
shooting down a chief, on whose shoulders the child was sitting, and
firing right and left before the officers in charge could stop them.
Next day these men made a football of the chief's head. Before
departing the _Alligator_ bombarded _pas_, and her crew burnt villages
and destroyed canoes and cultivations. If the man-of-war without guns
was a figure of fun, the man-of-war with guns excited disgust by these
doings even as far away as England. The whole proceeding was clumsy,
cruel, and needless. A trifling ransom would have saved it all. The
Maori tribal law under which wrecks were confiscated and castaways
plundered was, of course, intolerable. Whites again and again suffered
severely by it. But blundering and undisciplined violence and broken
promises were not the arguments to employ against it. So long as
England deliberately chose to leave the country in the hands of
barbarians, barbaric customs had to be reckoned with.

From this discreditable business it is a relief to turn to Mr. Busby's
bloodless puerilities. In 1835 he drew up a federal constitution for
the Maori tribes, and induced thirty-five of the northern chiefs
to accept it. This comical scheme would have provided a congress,
legislation, magistrates, and other machinery of civilization for
a race of savages still plunged in bloodshed and cut asunder by
innumerable feuds and tribal divisions. A severe snubbing from Mr.
Busby's official superiors in Australia was the only consequence of
this attempt to federate man-eaters under parliamentary institutions.

The still-born constitution was Mr. Busby's proposed means of
checkmating a rival. In the words of Governor Gipps, this "silly and
unauthorized act was a paper pellet fired off" at the hero of an even
more pretentious fiasco. An adventurer of French parentage, a certain
Baron de Thierry, had proclaimed himself King of New Zealand, and
through the agency of missionary Kendall bought, or imagined he
bought--for thirty axes--40,000 acres of land from the natives. He
landed at Hokianga with a retinue of ninety-three followers. The
Maoris of the neighbourhood gravely pointed out to him a plot of three
hundred acres, which was all they would acknowledge of his purchase.
Unabashed, he established himself on a hill, and began the making of a
carriage-road which was to cross the island. Quickly it was found that
his pockets were empty. Laughed at by whites and natives alike, he
at once subsided into harmless obscurity, diversified by occasional
"proclamations," which a callous world allowed to drop unheeded.

Yet this little burlesque was destined to have its share in hastening
the appearance of England on the scene. Thierry had tried to enlist
the sympathies of the French Government. So also had another
Frenchman, Langlois, the captain of a whaling ship, who professed to
have bought 300,000 acres of land from the natives of Banks Peninsula
in the South Island. Partly owing to his exertions, a French company
called "The Nanto-Bordelaise Company" was incorporated, the object
of which was to found a French colony on the shores of the charming
harbour of Akaroa, on the land said to have been purchased by
Langlois. In this company Louis Philippe was a shareholder. In 1837,
also, the Catholic missionary Pompallier was dispatched to New Zealand
to labour among the Maoris. Such were the sea-routes of that day that
it took him some twelve months voyaging amid every kind of hardship
and discomfort to reach his journey's end. In New Zealand the fact
that he showed Thierry some consideration, and that he and his
Catholic workers in the mission-field were not always on the best
of terms with their Protestant competitors, aroused well-founded
suspicions that the French had their eye upon New Zealand. The English
missionaries were now on the horns of a dilemma. They did not want a
colony, but if there was to be annexation, the English flag would, of
course, be far preferable.

Moreover, a fresh influence had caused the plot to thicken, and was
also making for annexation. This was the appearance on the scene of
the "land-sharks"--shrewd adventurers, from Sydney and elsewhere, who
had come to the conclusion that the colonization of New Zealand was
near at hand, and were buying up preposterously large tracts of land
on all sides. Most of the purchases were either altogether fictitious,
or else were imperfect and made for absurdly low prices. Many of the
deeds of sale may be dismissed with the brief note, "no consideration
specified"! A hundred acres were bought for a farthing. Boundaries
were inserted after signature. Some land was bought several times
over. No less than eight purchasers claimed the whole or part of
Kapiti Island. The whole South Island was the subject of one professed
sale by half a dozen natives in Sydney. Certain purchased blocks were
airily defined by latitude and longitude. On the other hand, the
Maoris often played the game in quite the same spirit, selling land
which they did not own, or had no power to dispose of, again and
again. In some cases diamond cut diamond. In others both sides were
playing a part, and neither cared for the land to pass. The land-shark
wanted a claim with which to harass others; the Maori signed a
worthless document on receipt of a few goods. By 1840 it was estimated
that, outside the sweeping claim on the South Island, 26,000,000
acres, or more than a third of the area of New Zealand, was supposed
to have been gobbled up piecemeal by the land-sharks. The claims
arising out of these transactions were certain at the best to
cause confusion, ill-feeling, and trouble, and indeed did so. Some
legally-constituted authority was clearly wanted to deal with them.
Otherwise armed strife between the warlike Maoris and adventurers
claiming their lands was inevitable. Before Marsden's death in 1838
both he and his ablest lieutenant, Henry Williams, had come to see
that the only hope for the country and the natives lay in annexation
and the strong hand of England.

[Illustration]




Chapter IX


THE DREAMS OF GIBBON WAKEFIELD

  Twin are the gates of sleep: through that of Horn,
  Swift shadows winged, the shapes of truth are borne.
  Fair wrought the Ivory gate gleams white anigh,
  But false the dreams dark gods despatch thereby.

The founder of the Colony now comes on the scene. It was time he came.
The Islands were neither to fall into the hands of the French nor
remain the happy hunting-ground of promiscuous adventurers. But the
fate which ordained that Edward Gibbon Wakefield should save them from
these alternatives interposed in the way of the great colonizer
a series of difficulties from which any mind less untiring and
resourceful than his must have recoiled. The hour had come and the
man. Yet few bystanders could have thought either the hour propitious
or the man promising. The word colony was not in favour when William
the Fourth came to the throne. It was associated with memories of
defeat and humiliation in America, and with discontent and mutterings
of rebellion in Canada. Australia was scarcely more than an expensive
convict station. Against the West Indian planters the crusade of
Wilberforce was in full progress, and the very name of "plantation"
had an evil savour. South Africa promised little but the plentiful
race troubles, which indeed came. The timid apathy of the Colonial
Office was no more than the reflex of the dead indifference of the
nation. None but a man of genius could have breathed life into it.
Fortunately the genius appeared.

Though the name of Gibbon Wakefield will probably be remembered as
long as the history of Australia and New Zealand is read, the man
himself was, during most of his active career, under a cloud. The
abduction of an heiress--a mad freak for which he paid by imprisonment
and disgrace--deprived him of the hope of ordinary public distinction.
For many years he had to work masked--had to pour forth his views
in anonymous tracts and letters, had to make pawns of dull men
with respectable names. This and more he learned to do. He found
information and ideas for personages who had neither, and became an
adept at pulling strings and manipulating mediocrities. All things to
all men, plausible to the old, magnetic to the young, persuasive among
the intellectual, impressive to the weak-minded, Gibbon Wakefield was
always more than the mere clever, selfish schemer which many thought
him. Just as his fresh face and bluff British manner concealed the
subtle mind ever spinning webs and weaving plans, so, behind and above
all his plots and dodging, was the high dream and ideal to which
he was faithful, and which redeemed his life. He saw, and made the
commonplace people about him see, that colonization was a national
work worthy of system, attention, and the best energies of England.
The empty territories of the Empire were no longer to be treated only
as gaols for convicts, fields for negro slavery, or even as asylums
for the persecuted or refuges for the bankrupt and the social failures
of the Mother Country. To Wakefield the word "colony" conveyed
something more than a back yard into which slovenly Britain could
throw human rubbish, careless of its fate so long as it might be out
of sight.

His advocacy revived "Ships, Colonies, Commerce!" as England's
motto. But for colonies to be worthy, they must be, not fortuitous
congregations of outcasts, but orderly bands of representative British
citizens, going forth into the wilderness with some consciousness of
a high mission. From the outset his colonies were to be civilized
communities where men of culture and intellect need not find
themselves companionless exiles. Capital and labour, education and
religion, were all to work together as in the Mother Country, but
amid easier, happier surroundings. For Wakefield conceived of his
settlements not as soulless commercial outposts, but as free,
self-governing communities.

How was all this to be brought about? Whence was the money to come?
Whence the organizing power? At that point came in Wakefield's
conception of the sale of waste lands at a "sufficient price." He saw
the immense latent value of the fertile deserts of the Empire. He
grasped the full meaning of the truth that the arrival of a population
with money and industry instantly gives good land a value. His
discernment showed him the absurdity of giving colonial lands away
in indefinite areas to the first chance grabbers, and the mistake of
supposing that wage labour would not be required in young countries.
His theory, therefore, was that colonizing associations should be
formed in England--not primarily to make money; that these bodies
should hold tracts of land in the colonies as capital; that the
sale of these lands at a "sufficient price" to intending colonists,
selected for character and fitness, should provide the funds for
transporting the colony across the earth, for establishing it in
working order on its land, and for recruiting it with free labour.

The numerous _ex post facto_ assailants of Wakefield's theory usually
assume that he wished to keep labour divorced from the soil and in a
state of permanent political and industrial inferiority. That is sheer
nonsense. There are few more odd examples of the irony of fate in
colonial history than that the man who warred against the convict
system, fought the battle of colonial self-government, was ever the
enemy of the land-shark and monopolist, who denounced low wages, and
whose dream it was that the thrifty, well-paid colonial labourer could
and should develop into the prospering farmer, should be railed at in
the Colonies as the enemy of the labourer. The faults of Wakefield's
"sufficient price" theory were indeed grave enough. But compare them
with the lasting mischief wrought in New Zealand by Grey's unguarded
scheme of cheap land for everybody, and they weigh light in the
balance. Later on I shall return to Wakefield's system and its
defects. Here I have but to say that, as a temporary expedient for
overcoming at that time the initial difficulties of a colony, it ought
not to be hastily condemned. It has long ago been abandoned after
working both good and evil, and in the same way the schemes of Church
Settlement Wakefield made use of are now but interesting chapters of
colonial history. But we must not forget that these things were but
some of the dreams of Gibbon Wakefield. At the most he regarded them
as means to an end. His great dream of lifting colonization out of
disrepute, and of founding colonies which should be daughter-states
worthy of their great mother, has been no false or fleeting vision.
That dream, at any rate, came to him through the Gate of Horn and not
through the Ivory Gate.

By Wakefield it was that the Colonial Office was forced to annex New
Zealand. In the face of the causes making for annexation sketched in
the last chapter, the officials hung back to the last. In 1837 a body
of persons appeared on the scene, and opened siege before Downing
Street, whom even permanent officials could not ignore. They were
composed of men of good standing, in some cases of rank and even
personal distinction. They were not traders, but colonizers, and as
such could not be ignored, for their objects were legitimate and their
hands as clean as those of the missionaries. They first formed, in
1837, a body called "The New Zealand Association." At their head was
Mr. Francis Baring. Their more prominent members included John Lambton
Earl of Durham, Lord Petre, Mr. Charles Enderby, Mr. William Hutt, Mr.
Campbell of Islay, Mr. Ferguson of Raith, Sir George Sinclair, and Sir
William Molesworth. The Earl of Durham was an aristocratic Radical
of irregular temper, who played a great part in another colonial
theatre--Canada. Sir William Molesworth did much to aid the agitation
which put an end to the transportation of convicts to Australia. For
the rest, the Association thought the thoughts, spoke the words,
and made the moves of Gibbon Wakefield. Yet though he pervaded it
sleeplessly, its life was but an episode in his career. He fought
against the convict system with Molesworth and Rentoul of the
_Spectator_. He went to Canada as Lord Durham's secretary and adviser.
He was actively concerned in the foundation of South Australia, where
his system of high prices for land helped to bring about one of the
maddest little land "booms" in colonial history. And as these things
were not enough to occupy that daring, original, and indefatigable
spirit, he threw himself into the colonization of New Zealand. He and
his brother, Colonel Wakefield, became the brain and hand of the New
Zealand colonizers.

For years they battled against their persistent opponents the Church
Missionary Society and the officials of the Colonial Office. The
former, who hit very hard at them in controversy, managed Lord
Glenelg, then Colonial Secretary; the latter turned Minister after
Minister from friends of the colonizers into enemies. Thus Lord
Melbourne and Lord Howick had to change face in a fashion well-nigh
ludicrous. The Government offered the Association a charter provided
it would become a joint-stock company. Baring and his friends refused
this on the ground that they did not want any money-making element to
come into their body. Moreover, in those days joint-stock companies
were concerns with unlimited liability. The Association tried to get
a bill of constitution through Parliament and failed. Mr. Gladstone
spoke against it, and expressed the gloomiest apprehensions of the
fate which the Maoris must expect if their country were settled. New
Zealand, be it observed, was already a well-known name in Parliament.
The age of committees of inquiry into its affairs began in 1836. Very
interesting to us to-day is the evidence of the witnesses before the
committee of that year; nor are the proceedings of those of 1838,
1840, and 1844, less interesting. In the third of the four Gibbon
Wakefield, under examination, tells the story of the New Zealand
Association. In 1839 it became the New Zealand Land Company. Baffled
in Parliament, as already described, the colonizers changed their
ground, decided to propitiate the powers, and become a joint-stock
company. Having done so, and subscribed a capital of £100,000,
they tried to enlist the sympathies of Lord Normanby, who had just
succeeded Lord Glenelg at the Colonial Office. They found the new-made
Secretary of State very affable indeed, and departed rejoicing.
But, like many new-made ministers, Lord Normanby had spoken without
reckoning with his permanent officials. A freezing official letter,
following swiftly on the pleasant interview, dashed the hopes of
the Company. They were getting desperate. Lord Palmerston had, in
November, 1838, promised them to send a consul to New Zealand to
supersede poor Mr. Busby, but the permanent officials thwarted him,
and nothing was done for eight months. At last, in May, 1839, Gibbon
Wakefield crossed the Rubicon. As the Government persisted in treating
New Zealand as a foreign country, let the Company do the same, and
establish settlements there as in a foreign land! Since repeated
efforts to obtain the help and sanction of the English Government had
failed, let them go on unauthorized. Secretly, therefore, the ship
_Tory_, bearing Colonel Wakefield, as Agent for the Company, was
despatched in May to Cook's Straits to buy tracts of land for the
Company. He was given a free hand as to locality, though Port
Nicholson was hinted at as the likeliest port. With him went Gibbon
Wakefield's son, Jerningham Wakefield, whose book, _Adventures in New
Zealand_, is the best account we New Zealanders have of the every-day
incidents of the founding of our colony.

Arriving in August among the whalers then settled in Queen Charlotte's
Sound, Colonel Wakefield enlisted Dicky Barrett's services, and,
passing on to Port Nicholson, entered into a series of negotiations
with the Maori chiefs, which led to extensive land purchases.
Ultimately Colonel Wakefield claimed that he had bought twenty
millions of acres--nearly the whole of what are now the provincial
districts of Wellington and Taranaki, and a large slice of Nelson.
It is quite probable that he believed he had. It is certain that the
Maoris, for their part, never had the least notion of selling the
greater portion of this immense area. It is equally probable that such
chiefs as Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, who were parties to the bargain,
knew that Wakefield thought he was buying the country. Fifty-eight
chiefs in all signed the deeds of sale. Even if they understood what
they were doing, they had no right, under the Maori law and custom,
thus to alienate the heritage of their tribes. Had Colonel Wakefield's
alleged purchases been upheld the Company would have acquired
nine-tenths of the lands of no less than ten well-known tribes. The
price paid for this was goods valued at something less than £9,000.
The list of articles handed over at the Wakefield purchases is
remarkable enough to be worth quoting:--

  300 red blankets.
  200 muskets.
  16 single-barrelled guns.
  8 double-barrelled guns.
  2 tierces tobacco.
  15 cwt. tobacco.
  148 iron pots.
  6 cases soap.
  15 fowling pieces.
  81 kegs gunpowder.
  2 casks ball cartridges.
  4 kegs lead slates.
  200 cartouche boxes.
  60 tomahawks.
  2 cases pipes.
  10 gross pipes.
  72 spades.
  100 steel axes.
  20 axes.
  46 adzes.
  3,200 fish-hooks.
  24 bullet moulds.
  1,500 flints.
  276 shirts.
  92 jackets.
  92 trousers.
  60 red nightcaps.
  300 yards cotton duck.
  200 yards calico.
  300 yards check.
  200 yards print.
  480 pocket-handkerchiefs.
  72 writing slates.
  600 pencils.
  204 looking glasses.
  276 pocket knives.
  204 pairs scissors.
  12 pairs shoes.
  12 hats.
  6 lbs. beads.
  12 hair umbrellas.
  100 yards ribbons.
  144 Jews' harps.
  36 razors.
  180 dressing combs.
  72 hoes.
  2 suits superfine clothes.
  36 shaving boxes.
  12 shaving brushes.
  12 sticks sealing wax.
  11 quires cartridge paper.
  12 flushing coats.
  24 combs.

The purchasing took three months. While it was going on Henry Williams
and other missionaries urged the chiefs not to sell. But with the
goods spread out before them--especially the muskets--the chiefs were
not to be stopped. The Wakefields justified the transactions on the
ground that population would rapidly make the ten per cent. of the
country reserved for the natives more valuable than the whole. Gibbon
Wakefield talked airily to the parliamentary committee next year of a
value of 30s. an acre, which, on a reserve of two million acres, would
mean three million sterling for the Maoris! Nothing can justify the
magnitude of Colonel Wakefield's claims, or the payment of fire-arms
for the land. But at the bottom of the mischief was the attempt of
the missionaries and officials at home to act as though a handful of
savages--not then more, I believe, than 65,000 in all, and rapidly
dwindling in numbers--could be allowed to keep a fertile and healthy
Archipelago larger than Great Britain. The haste, the secrecy,
the sharp practice, of the New Zealand Company were forced on the
Wakefields by the mulish obstinacy of careless or irrational people.
Their land-purchasing might have taken place legally, leisurely,
and under proper Government supervision, had missionaries been
business-like, had Downing-Street officials known what colonizing
meant, and had Lord Glenelg been fitted to be anything much more
important than an irreproachable churchwarden.

Meanwhile the Company had been advertising, writing, canvassing, and
button-holing in England, had kept a newspaper on foot, and was able
to point to powerful friends in Parliament and in London mercantile
circles. By giving scrip supposed to represent plots and farms in its
New Zealand territory, it secured numbers of settlers, many of whom
were men of worth, education, and ability. The character of the
settlers which it then and afterwards gave New Zealand may well be
held to cover a multitude of the Company's sins. Towards the end of
1839 its preparations were complete, and, without even waiting to hear
how Colonel Wakefield had fared, the first batch of its settlers were
shipped to Port Nicholson. They landed there on January 22nd, 1840,
and that is the date of the true foundation of the colony. But for
some weeks after that New Zealand remained a foreign country. Not for
longer, however. In June, 1839, the Colonial Office had at length
given way. What between the active horde of land-sharks in New Zealand
itself--what between the menace of French interference, and the
pressure at home of the New Zealand Company, the official mind could
hold out no longer. Captain Hobson, of the Royal Navy, was directed
to go to the Bay of Islands, and was armed with a dormant commission
authorizing him, after annexing all or part of New Zealand, to govern
it in the name of Her Majesty. In Sydney a royal proclamation was
issued under which New Zealand was included within the political
boundary of the colony of New South Wales. Captain Hobson was to act
as Lieutenant-Governor, with the Governor of New South Wales as his
superior officer. On January 29th, 1840, therefore, he stepped on
shore at Kororáreka, and was loyally received by the Alsatians. The
history of New Zealand as a portion of the British Empire now begins.

[Illustration]




Chapter X


IN THE CAUDINE FORKS

I would rather be governed by Nero on the spot than by a Board of
Angels in London.--_John Robert Godley_.

Though Governor Hobson landed in January, the formal annexation of the
Colony did not take place until May. He had first to take possession;
and this could only be effectually done with the consent of the native
tribes. The northern chiefs were therefore summoned, and came to meet
the Queen's representative at Waitangi (Water of Weeping). Tents and
a platform were erected, and the question of annexation argued at
length. The French Bishop Pompallier appeared in full canonicals, and
it was found that chiefs under his influence had been well coached
to oppose the new departure. Behind the scenes, too, that worst of
beachcombers, Jacky Marmon, secretly made all the mischief he could.
On the other hand, Henry Williams, representing the Protestant
missionaries, threw his weight into the scale on the Governor's side
and acted as translator. While many of the chiefs were still doubtful,
if not hostile, Waka Nene, the most influential of the Ngapuhi tribe,
spoke strongly and eloquently for annexation. His speech gained the
day, and a treaty was drawn up and signed. By the preamble, Queen
Victoria invited the confederated and independent Chiefs of New
Zealand to concur in Articles to the following effect:--

  (1) The Chiefs of New Zealand ceded to Her Majesty, absolutely
      and without reservation, all their rights and powers of
      Sovereignty.

  (2) Her Majesty guaranteed to the Chiefs and Tribes of New
      Zealand, full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of their
      Lands and Estates, Forests, Fisheries and other properties;
      but the Chiefs yielded to Her Majesty the exclusive right of
      Pre-emption over such lands as the proprietors thereof might
      be disposed to alienate, at such prices as might be agreed
      upon.

  (3) Her Majesty gave to the natives of New Zealand all the Rights
      and Privileges of British Subjects.

Nearly fifty chiefs signed the treaty there and then, and within six
months--so energetically did the missionaries and Government agents
carry it throughout the tribes--it had been signed by five hundred
and twelve. Only about one chief of first-class rank and importance
refused to sign it. This was that fine barbarian, Te Heu Heu, whose
home lay at the foot of the great volcanoes by Lake Taupo on the
plateau in the centre of the North Island. Te Heu Heu was the last of
the old heathen warriors. Singularly fair-skinned, and standing fully
six feet high, he looked what he was, a patriarch and leader of his
people. Scoffing at the White men and their religion, he defied
Governor and missionaries alike until his dramatic end, which came in
1846, when he and his village were swallowed up in a huge landslide.
At present, as he could neither be coerced nor persuaded, he was let
alone. For the rest, it may fairly be claimed that the Maori race
accepted the Treaty of Waitangi.

They had very good reason to do so. To this day they regard it as the
Magna Charta of their liberties. They were fully aware that under it
the supreme authority passed to the Queen; but they were quite able to
understand that their tribal lands were guaranteed to them. In other
words, they were recognised as the owners in fee simple of the whole
of New Zealand. As one of them afterwards expressed it, "The shadow
passes to the Queen, the substance stays with us."

At the same time Governor Hobson had announced to the white settlers
by proclamation that the Government would not recognise the validity
of any of their land titles not given under the Queen's authority. It
is not easy to see how else he could have dealt with the land-sharks,
of whom there had been an ugly rush from Sydney on the news of the
coming annexation, and most of whom as promptly retreated on finding
the proclamation to be a reality. But at the same time his treaty and
his proclamation were bound to paralyse settlement, to exasperate the
entire white population, and to plunge the infant colony into a sea
of troubles. Outside the missionaries and the officials every one was
uneasy and alarmed. All the settlers were either landowners, land
claimants, or would-be land purchasers. Yet they found themselves at
one and the same time left without titles to all that they thought
they possessed, and debarred from the right of buying anything more
except from the Crown. And as the Governor was without funds, and
the Crown, therefore, could not buy from the natives, there was a
deadlock. Space will not admit here of a full discussion of the vexed
question of the land clause in the Treaty of Waitangi. As a rule
civilized nations do not recognise the right of scattered handfuls of
barbarians to the ownership of immense tracts of soil, only a fraction
of which they cultivate or use. However, from the noblest and most
philanthropic motives an exception to this rule was made in the case
of New Zealand, and by treaty some sixty to seventy thousand Maoris
were given a title guaranteed by England--the best title in the
world--to some sixty-six million acres of valuable land. Putting aside
the question of equity, it may be observed that, had not this been
done, the Maoris, advised by the missionaries, would certainly have
refused their assent to the Treaty. The millions sterling which have
had to be spent in New Zealand, directly and indirectly, in acquiring
Maori land for settlement, supply of course no argument whatever
against the equity of the Treaty. When honour is in the scale, it
outweighs money. Yet had Captain Hobson been able to conceive what
was entailed in the piecemeal purchase of a country held under tribal
ownership, it is difficult to think that he would have signed the
Treaty without hesitation. He could not, of course, imagine that he
was giving legal force to a system under which the buying of a block
of land would involve years of bargaining even when a majority of its
owners wished to sell; that the ascertainment of a title would mean
tedious and costly examination by courts of experts of a labyrinth of
strange and conflicting barbaric customs; that land might be paid for
again and again, and yet be declared unsold; that an almost empty
wilderness might be bought first from its handful of occupants, then
from the conquerors who had laid it waste, and yet after all be
reclaimed by returned slaves or fugitives who had quitted it years
before, and who had been paid for the land on which they had been
living during their absence. Governor Hobson could not foresee that
cases would occur in which the whole purchase money of broad lands
would be swallowed up in the costs of sale, or that a greedy tribe of
expert middlemen would in days to come bleed Maori and settler alike.
Yet it would have been but reasonable for the Colonial Office to exert
itself to palliate the effects of the staggering blows it thus dealt
the pioneer colonists of New Zealand. They were not all land-sharks;
most of them were nothing of the sort. It was but natural that they
felt with extreme bitterness that the Queen's Government only appeared
on the scene as the friend and protector of the aborigines. For
the Whites the Government had for years little but suspicion and
restraint.

It would have been only just and statesmanlike if the recognition of
Maori ownership had been accompanied by a vigorous policy of native
land purchase by the authorities. But it was not. Captain Hobson was
only scantily supplied with money--he had £60,000 sent him in three
years--and did not himself appear to recognise the paramount need for
endowing the Colony with waste land for settlement. He is said to have
held that there need be no hurry in the matter inasmuch as the steady
decrease of the Maoris would of itself solve the problem. Nearly
sixty years have passed since then, and the Maori race is by no means
extinct. But Captain Hobson, though a conscientious and gallant man,
was no more imbued with the colonizing spirit than might be expected
of any honest English naval officer. Of such money as he had he wasted
£15,000 at the outset in buying a site for a town in the Bay of
Islands on a spot which he quickly had to abandon. Moreover, he was
just what a man in his irksome and difficult position should not have
been--an invalid. Within a few weeks after the signing of the Treaty
of Waitangi he was stricken with paralysis. Instead of being relieved
he was left to be worried slowly to death at his post. To have met
the really great difficulties and the combination of petty annoyances
which beset him, the new governor should have had the best of health
and spirits. The complications around him grew daily more entangled.
In the North the excellent settlers, who with their children were to
make the province of Auckland what it is, were scarcely even beginning
to arrive. The Whites of his day there were what tradesmen call a
job lot. There were the old Alsatian; the new speculator; genuine
colonists, _rari nantes_; a coterie of officials; and the
missionaries, regarding all with distrust. The whole barely numbered
two thousand. Confronting the Whites were the native tribes, who, if
united and irritated, could have swept all before them. Hobson, a man
accustomed to command rather than to manage, was instructed to control
the Maoris by moral suasion. He was to respect their institutions
and customs when these were consistent with humanity and decency,
otherwise not. How in the last resort he was to stamp out inhuman
and indecent customs was left unexplained, though he asked for an
explanation. Certainly not by force; for it would have been flattery
to apply such a term to the tiny handful of armed men at his back.
Troops were not sent until the war of 1844. During the five years
after that the defence of New Zealand probably cost the Imperial
Government a round million, the result of the starving policy of the
first five years.

[Illustration: VIEW OF NELSON

Photo by HENRY WRIGHT]

Moreover, for the reasons already sketched, the English in New Zealand
formed a house divided against itself. The differences in the north
between Maoris' officials, Alsatians of the old school, and settlers
of the new, were sufficient to supply the Governor with a daily dish
of annoyance. But the main colony of New Zealand was not in the north
round Governor Hobson, but in Cook's Straits. There was to be found
the large and daily increasing antagonistic element being brought in
by the New Zealand Company. With an energy quite unchecked by any
knowledge of the real condition of New Zealand, the directors of the
Company in London kept on sending out ship-load after ship-load of
emigrants to the districts around Cook's Straits. The centre of their
operations was Port Nicholson, but bodies of their settlers were
planted at Wanganui, at the mouth of the fine river described in
the first chapter; at New Plymouth, hard by the Sugar-Loaves, in
devastated almost empty Taranaki; and at pleasant but circumscribed
Nelson in the South Island. Soon these numbered five times as many
Whites as could be mustered in the north. Upon them at the very outset
came the thunderbolt of Governor Hobson's proclamation refusing
recognition to their land purchases. Of this and of the land clause
in the Treaty of Waitangi the natives were made fully aware by the
missionaries. Rauparaha, before told of and still the most influential
chief near Cook's Straits, was exactly the man to take advantage of
the situation. He had taken the muskets and gunpowder of the Company,
and was now only too pleased to refuse them the price they thought to
receive. It was, as already said, impossible to justify all, or nearly
all, of Colonel Wakefield's gigantic purchase. But it was certainly
incumbent on the Government to find a _modus vivendi_ with the
least possible delay. On the one hand they had thousands of decent,
intelligent English colonists newly landed in a savage country, and
not in any way responsible for the Company's haste and ignorance. The
settlers at any rate had paid ample value for their land. They had
given £1 for each acre of it. Angry as the English Government had been
with the New Zealand Company for the defiant dispatch of its settlers,
Lord John Russell had instructed Hobson's superior, Sir George Gibbs,
that the emigrants should be regarded with kindness and consideration.
On the other side were the native tribes, who, as the price of land
went in those days, had certainly received the equivalent for a
considerable territory. There was room for an equitable arrangement
just as there was most pressing need for promptitude. Speed was the
first thing needful, also the second, and the third. Instead of speed
the settlers got a Royal Commission. A Commissioner was appointed, who
did not arrive until two years after the Governor, and whose final
award was not given for many months more. When he did give it, he cut
down the Company's purchase of twenty million acres to two hundred and
eighty-three thousand. As for land-claims of private persons, many of
them became the subjects of litigation and petition, and some were not
settled for twenty years. Why three or four Commissioners were not
sent instead of one, and sent sooner, the official mind alone knows.
Meantime, the weary months dragged on, and the unfortunate settlers of
the Company were either not put in possession of their land at all, or
had as little security for their farms as for their lives. They
were not allowed to form volunteer corps, though living in face of
ferocious and well-armed savages. Yet the Governor who forbade them
to take means to defend themselves had not the troops with which to
defend them. To show the state of the country it may be noted that
the two tribes from whom Colonel Wakefield bought the land round
Port Nicholson quarrelled amongst themselves over the sale. The
Ngatiraukawa treacherously attacked the Ngatiawa, were soundly beaten,
and lost seventy men. At first, it is true, settlers and natives got
on excellently well together. The new-comers had money, and were good
customers. But as time went on, and the settlers exhausted their funds
and hopes, they ceased to be able to buy freely. And when they found
the Maoris refusing to admit them to the farms for which they had paid
£1 an acre in London, feeling grew more and more acute. The Company's
settlement at Port Nicholson was perversely planted just on that place
in the inner harbour which is exposed to the force of the ocean. It
had to be shifted to a more sheltered spot, and this the natives
denied they ever sold. That was but one of a series of disputes which
led to murder and petty warfare, and were hardly at an end seven
years later. The settlers, though shut out of the back country, did,
however, hold the townland on which they had squatted, and which is
now the site of Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.

Cooped up in their narrow plots by the sea, Colonel Wakefield and his
settlers established a provisional Government. Captain Hobson,
hearing probably some very exaggerated account of this, sent down his
Lieutenant, Mr. Willoughby Shortland, in a Government vessel, with
sailors and marines, to put down this act of insubordination. Mr.
Shortland, who suffered from the not uncommon failing of a desire to
magnify his office made the process as ridiculous as possible. He
began by stealthily sending a scout on shore at daybreak to haul down
the Company's flag in Wellington and hoist the Union Jack instead.
Then he landed amongst the settlers, who had gathered to welcome him,
in the fashion of a royal commander sent to suppress a rebellion.
The settlers consoled themselves by laughing at him. Apart from one
circular visit occupying two months, Captain Hobson himself kept
sedulously away from the southern settlements, and stayed in the
north, then a longer journey away from Wellington than Australia is
now. Under the rather high-sounding title of Chief Protector of
the Aborigines, Mr. Clarke, a missionary, was appointed to be the
Governor's adviser on native matters; yet Mr. Clarke, the settlers
complained, was a larger land claimant than any of themselves. It
is not to be wondered at if a feeling grew up among the New Zealand
settlers directed against both officials and missionaries, which at
times intensified to great bitterness, and which took many years to
die down. Even now its faint relics may be observed in a vague feeling
of dislike and contempt for the Colonial Office.

The New Zealand Company, however, cannot be acquitted of blame in more
respects than one. The foundation of the Wakefield theory rested on a
secure supply of useful land. This not available, the bottom dropped
out of the whole scheme. When in New Zealand the Company's estate was
put into chancery, the Wakefield system could not, of course, work.
Not only were the Company's purchases such as could not be sustained,
not only did the directors hurry out thousands of settlers without
proper knowledge or consideration, but they also committed a capital
error in their choice of localities for settlements. Wellington, with
its central position and magnificent harbour, is undeniably the key
of New Zealand. It was in after years very properly made the seat of
government, and is always likely to remain so. But it was an almost
criminal error on the part of the Company to plump down its settlers
in districts that were occupied and certain to be stubbornly held by
warlike natives. Nearly the whole of the South Island had no human
occupants. Shut off by the Kaikoura mountains from the more dangerous
tribes, the east and south-east of that island lay open to the first
comer. Moreover, the country there was not only fertile, but in
large part treeless, and therefore singularly suited for rapid and
profitable settlement. It is quite easy to see now that had the New
Zealand Company begun its first operations there, a host of failures
and troubles would have been avoided. The settlement of the North
Island should not have been begun until after an understanding had
been come to with the Imperial authorities and missionaries, and on a
proper and legal system of land purchase. This and other things the
Company might have found out if it had taken early steps to do so. The
truth is that the first occupation of New Zealand was rushed, and,
like everything else that is done in a hurry, it was in part done very
badly.

So little was known or thought of the South Island that sovereignty
was not proclaimed over it until four months after the Governor's
arrival in the north, and even then the royal flag was not hoisted
there. The consequence was a narrow escape from an attempt by the
French to plant a colony at Akaroa in Banks Peninsula. The French
frigate _L'Aube_ put in at the Bay of Islands in July, 1840, bound for
the south. Her captain, hospitably entertained by Hobson, let fall
some incautious words about the object of his voyage. Hobson took the
alarm, and promptly dispatched the _Britomart_ to hoist the English
flag at Akaroa. Thanks to bad weather, the _Britomart_ only reached
the threatened port a few days before the Frenchmen. Then it was found
that an emigrant ship, with a number of French settlers, was coming
with all the constituent parts of a small colony. The captain of
_L'Aube_, finding himself forestalled, good-humouredly made the best
of it. A number of the immigrants did indeed land. Some of them were
afterwards taken away to the Marquesas Islands in the South Seas:
others remained permanently settled at Akaroa. There around a bay,
still called French Bay, they planted vineyards and built cottages in
a fashion having some pathetic reminiscences of rural France. There
they used to be visited from time to time by French men-of-war; but
they gave no trouble to any one, and their children, by removal or
intermarriage, became blended with the English population which in
later days surrounded them.

Captain Hobson had to choose a capital. After throwing away much good
money at Russell in the Bay of Islands, he saw that he must come
further south. A broader-minded man might have gone at once to
Wellington, and planted himself boldly amongst the English settlers.
But the prejudice of the officials and the advice of the missionaries
combined with Hobson's own peculiar views of the Cook's Straits
colonists, to keep him in the north. From his despatches it is clear
that he regarded the immigrants in the south--one of the finest bodies
of settlers that ever left England--as dangerous malcontents of
anarchical tendencies. As he would not go to Wellington and take his
natural position at the head of the main English colony and at
the centre of New Zealand, he did the next best thing in going to
Auckland. In pitching upon the Waitemata isthmus he made so good a
choice that his name is likely to be remembered therefore as long as
New Zealand lasts. By founding the city of Auckland he not only took
up a strategic position which cut the Maori tribes almost in half, but
selected a very fine natural trading centre. The narrow neck of land
on which Auckland stands between the winding Waitemata on the east and
the broader Manu-kau Harbour on the west, will, before many years, be
overspread from side to side by a great mercantile city. The unerring
eye of Captain Cook had, seventy years before, noted the Hauraki Gulf
as an admirable position. Hobson's advisers, in choosing it as his
seat of Government, are said to have been the missionary, Henry
Williams, and Captain Symonds, a surveyor. As the capital of New
Zealand it was the wrong place from the first. From every other
standpoint the selection was a master-stroke. Twenty-four years later
Auckland ceased to be the capital of the Colony; but though in this
she had to yield to the superior claims of Wellington, she could
afford to lose the privilege. First in size and beauty, she is to-day
second to no other New Zealand city in prosperity and progress.

In 1841, however, by way of making as bad a start as possible, little
Auckland began with a land boom. Forty-four acres were sold at auction
by the Government for £24,275. Small suburban lots a few months later
fetched £45 an acre, and cultivation lots £8 an acre. For one or two
picked city frontages as much as £7 10s. a foot was paid. The hanging
up of the northern land claims, and the inability of the Government to
buy native land while it refused to let private persons do so, joined,
with a trade collapse in Australia, to make the condition of the
Auckland settlers soon almost as unenviable as that of their
fellow-colonists in the Company's settlements.

Governor Hobson died at Auckland after ruling New Zealand for a little
less than three years. His best monument is the city which he founded,
and the most memorable verdict on his life is written in a letter
addressed by a Maori chief to the Queen. "Let not," said this
petition, "the new Governor be a boy or one puffed up. Let not a
troubler come amongst us. Let him be a good man like this Governor who
has just died." When these words were written, the judgment of the
English in New Zealand would have been very different. But time
has vindicated Hobson's honesty and courage, and in some important
respects even his discernment. He anticipated the French, baffled the
land-sharks, kept the peace, was generous to the Maori, and founded
Auckland. No bad record this for the harassed, dying sailor, sent to
stand between his own countrymen and savages at the very end of
the earth, and left almost without men or money! If under him the
colonists found their lot almost unbearable, the fault was chiefly
that of his masters. Most of his impolicy came from Downing Street;
most of his good deeds were his own. It must be remembered that he was
sent to New Zealand, not to push on settlement, but to protect the
natives and assert the Queen's authority. These duties he never
forgot.




Chapter XI


THROUGH WEAKNESS INTO WAR

  "Awhile he makes some false way, undebarred
   By thwarting signs, and braves
   The freshening wind and blackening waves,
   And then the tempest strikes him; and between
   The lightning-bursts is seen
   Only a driving wreck,
   And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck."

In 1842 it took eight months before an official, when writing from
New Zealand to England, could hope to get an answer. The time was far
distant when the results of a cricket match in the southern hemisphere
could be proclaimed in the streets of London before noon on the day of
play. It was not therefore surprising that Hobson's successor did not
reach the Colony for more than a year after his death. Meantime the
Government was carried on by Mr. Secretary Shortland, not the ablest
of his officials. He soon very nearly blundered into war with the
Maoris, some of whom had been killing and eating certain of another
tribe--the last recorded instance of cannibalism in the country.
The Acting-Governor was, however, held back by Bishop Selwyn, Chief
Justice Martin, and Swainson the Attorney-General, a trio of whom more
will be said hereafter. The two former walked on foot through the
disturbed district, in peril but unharmed, to proffer their good
advice. The Attorney-General advised that what the Acting-Governor
contemplated was _ultra vires_, an opinion so palpably and daringly
wrong that some have thought it a desperate device to save the
country. He contended that as the culprits in the case were not among
the chiefs who had signed the Treaty of Waitangi, they were not
subject to the law or sovereignty of England. Though it is said that
Dr. Phillimore held the same opinion, the Colonial Office put its foot
upon it heavily and at once. Her Majesty's rule, said Lord Stanley,
having once been proclaimed over all New Zealand, it did not lie with
one of her officers to impugn the validity of her government.

Mr. Shortland's day was a time of trial for the land claimants. After
nearly two years' delay Mr. Spain, the Commissioner for the trial
of the New Zealand Company's claims, had landed in Wellington in
December, 1841, and had got to work in the following year. As the
southern purchases alone gave him work enough for three men, Messrs.
Richmond and Godfrey were appointed to hear the Auckland cases. By the
middle of 1843 they had disposed of more than half of 1,037 claims.
Very remorselessly did they cut them down. A well-known missionary who
had taken over a block of 50,000 acres to prevent two tribes going
to war about it, was allowed to keep 3,000 acres only. At Hokianga a
purchaser who claimed to have bought 1,500 acres for £24 was awarded
96 acres. When we remember that among the demands of the greater
land-sharks of the Colony had been three for more than a million acres
each, three for more than half a million each, and three for more
than a quarter of a million each, we can appreciate what the early
Governors and their Commissioners had to face. The Old Land Claims,
now and afterwards looked into, covered some eleven million acres.
Of these a little less than one twenty-second part was held to have
passed from the natives, and was divided between the Crown and the
claimants. A number of the Church of England missionaries had to go
through the ordeal with the rest. Some twenty-four of these, together
with members of their families, had, between 1830 and 1843, bought
about 216,000 acres of land from the natives. The Commissioners cut
down this purchase to about 66,000 acres. Even then there was some
litigation and much bitterness. Some of the very missionaries who had
been most prominent in thwarting and denouncing the land purchases of
the New Zealand Company were themselves purchasers of land. As may
be imagined, the criticisms directed at them were savage, noisy, and
often unjust and exaggerated. Years afterwards Governor Grey became
involved in this miserable controversy, which only slowly died away
when he passed ordinances that did much to settle doubtful and
disputed claims.

Not all the missionaries laid themselves open to these attacks.
Neither Hadfield, Maunsell, nor the printer Colenso were amongst the
land-buyers, and the same honourable self-denial was shown by all the
Catholic missionaries, and by all the Wesleyans but two. Nor were the
lay land-claimants always ravenous. Maning, the Pakeha Maori, had paid
£222 for his 200 acres at Hokianga. At Tauranga £50 had been given for
a building site fifty feet square, in a _pa_. At Rotorua the price
given for half an acre had been £12 10s. Many of the most monstrous
claims, it may be noted, were never brought into court.

In the Cook's Straits settlements Mr. Spain strove to do equity. The
very sensible plan was adopted of allowing the Company to make some
of their incomplete purchases good by additional payments. But this,
which might have brought about a tolerable adjustment in 1840, led to
little but delays and recriminations in 1843. After three years of
stagnation the Company was as exasperated and impecunious as the
settlers. The positions of Colonel Wakefield in Wellington, and his
brother and fellow-agent, Arthur Wakefield, in Nelson, were almost
unbearable. It is hardly to be wondered at that the latter, in June,
1843, committed the very great mistake which led to the one misfortune
from which the unhappy Colony had so far escaped--war.

In the north-east corner of the South Island lies the grassy valley of
the Wairau. Rich in alluvial soil, open and attractive to the eye, and
near the sea, it wanted only greater extent to be one of the finest
districts in the Islands. The Company claimed to have bought it from
Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, whose ownership--for they did not live in
it--was based on recent conquest, and on occupation by some members
of their tribe. The chiefs denied the sale, and, when the Company's
surveyors came into the valley, warned them off, and burned down the
huts they had put up. Commissioner Spain was coming almost at once to
try the dispute as to the title. But the delays and vexations of the
previous years had infuriated Captain Wakefield. He looked upon the
chiefs as a pair of "travelling bullies" who wanted but firmness to
cow them. With hasty hardihood he obtained a warrant for the arrest of
Rauparaha on a charge of arson, and set out to arrest him, accompanied
by the Nelson police magistrate, at the head of a _posse_ of some
fifty Nelson settlers very badly equipped. Rauparaha, surrounded by
his armed followers, was found in a small clearing backed by a patch
of bush, his front covered by a narrow but deep creek. The leaders
of the arresting party crossed this, and called on the chief to give
himself up. Of course he defied them. After an argument the police
magistrate, an excitable man, made as though to arrest him. There was
a scuffle; a gun went off, and in the conflict which followed the
undisciplined settlers, fired upon by hidden natives, and divided by
the stream, became panic-stricken, and retreated in confusion, despite
Wakefield's appeals and entreaties to them to stand. As he could do
nothing with them, Wakefield held up a white handkerchief, and with
four gentlemen and four labourers gave himself up to Rauparaha. But
Rangihaeata had a blood-feud with the English. A woman-servant of
his--not his wife--had been accidentally shot in the fray. Moreover,
some time before, another woman, a relative of his, had been murdered
by a white, who, when tried in the Supreme Court, had been acquitted.
Now was the hour for vengeance. Coming up wild with rage, Rangihaeata
fell upon the unresisting prisoners and tomahawked them all. Captain
Wakefield, thus untimely slain, was not only an able pioneer leader,
but a brave man of high worth, of singularly fine and winning
character, and one of whom those who knew him spoke with a kind of
enthusiasm. Twenty-two settlers in all were killed that day and five
wounded. The natives, superior in numbers, arms, and position, had
lost only four killed and eight wounded. So easily was the first
tussle between Maori and settler won by the natives. In the opinion of
some the worst feature of the whole unhappy affair was that something
very like cowardice had been shown on the losing side. Naturally the
Wairau Massacre, as it was called, gave a shock to the young Colony.
The Maoris triumphantly declared that the _mana_ (prestige) of the
English was gone.

A Wesleyan missionary and a party of whalers buried the dead. No
attempt was ever made to revenge them. Commissioner Spain visited
Rauparaha, at the request of the leading settlers of Wellington, to
assure him that the matter should be left to the arbitrament of the
Crown. The Crown, as represented by Mr. Shortland, was, perhaps, at
the moment more concerned at the defenceless position of Auckland, in
the event of a general rising, than at anything else. Moreover,
the philo-Maori officials held that Rauparaha and Rangihaeata were
aggrieved persons. A company of fifty-three Grenadiers was sent to
Wellington and a man-of-war to Nelson. Strict orders were given to
the disgusted settlers not to meet and drill. On the whole, in the
helpless state of the Colony, inaction was wisest. At any rate Mr.
Shortland's successor was on his way out, and there was reason in
waiting for him. Now had come the result of Hobson's error in fixing
the seat of government in Auckland, and in keeping the leading
officials there. Had Wellington been the seat of government in 1843,
the Wairau incident could hardly have occurred.

Not the least of poor Mr. Shortland's troubles were financial. He
inherited debts from his predecessor. Indeed, the New Zealand Treasury
may be said to have been cradled in deficits. In 1841 Hobson's
expenditure had been £81,000 against a revenue of £37,000, most of
which was the product of land sales. In 1842 the revenue was £50,000,
of which only £11,000 came from land sales; and in 1843 this source of
income fell to £1,600. The southern settlers complained, truly enough,
that whilst they found much of the money, nearly all of it was spent
in Auckland. In 1844--if I may anticipate--Mr. Shortland's successor
had the melancholy duty of warning the Colonial Office that to meet an
inevitable outlay of £35,000 he could at the best hope for a revenue
of £20,000. Mr. Shortland himself, in 1843, tried to replenish the
treasury chest by borrowing £15,000 in Sydney. But New Zealand, which
has lately borrowed many times that sum at about three per cent.
interest, could not then raise the money at fifteen per cent. Mr.
Shortland next drew bills on the English treasury, which were
dishonoured, though the mother country afterwards relented so far as
to lend the sum, adding it to the public debt of the Colony. Finally,
the Governor, who on arrival superseded Mr. Shortland, made a
beginning by publicly insulting that gentleman. With proper spirit the
Secretary at once resigned, and was sent by Downing Street to govern a
small island in the West Indies.

If neither Captain Hobson nor Mr. Shortland found official life in New
Zealand otherwise than thorny, their career was smooth and prosperous
compared to that of the Governor who now appears on the scene.
Admiral--then Captain--Robert Fitzroy will have a kind of immortality
as the commander of the _Beagle_--Darwin's _Beagle_. His scientific
work as a hydrographer at the Admiralty is still spoken of in high
terms. He was unquestionably a well-meaning sailor. But his short
career in New Zealand is an awful example of the evils which the
Colonial Office can inflict on a distant part of the Empire by a bad
appointment. It is true that, like his predecessors, Fitzroy was not
fairly supported by the authorities at Home. They supplied him with
neither men nor money, and on them therefore the chief responsibility
of the Colony's troubles rest. But a study of his two years of rule
fails to reveal any pitfall in his pathway into which he did not
straightway stumble.

Captain Fitzroy was one of those fretful and excitable beings whose
manner sets plain men against them, and who, when they are not in
error, seem so. Often wrong, occasionally right, he possessed in
perfection the unhappy art of doing the right thing in the wrong way.
Restless and irascible, passing from self-confidence to gloom, he
would find relief for nerve tension in a peevishness which was the
last quality one in his difficult position should have shown. An
autocratic official amid little rough, dissatisfied communities of
hard-headed pioneers was a king with no divinity to hedge him round.
Without pomp, almost without privacy, everything he said or did became
the property of local gossips. A ruler so placed must have natural
dignity, and requires self-command above all things. That was just
the quality Captain Fitzroy had not. It was said that the blood of a
Stuart king ran in his veins; and, indeed, there seemed to be about
the tall, thin, melancholy man something of the bad luck, as well as
the hopeless wrong-headedness, of that unteachable House.

For he landed at Auckland in November, 1843, to find an ample legacy
of trouble awaiting him. The loyal and patriotic address with which
the Aucklanders welcomed him was such as few viceroys have been
condemned to receive at the outset of their term of office. It did not
mince matters. It described the community as bankrupt, and ascribed
its fate to the mistakes and errors of the Government. At New Plymouth
a similar address declared that the settlers were menaced with
irretrievable ruin. Kororáreka echoed the wail. Nor was the welcome of
Wellington one whit more cheerful--a past of bungling, a present of
stagnation, a future of danger: such was the picture it drew. It
was not much exaggerated. On the coasts of New Zealand some twelve
thousand colonists were divided into eight settlements, varying in
population from 4,000 at Wellington to 200 at Akaroa. Not one of them
was defensible in military eyes. There were no troops, no militia, no
money. Neither at Wellington nor Nelson had more than one thousand
acres of land been cleared and cultivated. Labourers were riotously
clamouring for work or rations. Within fifty miles of Wellington was
Rauparaha, who, had he appealed to his race, could probably have
mustered a force strong enough to loot and burn the town. Some
wondered why he did not; perhaps Hadfield's influence amongst his
tribe supplied the answer.

Governor Fitzroy began at his first _levee_ at Wellington by scolding
the settlers, inveighing against the local newspaper, and grossly
insulting Gibbon Wakefield's son when he was presented to him. At
Nelson he rated the magistrates after such a fashion that they threw
up their commissions. He then went to Rauparaha's _pa_ at Waikanae
near Kapiti. A dozen whites were with the Governor; five hundred
Maoris surrounded the chief. After lecturing the latter for the
slaughter of the captives at Wairau, Fitzroy informed him that, as the
slain men had been the aggressors, he was to be freely forgiven. Only
one utterly ignorant of the Maori character could have fancied that
this exaggerated clemency would be put down to anything but weakness.
Even some missionaries thought that compensation should have been
demanded for the death of the prisoners. As for the settlers, their
disgust was deep. Putting together the haste, violence, and want of
dignity of his proceedings, they declared the new Governor could not
be master of his own actions. That Gibbon Wakefield's brother should
have been savagely butchered and not avenged was bad enough; that his
fellow-settlers should be rated for their share in the disaster seemed
a thing not to be endured. The Maoris grew insolent, the settlers
sullen, and for years afterward a kind of petty warfare lingered on in
the Wellington district.

Governor Fitzroy was no more successful in Taranaki. There the
Company, after claiming the entire territory, had had their claim cut
down by the Commissioners' award to 60,000 acres. But even this was
now disputed, on the ground that it had been bought from a tribe--the
Waikato--who had indeed conquered it, and carried away its owners as
slaves, but had never taken possession of the soil by occupation. When
Colonel Wakefield bought it, the land was virtually empty, and the few
score of natives living at the Sugar-Loaves sold their interest to him
readily enough. But when the enslaved Ngatiawa and Taranaki tribesmen
were soon afterwards released through the influence of Christianity,
they returned to the desolated land, and disputed the claim of the
Company. Moreover, there were the Ngatiawas, who, led by Wiremu Kingi,
had migrated to Cook's Straits in the days of devastation. They
claimed not only their new possessions--much of which they sold to the
Company--but their old tribal lands at Waitara, from which they had
fled, but to which some of them now straggled back. On this nice point
Captain Fitzroy had to adjudicate. He decided that the returned slaves
and Ngatiawa fugitives were the true owners of the land. Instead
of paying them fairly for the 60,000 acres--which they did not
require--he handed the bulk of it back to them, penning the unhappy
white settlers up in a miserable strip of 3,200 acres. The result was
the temporary ruin of the Taranaki settlement, and the sowing of the
seeds of an intense feeling of resentment and injustice which bore
evil fruit in later days.

Nor did Captain Fitzroy do any better with finance than in his land
transactions. His very insufficient revenue was largely derived from
Customs duties. Trade at the Bay of Islands had, by this time, greatly
fallen away. Whalers and timber vessels no longer resorted there as in
the good old Alsatian days. Both natives and settlers grumbled at
the change, which they chose to attribute to the Government Customs
duties. To conciliate them, the Governor abolished Customs duties at
Kororáreka. Naturally a cry at once went up from other parts of the
Colony for a similar concession. The unhappy Governor, endeavouring
to please them all, like the donkey-owner in Æsop's Fables, abolished
Customs duties everywhere. To replace them he devised an astounding
combination of an income-tax and property-tax. Under this, not only
would the rich plainly pay less in proportion than the poor, but a
Government official drawing £600 a year, but owning no land, would pay
just half the sum exacted from a settler who, having invested £1,000
in a farm, was struggling to make £200 a year thereby. The mere
prospect of this crudity caused such a feeling in the Colony that he
was obliged to levy the Customs duties once more. His next error was
the abandonment of the Government monopoly of land purchase from the
Maoris. As might be expected, the pressure upon all rulers in New
Zealand to do this, and to allow private bargaining with the natives
for land, has always been very strong, especially in the Auckland
district. Repeated experience has, however, shown that the results are
baneful to all concerned--demoralizing to the natives, and by no means
always profitable to the white negotiators. When Fitzroy proclaimed
that settlers might purchase land from the natives, he imposed a duty
of ten shillings an acre upon each sale. Then, when this was bitterly
complained of, he reduced the fee to one penny. Finally, he fell back
on the desperate expedient of issuing paper money, a thing which he
had no right to do. All these mistakes and others he managed to commit
within two short years. Fortunately for the Colony, he, in some of
them, flatly disregarded his instructions. The issue of paper money
was one of the few blunders the full force of which Downing Street
could apprehend. Hence his providential recall.

Before this reached him he had drifted into the last and worst of his
misfortunes, an unsuccessful war, the direct result of the defeat at
the Wairau and the weakness shown thereafter. It was not that he and
his missionary advisers did not try hard enough to avert any conflict
with the Maoris. If conciliation pushed to the verge of submission
could have kept the peace, it would have been kept. But conciliation,
without firmness, will not impress barbarians. The Maoris were far too
acute to be impressed by the well-meaning, vacillating Governor. They
set to work, instead, to impress him. They invited him to a huge
banquet near Auckland, and danced a war-dance before their guest with
the deliberate intention of overawing him. Indeed, the spectacle of
fifteen hundred warriors, stripped, smeared with red ochre, stamping,
swaying, leaping, uttering deep guttural shouts, and brandishing their
muskets, while their wild rhythmic songs rose up in perfect time, and
their tattooed features worked convulsively, was calculated to affect
even stronger nerves than the Governor's.

It was among the discontented tribes in the Bay of Islands, where
Alsatia was now deserted by its roaring crews of whalers and cheated
of its hoped-for capital, that the outbreak came.

In the winter of 1844, Honé Heké, son-in-law of the great Hongi,
presuming on the weakness of the Government, swaggered into
Kororáreka, plundered some of the houses, and cut down a flagstaff
on the hill over the town on which the English flag was flying. Some
White of the beach-comber species is said to have suggested the act
to him by assuring him that the flag-staff represented the Queen's
sovereignty--the evil influence which had drawn trade and money away
to Auckland. Heké had no grievance whatever against the Government or
colonists, but he and the younger braves of the Northern tribes
had been heard to ask whether Rangihaeata was to do all the
_Pakeha_-killing? At the moment Fitzroy had not two hundred soldiers
in the country. He hurried up to the scene of disturbance. Luckily
Heké's tribe--the Ngapuhi--were divided. Part, under Waka Nené, held
with the English. Accepting Nené's advice Fitzroy allowed Heké to pay
ten muskets in compensation for the flagstaff, and then foolishly gave
back the fine as a present and departed. Nené and the friendly chiefs
undertook to keep peace--but failed, for Heké again cut down the
flagstaff. This, of course, brought war definitely on. The famous
flagstaff was re-erected, guarded by a block-house, and a party of
soldiers and sailors were sent to garrison Kororáreka. As H.M.S.
_Hazard_ lay off the beach in the Bay and guns were mounted in three
block-houses, the place was expected to hold out. Heké, however,
notified that he would take it--and did so. He marched against it with
eight hundred men. One party attacked the flagstaff, another the town.
The twenty defenders of the flag-staff were divided by a stratagem by
which part were lured out to repel a feigned attack. In their absence
the stockade was rushed, and, for the third time, the flagstaff hewn
down. During the attack the defenders of the town, however, under
Captain Robertson of the _Hazard_, stood their ground and repulsed a
first attack. Even when Robertson fell, his thigh-bone shattered by
a bullet, Lieutenant Philpotts, taking command, had the women and
children sent safely on board the ships, and all was going well when
the outnumbered garrison were paralysed by the blowing up of their
powder magazine. The townsmen began to escape, and a council of war
decided to abandon the place. This was done. Lovell, a gunner, would
not leave his piece until he had spiked it, and was killed, but not
before doing so. Bishop Selwyn, landing from his mission ship in the
Bay, had been doing the work of ten in carrying off women and children
and succouring the wounded, aided therein by Henry Williams. To
Selwyn, as he toiled begrimed with smoke and sweat, came running a
boy, young Nelson Hector, whose father, a lawyer, was in charge of a
gun in position on one of the hillsides outside the town. The boy had
stolen away unnoticed, and crept through the Maoris to find out for
his father how things stood. The bishop offered to take him on board
with the women, but the youngster scouted the notion of leaving his
father. "God bless you, my boy!" said the big-hearted Selwyn; "I have
nothing to say against it"; and the lad, running off, got back safely.
Out in the Bay the American corvette _St. Louis_ lay at anchor. Her
men were keen to be allowed to "bear a hand" in the defence. Though
this could not be, her captain sent boats through the fire while it
was still hot to bring off the women and children, and gave them
shelter on board. Anglo-Saxon brotherhood counted for something even
in 1845. The scene became extraordinary. The victorious Maoris,
streaming gleefully into the town, began to plunder in the best of
good tempers. Some of the townspeople went about saving such of their
goods as they could without molestation, indeed, with occasional help
from the Maoris, who considered there was enough for all. Presently
a house caught fire, the flames spread, and the glowing blaze, the
volumes of smoke, and the roar of the burning under the red-lit sky,
gave a touch of dignity to the end of wicked old Kororáreka.

Loaded with booty, Heké's men went off inland in high spirits. Three
vessels crowded with the ruined Alsatians sailed to Auckland, where
for a while the astonished people expected nightly to be roused
from their beds by the yells of Ngapuhi warriors. Our loss had been
thirty-one killed and wounded, and it was small consolation to know
that, thanks to the ship's guns, the Maoris' had been three times as
great. The disaster was a greater blow to the English _Mana_ than even
the Wairau Massacre. But the settlements showed spirit everywhere,
and under the stress of the time the Governor forgot some of his
prejudices. Even those much-suspected people, the Wellington settlers,
were allowed to form themselves into a militia at last.

Thanks to the divisions among the Ngapuhi, Heké did not follow up his
victory. Troops were procured from Sydney, but they had no artillery.
The natives relied on their _pas_ or stockades. These, skilfully
constructed by means of double or triple rows of heavy palisades,
masked by flax and divided by shallow ditches which did duty for
rifle-pits, could not be carried without being breached by cannon. A
fruitless attack upon one of them soon demonstrated this. The _pa_,
called Okaihau, though strong in front, was weak in the rear. Four
hundred soldiers, supported by as many Ngapuhi friendlies under Waka
Nené, marched against it. Fruitlessly Nené advised the English Colonel
to assail the place from behind. The Colonel, who had seen Nené
yelling in a war-dance, and looked upon him as a degraded savage,
approached the front, where Okaihau was really strong. As he had no
guns he tried the effect of rockets, but though terrified by the
strange fire, the defenders gained heart when they found that the
rockets hit nothing. They even charged the English in the open with
long-handled tomahawks, and only fell back before a bayonet charge
in regular form. After skirmishing all day and losing fifty-four in
killed and wounded with but negative results, the English retreated to
Auckland to request artillery. Waka Nené carried on the fighting on
his own account, and in a skirmish with him Heké was badly wounded.
Guns were fetched from Australia, and Heké's men were brought to bay
at their principal _pa_, Ohaeawai. Colonel Despard commanded the
besiegers, who outnumbered the defenders by more than three to one.
After bombarding the palisades for some days, the colonel, in defiance
of the advice of his artillery officer--who declared there was no
practicable breach--ordered an assault. Two hundred soldiers and
sailors were told off for the duty, and at four o'clock on a
pleasant, sunny afternoon they charged up a gentle, open slope to the
simple-looking stockade. Only two or three got inside. In a quarter of
an hour half the force were shot down, and the survivors only saved by
the bugle-call which Despard ordered to be sounded. Forty, including a
captain and two lieutenants, were killed on the spot or died of their
wounds. Sixty-two others were wounded. Gallant Lieutenant Philpotts,
the first through the stockade, lay dead, sword in hand, inside the
_pa_. At the outset of the war he had been captured by the natives
whilst scouting, and let go unharmed with advice to take more care in
future. Through no fault of his own he had lost Kororáreka. Stung by
this, or, as some say, by a taunt of Despard's, he led the way at
Ohaeawai with utterly reckless courage, and, to the regret of the
brave brown men his enemies, was shot at close quarters by a mere boy.
The wounded could not be removed for two days. During the night
the triumphant Maoris shouted and danced their war-dance. They
tortured--with burning kauri gum--an unfortunate soldier whom they
had captured alive, and whose screams could be plainly heard in the
English camp. Despard, whose artillery ammunition had run short,
remained watching the _pa_ for several days. But when he was in a
position to renew his bombardment, the natives quietly abandoned the
place by night, without loss. According to their notions of warfare,
such a withdrawal was not a defeat.

Such are the facts of one of the worst repulses sustained by our
arms in New Zealand. It will scarcely be believed that after this
humiliation Captain Fitzroy, on missionary advice, endeavoured to make
peace--of course, without avail. Heké became a hero in the eyes of
his race. The news of Ohaeawai reached England, and the Duke of
Wellington's language about Colonel Despard is said to have been
pointed. But already the Colonial Office had made up its mind for a
change in New Zealand. Fitzroy was recalled, and Captain Grey, the
Governor of South Australia, whose sense and determination had lifted
that Colony out of the mire, was wisely selected to replace him.




Chapter XII


GOOD GOVERNOR GREY

  "No hasty fool of stubborn will,
   But prudent, wary, pliant still,
   Who, since his work was good,
   Would do it as he could."

Captain Grey came in the nick of time. That he managed because he
wasted no time about coming. The despatch, removing him from South
Australia to New Zealand, reached Adelaide on the 15th of October,
1845, and by the 14th of November he was in Auckland.

He arrived to find Kororáreka in ashes, Auckland anxious, the
Company's settlers in the south harassed by the Maoris and embittered
against the Government, the missionaries objects of tormenting
suspicions, and the natives unbeaten and exultant. The Colonists had
no money and no hope. Four hundred Crown grants were lying unissued in
the Auckland Land Office because land-buyers could not pay the fee of
£1 apiece due on them.

But the Colonial Office, now that it at last gave unfortunate New
Zealand a capable head, did not do things by halves. It supplied him
with sufficient troops and a certain amount of money. The strong hand
at the helm at once made itself felt. Within a month the circulating
debentures were withdrawn, the pre-emptive right of the Crown over
native lands resumed, the sale of fire-arms to natives prohibited, and
negotiations with Heké and his fellow insurgent chief, Kawiti, sternly
broken off.

The Governor set to work to end the war. High in air, on the side of
a thickly-timbered hill, lay Kawiti's new and strongest _pa_,
Rua-peka-peka (the Bat's Nest). Curtained by a double palisade of
beams eighteen feet high by two feet thick, strengthened by flanking
redoubts, ditches, and traverses, honeycombed with rifle-pits
and bomb-proof chambers below ground, "large enough to hold a
whist-party," it was a model Maori fortification of the later style.

[Illustration: SIR GEORGE GREY

Photo by RUSSELL, Baker St., W.]

Against it the Governor and Despard moved with 1,200 soldiers and
sailors, a strong native contingent, and what for those days and that
corner of the earth was a strong park of artillery. The first round
shot fired carried away the _pa's_ flagstaff; but though palisades
were splintered and sorties were repulsed, the stubborn garrison
showed no sign of yielding, and the Bat's Nest, for all our strength,
fell but by an accident. Our artillery fire, continued for several
days, was--rather to the surprise of our Maori allies--not stopped
on Sunday. The defenders, Christians also, wishing to hold divine
service, withdrew to an outwork behind their main fort to be out of
reach of the cannon balls. A few soldiers and friendly natives, headed
by Waka Nené's brother, struck by the deserted aspect of the place,
crept up and got inside before they were discovered. The insurgents,
after a plucky effort to retake their own fortress, fled with loss.
Our casualties were but forty-three. The blow thus given ended the
war. Heké, weakened by his wound, sued for peace. Even tough little
Kawiti wrote to the Governor that he was "full." Grey showed a
wise leniency. Waka Nené was given a pension of £100 a year, and
ostentatiously honoured and consulted. As time went on the
Ngapuhi themselves re-erected the historic flagstaff in token of
reconciliation. From that day to this there has been no rebellion
amongst the tribes north of Auckland. Heké's relation and name-sake,
Honé Heké, M.H.R., is now a member of the New Zealand House of
Representatives, which he addresses in excellent English, and only in
May of this year the good offices' of Mr. Honé Heké were foremost in
quelling what threatened to be a troublesome riot among the Ngapuhi on
the Hokianga.

The petty warfare against Rangihaeata in the Cook's Straits district
took longer to end. It was a series of isolated murders, trifling
skirmishes, night surprises, marchings and counter-marchings. Their
dreary insignificance was redeemed by the good-tempered pertinacity
shown by our troops in enduring month after month of hardship and
exposure in the rain-soaked bush and the deep mud of the sloughs,
miscalled tracks, along which they had to crawl through the gloomy
valleys. And there was one story of heroism. An out-post of the
fifty-eighth regiment had been surprised at dawn. The bugler, a lad
named Allen, was raising his bugle to sound the alarm, when a blow
from a tomahawk half severed his arm. Snatching the bugle with the
other hand, he managed to blow a warning note before a second tomahawk
stroke stretched him dead. Grey adopted the Fabian plan of driving the
insurgents back into the mountain forests and slowly starving them out
there. In New Zealand, thanks to the scarcity of wild food plants and
animals, even Maoris suffer cruel hardships if cut off long from their
plantations.

Rauparaha, now a very old man, was nominally not concerned in these
troubles. He lived quietly in a sea-coast village by the Straits,
enjoying the reputation earned by nearly fifty years of fighting,
massacring and plotting. The Governor, however, satisfied himself that
the old chief was secretly instigating the insurgents. By a cleverly
managed surprise he captured Rauparaha in his village, whence he was
carried kicking and biting on board a man-of-war. The move proved
successful. The _mana_ of the Maori Ulysses was fatally injured in the
eyes of his race by the humiliation. The chief, who had killed Arthur
Wakefield and laughed under Fitzroy's nose, had met at length a
craftier than himself. Detained at Auckland, or carried about in
Grey's train, he was treated with a studied politeness which prevented
him from being honoured as a martyr. His influence was at an end.

Peace quickly came. It is true that at the end of the year 1846 there
came a small outbreak which caused a tiny hamlet, now the town of
Wanganui, to be attacked and plundered. But the natives, who retired
into the bush, were quietly brought to submission by having their
trade stopped, and in particular their supply of tobacco cut off.
Fourteen years of quiet now followed the two years of disturbance.
During the fighting from the Wairau conflict onwards, our loss
had been one hundred and seven Whites killed and one hundred and
seventy-two wounded. To this must be added several "murders" of
settlers and the losses of our native allies. Small as the total was,
it was larger than the casualties of the insurgents.

For his success Governor Grey was made Sir George, and greatly pleased
the natives by choosing Waka Nené and Te Whero Whero, our old Waikato
acquaintance, to act as esquires at his investiture. But it was in
the use he made of the restored tranquillity that he showed his true
capacity. He employed the natives as labourers in making roads, useful
both for war and peace. They found wages better than warfare. As
navvies, they were paid half a crown a day, and were reported to do
more work as spade-men than an equal number of soldiers would. At no
time did the Maoris seem to make such material progress as during the
twelve peaceful years beginning with 1848.

With his brown subjects, Grey, after once beating them, trod the paths
of pleasantness and peace. The chiefs recognised his imperturbable
courage and self-control, and were charmed by his unfailing courtesy
and winning manners. He found time to learn their language. The study
of their character, their myths, customs, and art was not only to him
a labour of love, but bore practical fruit in the knowledge it gave
him of the race. So good were the volumes in which he put together
and published the fruits of his Maori studies, that for nearly half a
century students of Maori literature have been glad to follow in
the way pointed out by this busy administrator. Few men have ever
understood the Natives better. He could humour their childishness and
respect their intelligence. When a powerful chief refused to allow one
of the Governor's roads to be pushed through his tribe's land, Grey
said nothing, but sent the chief's sister a present of a wheeled
carriage. Before long the road was permitted. But on the all-important
question of the validity of the land clause in the treaty of Waitangi,
the Governor always gave the Maoris the fullest assurance. Striving
always to keep liquor and fire-arms from them, he encouraged them to
farm, helped to found schools for them, and interested himself in the
all-important question of their physical health, on which he consulted
and corresponded with Florence Nightingale.

After a good deal of tedious litigation Grey was able to settle nearly
all the outstanding land claims. By a misuse of one of Fitzroy's
freakish ordinances land-grabbers had got hold of much of the land
near Auckland. Grey was able to make many of them disgorge. His
influence with the Maoris enabled him to buy considerable tracts of
land. By him the Colonial Office was persuaded to have a reasonable
force retained for the protection of the Colony. He put an end to the
office of "Protector of the Aborigines," the source of much well-meant
but unpractical advice. When Earl Grey sent out in 1846 a constitution
prematurely conferring upon the Colonists the right of governing
themselves--and also of governing the Maoris--Sir George had the moral
courage and good sense to stand in the way of its adoption. For this,
and for refusing to allow private purchase of native land, he was
bitterly attacked; but he stood his ground, to the advantage of both
races. Especially in the settlements of the New Zealand Company
was the agitation for free institutions carried on with vigour and
ability.

It is scarcely needful now to scan in detail the various compromises
and expedients by which Grey vainly endeavoured to satisfy
the Colonists, first with nominated councils, then with local
self-governing powers; or how, finally, he completely changed front,
went further than Lord Grey, and drafted and sent home a constitution
which, for that day, seemed the quintessence of Radicalism.

Meanwhile he remained an autocrat. Even an autocrat has his advisers,
and in some of them he was fortunate. Mr. William Swainson, his
Attorney-General, was an English lawyer of striking abilities of more
than one kind. Fortunately one of these lay in drafting statutes. On
him devolved the drawing-up of the laws of the infant Colony. In doing
so he ventured to be much simpler in language and much less of a slave
to technical subtleties than was usual in his day. By an ordinance
dealing with conveyancing he swept away a host of cumbrous English
precedents relating to that great branch of law. Other excellent
enactments dealt with legal procedure and marriage. Mr. Swainson's
ordinances were not only good in themselves, but set an example in New
Zealand which later law reformers were only too glad to follow and
improve upon. Another official of ability and high character was Sir
William Martin, Chief Justice, long known, not only as a refined
gentleman and upright judge, but as an enthusiastic and unswerving
champion of what he believed to be the rights of the Maori race. But
a more commanding figure than either Martin or Swainson was George
Augustus Selwyn, the first Bishop of the Colony. No better selection
could have been made than that by which England sent this muscular
Christian to organize and administer a Church of mingled savages and
pioneers. Bishop Selwyn was both physically and mentally a ruler of
men. When young, his tall, lithe frame, and long, clean-cut aquiline
features were those of the finest type of English gentleman. When old,
the lines on his face marked honourably the unresting toil of the
intellectual athlete. Hard sometimes to others, he was always hardest
to himself. When in the wilderness, he could outride or outwalk his
guides, and could press on when hunger made his companions flag
wearily. He would stride through rivers in his Bishop's dress, and
laugh at such trifles as wet clothes, and would trudge through the
bush with his blankets rolled up on his back like any swag-man. When
at sea in his missionary schooner, he could haul on the ropes or take
the helm--and did so.[1] If his demeanour and actions savoured at
times somewhat of the dramatic, and if he had more of iron than honey
in his manner, it must be remembered that his duty lay in wild places
and amongst rough men, where strength of will and force of character
were more needed than gentler virtues. For more than a generation he
laboured strenuously amongst Maoris and Europeans, loved by many and
respected by all. He organized the Episcopal Church in New Zealand
upon a basis which showed a rare insight into the democratic character
of the community with which he had to deal. The basis of his system is
found in the representative synods of clergy and laity which assemble
annually in each New Zealand diocese. The first draft of this Church
constitution came indeed from the brain and hand of Sir George Grey,
but for the rest the credit of it belongs to Selwyn.

[Footnote 1: The lines with which Mr. Punch in December, 1867, saluted
"Selwyn the pious and plucky," then just translated to Lichfield, had
truth in them as well as fun:--

  "Where lawn sleeves and silk apron had turned with a shiver,
     From the current that roared 'twixt his business and him,
   If no boat could be come at he breasted the river,
     And woe to his chaplain who craned at a swim!

         *       *       *       *       *

  "What to him were short commons, wet jacket, hard-lying
     The savage's blood-feud, the elements' strife,
   Whose guard was the Cross, at his peak proudly flying,
     Whose fare was the bread and the water of life?"]

Among the many interesting figures on the stage of the New Zealand of
the first generation three seem to me to rise head and shoulders above
the crowd--Gibbon Wakefield, Grey, and Selwyn, the founder, the ruler,
the pastor. Nor must it be supposed, because these towered above their
fellow-actors, that the latter were puny men. Plenty of ability found
its way to the Colony, and under the stress of its early troubles wits
were sharpened and faculties brightened. There is nothing like the
colonial grindstone for putting an edge on good steel. Grey, Selwyn,
and Wakefield, as unlike morally as they were in manner, had this in
common, that they were leaders of men, and that they had men to lead.
That for thirty years the representatives of the English Government,
from Busby to Browne, were, with the exception of Grey, commonplace
persons or worse, must not blind us to the interest of the drama or to
the capacity of many of the men whom these commonplace persons were
sent to guide.

Of the trio referred to, Grey is the greatest figure, and most
attractive and complex study. Of such a man destiny might have made a
great visionary, a capable general, an eloquent tribune, or a graceful
writer. He had in him the stuff for any of these. But the south wing
of the British Empire had to be built, and the gods made Grey a social
architect in the guise of a pro-consul. Among the colonies of the
southern hemisphere he is already a figure of history, and amongst
them no man has played so many parts in so many theatres with so much
success. Not merely was he the saviour and organizer of New Zealand,
South Australia, and South Africa; not merely was he an explorer of
the deserts of New Holland, and a successful campaigner in New Zealand
bush-warfare, but he found time, by way of recreation, to be an
ethnologist, a literary pioneer, and an ardent book-collector who
twice was generous enough to found libraries with the books which had
been the solace and happiness of his working life. A mere episode of
this life was the fanning of the spark of Imperialism into flame in
England thirty years ago. There are those who will think the eloquence
with which he led the New Zealand democracy, the results he indirectly
obtained for it, and the stand which at the extreme end of his career
he made with success for a popular basis for the inevitable Australian
Federation, among the least of his feats. To the writer they do not
seem so. Before a life so strenuous, so dramatic, and so fruitful,
criticism--at least colonial criticism--is inclined respectfully to
lay down its pen. But when we come to the man himself, to the mistakes
he made, and the misunderstandings he caused, and to the endeavour to
give some sort of sketch of what he _was_, the task is neither easy
nor always pleasant. I have known those who thought Grey a nobler
Gracchus and a more practical Gordon; and I have known those who
thought him a mean copy of Dryden's Achitophel. His island-retreat,
where Froude described him as a kind of evangelical Cincinnatus,
seemed to others merely the convenient lurking-place of a political
rogue-elephant. The viceroy whose hated household the Adelaide
tradesmen would not deal with in 1844, and the statesman whose visit
to Adelaide in 1891 was a triumphal progress, the public servant whom
the Duke of Buckingham insulted in 1868, and the empire-builder whom
the Queen delighted to honour in 1894, were one and the same man.
So were the Governor against whom New Zealanders inveighed as
an arch-despot in 1848, and the popular leader denounced as
arch-demagogue by some of the same New Zealanders thirty years
afterwards. In a long life of bustle and change his strong but mixed
character changed and moulded circumstances, and circumstances also
changed and moulded him. The ignorant injustice of some of his Downing
Street masters might well have warped his disposition even more than
it did. The many honest and acute men who did not keep step with Grey,
who were disappointed in him, or repelled by and embittered against
him, were not always wrong. Some of his eulogists have been silly. But
the student of his peculiar nature must be an odd analyst who does
not in the end conclude that Grey was on the whole more akin to the
Christian hero painted by Froude and Olive Schreiner than to
the malevolent political chess-player of innumerable colonial
leader-writers.

Grey had the knightly virtues--courage, courtesy, and self-command.
His early possession of official power in remote, difficult,
thinly-peopled outposts gave him self-reliance as well as dignity.
Naturally fond of devious ways and unexpected moves, he learned to
keep his own counsel and to mask his intentions; he never even seemed
frank. Though wilful and quarrelsome, he kept guard over his tongue,
but, pen in hand, became an evasive, obstinate controversialist with
a coldly-used power of exasperation. He learned to work apart, and
practised it so long that he became unable to co-operate, on equal
terms, with any fellow-labourer. He would lead, or would go alone.
Moreover, so far as persons went, his antipathies were stronger than
his affections, and led him to play with principles and allies. Those
who considered themselves his natural friends were never astonished to
find him operating against their flank to the delight of the common
enemy. Fastidiously indifferent to money, he was greedy of credit;
could be generous to inferiors, but not to rivals; could be grateful
to God, but hardly to man.

When he landed in New Zealand, he was a pleasant-looking, blue-eyed,
energetic young officer, with a square jaw, a firm but mobile mouth,
and a queer trick of half closing one eye when he looked at you. For
all his activity he suffered from a spear-wound received from an
Australian blackfellow. He was married to a young and handsome wife;
and, though this was not his first Governorship, was but thirty-three.
The colonists around him were quite shrewd enough to see that this was
no ordinary official, and that beneath the silken surcoat of courtesy
and the plate-armour of self-confidence lay concealed a curious and
interesting man. The less narrow of them detected that something more
was here than a strong administrator, and that they had among them an
original man of action, with something of the aloofness and mystery
that belong to

                                "a mind for ever
  Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone."

None imagined that his connection with the Islands would not terminate
for half a century, and that the good and evil of his work therein
would be such as must be directly felt--to use his own pet phrase--by
unborn millions in distant days.




Chapter XIII


THE PASTORAL PROVINCES

  "Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full
  Out of their choicest and their whitest wool."

The Company's settlements were no longer confined to the shores of
Cook's Straits. In 1846, Earl Grey, formerly Lord Howick, came to the
Colonial Office, and set himself to compensate the Company for former
official hostility. He secured for it a loan of £250,000, and handed
over to it large blocks of land in the South Island, which--less
certain reserves--was in process of complete purchase from its handful
of Maori owners. The Company, gaining thus a new lease of life, went
to work. In 1848 and 1850 that was done which ought to have been done
a decade sooner, and the void spaces of Otago and Canterbury were
made the sites of settlements of a quasi-religious kind. The Otago
settlement was the outcome of the Scottish Disruption; its pioneers
landed in March, 1848. They were a band of Free Kirk Presbyterians,
appropriately headed by a Captain Cargill, a Peninsular veteran and a
descendant of Donald Cargill, and by the Rev. Thomas Burns, a minister
of sterling worth, who was a nephew of the poet. Otago has this year
celebrated her jubilee, and the mayor of her chief city, Captain
Cargill's son, is the first citizen of a town of nearly 50,000
inhabitants which in energy and beauty is worthy of its name--Dunedin.
For years, however, the progress of the young settlement was slow.
Purchasers of its land at the "sufficient price"--£2 an acre--were
provokingly few, so few indeed that the regulation price had to be
reduced. It had no Maori troubles worth speaking of, but the hills
that beset its site, rugged and bush-covered, were troublesome to
clear and settle, the winter climate is bleaker than that of northern
or central New Zealand, and a good deal of Scottish endurance and
toughness was needed before the colonists won their way through to the
more fertile and open territory which lay waiting for them, both on
their right hand and on their left, in the broad province of Otago.
Like General Grant in his last campaign, they had to keep on "pegging
away," and they did. They stood stoutly by their kirk, and gave it a
valuable endowment of land. Their leaders felt keenly the difficulty
of getting good school teaching for the children, a defect so well
repaired later on that the primary schools of Otago are now, perhaps,
the best in New Zealand, while Dunedin was the seat of the Colony's
first university college. They had a gaol, the prisoners of which in
early days were sometimes let out for a half-holiday, with the warning
from the gaoler, Johnnie Barr, that if they did not come back by eight
o'clock they would be locked out for the night.[1] The usual dress of
the settlers was a blue shirt, moleskin or corduroy trousers, and a
slouch hat. Their leader, Captain Cargill, wore always a blue "bonnet"
with a crimson knob thereon. They named their harbour Port Chalmers,
and a stream, hard by their city, the Water of Leith. The plodding,
brave, clannish, and cantankerous little community soon ceased to be
altogether Scotch. Indeed, the pioneers, called the Old Identities,
seemed almost swamped by the flood of gold-seekers which poured in in
the years after 1861. Nevertheless, Otago is still the headquarters
of that large and very active element in the population of the Colony
which makes the features and accent of North Britain more familiar to
New Zealanders than to most Englishmen.

[Footnote 1: An amusing article might be written on the more primitive
gaols of the early settlements. At Wanganui there were no means of
confining certain drunken bush-sawyers whose vagaries were a nuisance;
so they were fined in timber--so many feet for each orgie--and
building material for a prison thus obtained. When it was put up,
however, the sawyers had departed, and the empty house of detention
became of use as a storehouse for the gaoler's potatoes.

In a violent gale in the Southern Alps one of these wooden "lock-ups"
was lifted in air, carried bodily away and deposited in a neighbouring
thicket. Its solitary prisoner disappeared in the whirlwind. Believers
in his innocence imagined for him a celestial ascent somewhat like
that of Elijah. What is certain is that he was never seen again in
that locality.

A more comfortable gaol was that made for himself by a high and very
ingenious provincial official. Arrested for debt, he proclaimed his
own house a district prison, and as visiting Justice committed himself
to be detained therein.]

The next little colony founded in New Zealand dates its birth from
1850. Though it was to be Otago's next-door neighbour, it was neither
Presbyterian nor Scottish, but English and Episcopalian. This was the
Canterbury settlement. It owed its existence to an association in
which the late Lord Lyttelton was prominent. As in the case of Otago,
this association worked in conjunction with the New Zealand Company,
and proposed to administer its lands on the Wakefield system. Gibbon
Wakefield himself (his brother, the Colonel, had died in 1847)
laboured untiringly at its foundation, amid troubles which were
all the more annoying in that the association was in financial
difficulties from its birth.[1] Three pounds an acre was to be the
price of land in the Canterbury Block, of which one pound was to go
to the church and education, two pounds to be spent on the work of
development. The settlers landed in December, 1850, from four vessels,
the immigrants in which have ever since had in their new home the
exclusive right to the name of Pilgrims. The dream of the founders of
Canterbury was to transport to the Antipodes a complete section of
English society, or, more exactly, of the English Church. It was to be
a slice of England from top to bottom. At the top were to be an Earl
and a Bishop; at the bottom the English labourer, better clothed,
better fed, and contented. Their square, flat city they called
Christchurch, and its rectangular streets by the names of the Anglican
Bishoprics. One schismatic of a street called High was alone allowed
to cut diagonally across the lines of its clerical neighbours. But the
clear stream of the place, which then ran past flax, koromiko, and
glittering toé-toé, and now winds under weeping-willows, the founders
spared from any sacerdotal name; it is called Avon. When wooden
cottages and "shedifices" began to dot the bare urban sections
far apart, the Pilgrims called their town the City of Magnificent
Distances, and cheerfully told you how new-comers from London rode
through and out of Christchurch and thereafter innocently inquired
whether the town still lay much ahead. The Canterbury dream seems a
little pathetic as well as amusing now, but those who dreamed it were
very much in earnest in 1850, and they laid the foundation stones of a
fine settlement, though not precisely of the kind they contemplated.
Their affairs for some years were managed by John Robert Godley, a
name still well remembered at the War Office, where he afterwards
became Under-Secretary. He had been the life and soul of the
Canterbury Association, and as its agent went out to New Zealand,
partly in search of health and partly with the honourable ambition
to found a colony worthy of England. He made a strong administrator.
Their Earl and their Bishop soon fled from the hard facts of pioneer
life, but the Pilgrims as a rule were made of sterner stuff, and
sticking to their task, they soon spread over the yellow, sunny
plains, high-terraced mountain valleys, and wind-swept hillsides of
their province. Their territory was better suited than Otago for the
first stages of settlement, and for thirty years its progress was
remarkable.

[Footnote 1: It was when he was at this work that Dr. Garnett pictures
him so vividly--"the sanguine, enthusiastic projector, fertile,
inventive creator, his head an arsenal of expedients and every failure
pregnant with a remedy, imperious or suasive as suits his turn;
terrible in wrath or exuberant in affection; commanding, exhorting,
entreating, as like an eminent personage of old he

  "With head, hands, wings or feet pursues his way,
   And swims, or wades, or sinks, or creeps, or flies."]

On the surface there were certain differences between the Canterbury
colonists and those of Otago, which local feeling intensified in a
manner always paltry, though sometimes amusing. When the stiff-backed
Free-Churchmen who were to colonize Otago gathered on board the
emigrant ship which was to take them across the seas, they opened
their psalm-books. Their minister, like Burns' cottar, "waled a
portion wi' judicious care," and the Puritans, slowly chanting on,
rolled out the appeal to the God of Bethel:--

  "God of our fathers, be the God
    of their succeeding race!"

Such men and women might not be amusing fellow-passengers on a four
months' sea-voyage,--and, indeed, there is reason to believe that they
were not,--but settlers made of such stuff were not likely to fail in
the hard fight with Nature at the far end of the earth; and they did
not fail. The Canterbury Pilgrims, on the other hand, bade farewell
to old England by dancing at a ball. In their new home they did not
renounce their love of dancing, though their ladies had sometimes to
be driven in a bullock-dray to the door of the ballroom, and stories
are told of young gentlemen, enthusiastic waltzers, riding on
horseback to the happy scene clad in evening dress and with coat-tails
carefully pinned up. But the Canterbury folk did not, on the whole,
make worse settlers for not taking themselves quite so seriously as
some of their neighbours. The English gentleman has a fund of cheery
adaptiveness which often carries him through Colonial life abreast of
graver competitors. So the settler who built a loaf of station-bread
into the earthen wall of his house, alleging that it was the hardest
and most durable material he could procure, did not, we may believe,
find a sense of humour encumber him in the troubles of a settler's
life. For there were troubles. The pastoral provinces were no
Dresden-china Arcadia. Nature is very stubborn in the wilderness, even
in the happier climes, where she offers, for the most part, merely a
passive resistance. An occasional storm or flood was about her
only outburst of active opposition in South-eastern New Zealand.
Nevertheless, an educated European who finds himself standing in an
interminable plain or on a windy hillside where nothing has been done,
where he is about to begin that work of reclaiming the desert which
has been going on in Europe for thousands of years, and of which
the average civilized man is the calm, self-satisfied, unconscious
inheritor, finds that he must shift his point of view! The
nineteenth-century Briton face to face with the conditions of
primitive man is a spectacle fine in the general, but often ludicrous
or piteous in the particular. The loneliness, the coarseness, the
everlasting insistence of the pettiest and most troublesome wants and
difficulties, harden and brace many minds, but narrow most and torment
some. Wild game, song-birds, fish, forest trees, were but some of the
things of which there were few or none round nearly all the young
pastoral settlements. Everything was to make. The climate might be
healthy and the mountain outlines noble. But nothing but work, and
successful work, could reconcile an educated and imaginative man to
the monotony of a daily outlook over league after league of stony
soil, thinly clothed by pallid, wiry tussocks bending under an
eternal, uncompromising wind; where the only living creatures in sight
might often be small lizards or a twittering grey bird miscalled a
lark; or where the only sound, save the wind aforesaid, might be
the ring of his horse's shoe against a stone, or the bleat of a
dull-coated merino, scarcely distinguishable from the dull plain round
it. To cure an unfit new-comer, dangerously enamoured of the
romance of colonization, few experiences could surpass a week of
sheep-driving, where life became a prolonged crawl at the heels of a
slow, dusty, greasy-smelling "mob" straggling along at a maximum pace
of two miles an hour. If patience and a good collie helped the tyro
through that ordeal, such allies were quite too feeble to be of
service in the supreme trial of bullock-driving, where a long whip and
a vocabulary copious beyond the dreams of Englishmen were the only
effective helpers known to man in the management of the clumsy dray
and the eight heavy-yoked, lumbering beasts dragging it. Wonderful
tales are told of cultivated men in the wilderness, Oxonians disguised
as station-cooks, who quoted Virgil over their dish-washing or asked
your opinion on a tough passage of Thucydides whilst baking a batch of
bread. Most working settlers, as a matter of fact, did well enough
if they kept up a running acquaintance with English literature; and
station-cooks, as a race, were ever greater at grog than at Greek.

Prior to about 1857 there was little or no intercourse between the
various settlements. Steamers and telegraphs had not yet appeared. The
answer to a letter sent from Cook's Straits to Auckland might come
in seven weeks or might not. It would come in seventy hours now.
Despatches were sometimes sent from Wellington to Auckland _viâ_
Sydney, to save time. In 1850 Sir William Fox and Mr. Justice Chapman
took six days to sail across Cook's Straits from Nelson to Wellington,
a voyage which now occupies eight hours. They were passengers in the
Government brig, a by-word for unseaworthiness and discomfort. In this
vessel the South Island members of the first New Zealand parliament
spent nearly nine weeks in beating up the coast to the scene of
their labours in Auckland. But the delight with which the coming of
steamships in the fifties was hailed was not so much a rejoicing over
more regular coastal communication, as joy because the English Mail
would come sooner and oftener. How they did wait and watch for the
letters and newspapers from Home, those exiles of the early days!
Lucky did they count themselves if they had news ten times a year, and
not more than four months old. One of the best of their stories is of
a certain lover whose gallant grace was not unworthy a courtier
of Queen Elizabeth. One evening this swain, after securing at the
post-office his treasured mail budget, was escorting his lady-love
home through the muddy, ill-lighted streets of little Christchurch.
A light of some sort was needed at an especially miry crossing.
The devoted squire did not spread out his cloak, as did Sir Walter
Raleigh. He had no cloak to spread. But he deftly made a torch of his
unread English letters, and, bending down, lighted the way across the
mud. His sacrifice, it is believed, did not go wholly unrewarded.

[Illustration: THE CURVING COAST

Photo by HENRY WRIGHT]

One first-rate boon New Zealand colonists had--good health. Out
of four thousand people in Canterbury in 1854 but twenty-one were
returned as sick or infirm. It almost seemed that but for drink and
drowning there need be no deaths. In Taranaki, in the North Island,
among three thousand people in 1858-59 there was not a funeral for
sixteen months. Crime, too, was pleasantly rare in the settlements.
When Governor Grey, in 1850, appointed Mr. Justice Stephen to
administer law in Otago, that zealous judge had nothing to do for
eighteen months, except to fine defaulting jurors who had been
summoned to try cases which did not exist and who neglected to attend
to try them. Naturally the settlers complained that he did not earn
his £800 a year of salary. His office was abolished, and for seven
years the southern colonists did very well without a judge. Great was
the shock to the public mind when in March, 1855, a certain Mackenzie,
a riever by inheritance doubtless, "lifted" a thousand sheep in a
night from the run of a Mr. Rhodes near Timaru, in South Canterbury,
and disappeared with them among the Southern Alps. When he was
followed and captured, it was found that he had taken refuge in a
bleak but useful upland plain, a discovery of his which bears his name
to this day. He was set on horseback, with his hands tied, and driven
to Christchurch, 150 miles, by captors armed with loaded pistols. That
he was a fellow who needed such precautions was shown by three bold
dashes for freedom, which he afterwards made when serving a five
years' sentence. At the third of these attempts he was shot at and
badly wounded. Ultimately, he was allowed to leave the country.

A sheep-stealer might easily have fallen into temptation in Canterbury
at that time. In three years the settlers owned 100,000 sheep; in
four more half a million. Somewhat slower, the Otago progress was to
223,000 in ten years.

Neither in Canterbury nor Otago were the plough and the spade found to
be the instruments of speediest advance. They were soon eclipsed by
the stockwhip, the shears, the sheep-dog, and the wire-fence. Long
before the foundation of New Zealand, Macarthur had taught the
Australians to acclimatize the merino sheep. Squatters and shepherds
from New South Wales and Tasmania were quick to discover that the
South Island of New Zealand was a well-nigh ideal land for pastoral
enterprise, with a climate where the fleece of a well-bred merino
sheep would yield 4 lbs. of wool as against 21/2 lbs. in New South
Wales. Coming to Canterbury, Otago, and Nelson, they taught the new
settlers to look to wool and meat, rather than to oats and wheat,
for profit and progress. The Australian _coo-ee_, the Australian
buck-jumping horse, the Australian stockwhip and wide-awake hat came
into New Zealand pastoral life, together with much cunning in dodging
land-laws, and a sovereign contempt for small areas. In a few
years the whole of the east and centre of the island, except a few
insignificant cultivated patches, was leased in great "runs" of from
10,000 to 100,000 acres to grazing tenants. The Australian term
"squatter" was applied to and accepted good-humouredly by these.
Socially and politically, however, they were the magnates of the
colony; sometimes financially also, but not always. For the price of
sheep and wool could go down by leaps and bounds, as well as up; the
progeny of the ewes bought for 30s. each in 1862 might have to go at
5s. each in 1868, and greasy wool might fluctuate in value as much as
6d. a lb. Two or three bad years would deliver over the poor squatter
as bond-slave to some bank, mortgage company or merchant, to whom he
had been paying at least 10 per cent. interest, _plus_ 21/2 per cent.
commission exacted twice a year, on advances. In the end, maybe, his
mortgagee stepped in; he and his children saw their homestead, with
its garden and clumps of planted eucalypts, willows, and poplars--an
oasis in the grassy wilderness--no more. Sometimes a new squatter
reigned in his stead, sometimes for years the mortgagee left the place
in charge of a shepherd--a new and dreary form of absentee ownership.
Meanwhile, in the earlier years the squatters were merry monarchs,
reigning as supreme in the Provincial Councils as in the jockey clubs.
They made very wise and excessively severe laws to safeguard their
stock from infection, and other laws, by no means so wise, to
safeguard their runs from selection, laws which undoubtedly hampered
agricultural progress. The peasant cultivator, or "cockatoo" (another
Australian word), followed slowly in the sheep farmer's wake. As late
as 1857 there were not fifty thousand acres of land under tillage
in the South Island. Even wheat at 10s. a bushel did not tempt much
capital into agriculture, though such were the prices of cereals that
in 1855 growers talked dismally of the low price of oats--4s. 6d. a
bushel. Labour, too, preferred in many cases, and not unnaturally, to
earn from 15s. to £1 a day at shearing or harvest-time to entering on
the early struggles of the cockatoo. Nevertheless, many workers did
save their money and go on the land, and many more would have done so
but for that curse of the pioneer working-man--drink.

The Colony's chief export now came to be wool. The wool-growers looked
upon their industry as the backbone of the country. So, at any rate,
for many years it was. But then the system of huge pastoral leases
meant the exclusion of population from the soil. A dozen shepherds and
labourers were enough for the largest run during most of the year.
Only when the sheep had to be mustered and dipped or shorn were a band
of wandering workmen called in. The work done, they tramped off to
undertake the next station, or to drink their wages at the nearest
public-house.

The endowed churches, the great pastoral leases, high-priced land (in
Canterbury), and the absence of Maori troubles, were the peculiar
features of the southern settlements of New Zealand. These new
communities, while adding greatly to the strength and value of the
Colony as a whole, brought their own special difficulties to its
rulers. With rare exceptions the settlers came from England and
Scotland, not from Australia, and were therefore quite unused to
despotic government. Having no Maori tribes in overwhelming force at
their doors, they saw no reason why they should not at once be trusted
with self-government. They therefore threw themselves heartily into
the agitation for a free constitution, which by this time was in
full swing in Wellington amongst the old settlers of the New Zealand
Company. Moreover, in this, for the first time in the history of the
Colony, the settlers were in accord with the Colonial Office. As
early as 1846, Earl Grey had sent out the draft of a constitution the
details of which need not detain us, inasmuch as it never came to
the birth. Sir George Grey refused to proclaim it, and succeeded in
postponing the coming-in of free institutions for six years For many
reasons he was probably right, if only because the Maoris still much
outnumbered the Whites; yet under Earl Grey's proposed constitution
they would have been entirely governed by the white minority. Warlike
and intelligent, and with a full share of self-esteem, they were not
a race likely to put up with such an indignity. But Governor Grey's
action, though justifiable, brought him into collision with the
southern settlers. Godley, with questionable discretion, flung himself
into the constitutional controversy.

Grey was successful in inducing the Maoris to sell a fair amount of
their surplus land. During the last years of his rule and the four or
five years after he went, some millions of acres were bought in the
North Island. This, following on the purchase of the whole of the
South Island, had opened the way for real progress. The huge estate
thus gained by the Crown brought to the front new phases of the
eternal land problem. The question had to be faced as to what were to
be the terms under which this land was to be sold and leased to the
settlers. Up to 1852 the settlers everywhere, except in Auckland, had
to deal, not with the Crown, but with the New Zealand Company. But in
1852 the Company was wound up, and its species of overlordship finally
extinguished. By an English Act of Parliament its debt to the Imperial
Government was forgiven. The Colony was ordered to pay it £263,000
in satisfaction of its land lien. This was commuted in the end for
£200,000 cash, very grudgingly paid out of the first loan raised by a
New Zealand parliament. Thereafter, the Company, with its high aims,
its blunders, its grievances, and its achievements, vanishes from the
story of New Zealand.

In the Church settlements of the South the Wakefield system came into
full operation under favourable conditions. Three pounds an acre were
at the outset charged for land. One pound went to the churches and
their schools. This system of endowment Grey set himself to stop, when
the Company's fall gave him the opportunity, and he did so at the cost
of embittering his relations with the Southerners, which already were
none too pleasant. For the rest, Canterbury continued within its
original special area to sell land at £2 an acre. When Canterbury was
made a province this area was enlarged by the inclusion of a tract in
which land had been sold cheaply, and in which certain large estates
had consequently been formed. Otherwise land has never been cheap in
Canterbury. The Wakefield system has been adhered to there, has been
tried under favourable conditions, and on the whole, at any rate up to
the year 1871, could not be called a failure. As long as the value
of land to speculators was little or nothing above the "sufficient
price," things did not go so badly. The process of free selection at
a uniform price of £2 an acre had amongst other merits the great
advantage of entire simplicity. A great deal of good settlement went
on under it, and ample funds were provided for the construction of
roads, bridges, and other public works.

Meantime, Grey was called upon to devise some general system of land
laws for the rest of the Colony. The result was the famous land
regulations of 1853, a code destined to have lasting and mischievous
effects upon the future of the country. Its main feature was the
reduction of the price of land to ten shillings an acre. Had this been
accompanied by stringent limitations as to the amount to be purchased
by any one man, the result might have been good enough. But it was
not; nor did those who ruled after Grey think fit to impose any such
check until immense areas of the country had been bought by pastoral
tenants and thus permanently locked up against close settlement.
Grey's friends vehemently maintain that it was not he, but those who
afterwards administered his regulations, who were responsible for this
evil. They point out that it was not until after his departure that
the great purchases began. Possibly enough Sir George never dreamt
that his regulations would bring about the bad results they did. More
than that one can hardly say. In drawing them up his strong antipathy
to the New Zealand Company and its system of a high price for land
doubtless obscured his judgment. His own defence on the point, as
printed in his life by Rees, is virtually no defence at all. It is
likely enough that had he retained the control of affairs after 1853
he would have imposed safeguards. He is not the only statesman whose
laws have effects not calculated by their maker.




Chapter XIV


LEARNING TO WALK

  "Some therefore cried one thing and some another; for the
  Assembly was confused; and the more part knew not wherefore
  they were come together."

The Constitution under which the colonists were granted the management
of their own affairs was partly based on Grey's suggestions, though
it was drafted in England by Mr. Adderley under Gibbon Wakefield's
supervision. Its quality may be judged from its duration. It worked
almost without alteration for twenty-two years, and in the main well.
Thereafter it was much cut about and altered. Briefly described, it
provided the Colony with a dual system of self-government under
a Viceroy appointed by the Colonial Office, who was to be
Commander-in-Chief of the Queen's forces in the Colony, and might
reserve Bills for the consideration of Her Majesty--in effect for
that of the Home Government. Under this proviso laws restricting
immigration from other parts of the Empire or affecting mercantile
marine have, it may be mentioned, been sometimes reserved and vetoed.
Foreign affairs and currency were virtually excluded from the scope
of the Colonial Government. The Viceroy might use his judgment in
granting or withholding dissolutions of Parliament. Side by side
with the central Parliament were to exist a number of provincial
assemblies. The central Parliament was to have two Chambers, the
Provincial Councils one. Over the Parliament was to be the
Viceroy ruling through Ministers; over each Provincial Council, a
superintendent elected, like the Councils, by the people of his
province. Each superintendent was to have a small executive of
officials, who were themselves to be councillors--a sort of small
Cabinet. The central Parliament, called the General Assembly, was to
have an Upper House called the Legislative Council, whose members
were, Grey suggested, to be elected by the Provincial Councils. But in
England, Sir John Pakington demurred to this, and decided that they
should be nominated for life by the Crown. Their number was not fixed
by law. Had Grey's proposal been carried out, New Zealand would have
had a powerful Senate eclipsing altogether the Lower Chamber. The
thirty-seven members of the Lower House were, of course, to be
elected--on a franchise liberal though not universal. To be eligible,
a member must be qualified to have his name on an electoral roll, and
not have been convicted of any infamous offence, and would lose his
seat by bankruptcy. Until 1880 the ordinary duration of Parliament was
five years. The Provinces numbered six: Auckland, Taranaki,
Nelson, Wellington, Canterbury, and Otago. Maoris had no special
representation. They might register as landowners, and vote with the
white electors, but as a matter of fact not many did so, and after a
foolish and unfair delay of fifteen years they were given four
members solely chosen by Maoris, and who must themselves be Maoris or
half-castes. Two of their chiefs were at the same time called to the
Legislative Council.

In 1853, the year of the land regulations, the Governor was entrusted
with the task of proclaiming the constitution. He took the rather
curious course of bringing the Provincial Councils into existence, and
leaving the summoning of the central Parliament to his successor. He
left the Colony in December of the same year, praised and regretted
by the Maoris, regarded by the settlers with mixed feelings.
Nevertheless, it would not be easy now to find any one who would
refuse a very high meed of praise to Governor Grey's first
administration. It was not merely that he found the Colony on the
brink of ruin, and left it in a state of prosperity and progress. Able
subalterns, a rise in prices, the development of some new industry,
might have brought about the improvement. Such causes have often made
reputation for colonial rulers and statesmen. But in Grey's case no
impartial student can fail to see that to a considerable extent the
change for the better was due to him. Moreover, he not only grappled
with the difficulties of his time, but with both foresight and
power of imagination built for the future, and--with one marked
exception--laid foundations deep and well.

If the Colonial Office did not see its way to retain Grey in the
Colony until his constitution had been put into full working order,
it should, at least, have seen that he was replaced by a capable
official. This was not done. His successor did not arrive for two
years, and meanwhile the Vice-regal office devolved upon Colonel
Wynyard, a good-natured soldier, unfitted for the position. The first
Parliament of New Zealand was summoned, and met at Auckland on the
Queen's birthday in 1854. Many, perhaps most, of its members were
well-educated men of character and capacity. The presence of Gibbon
Wakefield, now himself become a colonist, added to the interest of
the scene. At last, those who had been agitating so long for
self-government had the boon apparently within their grasp. In their
eyes it was a great occasion--the true commencement of national life
in the Colony. The irony of fate, or the perversity of man, turned it
into a curious anticlimax. The Parliament, indeed, duly assembled. But
it dispersed after weeks of ineffectual wrangling and intrigue, amid
scenes which were discreditable and are still ridiculous. Those who
had drawn up the constitution had forgotten that Government, through
responsible Ministers forming a Cabinet and possessing the confidence
of the elective Chamber, must be a necessary part of their system. Not
only was no provision made for it in the written constitution, but the
Colonial Office had sent the Governor no instructions on the subject.
The Viceroy was surrounded by Patent Officers, some of whom had been
administering since the first days of the Colony. No place of refuge
had been prepared for them, and, naturally, they were not going to
surrender their posts without a struggle. Colonel Wynyard was wax in
the hands of the cleverest of these--Mr. Attorney-General Swainson.
When the Parliament met, he asked three members to join with his old
advisers in forming a Cabinet. They agreed to do so, and one of
them, Mr. James Edward Fitzgerald, a Canterbury settler of brilliant
abilities, figured as the Colony's first Premier. An Irish gentleman,
an orator and a wit, he was about as fitted to cope with the peculiar
and delicate imbroglio before him as Murat would have been to conceive
and direct one of Napoleon's campaigns. In a few weeks he and his
Parliamentary colleagues came to loggerheads with the old officials
in the Cabinet, and threw up the game. Then came prorogation for a
fortnight and another hybrid ministry, known to New Zealand history as
the "Clean-Shirt Ministry," because its leader ingenuously informed
Parliament that when asked by the Governor to form an administration,
he had gone upstairs to put on a clean shirt before presenting himself
at Government House. The Clean-Shirt Ministry lived for just two days.
It was born and died amid open recrimination and secret wire-pulling,
throughout which Mr. Attorney Swainson, who had got himself made
Speaker of the Upper House while retaining his post as the Governor's
legal adviser, and Mr. Gibbon Wakefield, who was ostensibly nothing
but a private member of the Lower House, pulled the strings behind
the scenes. Wakefield began by putting himself at the head of the
agitation for responsible Ministers. When later, after negotiating
with the Governor's _entourage_, he tried compromise, the majority of
the House turned angrily upon him. At last a compromise was arrived
at. Colonel Wynyard was to go on with his Patent Officers until a Bill
could be passed and assented to in England establishing responsible
government; then the old officials were to be pensioned off and
shelved. At one stage in this singular session, the Governor sent a
message to the House written on sheets of paper, one of the leaves of
which the clerk found to be missing. Gibbon Wakefield thereupon coolly
pulled the missing portion out of his pocket and proposed to hand
it in--a piece of effrontery which the House could not stomach. On
another occasion the door of the House had to be locked to prevent
the minority running away to force on a count-out, and one honourable
member assaulted another with his fists. Australia laughed at the
scene, which, it may here be said, has never been repeated in the
New Zealand Legislature. The greatest man in the Parliament was the
greatest failure of the session. Gibbon Wakefield left Auckland
unpopular and distrusted. Soon afterwards his health broke down, and
the rest of his life was passed in strict retirement in the Colony
which he had founded and in which he died.

The Colonial Office snubbed Colonel Wynyard and Mr. Swainson, and
informed them that responsible government could be initiated without
an Act of Parliament. A year, however, passed before the General
Assembly was summoned together, and then it merely did formal work, as
the Acting-Governor had taken upon himself to ordain that there
should be a dissolution previous to the establishment of responsible
Ministers. This put everything off till the middle of 1856, by which
time Colonel Wynyard had left the Colony. To his credit be it noted
that he had kept out of native wars. Moreover, in his time, thanks to
the brisk trade caused by the gold discoveries in Australia and the
progress of sheep-farming in the South Island, the Colony was waxing
prosperous.

The second Parliament met in 1856, and still for a time there was
confusion. First, Mr. Sewell formed a ministry which lived for
thirteen days; then Sir William Fox another which existed for thirteen
days more. After that, Sir Edward Stafford took the helm and made
headway. A loan of £600,000 was the fair wind which filled his
sails. Judgment in choosing colleagues and officials, very fair
administrative abilities, attention to business, and an indisposition
to push things to extremes in the House were some of the qualities
which enabled him to retain office for four years, and to regain it
more than once afterwards. Until 1873 he and his rival, Mr. Fox,
were considered inevitable members of almost any combination. Native
affairs were in the forefront during that period. Mr. Fox, the most
impulsive, pugnacious, and controversial of politicians, usually
headed the peace party; Sir Edward Stafford, much more easy going in
ordinary politics, was usually identified with those who held that
peace could only be secured by successful war.

The other principal moving cause in public affairs between 1856 and
1876 was the Provincial system. That had had much to do with the
confusion of the sessions of 1854 and 1856. Then and afterwards
members were not so much New Zealanders, or Liberals, or
Conservatives, as they were Aucklanders, or men of Otago, or some
other Province. The hot vigorous local life which Provincial
institutions intensified was in itself an admirable thing. But it
engendered a mild edition of the feelings which set Greek States and
Italian cities at each others' throats. From the first many colonists
were convinced that Provincialism was unnatural and must go. But for
twenty years the friends of the Provinces were usually ready to
forego quarrelling with each other when the Centralists in Parliament
threatened the Councils. There were able men in the Colony who devoted
their energies by preference to Provincial politics. Such was Dr.
Featherston, who was for eighteen years the trusted superintendent of
Wellington, and who, paternally despotic there, watched and influenced
Parliament, and was ever vigilant on the Provinces' behalf.

In truth the Provinces had been charged with important functions. The
management and sale of Crown lands, education, police, immigration,
laws relating to live-stock and timber, harbours, the making of roads
and bridges--almost the entire work of colonization--came within their
scope. By a "compact" arrived at in the session of 1856 each Province
was in effect given the entire control of its public lands--an immense
advantage to those of the South Island, where these were neither
forest-covered nor in Maori hands. On the other hand, it would have
been grossly unfair to confiscate them for general purposes. The
Wakefield system in Canterbury would have been unbearable had the
£2 paid by the settlers for each acre been sent away to be spent
elsewhere. The Wakefield price was a local tax, charged and submitted
to to get a revenue to develop the lands for which it was paid. As
it was, half a crown an acre was handed over by each Province to the
Central Treasury as a contribution for national purposes. Loans were
also raised by Parliament to buy native land for the North Island
Provinces.

On the other hand, the Provinces enjoyed their land revenue--when
there was any--their pastoral rents, a dog tax, and such fag-ends of
customs revenue as the central Government could spare them. Their
condition was quite unequal. Canterbury, with plenty of high-priced
land, could more than dispense with aid from the centre. Other
Provinces, with little or no land revenue, were mortified by having
to appear at Wellington as suppliants for special grants. When the
Provinces borrowed money for the work of development, they had to pay
higher rates of interest than the Colony would have had. Finally, the
colonial treasurer had not only to finance for one large Colony, but
for half a dozen smaller governments, and ultimately to guarantee
their debts. No wonder that one of her premiers has said that New
Zealand was a severe school of statesmanship.

Yet for many years the ordinary dissensions of Liberal and Tory, of
classes and the parties of change and conservatism, were hardly seen
in the Parliament which sat at Auckland until 1864 and thereafter at
Wellington. Throughout the settlements labour as a rule was in
demand, often able to dictate its own terms, nomadic, and careless of
politics. The land question was relegated to the Provincial councils,
where round it contending classes and rival theories were grouped.
It was in some of the councils, notably that of Otago, that the
mutterings of Radicalism began first to be heard. The rapid change
which bred a parliamentary Radical party after the fall of the
Provinces in 1876 was the inevitable consequence of the transfer of
the land problem to the central legislature and the destruction of
those local safety-valves--the councils. Meanwhile, the ordinary lines
of division were not found in the central legislature. According as
this or that question came into the foreground, parties and groups in
the House of Representatives shifted and changed like the cloud shown
to Polonius. Politics made strange bedfellows; Cabinets were sometimes
the oddest hybrids. One serviceably industrious lawyer, Mr. Henry
Sewell, was something or other in nine different Ministries between
1854 and 1872. The premier of one year might be a subordinate minister
the next; or some subtle and persistent nature, like that of Sir
Frederick Whitaker, might manage chiefs whom he appeared to follow,
and be the guiding mind of parties which he did not profess to direct.
Lookers-on asked for more stable executives and more definite lines of
cleavage. Newly arrived colonists impatiently summed it all up as mere
battling of Ins against Outs, and lamented the sweet simplicity of
political divisions as they had known them in the mother country.




Chapter XV


GOVERNOR BROWNE'S BAD BARGAIN

  "In defence of the colonists of New Zealand, of whom I am
  one, I say most distinctly and solemnly that I have never known
  a single act of wilful injustice or oppression committed by any
  one in authority against a New Zealander."
                                     --_Bishop Selwyn_ (1862).

Colonel Gore Browne took the reins from Colonel Wynyard. The one was
just such an honourable and personally estimable soldier as the other.
But though he did not involve his Parliament in ridicule, Governor
Browne did much more serious mischief. In ordinary matters he took the
advice of the Stafford Ministry, but in Native affairs the Colonial
Office had stipulated that the Governor was to have an over-riding
power. He was to take the advice of his ministers, but not necessarily
to follow it. To most politicians, as well as the public, the Native
Department remained a secret service, though, except as to a sum of
£7,000, the Governor, in administering Native affairs, was dependent
for supplies on his ministers, and they on Parliament. On Governor
Browne, therefore, rests the chief responsibility for a disastrous
series of wars which broke out in 1860, and were not finally at an end
for ten years. The impatience of certain colonists to buy lands from
the Maori faster than the latter cared to sell them was the simple
and not too creditable cause of the outbreak. A broad survey of
the position shows that there need have been no hurry over land
acquisition. Nor was there any great clamour for haste except in
Taranaki, where rather less than 3,000 settlers, restricted to 63,000
acres, fretted at the sight of 1,750 Maoris holding and shutting up
2,000,000 acres against them. So high did feeling run there that
Bishop Selwyn, as the friend of the Maori, was, in 1855, hooted in
the streets of New Plymouth, where the local newspaper wrote nonsense
about his "blighting influence." Yet, as he tersely put it in his
charge to his angry laity of the district guilty of this unmannerly
outburst, the Taranaki Maoris and others of their race had already
sold 30,000 acres near New Plymouth for tenpence an acre, a million of
acres at Napier for a penny three-farthings an acre, the whole of the
territory round Auckland for about fourpence an acre, and the whole
South Island below the Kaikouras for a mite an acre. They had
also--the bishop might have added--leased large tracts ultimately
turned into freeholds. Yet the impatience of the Taranaki settlers,
though mischievous, was natural. The Maoris made no use of a hundredth
part of their lands. Moreover, members of the Taranaki tribes who were
anxious to sell plots to the Whites were threatened, attacked, and
even assassinated by their fellow-tribesmen.

Never bullied, and not much interfered with by the Government, the
Maori tribes as a whole were prospering. They farmed, and drove a
brisk trade with the settlements, especially Auckland, where, in 1858,
no less than fifty-three coasting vessels were registered as belonging
to Native owners. Still, the growing numbers of the colonists alarmed
them. They saw their race becoming the weaker partner. Originating
in Taranaki, a league was formed by a number of the tribes against
further selling of land. To weld this league together, certain
powerful Waikato chiefs determined to have a king. Of them the most
celebrated was the son of Hongi's old antagonist, Te Waharoa. This
leader, Wiremu Tamihana, usually known as William Thompson, was an
educated Christian and a brown-skinned gentleman, far in advance of
his race in breadth of view, logical understanding, and persistence.
He honestly wanted to be at peace with us, but regarding contact with
our race as deadly to his own, desired to organize the Maori as a
community dwelling apart from the _Pakeha_ on ample and carefully
secured territories. Had the Maori race numbered 500,000 instead
of 50,000, and been capable of uniting under him for any purpose
whatever, he might conceivably have established a counterpart to
Basutoland. But the scanty dwindling tribes could not be welded
together. New Zealand was, as she is, the land of jealousies, local
and personal. It would seem as though every change of wind brought
fresh rivalry and division. The Waikato chiefs themselves were at
odds. After years of argument and speech-making they came to the point
of choosing their king. But they compromised on the old chief, Te
Whero Whero. The once famous warrior was now blind, broken, and
enfeebled. When, in 1860, he died, they made the still greater mistake
of choosing as successor his son Matutaera (Methuselah), better known
as Tawhiao, a dull, heavy, sullen-looking fool, who afterwards became
a sot. They disclaimed hostility to the Queen, but would sell no land,
and would allow no Whites to settle among them except a few mechanics
whose skill they wished to use. They even expelled from their villages
white men who had married Maori wives, and who now had to leave their
families behind. They would not allow the Queen's writ to run beyond
their _aukati_ or frontier, or let boats and steamers come up their
rivers. Amongst themselves the more violent talked of driving the
_Pakeha_ into the sea. Space will not permit of any sketch of the
discussions and negotiations by which attempts were made to deal with
the King Movement. Various mistakes were made. Thompson, while still
open to conciliation, visited Auckland to see the Governor and ask for
a small loan to aid his tribe in erecting a flour-mill. Governor Grey
would have granted both the interview and the money with good grace.
Governor Browne refused both, and the Waikato chief departed deeply
incensed. A much graver error was the virtual repeal of the ordinance
forbidding the sale of arms to the natives. Because a certain amount
of smuggling went on in spite of it, the insane course was adopted
of greatly relaxing its provisions instead of spending money and
vigilance in enforcing them. The result was a rapid increase of the
guns and powder sold to the disaffected tribes, who are said to have
spent £50,000 in buying them between 1857 and 1860. Between July,
1857, and April, 1858, at any rate, 7,849 lbs. of gunpowder, 311
double-barrelled guns, and 441 single-barrelled guns were openly sold
to Maoris.

Finally, in 1860, came the Waitara land purchase--the spark which set
all ablaze. The name Waitara has been extended from a river both to
a little seaport and to the surrounding district in Taranaki, the
province where, as already said, feeling on the land difficulty had
always been most acute. Enough land had been purchased, chiefly by
Grey, to enable the settlement to expand into a strip of about twenty
miles along the seashore, with an average depth of about seven miles.
During a visit to the district, Governor Browne invited the Ngatiawa
natives to sell land. A chief, Teira, and his friends at once offered
to part with six hundred acres which they were occupying. The head
of their tribe, however, Wiremu Kingi, vetoed the sale. The Native
Department and the Governor sent down commissioners, who, after
inquiry, decided erroneously that Teira's party had a right to sell,
and the head chief none to interfere. A fair price was paid for
the block, and surveyors sent to it. The Ngatiawa good-humouredly
encountered these with a band of old women well selected for their
ugliness, whose appalling endearments effectually obstructed the
survey work. Then, as Kingi threatened war, an armed force was sent to
occupy the plot. After two days' firing upon a stockade erected there,
the soldiers advanced and found it empty. Kingi, thus attacked,
astutely made the disputed piece over to the King tribes, and
forthwith became their _protege_. Without openly making war, they sent
him numbers of volunteer warriors. He became the protagonist of the
Maori land league. The Taranaki tribe hard by New Plymouth and the
Ngatiruanui further south joined him openly. Hostilities broke out in
February, 1860.

It should be mentioned that while all this was going on, the Premier,
Mr. Stafford, was absent in England, and that his colleagues supported
the Governor's action. Parliament did not assemble until war had
broken out, and then a majority of members conceived themselves bound
to stand by what had been done. Nevertheless, so great was the doubt
about the wisdom and equity of the purchase that most of the North
Island members even then condemned it. Most of the South Island
members, who had much to lose and nothing to gain by war, thought
otherwise. Very heavily has their island had to pay for the Waitara
purchase. It was not a crime, unless every purchaser who takes land
with a bad title which he believes to be good is a criminal. But,
probably wrong technically, certainly needless and disastrous, it will
always remain for New Zealand the classic example of a blunder worse
than a crime.

[Illustration]




Chapter XVI


_TUPARA_[1] AGAINST ENFIELD

  "The hills like giants at a hunting lay,
   Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay."

[Footnote 1: _Tupara_ (two-barrel), the Maori name for the short
double-barrelled guns which were their handiest weapons against us in
bush warfare.]

In 1860 the Taranaki settlement was growing to be what it now is--a
very pleasant corner of the earth. Curving round the seashore under
the lofty, lonely, symmetrical cone of Egmont, it is a green land of
soft air and many streams. After long delays and much hope deferred,
the colonists--mostly English of the south-west counties--had begun to
prosper and to line the coast with their little homesteads standing
among peach orchards, grassy fields, and sometimes a garden gay with
the flowers of old Devon. Upon this quiet little realm the Maoris
swept down, and the labour of twenty years went up in smoke. The open
country was abandoned; the settlers took refuge in their town, New
Plymouth. Some 600 of their women and children were shipped off to
Nelson; about twice as many more who could not be induced to leave
stayed huddled up in the little town, and the necessity of keeping a
strong force in the place to defend them from a sudden dash by
the Maoris hampered the conduct of the campaign. Martial law was
proclaimed--destined not to be withdrawn for five years. After a time
the town was protected by redoubts and a line of entrenchment. Crowded
and ill-drained, it became as unhealthy as uncomfortable. Whereas for
sixteen months before the war there had not been a funeral in the
district, they were now seen almost daily. On the alarm of some
fancied Maori attack, noisy panics would break out, and the shrieks of
women and cries of children embarrassed husbands and brothers on whom
they called for help, and whose duty as militiamen took them to their
posts. The militia of settlers, numbering between four and five
hundred, were soon but a minor portion of the defenders of the
settlement. When fighting was seen to be inevitable, the Government
sent for aid to Australia, and drew thence all the Imperial soldiers
that could be spared. The Colony of Victoria, generous in the
emergency, lent New Zealand the colonial sloop-of-war _Victoria_, and
allowed the vessel not only to transport troops across the Tasman Sea,
but to serve for many months off the Taranaki coast, asking payment
for nothing except her steaming coal. By the end of the year there
were some 3,000 Europeans in arms at the scene of operations, and they
probably outnumbered several times over the fluctuating forces of the
natives. The fighting was limited to the strip of sea-coast bounded by
the Waitara on the north and the Tataramaika plain on the south, with
the town of New Plymouth lying about midway between. The coast was
open and surf-beaten, the land seamed by ravines or "gulleys," down
which the rainfall of Egmont streamed to the shore. Near the sea
the soil was--except in the settlers' clearings--covered with tough
bracken from two to six feet high, and with other troublesome growths.
Inland the great forest, mantling the volcano's flanks, and spreading
its harassing network like a far-stretching spider's web, checked
European movements. From the first the English officers in command
in this awkward country made up their minds that their men could do
nothing in the meshes of the bush, and they clung to the more open
strip with a caution and a profound respect for Native prowess which
epithets can hardly exaggerate, and which tended to intensify the
self-esteem of the Maori, never the least self-confident of warriors.
A war carried on in such a theatre and in such a temper was likely
to drag. There was plenty of fighting, mostly desultory. The Maoris
started out of the bush or the bracken to plunder, to cut off
stragglers, or to fight, and disappeared again when luck was against
them. Thirteen tiresome months saw much marching and counter-marching,
frequent displays of courage--more courage than co-operation
sometimes,--one or two defeats, and several rather barren successes.
For the first eight months the advantage inclined to the insurgents.
After that their overweening conceit of their Waikato contingent
enabled our superior strength to assert itself. The Maoris, for all
their courage and knowledge of the country, were neither clever
guerillas nor good marksmen. Their tribal wars had always been affairs
of sieges or hand-to-hand encounters. Half the skill displayed by them
in intrenching, half the pluck they showed behind stockades, had
they been devoted to harassing our soldiers on the march or to loose
skirmishing by means of jungle ambuscades, might, if backed
by reasonably straight shooting, have trebled our losses and
difficulties.

Early in the war we did none too well in an attack upon a hill _pa_ at
Waireka, a few miles south of New Plymouth. Colonel Murray was sent
out from the town with some 300 troops and militia to take it, and at
the same time to bring in some families of settlers who had stuck to
their farms, and who, if we may believe one of them, did not want to
be interfered with. The militia were sent by one route, the troops
took another. The Maoris watched the arrangements from the hills, let
the militia cross two difficult ravines, and then occupied these,
cutting off the Taranaki contingent. The militia officers, however,
kept their men together, and passed the day exchanging shots with
their enemy and waiting for Colonel Murray to make a diversion by
assailing Waireka. This, however, Colonel Murray did not do. He sent
Lieutenant Urquhart and thirty men to clear the ravines aforesaid, and
give the militiamen a chance of retreat. But when the latter, still
expecting him to attack the _pa_, did not retire, he rather coolly
withdrew Urquhart's party and retraced his steps to the town, alleging
that his orders had been not to go into the bush, and, in any case, to
return by dusk. Great was the excitement amongst the wives, children,
and friends of the settlers away in the fight when the soldiers
returned without them, and when one terrified woman, who clutched at
an officer's arm and asked their whereabouts, got for answer, "My good
woman, I don't know"! Loud was the joy when by the light of the moon
the militiamen were at length seen marching in. They had been
rescued without knowing it by Captain Cracroft and a party of sixty
bluejackets from H.M.S. _Niger_. These, meeting Colonel Murray in his
retreat, and hearing of the plight of the colonial force, pushed on in
gallant indignation, and in the dusk of the evening made that assault
upon the _pa_ which the Colonel had somehow not made during the day.
Climbing the hill, the sailors chanced upon a party of natives, whom
they chased before them pell-mell. Reaching the stockade at the
heels of the fugitives, the bluejackets gave each other "a back" and
scrambled over the palisades, hot to win the £10 promised by the
Captain to the first man to pull down the Maori flag. The defenders
from their rifle-pits cut at their feet with tomahawks, wounding
several nastily; but in a few minutes the scuffle was over, and the
_Niger's_ people returned victorious to New Plymouth in high spirits.
Moreover, their feat caused the main body of the natives to withdraw
from the ravines, thus releasing the endangered militia. Among these,
Captain Harry Atkinson--in after years the Colony's Premier and best
debater--had played the man. Our loss had been small--that of the
natives some fifty killed and wounded.

Month followed month, and still the settlers were pent up and the
province infested by the marauding Taranaki, Ngatiawa, and Ngatiruanui
Maoris, and by sympathisers from Waikato, who, after planting their
crops, had taken their guns and come over to New Plymouth to enjoy
the sport of shooting _Pakeha_. The farms and homes of the devastated
settlement lay a plundered wreck, and the owners complained bitterly
of the dawdling and timidity of the Imperial officers, who on their
side accused the settlers of unreason in refusing to remove their
families, of insolence to Native allies and prisoners, of want of
discipline, and of such selfish greed for compensation from Government
that they would let their cattle be captured by natives rather than
sell them to the commissariat. On the other hand, the natives were far
from a happy family. The Waikato had not forgotten that they had been
aforetime the conquerors of the Province, now the scene of war, that
the Ngatiawa and Taranaki had been their slaves, and that Wiremu Kingi
had fled to Cook's Straits to escape their raids. They swaggered among
their old foes and servants, and ostentatiously disregarded their
advice, much to our advantage.

In June we were defeated at Puké-te-kauere on the Waitara. Three
detachments were sent to surround and storm a _pa_ standing in
the fork of a Y made by the junction of two swampy ravines. The
plan broke down; the assailants went astray in the rough country and
had to retreat; Lieutenant Brooks and thirty men were killed and
thirty-four wounded. The Maori loss was little or nothing.

In August General Pratt came on the scene from Australia. He proceeded
to destroy the plantations and to attack the _pas_ of the insurgents.
He certainly took many positions. Yet so long and laborious were his
approaches by sapping, so abundant his precautions, that in no case
did the natives stay to be caught in their defences. They evacuated
them at the last moment, leaving the empty premises to us. Once,
however, with an undue contempt for the British soldier, a contingent,
newly arrived from the Waikato, occupied a dilapidated _pa_ at
Mahoe-tahi on the road from New Plymouth to Waitara. Their chief,
Tai Porutu, sent a laconic letter challenging the troops to come and
fight. "Make haste; don't prolong it! Make haste!" ran the epistle.
Promptly he was taken at his word. Two columns marched on Mahoe-tahi
from New Plymouth and Waitara respectively. Though the old _pa_ was
weak, the approaches to it were difficult, and had the Maoris waylaid
the assailants on the road, they might have won. But at the favourable
moment Tai Porutu was at breakfast and would not stir. He paid for his
meal with his life. Caught between the 65th regiment and the militia,
the Maoris were between two fires. Driven out of their _pa_, they
tried to make a stand behind it in swamp and scrub. Half a dozen
well-directed shells sent them scampering thence to be pursued for
three miles. They lost over 100, amongst whom were several chiefs.
Our killed and wounded were but 22. Here again Captain Atkinson
distinguished himself. Not only did he handle his men well, but a
prominent warrior fell by his hand.

This was in November, 1860. For five months General Pratt, in the face
of much grumbling, went slowly on sapping and building redoubts. He
always reached his empty goal; but the spectacle of British forces
worming their way underground and sheltering themselves behind
earthworks against the fire of a few score or hundred invisible
savages who had neither artillery nor long-range rifles was not
calculated to impress the public imagination.

On the 23rd January, 1861, our respectful prudence again tempted
the Maoris to rashness. They tried a daybreak attack on one of the
General's redoubts. But, though they had crept into the ditch without
discovery, and, scrambling thence, swarmed over the parapet with such
resolution that they even gripped the bayonets of the soldiers with
their hands, they were attacked, in the flank and rear, by parties
running up to the rescue from neighbouring redoubts, and fled
headlong, leaving fifty killed and wounded behind. In March
hostilities were stopped after a not too brilliant year, in which our
casualties in fighting had been 228, beside certain settlers cut off
by marauders. Thompson, the king-maker, coming down from the Waikato,
negotiated a truce. There seemed yet a fair hope of peace. Governor
Browne had indeed issued a bellicose manifesto proclaiming his
intention of stamping out the King Movement. But before this could
provoke a general war, Governor Browne was recalled and Sir George
Grey sent back from the Cape to save the position. Moreover, the
Stafford Ministry, which headed the war party amongst colonists, fell
in 1862, and Sir William Fox, the friend of peace, became Premier.

For eighteen months Grey and his Premier laboured for peace. They
tried to conciliate the Kingite chiefs, who would not, for a long
time, meet the Governor. They withdrew Governor Browne's manifesto.
They offered the natives local self-government. At length the Governor
even made up his mind to give back the Waitara land. But a curse
seemed to cling to those unlucky acres. The proclamation of
restitution was somehow delayed, and meanwhile Grey sent troops to
resume possession of another Taranaki block, that of Tataramaika,
which fairly belonged to the settlers, but on which Maoris were
squatting. Under orders from the King natives, the Ngatiruanui
retaliated by surprising and killing a party of soldiers, and the
position in the province became at once hopeless. The war beginning
again there in 1863 smouldered on for more than three long and
wearisome years.

But the main interest soon shifted from Taranaki. In the Waikato,
relations with the King's tribes were drifting from bad to worse. Grey
had been called in too late. His _mana_ was no longer the influence it
had been ten years before. His diplomatic advances and offers of local
government were met with sheer sulkiness. The semi-comic incident of
Sir John Gorst's newspaper skirmish at Te Awamutu did no good. Gorst
was stationed there as Commissioner by the Government, as an agent of
peace and conciliation. In his charge was an industrial school. It was
in the heart of the King Country. The King's advisers must needs have
an organ--a broad-sheet called the _Hokioi_, a word which may be
paraphrased by Phoenix. With unquestionable courage, Gorst, acting on
Grey's orders, issued a sheet in opposition, entitled _Te Pihoihoi
Mokémoké_, or The Lonely Lark. Fierce was the encounter of the rival
birds. The Lark out-argued the Phoenix. But the truculent Kingites had
their own way of dealing with _lèse majesté_. They descended on the
printing-house, and carried off the press and type of _Te Pihoihoi
Mokémoké_. The press they afterwards sent back to Auckland; of the
type, it is said, they ultimately made bullets. Gorst, ordered to quit
the King Country, refused to budge without instructions. The Maoris
gave him three weeks to get them and depart, and very luckily for him
Grey sent them.

The Governor pushed on a military road from Auckland to the Waikato
frontier--a doubtful piece of policy, as it irritated the natives, and
the Waikato country, as experience afterwards showed, could be best
invaded with the help of river steamers. The steamers were, however,
not procured at that stage. About the same time as the Gorst incident
in the Upper Waikato, the Government tried to build a police-station
and barracks on a plot of land belonging to a friendly native lower
down the river. The King natives, however, forbade the erection,
and, when the work went on, a party of them paddled down, seized the
materials and threw them into the stream.

It was now clear that war was coming. The utmost anxiety prevailed in
Auckland, which was only forty miles from the frontier and exposed to
attack both from sea and land. Moreover, some hundreds of natives,
living quite close to the town, had arms, and were ascertained to be
in communication with the Waikatos. The Governor attempted to disarm
them, but the plan was not well carried out, and most of them escaped
with their weapons to the King Country. The choice of the Government
then lay between attacking and being attacked. They learned, beyond a
doubt, that the Waikatos were planning a march on Auckland, and in a
letter written by Thompson about this time he not only stated this,
but said that in the event of an assault the unarmed people would not
be spared. By the middle of the year 1863, however, a strong force was
concentrated on the border, just where the Waikato River, turning from
its long northward course, abruptly bends westward towards the sea. No
less than twelve Imperial Regiments were now in New Zealand, and their
commander, General Sir Duncan Cameron, a Crimean veteran, gained a
success of some note in Taranaki. He was a brave, methodical soldier,
destitute of originality, nimbleness or knowledge of the country or of
savage warfare. In July, the invasion of the Waikato was ordered. On
the very day before our men advanced, the Maoris had begun what they
meant to be their march to Auckland, and the two forces at once came
into collision. In a sharp fight at Koheroa the natives were driven
from their entrenchments with some loss, and any forward movement on
their part was effectually stopped. But, thanks to what seemed to the
colonists infuriating slowness, the advance up the Waikato was not
begun until the latter part of October, and the conquest of the
country not completed until February.

To understand the cause of this impatience on the part of the
onlookers, it should be mentioned that our forces were now, as usual
in the Maori wars, altogether overwhelming. The highest estimate of
the fighting men of the King tribes is two thousand. As against this,
General Cameron had ultimately rather more than ten thousand Imperial
troops in the Colony to draw upon. In addition to that, the colonial
militia and volunteers were gradually recruited until they numbered
nearly as many. About half of these were, at any rate after a short
time, quite as effectual as the regulars for the peculiar guerilla war
which was being waged. In armament there was no comparison between
the two sides. The _Pakeha_ had Enfield rifles and a good supply of
artillery. The Maoris were armed with old Tower muskets and shot-guns,
and were badly off both for powder and bullets, while, as already
said, they were not very good marksmen. Their artillery consisted of
two or three old ship's guns, from which salutes might have been fired
without extreme danger to their gunners. If the war in the Waikato,
and its off-shoot the fighting in the Bay of Plenty, had been in
thick forest and a mountainous country, the disparity of numbers and
equipment might have been counterbalanced. But the Waikato country was
flat or undulating, clothed in fern and with only patches of forest.
A first-class high road--the river--ran right through it. The sturdy
resistance of the natives was due first to their splendid courage and
skilful use of rifle-pits and earthworks, and in the second place to
our want of dash and tactical resource. Clever as the Maori engineers
were, bravely as the brown warriors defended their entrenchments,
their positions ought to have been nothing more than traps for them,
seeing how overwhelming was the white force. The explanation of this
lies in the Maori habit of taking up their positions without either
provisions or water. A greatly superior enemy, therefore, had only to
surround them. They then, in the course of two or three days at the
outside, had either to surrender at discretion or try the desperate
course of breaking through the hostile lines.

[Illustration: War Map]

General Cameron preferred the more slap-dash course of taking
entrenchments by assault. A stubborn fight took place at Rangiriri,
where the Maoris made a stand on a neck of land between the lake and
the Waikato River. Assaulted on two sides, they were quickly driven
from all their pits and earthworks except one large central redoubt.
Three times our men were sent at this, and three times, despite a
fine display of courage, they were flung back with loss. The bravest
soldier cannot--without wings--surmount a bank which rises eighteen
feet sheer from the bottom of a broad ditch. This was seen next day.
The attack ceased at nightfall. During the dark hours the redoubt's
defenders yelled defiance, but next morning they surrendered, and,
marching out, a hundred and eighty-three laid down their arms. Our
loss was one hundred and thirty-two killed and wounded; the Maori loss
was fifty killed, wounded unknown. By January, General Cameron had
passed beyond Ngaruawahia, the village which had been the Maori King's
head-quarters, and which stood at the fine river-junction where the
brown, sluggish Waipa loses its name and waters in the light-green
volume of the swifter Waikato. Twice the English beat the enemy in the
triangle between the rivers. A third encounter was signalised by the
most heroic incident in the Colony's history. Some three hundred
Maoris were shut up in entrenchments at a place called Orakau. Without
food, except a few raw potatoes; without water; pounded at by our
artillery, and under a hail of rifle bullets and hand grenades;
unsuccessfully assaulted no less than five times--they held out for
three days, though completely surrounded. General Cameron humanely
sent a flag of truce inviting them to surrender honourably. To this
they made the ever-famous reply, "Enough! We fight right on, for
ever!" (Heoi ano! Ka whawhai tonu, aké, aké, aké.) Then the General
offered to let the women come out, and the answer was, "The women will
fight as well as we." At length, on the afternoon of the third day,
the garrison assembling in a body charged at quick march right through
the English lines, fairly jumping (according to one account) over the
heads of the men of the Fortieth Regiment as they lay behind a bank.
So unexpected and amazing was their charge, that they would have got
away with but slight loss had they not, when outside the lines, been
headed and confronted by a force of colonial rangers and cavalry. Half
of them fell; the remainder, including the celebrated war-chief Rewi,
got clear away. The earthworks and the victory remained with us, but
the glory of the engagement lay with those whose message of "Aké, aké,
aké," will never be forgotten in New Zealand.

[Illustration: REWI, THE WAIKATO LEADER

Photo by J. MARTIN, Auckland.]

The country round the middle and lower Waikato was now in our hands,
and the King natives were driven to the country about its upper
waters. They were not followed. It was decided to attack the Tauranga
tribe, which had been aiding them. Tauranga lies on the Bay of Plenty,
about forty miles to the east of the Waikato. It was in the campaign
which now took place there that there occurred the noted repulse at
the Gate _Pa_. The Maoris, entrenched on a narrow neck of land between
two swamps, were invested by our forces both in the front and rear
We were, as usual, immensely the stronger in numbers. Our officers,
non-commissioned officers and drummers by themselves almost equalled
the garrison. After a heavy though not always very accurate
bombardment, General Cameron decided to storm the works. The attacking
parties of soldiers and sailors charged well enough and entered the
front of the defences, and the Maoris, hopeless and endeavouring to
escape, found themselves shut in by the troops in their rear. Turning,
however, with the courage of despair, they flung themselves on the
assailants of their front. These, seized with an extraordinary panic,
ran in confusion, breaking from their officers and sweeping away their
supports. The assault was completely repulsed, and was not renewed.
In the night the defenders escaped through the swamps, leaving us the
empty _pa_. Their loss was slight. Ours was one hundred and eleven,
and amongst the killed were ten good officers. As a defeat it was
worse than Ohaeawai, for that had been solely due to a commander's
error of judgment.

The blow stung the English officers and men deeply, and they speedily
avenged it. Hearing that the Tauranga warriors were entrenching
themselves at Te Rangi, Colonel Greer promptly marched thither, caught
them before they had completed their works, and charging into the
rifle-pits with the bayonet, completely routed the Maoris. The temper
of the attacking force may be judged from the fact that out of the
Maori loss of one hundred and forty-five no less than one hundred and
twenty-three were killed or died of wounds. The blow was decisive, and
the Tauranga tribe at once submitted.

[Illustration]




Chapter XVII


THE FIRE IN THE FERN

  "But War, of its majestic mask laid bare,
   The face of naked Murder seemed to wear."

From the middle of 1864, to January, 1865, there was so little
fighting that it might have been thought that the war was nearing its
end. The Waikato had been cleared, and the Tauranga tribes crushed.
Thompson, hopeless of further struggling ceased to resist the
irresistible, made his peace with us and during the short remainder of
his life was treated as became an honourable foe. Nevertheless, nearly
two years of harassing guerilla warfare were in store for the Colony.
Then there was to be another imperfect period of peace, or rather
exhaustion, between the October, 1866, and June, 1868, when
hostilities were once more to blaze up and only to die out finally in
1870. This persistency was due to several causes, of which the first
was the outbreak, early in 1864, of a curious superstition, the cult
of the Hau-Haus. Their doctrine would be hard to describe. It was a
wilder, more debased, and more barbaric parody of Christianity than
the Mormonism of Joe Smith. It was an angry reaction, a kind of savage
expression of a desire to revolt alike from the Christianity and
civilization of the _Pakeha_ and to found a national religion. For
years it drove its votaries into purposeless outbreaks, and acts of
pitiless and ferocious cruelty. By the Hau-Haus two white missionaries
were murdered--outrages unknown before in New Zealand. Their murderous
deeds and the reprisals these brought about gave a darker tinge to
the war henceforth. Their frantic faith led to absurdities as well
as horrors. They would work themselves up into frenzy by dances and
incantations, and in particular by barking like dogs--hence their
name. At first, they seem to have believed that the cry _Hau! Hau!_
accompanied by raising one hand above the head with palm turned to the
front, would turn aside the _Pakeha's_ bullets.

It was in April, 1864, that they first appeared in the field. A
Captain Lloyd, out with a reconnoitring party in Taranaki, fell,
rather carelessly, into an ambuscade, where he and six of his people
were killed and a dozen wounded. When Captain Atkinson and his rangers
came up at speed to the rescue, they found that the heads of the slain
had been cut off and carried away. Lloyd's, it appears, was carried
about the island by Hau-Hau preachers, who professed to find in it
a kind of diabolical oracle, and used it with much effect in
disseminating their teaching. One of these prophets, or preachers,
however, had a short career. Three weeks after Lloyd's death,
this man, having persuaded himself and his dupes that they were
invulnerable, led them against a strong and well-garrisoned redoubt at
Sentry Hill, between New Plymouth and Waitara. Early one fine morning,
in solid column, they marched deliberately to within 150 yards of the
fort, and before straight shooting undeceived them about the value of
their charms and passes, thirty-four of the poor fanatics were lying
beside their prophet in front of the redoubt. A number more were
carried off hurt or dying, and thenceforward the Taranaki natives were
reduced to the defensive.

In the summer of the same year another prophet met his death in the
most dramatic fight of the war, that by which the friendly natives
of the Wanganui district saved it from a Hau-Hau raid by a conflict
fought on an island in the Wanganui River, after a fashion which would
have warmed the heart of Sir Walter Scott had he been alive to hear
of a combat so worthy of the clansmen in "The Fair Maid of Perth." It
came about a month after the repulse at the Gate _Pa_. For months the
friendlies had been guarding the passage of the river against a strong
Hau-Hau force. At last, tired of waiting, they challenged the enemy to
a fair fight on the island of Moutua. It was agreed that neither
side should attempt to take advantage of the other by surprise or
ambuscade. They landed at opposite ends of the islet. First came the
friendlies, 100 strong; 50 formed their first line under three brave
chiefs; 50 stood in reserve under Haimona (Simon) Hiroti; 150 friends
watched them from one of the river banks. Presently the Hau-Haus
sprang from their canoes on to the river-girt arena, headed by their
warrior-prophet Matené (Martin). After much preliminary chanting of
incantations and shouting of defiance, the Hau-Haus charged. As they
came on, the friendly natives, more than half believing them to be
invulnerable, fired so wildly that every shot missed. Three of the
Wanganui leaders fell, and their line wavered and broke. In vain
a fourth chief, Tamihana, shot a Hau-Hau with each barrel of his
_tupara_, speared a third, and cleft the skull of yet another with
his tomahawk. Two bullets brought him down. It was Haimona Hiroti who
saved the day. Calling on the reserve, he stopped the flying, and,
rallying bravely at his appeal, they came on again. Amid a clash of
tomahawks and clubbed rifles, the antagonists fought hand to hand, and
fought well. At length our allies won. Fifty Hau-Haus died that day,
either on the island or while they endeavoured to escape by swimming.
Twenty more were wounded. The Hau-Hau leader, shot as he swam, managed
to reach the further shore. "There is your fish!" said Haimona,
pointing the prophet out to a henchman, who, _meré_ in hand plunged in
after him, struck him down as he staggered up the bank, and swam back
with his head. His flag and ninety sovereigns were amongst the prizes
of the winners in the hard trial of strength. The victors carried the
bodies of their fallen chiefs back to Wanganui, where the settlers for
whom they had died lined the road, standing bareheaded as the brave
dead were borne past.

That three such blows as Sentry Hill, Moutua, and Te Rangi had not a
more lasting effect was due, amongst other things, to the confiscation
policy.

To punish the insurgent tribes, and to defray in part the cost of the
war, the New Zealand Government confiscated 2,800,000 acres of native
land. As a punishment it may have been justified; as a financial
stroke it was to the end a failure. Coming as it did in the midst of
hostilities, it did not simplify matters. Among the tribes affected
it bred despair, amongst their neighbours apprehension, in England
unpleasant suspicions. At first both the Governor and the Colonial
Office endorsed the scheme of confiscation. Then, when Mr. Cardwell
had replaced the Duke of Newcastle, the Colonial Office changed front
and condemned it, and their pressure naturally induced the Governor to
modify his attitude.

An angry collision followed between him and his ministers, and in
November, 1864, the Ministry, whose leaders were Sir William Fox and
Sir Frederick Whitaker, resigned. They were succeeded by Sir Frederick
Weld, upon whose advice Grey let the confiscation go on. Weld became
noted for his advocacy of what was known as the Self-reliance
Policy--in other words, that the Colony should dispense with the
costly and rather cumbrous Imperial forces, and trust in future to the
militia and Maori auxiliaries. And, certainly, when campaigning began
again in January, 1865, General Cameron seemed to do his best to
convert all Colonists to Weld's view. He did indeed appear with a
force upon the coast north of Wanganui. But his principal feat was
the extraordinary one of consuming fifty-seven days in a march of
fifty-four miles along the sea beach, to which he clung with a
tenacity which made the natives scornfully name him the Lame Seagull.
At the outset he pitched his camp so close to thick cover that the
Maoris twice dashed at him, and though of course beaten off, despite
astonishing daring, they killed or wounded forty-eight soldiers. After
that the General went to the cautious extreme. He declared it was
useless for regulars to follow the natives into the forest, and
committed himself to the statement that two hundred natives in a
stockade could stop Colonel Warre with five hundred men from joining
him. He declined to assault the strong Weraroa _pa_--the key to the
west coast. He hinted depressingly that 2,000 more troops might be
required from England. In vain Sir George Grey urged him to greater
activity. The only result was a long and acrid correspondence between
them. From this--to one who reads it now--the General seems to emerge
in a damaged condition. The best that can be said for him is that he
and many of his officers were sick of the war, which they regarded
as an iniquitous job, and inglorious to boot. They knew that a very
strong party in England, headed by the Aborigines Protection Society,
were urging this view, and that the Colonial Office, under Mr.
Cardwell, had veered round to the same standpoint. This is probably
the true explanation of General Cameron's singular slackness. The
impatience and indignation of the colonists waxed high. They had
borrowed three millions of money to pay for the war. They were paying
£40 a year per man for ten thousand Imperial soldiers. They naturally
thought this too much for troops which did not march a mile a day.

Whatever the colonists thought of Grey's warfare with his ministers,
they were heartily with him in his endeavours to quicken the slow
dragging on of the military operations. He did not confine himself to
exhortation. He made up his mind to attack the Weraroa _pa_ himself.
General Cameron let him have two hundred soldiers to act as a moral
support. With these, and somewhat less than five hundred militia and
friendly Maoris, the Governor sat down before the fort, which rose on
a high, steep kind of plateau, above a small river. But though too
strong for front attack, it was itself liable to be commanded from an
outwork on a yet higher spur of the hills. Bringing common sense to
bear, Grey quietly despatched a party, which captured this, and with
it a strong reinforcement about to join the garrison. The latter fled,
and the bloodless capture of Weraroa was justly regarded as among the
most brilliant feats of the whole war. The credit fairly belonged to
Grey, who showed, not only skill, but signal personal daring. The
authorities at home must be assumed to have appreciated this really
fine feat of his, for they made the officer commanding the two hundred
moral supports a C.B. But Grey, it is needless to say, by thus
trumping the trick of his opponent the General, did not improve his
own relations with the Home authorities. He did, however, furnish
another strong reason for a self-reliant policy. Ultimately, though
gradually, the Imperial troops were withdrawn, and the colonists
carried on the war with their own men, as well as their own money.

[Illustration: MAJOR KEMP MEIHA KEPA TE RANGI-HIWINUI]

In January, 1866, however, after General Cameron had by resignation
escaped from a disagreeable position, but while the withdrawal of the
troops was still incomplete, his successor, General Chute, showed that
under officers of determination and energy British soldiers are by no
means feeble folk even in the intricacies of the New Zealand bush.
Setting out from the Weraroa aforesaid on January 3rd with three
companies of regulars, a force of militia, and 300 Maoris under the
chief Kepa, or Kemp, he began to march northward through the forest to
New Plymouth. At first following the coast he captured various _pas_
by the way, including a strong position at Otapawa, which was fairly
stormed in the face of a stout defence, during which both sides
suffered more than a little. There, when one of the buttons on Chute's
coat was cut off by a bullet, he merely snapped out the remark, "The
niggers seem to have found me out." Both the coolness and the words
used were characteristic of the hard but capable soldier. Further on
the route Kemp in one day of running skirmishes took seven villages.
Arriving at the southern side of Mount Egmont, the General decided to
march round its inland flank through a country then almost unknown
except to a few missionaries. Encumbered with pack-horses, who were
checked by every flooded stream, the expedition took seven days to
accomplish the sixty miles of the journey. But they did it, and met
no worse foes than continual rain, short commons, deep mud, and the
gloomy silence of the saturated forest, which then spread without
a break over a country now almost entirely taken up by thriving
dairy-farmers. Turning south again from New Plymouth by the
coast-road, Chute had to fight but once in completing a march right
round Mount Egmont, and thenceforward, except on its southern verge,
long-distracted Taranaki saw no more campaigning.

Other districts were less fortunate. By the early part of 1865 the
Hau-Hau craze was at work on the east as well as the west coast. It
was in the country round the Wanganui River to the west, and in the
part of the east coast, between Tauranga on the Bay of Plenty and
Hawkes Bay, that the new mischief gave the most trouble. The task of
coping with it devolved on the New Zealand Militia, and the warriors
of certain friendly tribes, headed by the chiefs called by the
Europeans Ropata and Kemp. In this loose and desultory but exceedingly
arduous warfare, the irregulars and friendlies undoubtedly proved far
more efficient than the regular troops had usually been permitted to
be. They did not think it useless to follow the enemy into the bush;
far from it. They went there to seek him out. They could march many
miles in a day, and were not fastidious as to commissariat. More than
once they gained food and quarters for the night by taking them from
their opponents. In a multitude of skirmishes in 1865 and 1866, they
were almost uniformly victorious. Of the laurels gained in New Zealand
warfare, a large share belongs to Ropata, to Kemp, and to Militia
officers like Tuke, McDonnell and Fraser. Later in the war, when
energetic officers tried to get equally good results out of
inexperienced volunteers, and when, too--in some cases--militia
discipline had slackened, the consequences were by no means so
satisfactory. It did not follow that brave men ready to plunge into
the bush were good irregulars merely because they were not regulars.
Nor were all friendly natives by any means as effective as the
Wanganui and Ngatiporou, or all chiefs as serviceable as Ropata and
Kemp.

The east coast troubles began in March, 1865, with the murder at
Opotiki, on the Bay of Plenty, of Mr. Volckner, a missionary and the
most kindly and inoffensive of mankind. At the bidding of Kereopa, a
Hau-Hau emissary, the missionary's people suddenly turned on him, hung
him, hacked his body to pieces, and smeared themselves with his blood.
At another spot in the same Bay a trading schooner was seized just
afterwards by order of another Hau-Hau fanatic, and all on board
killed save two half-caste boys. A force of militia soon dealt out
condign punishment for these misdeeds, but meanwhile Kereopa and his
fellow fire-brands had passed down the coast and kindled a flame which
gradually crept southward even to Hawkes Bay. In village after village
the fire blazed up, and a rising equal to that in the Waikato seemed
imminent. It was, indeed, fortunate that much the ablest warrior on
that side of the island at once declared against the craze. This was
Ropata Te Wahawaha, then and afterwards the most valuable Maori ally
the Government had, and one of the very few captains on either side
who went through the wars without anything that could be called a
defeat. Without fear or pity, he was a warrior of the older Maori
type, who with equal enjoyment could plan a campaign, join in a
hand-to-hand tussle, doom a captive to death, or shoot a deserter
with his own rifle. As he would not join the Hau-Haus, they and their
converts made the mistake of attacking him. After beating them off
he was joined by Major Biggs and a company of militia. Together they
advanced against the stronghold of the insurgents, perched on a cliff
among the Waiapu hills. By scaling a precipice with twenty picked men,
Ropata and Biggs gained a crest above the _pa_, whence they could fire
down into the midst of their astonished adversaries, over 400 of whom
surrendered in terror to the daring handful. But the mischief had run
down the coast. Spreading from point to point, dying down and then
starting up, it was as hard to put out as fire abroad in the fern. The
amiable Kereopa visited Poverty Bay, three days' journey south of
the Waiapu, and tried hard to persuade the natives to murder Bishop
Williams, the translator of the Scriptures into Maori. Though they
shrank from this, the Bishop had to fly, and his flock took up arms,
stood a siege in one of their _pas_, and lost over a hundred men
before they would surrender to the militia. Further south still the
next rising flared up on the northern frontier of the Hawkes Bay
province. Once more Ropata stamped it under, and the generalship with
which he repaired the mistakes made by others, and routed a body
of 500 insurgents was not more remarkable than the cold-blooded
promptitude with which after the fight he shot four prisoners of note
with his own hand. It took ten months for the spluttering fire to
flame up again. Then it was yet another stage further south, within a
few miles of Napier, amid pastoral plains, where, if anywhere, peace,
it would seem, should have an abiding-place. The rising there was
but a short one-act play. To Colonel Whitmore belonged the credit of
dealing it a first and final blow at Omaranui, where, with a hastily
raised force of volunteers, and some rather useless friendlies, he
went straight at the insurgents, caught them in the open, and quickly
killed, wounded, or captured over ninety per cent. of their number.

After this there was a kind of insecure tranquillity until June, 1868.
Then fighting began again near the coast between Wanganui and Mount
Egmont, where the occupation of confiscated lands bred bitter
feelings. Natives were arrested for horse-stealing. Straggling
settlers were shot. A chief, Titokowaru, hitherto insignificant,
became the head and front of the resistance. In June a sudden attack
was made by his people upon some militia holding a tumble-down
redoubt--an attack so desperate that out of twenty-three in the work,
only six remained unwounded when help came, after two hours' manful
resistance. Colonel McDonnell, then in command on the coast, had
proved his dash and bravery in a score of bush-fights. In his various
encounters he killed ten Maoris with his own hand. He was an expert
bushman, and a capital manager of the friendly natives. But during
the eighteen months of quiet the trained militia which had done such
excellent work in 1865 and 1866, had been in part dispersed. The force
which in July McDonnell led into the bush to attempt Titokowaru's
_pa_, at Ngutu-o-te-manu (Beak-of-the-bird) was to a large extent raw
material. The Hau-Haus were found fully prepared. Skilfully posted,
they poured in a hot cross-fire, both from the _pa_ and from an ambush
in the neighbouring thickets. Broken into two bodies, McDonnell's men
were driven to make a long and painful retreat, during which two died
of exhaustion. They lost twenty-four killed and twenty-six wounded.
McDonnell resigned in disgust. Whitmore, who replaced him, demanded
better men, and got them, but to meet no better success. At Moturoa
his assault on another forest stockade failed under a withering fire;
the native contingent held back sulkily; and again our men retreated,
with a loss this time of forty-seven, of which twenty-one were killed.
This was on November 5th. Before Whitmore could try again he was
called to the other side of the island by evil tidings from Poverty
Bay.

These had their cause in the strangest story of the Maori wars.
Amongst the many blunders in these, some of the oddest were the
displays of rank carelessness which repeatedly led to the escape of
Maori prisoners. Three times did large bodies get away and rejoin
their tribes--once from Sir George Grey's island estate at Kawau,
where they had been turned loose on parole; once from a hulk in
Wellington Harbour, through one of the port-holes of which they
slipped into the sea on a stormy night; the third time from the
Chatham Islands. This last escape, which was in July, 1868, was
fraught with grave mischief.

Fruitlessly the officer in charge of prisoners there had protested
against being left with twenty men to control three hundred and thirty
captives. The leader of these, Te Kooti, one of the ablest as well
as most ferocious partisans the colonists ever had to face, had been
deported from Poverty Bay to the Chathams two years before, without
trial. Unlike most of his fellow prisoners he had never borne arms
against us. The charge against him was that he was in communication
with Hau-Hau insurgents in 1865. His real offence seems to have
been that he was regarded by some of the Poverty Bay settlers as
a disagreeable, thievish, disaffected fellow, and there is an
uncomfortable doubt as to whether he deserved his punishment. During
his exile he vowed vengeance against those who had denounced him, and
against one man in particular. In July, 1868, the schooner _Rifleman_
was sent down to the Chathams with supplies. The prisoners took the
chance thus offered. They surprised the weak guard, killed a sentry
who showed fight, and seized and tied up the others, letting the women
and children escape unharmed. Going on board the _Rifleman_, Te Kooti
gave the crew the choice between taking his people to New Zealand and
instant death. They chose the former, and the schooner set sail
for the east coast of New Zealand with about one hundred and sixty
fighting men, and a number of women and children. The outbreak and
departure were successfully managed in less than two hours. When head
winds checked the runaways, Te Kooti ordered an old man, his uncle, to
be bound and thrown overboard as a sacrifice to the god of winds and
storms. The unhappy human sacrifice struggled for awhile in the sea
and then sank. At once the wind changed, the schooner lay her course,
and the _mana_ of Te Kooti grew great. After sailing for a week,
the fugitives had their reward, and were landed at Wharé-onga-onga
(Abode-of-stinging-nettles), fifteen miles from Poverty Bay. They kept
their word to the crew, whom they allowed to take their vessel and go
scot-free. Then they made for the interior. Major Biggs, the Poverty
Bay magistrate, got together a force of friendly natives and went
in pursuit. The Hau-Haus showed their teeth to such effect that the
pursuers would not come to close quarters. Even less successful
was the attempt of a small band of White volunteers. They placed
themselves across Te Kooti's path; but after a long day's skirmishing
were scattered in retreat, losing their baggage, ammunition, and
horses. Colonel Whitmore, picking them up next day, joined them to his
force and dragged them off after him in pursuit of the victors. It
was winter, and the weather and country both of the roughest. The
exhausted volunteers, irritated by Whitmore's manner, left him
half-way. For himself the little colonel, all wire and leather, knew
not fatigue. But even the best of his men were pretty well worn out
when they did at last catch a Tartar in the shape of the enemy's
rearguard. The latter made a stand under cover, in an angle of the
narrow bed of a mountain-torrent floored with boulders and shut in
by cliffs. Our men, asked to charge in single file, hung back, and a
party of Native allies sent round to take the Hau Haus in flank made
off altogether. Though Te Kooti was shot through the foot, the pursuit
had to be given up. The net result of the various skirmishes with him
had been that we had lost twenty-six killed and wounded, and that he
had got away.

Whitmore went away to take command on the west coast. Thus Te Kooti
gained time to send messengers to the tribes, and many joined him. He
spoke of himself as God's instrument against the _Pakeha_, preached
eloquently, and kept strict discipline amongst his men. In November,
after a three months' lull, he made his swoop on his hated enemies the
settlers in Poverty Bay, and in a night surprise took bloody vengeance
for his sojourn at the Chathams. His followers massacred thirty-three
white men, women and children, and thirty-seven natives. Major Biggs
was shot at the door of his house. Captain Wilson held out in his till
it was in flames. Then he surrendered under promise of life for his
family, all of whom, however, were at once bayonetted, except a boy
who slipped into the scrub unnoticed. McCulloch, a farmer, was shot as
he sat milking. Several fugitives owed their lives to the heroism of a
friendly chief, Tutari, who refused to gain his life by telling their
pursuers the path they had taken. The Hau Haus killed him and seized
his wife, who, however, adroitly saved both the flying settlers and
herself by pointing out the wrong track. Lieutenant Gascoigne with a
hasty levy of friendly Natives set out after the murderers, only to be
easily held in check at Makaretu with a loss of twenty-eight killed
and wounded. Te Kooti, moreover, intercepted an ammunition train and
captured eight kegs of gunpowder. Fortifying himself on a precipitous
forest-clad hill named Ngatapa, he seemed likely to rally round him
the disaffected of his race. But his red star was about to wane.
Ropata with his Ngatiporou now came on the scene. A second attack
on Makaretu sent the insurgents flying. They left thirty-seven dead
behind, for Ropata gave no quarter, and had not his men loitered to
plunder, Te Kooti, who, still lame, was carried off on a woman's back,
must have been among their prizes. Pushing on to Ngatapa, Ropata found
it a very formidable stronghold. The _pa_ was on the summit of
an abrupt hill, steep and scarped on two sides, narrowing to a
razor-backed ridge in the rear. In front three lines of earthwork rose
one above another, the highest fourteen feet high, aided and connected
by the usual rifle-pits and covered way. Most of Ropata's men refused
to follow him against such a robbers' nest, and though the fearless
chief tried to take it with the faithful minority, he had to fall
back, under cover of darkness, and return home in a towering passion.
A month later his turn came. Whitmore arrived. Joining their forces,
he and Ropata invested Ngatapa closely, attacked it in front and
rear, and took the lowest of the three lines of intrenchment. A final
assault was to come next morning. The Hau Haus were short of food
and water, and in a desperate plight. But one cliff had been left
unwatched, and over that they lowered themselves by ropes as the
storming party outside sat waiting for the grey dawn. They were not,
however, to escape unscathed. Ropata at once sent his men in chase.
Hungry and thirsty, the fugitives straggled loosely, and were cut down
by scores or brought back. Short shrift was theirs. The Government
had decided that Poverty Bay must be revenged, and the prisoners were
forthwith shot, and their bodies stripped and tossed over a cliff.
From first to last at Ngatapa the loss to the Hau Haus was 136 killed
outright, ours but 22, half of whom were wounded only. It was the last
important engagement fought in New Zealand, and ended all fear of a
general rising. Yet in one respect the success was incomplete: Te
Kooti once more escaped. This time he reached the fastnesses of the
wild Urewera tribe, and made more than one bloodstained raid thence.
In April he pounced on Mohaka, at the northern end of the Hawkes Bay
Province, killed seven whites, fooled the occupants of a Native _pa_
into opening their gates to him, and then massacred 57 of them. But
the collapse of the insurrection on the West Coast enabled attention
to be concentrated upon the marauder. He fell back on the plateau
round Lake Taupo. There, in June, 1869, he outwitted a party of
militia-men by making his men enter their camp, pretending to be
friendlies. When the befooled troopers saw the trick and tried to
seize their arms, nine were cut down. McDonnell, however, was at the
heels of the Hau Haus, and in three encounters in the Taupo region Te
Kooti was soundly beaten with a loss of 50 killed. He became a hunted
fugitive. Ropata and Kemp chased him from district to district,
backwards and forwards, across and about the island, for a high price
had been put on his head. For three years the pursuit was urged or
renewed. Every band Te Kooti got together was scattered. His wife
was taken; once he himself was shot in the hand; again and again the
hunters were within a few yards of their game. Crossing snow-clad
ranges, wading up the beds of mountain torrents, hacking paths through
the tangled forest, they were ever on his track, only to miss him.
It was in the Uriwera wilderness that Te Kooti lost his congenially
bloodthirsty crony Kereopa, who was caught there and hung. Left almost
without followers, he himself at last took refuge in the King Country,
where he stayed quiet and unmolested. In the end he received a pardon,
and died in peace after living for some twenty years after his hunters
had abandoned their chase.

Colonel Whitmore, crossing to the Wanganui district after the fall of
Ngatapa, had set off to deal with Titokowaru. He, however, threw up
the game and fled to the interior, where he was wisely left alone,
and, except for the fruitless pursuit of Te Kooti, the year 1870 may
be marked as the end of warfare in New Zealand.

The interest of the Maori struggle, thus concluded, does not spring
from the numbers engaged. To a European eye the combats were in point
of size mere battles of the frogs and mice. What gave them interest
was their peculiar and picturesque setting, the local difficulties to
be met, and the boldness, rising at moments to heroism, with which
clusters of badly armed savages met again and again the finest
fighting men of Europe. It was the race conflict which gave dignity
to what Lieutenant Gudgeon in his chronicle truthfully reduces to
"expeditions and skirmishes grandiloquently styled campaigns". Out of
a multitude of fights between 1843 and 1870, thirty-seven (exclusive
of the raid on Poverty Bay, which was a massacre) may be classed as of
greater importance than the rest. Out of these we were unmistakably
beaten nine times, and a tenth encounter, that of Okaihau, was
indecisive. Of twenty-seven victories, however, those of Rangi-riri
and Orakau were dearly bought; in the double fight at Nukumaru we lost
more than the enemy, and at Waireka most of our forces retreated,
and only heard of the success from a distance. Two disasters and six
successes were wholly or almost wholly the work of native auxiliaries.
The cleverness and daring of the Maori also scored in the repeated
escapes of batches of prisoners.

By 1870 it was possible to try and count the cost of the ten years'
conflict. It was not so easy to do so correctly. The killed alone
amounted to about 800 on the English side and 1,800 on the part of the
beaten natives. Added to the thousands wounded, there had been many
scores of "murders" and heavy losses from disease, exposure and
hardship. The Maoris were, for the most part, left without hope and
without self-confidence. The missionaries never fully regained
their old moral hold upon the race, nor has it shown much zeal and
enthusiasm in industrial progress. On the other side, the colonists
had spent between three and four millions in fighting, and for more
than fifteen years after the war they had to keep up an expensive
force of armed police. There had been destruction of property in
many parts of the North Island, and an even more disastrous loss
of security and paralysis of settlement. Since 1865, moreover, the
pastoral industry in the south had been depressed by bad prices. It
is true that some millions of acres of Maori land had been gained by
confiscation, but of this portions were handed over to loyal natives.
Much more was ultimately given back to the insurgent tribes, and the
settlement of the rest was naturally a tardy and difficult process.
Farmers do not rush upon land to be the mark of revengeful raids. The
opening of the year 1870 was one of New Zealand's dark hours.

Nevertheless, had the colonists but known it, the great native
difficulty was destined to melt fast away. Out of the innumerable
perplexities, difficulties, and errors of the previous generation, a
really capable Native Minister had been evolved. This was Sir Donald
McLean, who, from the beginning of 1869 to the end of 1876, took
the almost entire direction of the native policy. A burly, patient,
kindly-natured Highlander, his Celtic blood helped him to sympathize
with the proud, warlike, clannish nature of the Maori. It was largely
owing to his influence that Ropata and others aided us so actively
against Te Kooti. It was not, however, as a war minister, but as the
man who established complete and lasting peace through New Zealand,
that his name should be remembered. By liberal payment for service, by
skilful land purchases, by showing respect to the chiefs, and tact and
good humour with the people, McLean acquired a permanent influence
over the race. The war party in the Colony might sneer at his "Flour
and Sugar Policy"; but even the dullest had come to see by this time
that peace paid. Into the remnant of the King Country McLean never
tried to carry authority. He left that and the Urewera country further
east discreetly alone. Elsewhere the Queen's writ ran, and roads,
railways, and telegraphs, coming together with a great tide of
settlement, made the era of war seem like an evil dream. It is true
that the delays in redeeming promises concerning reserves to be made
and given back from the confiscated Maori territory were allowed to
remain a grievance for more than another decade, and led, as late as
1880, to interference by the natives with road making in some of this
lost land of theirs in Taranaki. There, round a prophet named Te
Whiti, flocked numbers of natives sore with a sense of injustice.
Though Te Whiti was as pacific as eccentric, the Government, swayed
by the alarm and irritation thus aroused, took the extreme step of
pouring into his village of Parihaka an overwhelming armed force.
Then, after reading the Riot Act to a passive and orderly crowd of
men, women and children, they proceeded to make wholesale arrests, to
evict the villagers and to destroy houses and crops. Public opinion,
which had conjured up the phantom of an imminent native rising,
supported the proceeding. There was no such danger, for the natives
were virtually not supplied with arms, and the writer is one of a
minority of New Zealanders who thinks that our neglect to make the
reserves put us in the wrong in the affair. However, as the breaking
up of Parihaka was at last followed up by an honourable and liberal
settlement of the long-delayed Reserves question, it may be classed as
the last of the long series of native alarms. There will be no more
Maori wars. Unfortunately, it has become a question whether in a
hundred years there will be any more Maoris. They were perhaps,
seventy thousand when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed; they and the
half-castes can scarcely muster forty-three thousand now.




Chapter XVIII


GOLD-DIGGERS AND GUM-DIGGERS

  "Fortune, they say, flies from us: she but wheels
  Like the fleet sea-bird round the fowler's skiff,
  Lost in the mist one moment, and the next
  Brushing the white sail with a whiter wing
  As if to court the aim. Experience watches,
  And has her on the turn."

When the Waitara war broke out the white population did not number
more than seventy-five thousand. When Te Kooti was chased into the
King Country it had grown to nearly four times that sum, in the face
of debt, doubt, and the paralyzing effects of war. A great ally of
settlement had come upon the scene. In 1861 profitable goldfields were
discovered in Otago. The little Free Church colony, which in thirteen
years had scarcely increased to that number of thousands, was
thunderstruck at the news. For years there had been rumours of gold
in the river beds and amongst the mountains of the South Island. From
1857 to 1860 about £150,000 had been won in Nelson. In 1858, a certain
Asiatic, Edward Peters, known to his familiars as Black Pete, who had
somehow wandered from his native Bombay through Australia to Otago,
had struck gold there; and in March, 1861, there was a rush to a
short-lived goldfield at the Lindis, another spot in that province.
But it was not until the winter of that year that the prospector,
Gabriel Read, found in a gully at Tuapeka the indubitable signs of a
good alluvial field. Digging with a butcher's knife, he collected in
ten hours nearly five-and-twenty pounds' worth of the yellow metal.
Then he sunk hole after hole for some distance, finding gold in all.
Unlike most discoverers, Read made no attempt to keep his fortune
to himself, but wrote frankly of it to Sir John Richardson, the
superintendent of the province. For this he was ultimately paid the
not extravagant reward of £1,000. The good Presbyterians of Dunedin
hardly knew in what spirit to receive the tidings. But some of them
did not hesitate to test the field. Very soberly, almost in sad
solemnity, they set to work there, and the result solved all doubts.
Half Dunedin rushed to Tuapeka. At one of the country kirks the
congregation was reduced to the minister and precentor. The news went
across the seas. Diggers from Australia and elsewhere poured in by the
thousand. Before many months the province's population had doubled,
and the prayerful and painful era of caution, the day of small things,
was whisked away in a whirl of Victorian enterprise. For the next few
years the history of Otago became a series of rushes. Economically,
no doubt, "rush" is the proper word to apply to the old stampedes to
colonial goldfields. But in New Zealand, at any rate, the physical
methods of progression thither were laborious in the extreme. The
would-be miner tramped slowly and painfully along, carrying as much in
the way of provisions and tools as his back would bear. Lucky was the
man who had a horse to ride, or the rudest cart to drive in. When, as
time went on, gold was found high up the streams amongst the ice-cold
rivers and bleak tussock-covered mountains of the interior, the
hardships endured by the gold-seekers were often very great. The
country was treeless and wind-swept. Sheep roamed over the tussocks,
but of other provisions there were none. Hungry diggers were thankful
to pay half a crown for enough flour to fill a tin pannikin. £120 a
ton was charged for carting goods from Dunedin. Not only did fuel
fetch siege prices, but five pounds would be paid for an old gin-case,
for the boards of a dray, or any few pieces of wood out of which a
miner's "cradle" could be patched up. The miners did not exactly make
light of these obstacles, for, of the thousands who poured into the
province after the first discoveries, large numbers fled from the
snow and starvation of the winters, when the swollen rivers rose, and
covered up the rich drift on the beaches under their banks. But enough
remained to carry on the work of prospecting, and the finds were rich
enough to lure new-comers. In the year 1863 the export of gold from
Otago rose to more than two millions sterling. Extraordinary patches
were found in the sands and drift of the mountain torrents. It is
recorded of one party that, when crossing a river, their dog was swept
away by the current on to a small rocky point. A digger went to rescue
it, and never was humanity more promptly rewarded, for from the
sands by the rock he unearthed more than £1,000 worth of gold before
nightfall. Some of the more fortunate prospectors had their footsteps
dogged by watchful bands bent on sharing their good luck. One of them,
however, named Fox, managed to elude this espionage for some time, and
it was the Government geologist--now Sir James Hector--who, while on a
scientific journey, discovered him and some forty companions quietly
working in a lonely valley.

The goldfields of Otago had scarcely reached the zenith of their
prosperity before equally rich finds were reported from the west coast
of the Canterbury province. From the year 1860 it was known that gold
existed there, but the difficulties of exploring a strip of broken
surf-beaten coast, cut off from settled districts by range upon range
of Alps, and itself made up of precipitous hills, and valleys covered
with densest jungle and cloven by the gorges of bitterly cold and
impassable torrents, were exceptionally great. More than one of the
Government officers sent there to explore were either swept away by
some torrent or came back half-crippled by hunger and rheumatism. One
surveyor who stuck to his work for months in the soaking, cheerless
bush, existing on birds, bush-rats, and roots, was thought a hero, and
with cause. Even Maoris dreaded parts of this wilderness, and believed
it to be the abode of dragons and a lost tribe of their own race. They
valued it chiefly as the home of their much-prized jade or greenstone.
Searching for this, a party of them, early in 1864, found gold. Later
on in the same year a certain Albert Hunt also found paying gold on
the Greenstone creek. Hunt was afterwards denounced as an impostor,
and had to fly for his life from a mob of enraged and disappointed
gold-seekers; but the gold was there nevertheless. In 1865 the stream
which had been pouring into Otago was diverted to the new fields in
Westland, and in parties or singly, in the face of almost incredible
natural difficulties, adventurous men worked their way to every point
of the west coast. In a few months 30,000 diggers were searching its
beaches and valleys with such results that it seemed astonishing
that the gold could have lain unseen so long. Many lost their lives,
drowned in the rivers or starved to death in the dripping bush. The
price of provisions at times went to fabulous heights, as much as £150
being paid for a ton of flour, and a shilling apiece for candles. What
did prices matter to men who were getting from 1 oz. to 1 lb. weight
of gold-dust a day, or who could stagger the gold-buyers sent to their
camps by the bankers by pouring out washed gold by the pannikin? So
rich was the wash-dirt in many of the valleys, and the black sand on
many of the sea-beaches, that for years £8 to £10 a week was regarded
as only a fair living wage. In 1866 the west coast exported gold to
the value of £2,140,000.

On a strip of sand-bank between the dank bush and the bar-bound mouth
of the Hokitika river a mushroom city sprang up, starting into a
bustling life of cheerful rashness and great expectations. In 1864 a
few tents were pitched on the place; in 1865 one of the largest towns
in New Zealand was to be seen. Wood and canvas were the building
materials--the wood unseasoned pine, smelling fresh and resinous at
first, anon shrinking, warping, and entailing cracked walls, creaking
doors, and rattling window-sashes. Every second building was a
grog-shanty, where liquor, more or less fiery, was retailed at a
shilling a glass, and the traveller might hire a blanket and a soft
plank on the floor for three shillings a night. Under a rainfall of
more than 100 inches a year, tracks became sloughs before they could
be turned into streets and roads. All the rivers on the coast
were bar-bound. Food and supplies came by sea, and many were the
coasting-craft which broke their backs crossing the bars, or which
ended their working-life on shoals. Yet when hundreds of adventurers
were willing to pay £5 apiece for the twelve hours' passage from
Nelson, high rates of insurance did not deter ship-owners. River
floods joined the surf in making difficulties. Eligible town sections
bought at speculative prices were sometimes washed out to sea, and a
river now runs over the first site of the prosperous town of Westport.

It was striking to note how quickly things settled down into a very
tolerable kind of rough order. Among the diggers themselves there was
little crime or even violence. It is true that a Greymouth storekeeper
when asked "How's trade?" concisely pictured a temporary stagnation
by gloomily remarking, "There ain't bin a fight for a week!" But
an occasional bout of fisticuffs and a good deal of drinking and
gambling, were about the worst sins of the gold-seekers. Any one who
objected to be saluted as "mate!" or who was crazy enough to dream
of wearing a long black coat or a tall black hat, would find life
harassing at the diggings. But, at any rate, in New Zealand diggers
did not use revolvers with the playful frequency of the Californians
of Mr. Bret Harte. Nor did they shoe the horse of their first Member
of Parliament with gold, or do a variety of the odd things done in
Australian gold-fields. They laughed heartily when the Canterbury
Provincial Government sent over the Alps an escort of strapping
mounted policemen, armed to the teeth, to carry away gold securely
in a bullet-proof cart. They preferred to send their gold away in
peaceful coasting steamers. When, in 1867, one or two Irish rows were
dignified with the title of Fenian Riots, and a company of militia
were sent down from their more serious Maori work in the North Island
to restore order in Hokitika, they encountered nothing more dangerous
than a hospitality too lavish even for their powers of absorption. One
gang of bushrangers, and one only, ever disturbed the coast. The four
ruffians who composed it murdered at least six men before they were
hunted down. Three were hung; the fourth, who saved his neck by
turning Queen's evidence, was not lynched. No one ever has been
lynched in New Zealand. For the rest the ordinary police-constable was
always able to deal with the sharpers, drunkards, and petty thieves
who are among the camp-followers of every army of gold-seekers.
So quietly were officials submitted to that sometimes, when a
police-magistrate failed to appear in a goldfields' court through
some accident of road or river, his clerk would calmly hear cases
and impose fines, or a police-sergeant remand the accused without
authority and without resistance. In the staid Westland of to-day it
is so impossible to find offenders enough to make a show of filling
the Hokitika prison that the Premier, who sits for Hokitika, is
upbraided in Parliament for sinful extravagance in not closing the
establishment.

No sooner had the cream been skimmed off the southern goldfields than
yields of almost equal value were reported from the north. The Thames
and Coromandel fields in the east of the Auckland province differed
from those in the South Island. They were from the outset not alluvial
but quartz mines. So rich, however, were some of the Thames mines that
the excitement they caused was as great as that roused by the alluvial
patches of Otago and Westland. The opening up of the Northern fields
was retarded throughout the sixties by Maori wars, and the demands of
peaceful but hard-fisted Maori landlords. £1 a miner had to be paid to
these latter for the right to prospect their country. They delayed the
opening of the now famous Ohinemuri field until 1875. When on March
3rd of that year the Goldfields' Warden declared Ohinemuri open, the
declaration was made to an excited crowd of hundreds of prospectors,
who pushed jostling and fighting round the Warden's table for their
licenses, and then galloped off on horseback across country in a wild
race to be first to "peg out" claims. Years before this, however, the
shores of the Hauraki Gulf had been systematically worked, and in 1871
the gold export from Auckland had risen to more than £1,100,000.

New Zealand still remains a gold-producing colony, albeit the days of
the solitary adventurer working in the wash-dirt of his claim with
pick, shovel, and cradle are pretty nearly over. The nomadic digger
who called no man master is a steady-going wage-earner now. Coal-mines
and quartz-reefs are the mainstays of Westland. Company management,
trade unions, conciliation cases, and laws against Sunday labour have
succeeded the rough, free-and-easy days of glittering possibilities
for everybody. Even the alluvial fields are now systematically worked
by hydraulic sluicing companies. They are no longer poor men's
diggings. In Otago steam-dredges successfully search the river
bottoms. In quartz-mining the capitalist has always been the
organizing and controlling power. The application of cyanide and other
scientific improvements has revived this branch of mining within the
last four years, and, despite the bursting of the usual number of
bubbles, there is good reason to suppose that the £54,000,000 which is
so far the approximate yield of gold from the Colony will during the
next decade be swelled by many millions.

The gold-digger is found in many parts of the earth; the gum-digger
belongs to New Zealand alone. With spade, knife, and gum-spear he
wanders over certain tracts of the province of Auckland, especially
the long, deeply-indented, broken peninsula, which is the northern
end of New Zealand. The so-called gum for which he searches is the
turpentine, which, oozing out of the trunk of the kauri pines, hardens
into lumps of an amber-like resin. Its many shades of colour darken
from white through every kind of yellow and brown to jet. A little is
clear, most is clouded. Half a century ago, when the English soldiers
campaigning against Heké had to spend rainy nights in the bush without
tent or fire, they made shift to get light and even warmth by kindling
flame with pieces of the kauri gum, which in those days could be seen
lying about on the ground's surface. Still, the chips and scraps which
remain when kauri-gum has been cleaned and scraped for market are used
in the making of fire-kindlers. But for the resin itself a better use
was long ago found--the manufacture of varnish. At the moment when,
under Governor Fitzroy, the infant Auckland settlement was at its
lowest, a demand for kauri-gum from the United States shone as a gleam
of hope to the settlers, while the Maoris near the town became too
busied in picking up gum to trouble themselves about appeals to join
Heké's crusade against the _Pakeha_. Though the trade seemed to die
away so completely that in a book written in 1848 I find it briefly
dismissed with the words, "The bubble has burst," nevertheless it is
to-day well-nigh as brisk as ever, and has many a time and oft stood
Auckland in good stead.

[Illustration: KAURI PINE TREE

Photo by J. MARTIN, Auckland]

The greater kauri pines show smooth grey trunks of from eight to
twelve feet in diameter. Even Mr. Gladstone would have recoiled from
these giants, which are laid low, not with axes, but with heavy double
saws worked on scaffolds six feet high erected against the doomed
trees. As the British ox, with his short horns and cube-like form, is
the result of generations of breeding with a single eye to meat, so
that huge candelabrum, the kauri, might be fancied to be the outcome
of thousands of years of experiment in producing the perfection of
a timber tree. Its solid column may rise a hundred feet without a
branch; its small-leaved patchy foliage seems almost ludicrously
scanty; it is all timber--good wood. Clean, soft, easily worked, the
saws seem to cut it like cheese. It takes perhaps 800 years for the
largest pines to come to their best. So plentiful are they that,
though fires and every sort of wastefulness have ravaged them, the
Kauri Timber Company can put 40,000,000 feet of timber through their
mills in a year, can find employment for two thousand men, and can
look forward to doing so for another twenty years. After that----!

The resin may be found in tree-forks high above the ground. Climbing
to these by ropes, men have taken thence lumps weighing as much as a
hundredweight. But most and the best resin is found in the earth, and
for the last generation the soil of the North has been probed and
turned over in search of it, until whole tracts look as though they
had been rooted up by droves of wild swine. In many of these tracts
not a pine is standing now. How and when the forests disappeared,
whether by fire or otherwise, and how soil so peculiarly sterile could
have nourished the finest of trees, are matters always in dispute.
There is little but the resin to show the locality of many of the
vanished forests. Where they once were the earth is hungry, white, and
barren, though dressed in deceptive green by stunted fern and
manuka. In the swamps and ravines, where they may thrust down their
steel-pointed flexible spears as much as eight feet, the roaming
diggers use that weapon to explore the field. In the hard open country
they have to fall back upon the spade. Unlike the gold-seeker, the
gum-digger can hope for no great and sudden stroke of fortune. He will
be lucky if hard work brings him on the average £1 a week. But without
anything to pay for house-room, fuel, or water, he can live on twelve
and sixpence while earning his pound, and can at least fancy that he
is his own master. Some 7,000 whites and Maoris are engaged in finding
the 8,000 tons or thereabouts of resin, which is the quantity which in
a fairly good year England and America will buy at an average price
of £60 a ton. About 1,500 of the hunters for gum are Istrians and
Dalmatians--good diggers, but bad colonists; for years of work do not
attach them to the country, and almost always they take their savings
home to the fringing islands and warm bays of the Adriatic.




Chapter XIX


THE PROVINCES AND THE PUBLIC WORKS POLICY

  "Members the Treasurer pressing to mob;
  Provinces urging the annual job;
  Districts whose motto is cash or commotion;
  Counties with thirsts which would drink up an ocean;
  These be the horse-leech's children which cry,
  'Wanted, Expenditure!' I must supply."
             --_The Premier's Puzzle_.

Sir George Grey had been curtly recalled in the early part of 1868.
His friends may fairly claim that at the time of his departure the
Colony was at peace, and that he left it bearing with him the general
esteem of the colonists. True, his second term of office had been in
some ways the antithesis of his first. He had failed to prevent
war, and had made mistakes. But from amid a chaos of confusion and
recrimination, four things stand out clearly: (1) he came upon the
scene too late; (2) he worked earnestly for peace for two years; (3)
the part that he personally took in the war was strikingly successful;
(4) he was scurvily treated by the Colonial Office.

He was the last Viceroy who took an active and distinct share in
the government of the country. Since 1868, the Governors have been
strictly constitutional representatives of a constitutional Sovereign.
They have been without exception honourable and courteous noblemen
or gentlemen. They have almost always left the Colony with the good
wishes of all with whom they have come into contact. They have
occasionally by tact exercised a good deal of indirect influence over
some of their Ministers. They have sometimes differed with these about
such points as nominations to the Upper House, or have now and then
reserved bills for the consideration of the Home Government. But they
have not governed the country, which, since 1868, has enjoyed as
complete self-government as the constitution broadly interpreted can
permit.

When peace at last gave the Colonists time to look round, the
constitution which Grey and Wakefield had helped to draw up was still
working. Not without friction, however. Under the provincial system
New Zealand was rather a federation of small settlements than a
unified colony. This was in accord with natural conditions, and with
certain amendments the system might have worked exceedingly well. But
no real attempt was ever made to amend it. Its vices were chiefly
financial. The inequalities and jealousies caused by the rich landed
estate of the southern provinces bred ill-feeling all round. The
irregular grants doled out by the Treasurer to the needier localities
embarrassed the giver without satisfying the recipients. The provinces
without land revenue looked with hungry eyes at those which had it.
There was quarrelling, too, within each little provincial circle. The
elective superintendents were wont to make large promises and shadow
forth policies at the hustings. Then when elected they often found
these views by no means in accord with those of their council and
their executive. Yet, but for one great blunder, the provinces should
and probably would have existed now.

1870 is usually named as the birth-year of the colonial policy of
borrowing and public works. This is not strictly true. In that year
the central and provincial exchequers already owed about seven
millions and a quarter between them. The provincial debts, at any
rate, had been largely contracted in carrying out colonizing work,
and some of that work had been exceedingly well done, especially in
Canterbury and Otago. What the Central Government did do in 1870 was
to come forward boldly with a large and continuous policy of public
works and immigration based on borrowed money. The scheme was Sir
Julius Vogel's. As a politician this gentleman may not unfairly be
defined as an imaginative materialist and an Imperialist of the school
of which Cecil Rhodes is the best-known colonial exponent. His grasp
of finance, sanguine, kindly nature, quick constructive faculty, and
peculiarly persuasive manner rapidly brought him to the front in New
Zealand, in the face of personal and racial prejudice. As Treasurer in
1870 he proposed to borrow ten millions to be expended on railways,
roads, land purchase, immigration, and land settlement. With great
wisdom he suggested that the cost of the railways should be recouped
from a public estate created out of the crown lands through which they
might pass. With striking unwisdom the Provincialists defeated the
proposal. This selfish mistake enabled them to keep their land for
five years longer, but it spoilt the public works policy and converted
Vogel from the friend into the enemy of the Provinces.

His policy, _minus_ the essential part relating to land settlement,
was accepted and actively carried out. Millions were borrowed,
hundreds of miles of railways and roads were made, immigrants were
imported by the State or poured in of their own accord. Moreover, the
price of wool had risen, and wheat, too, sometimes yielded enormous
profits. Farmers were known who bought open land on the downs or
plains of the South Island at £2 an acre, and within twelve months
thereafter made a net profit of £5 an acre from their first wheat
crop. Labour-saving machinery from the United States came in to
embolden the growers of cereals; the export of wheat rose to millions
of bushels; and the droning hum of the steam threshing-machine and the
whir of the reaper-and-binder began to be heard in a thousand fields
from northern Canterbury to Southland. In the north McLean steadfastly
kept the peace, and the Colony bade fair to become rich by leaps and
bounds. The modern community has perhaps yet to be found which can
bear sudden prosperity coolly. New Zealand in the seventies certainly
did not. Good prices and the rapid opening up of the country raised
the value of land. Acute men quickly bought fertile or well-situated
blocks and sold them at an attractive profit. So men less acute began
to buy pieces less fertile and not so well situated. Pastoral tenants
pushed on the process of turning their leaseholds into freeholds. So
rapid did the buying become that it grew to be a feverish rush of men
all anxious to secure some land before it had all gone. Of course much
of this buying was speculative, and much was done with borrowed money.
The fever was hottest in Canterbury, where the Wakefield system of
free selection without limit as to area or condition as to occupation,
and with the fixed price of £2 an acre, interposed less than no check
at all to the speculators. Hundreds of thousands of acres were bought
each year. The revenue of the Provincial Council rose to half a
million; the country road-boards hardly knew how to spend their money.
Speculation, extravagance, reaction--such were the fruits the last
years of Wakefield's system bore there. Not that the fault was Gibbon
Wakefield's. It rests with the men who could not see that his system,
like every other devised for a special purpose, wanted to be gradually
changed along with the gradual change of surrounding circumstances.

The southern land revenue, thus swollen, was a glittering temptation
to politicians at Wellington. As early as 1874 it was clear that more
colonial revenue would be wanted to pay the interest on the growing
public debt. Vogel decided to appeal to the old Centralist party and
overthrow the Provinces. Their hour was come. The pastoral tenants
nearly everywhere disliked the democratic note growing louder in some
of them. New settlers were overspreading the country, and to the new
settlers the Provincial Councils seemed cumbrous and needless. Fresh
from Great Britain and with the ordinary British contempt for the
institutions of a small community, they thought it ridiculous that
a colony with less than half a million of people should want nine
Governments in addition to its central authority. The procedure of the
Provincial Councils, where Mr. Speaker took the chair daily and a
mace was gravely laid on the table by the clerk, seemed a Lilliputian
burlesque of the great Mother of Parliaments at Westminster.

Nevertheless, the Provinces did not fall without a struggle. In both
Otago and Auckland the older colonists mostly clung to their local
autonomy. Moreover, Sir George Grey had taken up his abode in the
Colony, and was living quietly in an islet which he owned near
Auckland. Coming out of his retirement, he threw himself into the
fight, and on the platform spoke with an eloquence that took his
audiences by storm, all the more because few had suspected him of
possessing it. Keen was the fight; Major Atkinson, _quondam_ militia
officer of Taranaki, made his mark therein and rose at a bound to take
command of the Centralists; the Provincialists were fairly beaten; the
land passed to the Central Government. The management of local affairs
was minutely subdivided and handed over to some hundreds of boards and
councils which vary a good deal in efficiency, though most of them do
their special work fairly enough on accepted lines.

Though colonists join in complaining of the number of these no serious
attempt has, however, been yet made to amalgamate them, much less to
revive any form of Provincialism. Municipal enterprise has made few
attempts in New Zealand to follow, however humbly, in the wake of the
great urban councils of England and Scotland. Water companies indeed
are unknown, but most of the towns depend upon contractors for their
supplies of light; municipal fire insurance is only just being talked
of; recreation grounds are fairly plentiful, but are not by any means
always managed by the municipality of the place. None of the town
councils do anything for the education of the people, and but few
think of their entertainment. The rural county councils and road
boards concern themselves almost solely with road-making and
bridge-building. The control of hospitals and charitable aid, though
entirely a public function not left in any way to private bounty, is
entrusted to distinct boards. Indeed, the minute subdivision of local
administration has been carried to extreme lengths in New Zealand,
where the hundreds of petty local bodies, each with its functions,
officers, and circle of friends and enemies, are so many
stumbling-blocks to thorough--going amalgamation and rearrangement. In
New Zealand the English conditions are reversed; the municipal lags
far behind the central authority on the path of experiment. This is
no doubt due, at least in part, to the difference in the respective
franchises. The New Zealand ratepayers' franchise is more restricted
than that under which the English councils are elected.

A few words will be in place here about the continuance and outcome of
the Public Works policy. Sir Julius Vogel quitted the Colony in 1876,
but borrowing for public works did not cease. It has not yet ceased,
though it has slackened at times. In 1879 a commercial depression
overtook the Colony. The good prices of wool and wheat sank lower and
lower; the output of gold, too, had greatly gone down. There had been
far too much private borrowing to buy land or to set up or extend
commercial enterprises. The rates of interest had often been
exorbitant. Then there happened on a small scale what happened in
Victoria on a larger scale twelve years later. The boom burst amid
much suffering and repentance. In some districts three-fourths of
the prominent colonists were ruined, for the price of rural produce
continued on the whole to fall relentlessly year after year until
1894. The men who had burdened themselves with land, bought wholly or
largely with borrowed money, nearly all went down. Some were ruined
quickly, others struggled on in financial agony for a decade or more.
Then when the individual debtors had been squeezed dry the turn
of their mortgagees came. Some of these were left with masses of
unsalable property on their hands. At last, in 1894, the directors of
the bank which was the greatest of the mortgagees--the Bank of New
Zealand--had to come to the Government of the day to be saved
from instant bankruptcy. In 1895 an Act was passed which, while
guaranteeing the bank, virtually placed it beneath State control,
under which it seems likely gradually to get clear of its
entanglements. This was the last episode in the long drama of
inflation and depression which was played out in New Zealand between
1870 and 1895. No story of the Colony, however brief, can pretend to
be complete which does not refer to this. The blame of it is usually
laid upon the public works policy. The money borrowed and spent by the
Treasury is often spoken of as having been wasted in political jobs,
and as having led to nothing except parliamentary corruption and an
eternal burden of indebtedness and taxation. This is but true to a
very limited extent. It was not the public borrowing of the Colony,
but the private debts of the colonists, which, following the
extraordinary fall in the prices of their raw products between 1873
and 1895, plunged so many thousands into disaster. Nine-tenths of the
money publicly borrowed by the Colony has been very well spent. No
doubt the annual distribution of large sums through the Lands and
Public Works departments year after year have had disagreeable effects
on public life. In every Parliament certain members are to be
pointed out--usually from half-settled districts--who hang on to the
Ministry's skirts for what they can get for their electorates. The
jesting lines at the head of this chapter advert to these. But they
must not be taken too seriously. It would be better if the purposes
for which votes of borrowed money are designed were scrutinized by a
board of experts, or at least a strong committee of members. It
would be better still if loans had to be specially authorized by the
taxpayers. But when the worst is said that can be said of the public
works policy, its good deeds still outweigh its evil. It is true that
between 1870 and 1898 the public debt has been multiplied six times;
but the white population has nearly tripled, the exports have more
than doubled, and the imports increased by 75 per cent. Moreover, of
the exports at the time when the public works policy was initiated,
about half were represented by gold, which now represents but a tenth
of the Colony's exports. Again, the product of the workshops and
factories of the Colony are now estimated at above ten millions
annually, most of which is consumed in New Zealand, and therefore does
not figure in the exports. The income of the bread-winners in the
Colony and the wealth of the people per head, are now nearly the
highest in the world. In 1870 the colonists were without the
conveniences and in many cases comforts of modern civilization. They
had scarcely any railways, few telegraphs, insufficient roads, bridges
and harbours. Education was not universal, and the want of recreation
and human society was so great as to lead notoriously to drunkenness
and course debauchery. New Zealand is now a pleasant and highly
civilized country. That she has become so in the last thirty years is
due chiefly to the much-criticised public works policy.

Before parting with the subject of finance, it should be noted that in
1870 the Treasury was glad to borrow at slightly over five per cent.
Now it can borrow at three. The fall in the rate of private loans has
been even more remarkable. Mortgagors can now borrow at five per cent.
who in 1870 might have had to pay nine. This steady fall in interest,
coupled with the generally reproductive nature of the public works
expenditure, should not be overlooked by those who are appalled by the
magnitude of the colonial debts. For the rest, there is no repudiation
party in New Zealand, nor is there likely to be any. The growth of
the Colony's debt is not a matter which need give its creditors the
slightest uneasiness, though no doubt it is something which the New
Zealand taxpayers themselves should and will watch with the greatest
care. It is quite possible that some special check will ultimately be
adopted by these to ensure peculiar caution and delay in dealing with
Parliamentary Loan Bills. It may be that some application of the
"referendum" may, in this particular instance, be found advisable,
inasmuch as the Upper House of the New Zealand Parliament, active as
it is in checking general legislation, may not amend, and in practice
does not reject, loan bills.




Chapter XX


IN PARLIAMENT

  "Shapes of all sorts and sizes, great and small
    That stood upon the floor or by the wall,
  And some loquacious Vessels were, and some
    Listened, perhaps, but never talked at all."

When we come to look at the men as distinct from the measures of the
parliament of New Zealand between 1870 and 1890, perhaps the most
interesting and curious feature was the Continuous Ministry. With
some approach to accuracy it may be said to have come into office in
August, 1869, and to have finally expired in January, 1891. Out of
twenty-one years and a half it held office for between sixteen and
seventeen years. Sir Edward Stafford turned and kept it out for a
month in 1872; Sir George Grey for two years, 1877-79; Sir Robert
Stout for three years, 1884-7. None of the ministries which thus
for longer or shorter periods supplanted it ever commanded strong
majorities, or held any thorough control over the House. The
Continuous Ministry was a name given to a shifting combination, or
rather series of combinations, amongst public men, by which the
cabinet was from time to time modified without being completely
changed at any one moment. It might be likened to the pearly nautilus,
which passes, by gradual growth and movement, from cell to cell in
slow succession; or, more prosaically, to that oft-repaired garment,
which at last consisted entirely of patches. Like the nautilus, too,
it had respectable sailing and floating powers. The continuous process
was rather the outcome of rapidly changing conditions and personal
exigencies than of any set plan or purpose. With its men its
opinions and actions underwent alterations. Naturally the complete
transformation which came over the Colony during the two decades
between 1870 and 1890, had its effect on the point of view of
colonists and their public men. The Continuous Ministry began by
borrowing, and never really ceased to borrow; but its efforts at
certain periods of the second of these two decades to restrict
borrowing and retrench ordinary expenditure were in striking contrast
to the lavishness of the years between 1872 and 1877. At its birth
under Sir William Fox its sympathies were provincial and mildly
democratic. It quickly quarrelled with and overthrew the Provinces,
and became identified with Conservatism as that term is understood
in New Zealand. From 1869 to 1872 its leaders were Fox, Vogel, and
McLean. Fox left it in 1872; Major Atkinson joined it in 1874; Vogel
quitted it in 1876; McLean died in 1877. Put out of office by Sir
George Grey, it was for a short time led once more by Sir William Fox.
It came back again in 1879 as a Hall-Atkinson-Whitaker combination.
Hall retired in 1881, but Atkinson and Whitaker, helped by his advice,
continued to direct it to the end.

Now for its opponents. Rallying under Sir George Grey in 1876, the
beaten Provincialists formed a party of progress, taking the good old
name of Liberal. Though Sir George had failed to save their
Provinces, his eloquent exhortations rapidly revived in the House of
Representatives the democratic tendencies of some of the Councils.
Hitherto any concessions to Radicalism or Collectivism made by the
House had been viewed in the most easy-going fashion. Vogel in his
earlier years had adopted the ballot, and had set up a State Life
Insurance Department, which has been successfully managed, and has now
about ten millions assured in it. More interesting and valuable still
was his establishment of the office of Public Trustee. So well has the
experiment worked, that it may be said as a plain truth that in New
Zealand, the best possible Trustee, the one least subject to accidents
of fortune, and most exempt from the errors which beset man's honesty
and judgment, has been found by experience to be the State. The Public
Trust Office of the Colony worked at first in a humble way, chiefly in
taking charge of small intestate estates. Experience, however, showed
its advantages so clearly, that it has now property approaching two
millions' worth in its care. Any owner of property, whether he be
resident in the Colony or not, wishing to create a trust, may use the
Public Trustee, subject, of course, to that officer's consent. Any one
who desires so to do may appoint him the executor of his will. Any one
about to leave, or who has left the Colony, may make him his attorney.
The Public Trustee may step in and take charge, not only of intestate
estates, but of an inheritance where no executor has been named under
the will, or where those named will not act. He manages and protects
the property of lunatics. Where private trust estates become the cause
of disputes and quarrels, between trustees and beneficiaries, the
parties thereto may relieve themselves by handing over their burden to
the public office. The Public Trustee never dies, never goes out of
his mind, never leaves the Colony, never becomes disqualified, and
never becomes that extremely disagreeable and unpleasant person--a
trustee whom you do not trust. In addition to his other manifold
duties he holds and administers very large areas of land reserved for
the use of certain Maori tribes. These he leases to working settlers,
paying over the rents to the Maori beneficiaries. Naturally, the class
which has the most cause to be grateful to the Public Trust Office
is that composed of widows and orphans and other unbusinesslike
inheritors of small properties, persons whose little inheritances are
so often mismanaged by private trustees or wasted in law costs.

Another reform carried out by Vogel had been the adoption of the
Torrens system of land transfer. Henceforth under the Land Transfer
Law, Government officers did nearly all the conveyancing business of
the Colony. Land titles were investigated, registered, and guaranteed,
and sales and mortgages then became as simple and almost as cheap as
the transfer of a parcel of shares in a company.

Even earlier the legislature had done a creditable thing in being the
first in the Empire to abolish the scandal of public executions.

1877 may be accounted the birth year of more militant and systematic
reform.

Grey's platform speeches in the summer of 1876-77 brought home the new
Radicalism to the feelings of the mass of the electors, and to the
number, then considerable, who were not electors. For the first time
one of the Colony's leaders appealed to the mass of the colonists
with a policy distinctly and deliberately democratic. The result was
awakening. Then and subsequently Grey advocated triennial parliaments,
one man one vote, a land tax, and a land policy based upon the leasing
of land rather than its sale, and particularly upon a restriction of
the area which any one man might acquire. The definite views of the
Radicals bore fruit at once in the session of 1877. It was necessary
to establish a national system of education to replace the useful, but
ill-jointed work done peacemeal by the Provinces. A bill--and not a
bad bill--was introduced by Mr. Charles Bowen, a gentleman honourably
connected with the founding of education in Canterbury. This measure
the Radicals took hold of and turned it into the free, secular,
compulsory system of primary school-teaching of which the Colony
is to-day justly proud, and under which the State educates
thirteen-fourteenths of the children of the Colony. Now, in 1898, out
of an estimated population of about 780,000 all told, some 150,000 are
at school or college. Of children between ten and fifteen years of
age the proportion unable to read is but o·68. The annual average of
attendance is much higher in New Zealand than in any of the Australian
Colonies. The primary school system is excellent on its literary, not
so excellent on its technical side. Nearly three-fourths of the Roman
Catholic children do not take advantage of it. Their parents prefer to
support the schools of their church, though without State aid of any
kind. These, and a proportion of the children of the wealthier, are
the only exceptions to the general use made of the public schools. It
is not likely that any change, either in the direction of teaching
religion in these, or granting money to church schools, will be made.
Each political party in turn is only too eager to charge the other
with tampering with the National system--a sin, the bare hint of which
is like suspicion of witchcraft or heresy in the Middle Ages.

Grey gained office in 1877, but with a majority too small to enable
him to carry his measures. Ballance, his treasurer, did indeed carry
a tax upon land values. But its chief result at the time was to
alarm and exasperate owners of land, and to league them against the
Radicals, who after a not very brilliant experience of office without
power fell in 1879. Thereafter, so utterly had Grey's angry followers
lost faith in his generalship, that they deposed him--a humiliation
which it could be wished they had seen their way to forego, or he to
forgive. Yet he was, it must be confessed, a very trying leader. His
cloudy eloquence would not do for human nature's daily food. His
opponents, Atkinson and Hall, had not a tithe of his emotional power,
but their facts and figures riddled his fine speeches. Stout and
Ballance, lieutenants of talent and character, became estranged from
him; others of his friends were enough to have damned any government.
The leader of a colonial party must have certain qualities which Sir
George Grey did not possess. He may dispense with eloquence, but must
be a debater; whether able or not able to rouse public meetings,
he must know how to conduct wearisome and complicated business by
discussion; he must not only have a grasp of great principles, but
readiness to devote himself to the mastery of uninteresting minds and
unappetizing details; above all, he must be generous and considerate
to lieutenants who have their own views and their own followers, and
who expect to have their full share of credit and influence. In one
word, he should be what Ballance was and Grey was not. Nevertheless,
one of Grey's courage, talent, and prestige was not likely to fail to
leave his mark upon the politics of the country; nor did he. Though he
failed to pass the reforms just mentioned, he had the satisfaction of
seeing them adopted and carried into law, some by his opponents, some
by his friends. Only one of his pet proposals seems to have been
altogether lost sight of, his oft-repeated demand that the Governor of
the Colony should be elected by the people.

The Grey Ministry had committed what in a Colonial Cabinet is the one
unpardonable crime--it had encountered a commercial depression, with
its concomitant, a shrunken revenue. When Hall and Atkinson succeeded
Grey with a mission to abolish the land-tax, they had at once to
impose a different but more severe burden. They also reduced--for a
time--the cost of the public departments by the rough-and-ready method
of knocking ten per cent. off all salaries and wages paid by the
treasury, a method which, applied as it was at first equally to low
and high, had the unpopularity as well as the simplicity of the
poll-tax. That retrenchment and fresh taxation were unpleasant
necessities, and that Hall and Atkinson more than once tackled the
disagreeable task of applying them, remains true and to their credit.

Between 1880 and 1890 the colonists were for the most part resolutely
at work adapting themselves to the new order of things--to lower
prices and slower progress. They increased their output of wool and
coal--the latter a compensation for the falling-off of the gold. They
found in frozen meat an export larger and more profitable than wheat.
Later on they began, with marked success, to organize co-operative
dairy factories and send cheese and butter to England. Public affairs
during the decade resolved themselves chiefly into a series of
expedients for filling the treasury and carrying on the work of land
settlement. Borrowing went on, but more and more slowly. Times did not
soon get better.

In 1885 and 1886 the industrial outlook was perhaps at its worst. In
1887, Atkinson and Whitaker, coming again into power, with Hall as
adviser, administered a second dose of taxation-cum-retrenchment. They
cut down the salaries of the Governor and the ministers, and the size
and pay of the elected chamber. They made efforts, more equitable this
time, to reduce the cost of the public departments. They stiffened
the property-tax, and for the second time raised the Customs Duties,
giving them a distinctly Protectionist complexion. The broad result
was the achievement of financial equilibrium. For ten years there have
been no deficits in New Zealand. Apart from retrenchment, Atkinson had
to rely upon the Opposition in forcing his financial measures through
against the Free Traders amongst his own following. This strained his
party. Moreover, in forming his cabinet in 1887 he had not picked some
of his colleagues well. In particular, the absence of Mr. Rolleston's
experience and knowledge from the House and the government weakened
him. Mr. Rolleston has his limitations, and his friends did the enemy
a service when, after his return to public life in 1891, they tried to
make a guerilla chief out of a scrupulous administrator. But he was
a capable and not illiberal minister of lands, and his value at that
post to his party may be gauged by what they suffered when they had
to do without him. The lands administration of the Atkinson cabinet
became unpopular, and the discontent therewith found a forcible
exponent in an Otago farmer, Mr. John McKenzie, a gigantic Gael, in
grim earnest in the cause of close settlement, and whose plain-spoken
exposures of monopoly and "dummyism" not only woke up the Radicals,
but went home to the smaller settlers far and wide. It may be that
these things hastened the breaking-down of Sir Harry Atkinson's health
in 1890. At any rate fail it did, unhappily. His colleague, Sir
Frederick Whitaker, was ageing palpably. Nor did Sir John Hall's
health allow him to take office.

[Illustration: THE HON. JOHN MACKENZIE

_By permission of_ Messrs. SAMPSON LOW]

With their _tres Magi_ thus disabled, the Conservative party began to
lose ground. More than one cause, no doubt, explains how it was that
up to 1891 the Liberals hardly ever had a command of Parliament equal
to their hold upon the country. But the abilities of the three men
just named had, I believe, a great share in holding them in check. Sir
John Hall's devotion to work, grasp of detail, and shrewd judgment
were proverbial. He was the most businesslike critic of a bill in
committee the House of Representatives ever had, and was all the more
effective in politics for his studiously conciliatory manner. Astute
and wary, Sir Frederick Whitaker was oftener felt than seen. But with
more directness than Whitaker, and more fighting force than Hall, it
was Atkinson who, from 1875 to his physical collapse in 1890, was
the mainstay of his party. He carried through the abolition of the
Provinces; he twice reorganized the finances; he was the protagonist
of his side in their battles with Grey, Ballance, and Stout, and they
could not easily have had a better. This chief of Grey's opponents was
as unlike him in demeanour and disposition as one man can well be
to another. The two seemed to have nothing in common, except
inexhaustible courage. Grey had been trained in the theory of war,
and any part he took therein was as leader. Atkinson had picked up a
practical knowledge of bush-fighting by exchanging hard knocks with
the Maoris as a captain of militia. Grey was all courtesy; the other
almost oddly tart and abrupt. Grey's oratory consisted of high-pitched
appeals to great principles, which were sometimes eloquent, sometimes
empty. His antagonist regarded Parliament as a place for the
transaction of public business. When he had anything to say, he
said it plainly; when he had a statement to make, he made it, and
straightway went on to the next matter. His scorn of the graces of
speech did not prevent him from being a punishing debater. Theories
he had--of a quasi-socialistic kind. But his life was passed in
confronting hard facts. Outside the House he was a working colonist;
inside it a practical politician. The only glory he sought was "the
glory of going on," and of helping the Colony to go on. When, with
tragic suddenness, he died in harness, in the Legislative Council in
1892, there was not alone sincere sorrow among the circle of friends
and allies who knew his sterling character, but, inasmuch as however
hard he had hit in debate it had never been below the belt, his
opponents joined in regretting that so brave and faithful a public
servant had not been spared to enjoy the rest he had well earned.

[Illustration: SIR HARRY ATKINSON

_By permission of_ Messrs. SAMPSON LOW.]

What kind of an assembly, it may be asked, is the New Zealand
Parliament which Atkinson's force of character enabled him to lead so
long, and which has borne undivided rule over the Colony since 1876?
The best answer can be found in the story of the Colony, for the
General Assembly, at all events, has never been a _fainéant_ ruler.
It has done wrong as well as right, but it has always done something.
After the various false starts before referred to, it has, since
getting fairly to work in 1856, completed forty-three years of talk,
toil, legislation and obstruction. It may fairly be claimed that its
life has been interesting, laborious and not dishonourable. It has
exactly doubled in size since Governor Wynyard's day. Old settlers say
that it has not doubled in ability. But old settlers, with all their
virtues, are incorrigible _laudatores temporis acti_. The industry
of the members, the difficulties they had to cope with in the last
generation, and the number and variety and novelty of the questions
they have essayed to solve in this, are undoubted. Their work must, of
course, be tested by time. Much of it has already borne good fruit,
and any that does manifest harm is not likely to cumber the earth
long. If laws in colonies are more quickly passed, they are also more
easy to amend than in older countries.

The Lower House of a Colonial Parliament resembles, in most ways,
the London County Council more than the House of Commons. But in New
Zealand members have always been paid--their salary is now £240 a
year. Farmers and professional men make up the largest element. The
Labour members have never numbered more than half a dozen. At present
there are five in each House. In the more important debates speeches
are now limited to an hour, otherwise to half an hour. The length of
speeches in committee must not exceed ten minutes. About twenty per
cent. of the speaking is good; most of it is made with little or no
preparation, and suffers--together with its hearers--accordingly.
Bores are never shouted or coughed down--the House is too small, and
nearly all the members are on friendly terms with each other. Until
the adoption of the time limit business was in daily danger of being
arrested by speeches of phenomenal length and dreariness. Anthony
Trollope, who listened to a debate at Wellington in 1872, thought
the New Zealand parliamentary bores the worst he had known. The
discussions in Committee are often admirably businesslike, except when
there is obstruction, as there frequently is. As elsewhere, special
committees do much work and get little thanks therefor. As compared
with the House of Commons, the debates would seem to lack dignity; as
compared with the proceedings of the Sydney Parliament, they would
have appeared models of decorum, at any rate until quite recently. No
New Zealand debater would be held great in England, but seven or eight
would be called distinctly good. The House supports a strong Speaker,
but is disposed to bully weakness in the chair.

For the last thirty years the Maori race has returned four members
to the House. They usually speak through an interpreter. In spite of
that, when discussing native questions they often show themselves
fluent and even eloquent. Outside local and private bills, nearly all
important legislation is conducted by Government. Private members
often profess to put this down to the jealousy and tyranny of
Ministers, but the truth is that Parliament, as a whole, has always
been intolerant of private members' bills. There is no direct personal
corruption. If the House were as free from small-minded jealousy and
disloyalty as it is from bribery and idleness, it would be a very
noble assembly. In character, the politicians have been at least equal
to the average of their fellow-colonists. But party ties are much
looser than in England. Members will sometimes support Governments for
what they can get for their districts, or leave them because they
have not been given a portfolio. Attempts to form a third party are
incessant but unsuccessful. Ministries, if not strangled at the
birth--as was the "Clean Shirt" Cabinet--usually last for three years.
Since August, 1884, there have virtually been but two changes of the
party in power. Reconstructions owing to death or retirement of a
Premier have now and then added to the number of apparently new
Cabinets. Of the seven or eight Ministers who make up a Cabinet, four
or five are usually able and overworked men. The stress of New Zealand
public life has told on many of her statesmen. Beside Governor Hobson,
McLean, Featherston, Crosbie Ward, Atkinson and Ballance died in
harness, and Hall had to save his life by resigning. Most of the
Colony's leaders have lived and died poor men. Parliaments are
triennial, and about one-third of the constituencies are pretty
certain to return new members at a general election. All the elections
take place on one day, and if a member--even the leader of a
party--loses his seat, he may be cut out for years. This is a
misfortune, as experience is a quality of which the House is apt to
run short. Block votes frequently prevent elections from being fought
on the practical questions of the hour. The contests are inexpensive,
and there is very little of the cynical blackmailing of candidates and
open subsidising by members which jar so unpleasantly on the observer
of English constituencies. Indeed, cynicism is by no means a fault of
New Zealand political life. The most marked failings are, perhaps, the
savagely personal character of some of its conflicts, and a general
over-strained earnestness and lack of sense of proportion or humour.
Newspapers and speeches teem with denunciations which might have been
in place if hurled at the corruption of Walpole, the bureaucracy of
Prussia, the finance of the _Ancien Régime_, or the treatment of
native races by the Spanish conquerors of the New World. Nor is
bitterness confined to wild language in or out of parliament. The
terrible saying of Gibbon Wakefield, fifty years ago, that in Colonial
politics "every one strikes at his opponent's heart," has still
unhappily some truth in it. The man who would serve New Zealand in any
more brilliant fashion than by silent voting or anonymous writing must
tread a path set with the thorns of malice, and be satisfied to find a
few friends loyal and a few foes chivalrous.




Chapter XXI


SOME BONES OF CONTENTION

  "Now who shall arbitrate?
   Ten men love what I hate,
   Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
   Ten who in ears and eyes
   Match me; we all surmise,
   They this thing, and I that; whom shall my soul believe?"

During the ten years beginning in 1879 New Zealand finance was little
more than a series of attempts to avert deficits. In their endeavours
to raise the revenue required for interest payments on the still
swelling public debt, and the inevitably growing departmental
expenditure, various treasurers turned to the Customs. In raising
money by duties they received support both from those who wished to
protect local industries and from those who wished to postpone the
putting of heavy taxation upon land. Sir Harry Atkinson, the treasurer
who carried the chief protectionist duties, used to disclaim being
either a protectionist or a free-trader. The net result of various
conflicts has been a tariff which is protectionist, but not highly
protectionist. The duties levied on New Zealand imports represent
twenty-four per cent. of the declared value of the goods. But the
highest duties, those on spirits, wine, beer, sugar, tea, and tobacco,
are not intentionally protectionist; they are simply revenue duties,
though that on beer has undoubtedly helped large and profitable
colonial breweries to be established. English free-traders accept as
an axiom that Customs duties cannot produce increased revenue and at
the same time stimulate local manufactures. Nevertheless, under the
kind of compromise by which duties of fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five
per cent. are levied on so many articles, it does come about that the
colonial treasurer gets his revenue while, sheltered by the fiscal
hedge, certain colonial manufactures steadily grow up. The factories
of the Colony now employ some 40,000 hands, and their annual output
is estimated at ten millions sterling. Much of this would, of course,
have come had the Colony's ports been free; but the factories engaged
in the woollen, printing, clothing, iron and steel, tanning, boot,
furniture, brewing, jam-making, and brick and tile-making industries
owe their existence in the main to the duties. Nor would it be fair to
regard the Colony's protection as simply a gigantic job managed by the
more or less debasing influence of powerful companies and firms. It
was adopted before such influences and interests were. It could not
have come about, still less could it last, were there not an honest
and widespread belief that without duties the variety of industries
needful to make a civilized and prosperous nation could not be
attained in young countries where nascent enterprises are almost
certain to be undercut and undersold by the giant capitalists and
cheaper labour of the old world. Such a belief may conceivably be
an economic mistake, but those who hold it need not be thought mere
directors or tools of selfish and corrupt rings. The Colony will not
adopt Free Trade unless a change comes over the public mind, of which
there is yet no sign; but it is not likely to go further on the road
towards McKinleyism. Its protection, such as it is, was the outcome
of compromises, stands frankly as a compromise, and is likely for the
present to remain as that.

So long as the Provinces lasted the General Assembly had little or
nothing to do with land laws. When, after abolition, the management of
the public estate came into the hands of the central authority, the
regulations affecting it were a bewildering host. Some fifty-four
statutes and ordinances had to be repealed. Nor could uniformity be
substituted at once, inasmuch as land was occupied under a dozen
different systems in as many different provincial districts. Only very
gradually could these be assimilated, and it was not until the year
1892 that one land act could be said to contain the law on the
subject, and to be equally applicable to all New Zealand. In the
meantime the statute-books of 1877, 1878, 1883, 1885 and 1887 bore
elaborate evidence of the complexity of the agrarian question, and the
importance attached to it. On it more than on any other difference
party divisions were based. Over it feelings were stirred up which
were not merely personal, local, or sectional. It became, and over an
average of years remained, the matter of chief moment in the Colony's
politics. Finance, liquor reform, labour acts, franchise extension may
take first place in this or that session, but the land question, in
one or other of its branches, is always second. The discussions on it
roused an enduring interest in Parliament given to no other subject.
The Minister of Lands ranks with the Premier and the Treasurer as one
of the leaders in every Cabinet. Well may he do so. Many millions of
acres and many thousands of tenants are comprised in the Crown leases
alone. Outside these come the constant land sales, the purchases from
the Maori tribes, and in recent years the buying back of estates from
private owners, and the settlement thereof. These form most, though
not all, of the business of the Minister of Lands, his officers, and
the administrative district boards attached to his department. If
there were no land question in New Zealand, there might be no Liberal
Party. It was the transfer of the land from the Provinces to the
central Parliament in 1876 which chiefly helped Grey and his
lieutenants to get together a democratic following.

[Illustration: A NEW ZEALAND SETTLER'S HOME

Photo by WINCKLEMAN]

Slowly but surely the undying agrarian controversy passed with the
Colony's progress into new stages. In the early days we have seen the
battle between the "sufficient price" of Gibbon Wakefield and the
cheap land of Grey, the good and evil wrought by the former, the wide
and lasting mischief brought about by the latter. By 1876 price had
ceased to be the main point at issue. It was agreed on all hands that
town and suburban lands parted with by the Crown should be sold by
auction at fairly high upset prices; and that rural agricultural land
should be divided into classes--first, second, and third--and should
not be sold by auction, but applied for by would-be occupants prepared
to pay from £2 to 10s. an acre, according to quality. More and more
the land laws of the Colony were altered so as to favour occupation by
small farmers, who were not compelled to purchase their land for cash,
but permitted to remain State tenants at low rentals, or allowed to
buy the freehold by gradual instalments, termed deferred payments.
Even the great pastoral leaseholds were to some extent sub-divided as
the leases fell in. The efforts of the land reformers were for many
years devoted to limiting the acreage which any one person could
buy or lease, and to ensuring that any person acquiring land should
himself live thereon, and should use and improve it, and not leave it
lying idle until the spread of population enabled him to sell it at
a profit to some monopolist or, more often, some genuine farmer. As
early as 1856 Otago had set the example of insisting on an outlay
of 30s. an acre in improvement by each purchaser of public land.
Gradually the limiting laws were made more and more stringent, and
were partly applied even to pastoral leases. Now, in 1898, no person
can select more than 640 acres of first-class or 2,000 acres of
second-class land, including any land he is already holding. In other
words, no considerable landowner can legally acquire public land.
Pastoral "runs"--_i.e._, grazing leases--must not be larger than such
as will carry 20,000 sheep or 4,000 cattle, and no one can hold more
than one run. The attempts often ingeniously made to evade these
restrictions by getting land in the names of relatives, servants,
or agents are called "dummyism," and may be punished by
imprisonment--never inflicted--by fines, and by forfeiture of the land
"dummied."[1]

[Footnote 1: Many a good story is founded on the adventures of
land-buyers in their endeavours to evade the spirit and obey the
letter of land regulations. In 1891 a rhymester wrote in doggerel
somewhat as follows of the experiences of a selector who "took up" a
piece of Crown land--

  "On a certain sort of tenure, which his fancy much preferred,
   That convenient kind of payment which is known as the 'deferred.'

  "Now the laws in wise New Zealand with regard to buying land,
   Which at divers times and places have been variously planned,
   Form a code that's something fearful, something wonderful and grand.

  "You may get a thousand acres, and you haven't got to pay
   Aught but just a small deposit in a friendly sort of way.

  "But you mustn't own a freehold, and you mustn't have a run,
   And you mustn't be a kinsman of a squatter owning one;

  "But must build a habitation and contentedly reside,
   And must satisfy the Land Board that you pass the night inside.

  "For if any rash selector on his section isn't found
   He is straightway doomed to forfeit all his title to the ground."]

The political battles over the land laws of New Zealand during
the sixteen years since 1882 have not, however, centred round the
limitation of the right of purchase, or insistence on improvements,
so much as round the respective advantages of freehold and perpetual
leasehold, and round the compulsory repurchase of private land for
settlement. Roughly speaking, the political party which has taken the
name of Liberal has urged on the adoption of the perpetual lease as
the main or sole tenure under which State lands should in the future
be acquired. As a rule the party which the Liberals call Conservative
has advocated that would-be settlers should be allowed to choose their
tenure for themselves, and to be leaseholders or freeholders as they
please. Then there have arisen, too, important questions affecting the
perpetual lease itself. Should the perpetual leaseholders retain the
right of converting at any time their leasehold into a freehold by
paying down the cash value of their farm, or should the State always
retain the fee simple? Next, if the State should retain this, ought
there to be periodical revisions of the rent, so as to reserve the
unearned increment for the public? Fierce have been the debates and
curious the compromises arrived at concerning these debatable points.
The broad result has been that the sale of the freehold of Crown
lands, though not entirely prohibited, has been much discouraged, and
that the usual tenure given now is a lease for 999 years at a rent
of four per cent. on the prairie value of the land at the time of
leasing. As this tenure virtually hands over the unearned increment to
the lessee, it is regarded by the advanced land reformers with mixed
feelings. From their point of view, however, it has the advantage of
enabling men with small capital to take up land without expending
their money in a cash purchase. Inasmuch, too, as transfers of a lease
can only be made with the assent of the State Land Board for the
district--which assent will only be given in case the transfer is to a
_bona fide_ occupier not already a landowner--land monopoly is checked
and occupancy for use assured. Meanwhile there is plenty of genuine
settlement; every year sees many hundred fresh homes made and tracts
reclaimed from the wilderness.

[Illustration: PICTON--QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S SOUND

Photo by HENRY WRIGHT.]

Quite as keen has been the fighting over the principle of State
repurchase of private lands with or without the owner's consent. It
was a favourite project of Sir George Grey's; but it did not become
law until he had left public life, when it was carried by the most
successful and determined of the Liberal Ministers of Lands, John
McKenzie, who has administered it in a way which bids fair to leave an
enduring mark on the face of the Colony. Under this law £700,000 has
been spent in buying-forty-nine estates, or portions of estates, for
close settlement. The area bought is 187,000 acres. A few of these
have, at the time of writing, not yet been thrown open for settlement;
on the rest 2,252 human beings are already living. They pay a rent
equal to 5.2 per cent. on the cost of the land to the Government. Even
taking into account interest on the purchase money of land not yet
taken up, a margin remains in favour of the Treasury. Nearly 700 new
houses and £100,000 worth of improvements testify to the genuine
nature of the occupation. As a rule there is no difficulty in buying
by friendly arrangement between Government and proprietor. The latter
is commonly as ready to sell as the former to buy. The price is
usually settled by bargaining of longer or shorter duration. Twice
negotiations have failed, and the matter has been laid before the
Supreme Court, which has statutory power to fix the price when the
parties fail to agree. It must be remembered that as a rule large
holdings of land mean something quite different in New Zealand from
anything they signify to the English mind. In England a great estate
is peopled by a more or less numerous tenantry. In New Zealand it is,
as a rule, not peopled at all. Sheep roam over its grassy leagues,
cared for by a manager and a few shepherds. Natural and proper as this
may be on the wilder hills and poorer soils, it is easy to see how
unnatural and intolerable it appears in fertile and accessible
districts. In 1891 there were nearly twelve and a half million acres
held in freehold. Of these rather more than seven millions were in the
hands of 584 owners, none of whom held less than five thousand acres.
In spite of land-laws, land-tax, and time, out of thirty-four million
acres of land occupied under various tenures, twenty-one millions are
held in areas of more than five thousand acres.

Much the largest of the estates purchased by the Government came into
their hands in an odd way, and not under the Act just described. The
Cheviot property was an excellent example of what the old cheap-land
regulations led to. It was a fine tract of 84,000 acres of land, on
which up to 1893 some forty human beings and about 60,000 sheep were
to be found. Hilly but not mountainous, grassy, fertile, and lying
against the sea-shore, it was exactly suited for fairly close
settlement. Under the provisions of the land-tax presently to be
described, a landowner who thinks the assessors have over-valued his
property may call upon the Government to buy it at his own lower
valuation. A difference of £50,000 between the estimate of the
trustees who held the Cheviot estate and that of the official valuers
caused the former to give the Government of the day the choice between
reducing the assessment or buying the estate. Mr. McKenzie, however,
was just the man to pick up the gauntlet thus thrown down. He had the
Cheviot bought, cut up, and opened by roads. A portion was sold,
but most leased; and within a year of purchase a thriving yeomanry,
numbering nearly nine hundred souls and owning 74,000 sheep, 1,500
cattle, and 500 horses, were at work in the erstwhile empty tract.
Four prosperous years have since added to their numbers, and the rent
they pay more than recoups the Treasury for the interest on its outlay
in the purchase and settlement.

In 1886, John Ballance, then Minister of Lands, made a courageous
endeavour to place a number of workmen out of employment on the soil
in what were known as village settlements. In various parts of the
Colony blocks of Crown land were taken and divided into allotments of
from twenty to fifty acres. These were let to the village settlers on
perpetual lease at a rental equal to five per cent. on the prairie
value of the land. Once in a generation there was to be a revision
of the rental. The settlers, many of whom were quite destitute, were
helped at first not only by two years' postponement of their rent, but
by small advances to each to enable them to buy seed, tools, food,
and building material. Ballance was fiercely attacked in 1887 for his
experiment, and his opponents triumphantly pointed to the collapse
of certain of his settlements. Others, however, turned out to be
successes, and by last accounts the village settlers and their
families now number nearly five thousand human beings, occupying
35,000 acres in allotments of an average size of twenty-four acres.
Most of them divide their time between tilling their land and working
for wages as shearers, harvesters, or occasionally mechanics. Some
£27,000 has been lent them, of which they still owe about £24,000.
As against this the Government has been paid £27,000 in rent and
interest, and the improvements made by the settlers on their
allotments are valued at about £110,000, and form very good security
for their debts to the Treasury. Of late years Mr. McKenzie has been
aiding the poorer class of would-be farmers by employing them at wages
to clear the land of which they afterwards become tenants. The money
paid them is, of course, added to the capital value of the land.

For the last five years Liquor has disputed with Land the chief place
in the public interest. It has introduced an element of picturesque
enthusiasm and, here and there, a passion of hatred rarely seen before
in New Zealand politics. It brought division into the Liberal Party
in 1893, at the moment when the Progressive movement seemed to have
reached its high-water mark, and the feeling it roused was found
typified in the curious five years' duel between Mr. Seddon and Sir
Robert Stout, which began in 1893 and ended only with Sir Robert's
retirement at the beginning of the present year. It has strangely
complicated New Zealand politics, is still doing so, and is the key to
much political manoeuvring with which it might seem to have nothing
whatever to do.

For many years total abstainers in New Zealand have grown in numbers.
Though for the last thirty years drinking and drunkenness have been on
the decline among all classes of colonists, and though New Zealanders
have for a long time consumed much less alcohol per head than Britons
do, that has not checked the growth of an agitation for total
prohibition, which has absorbed within itself probably the larger,
certainly the more active, section of temperance reformers.[1] In 1882
a mild form of local option went on to the statute-book, while the
granting of licenses was handed over to boards elected by ratepayers.
For the next ten years no marked result roused attention. Then, almost
suddenly, the Prohibition movement was seen to be advancing by leaps
and bounds. Two clergymen, the Rev. Leonard Isitt and the Rev.
Edward Walker, were respectively the voice and the hand of the
Prohibitionists. As a speaker Mr. Isitt would perhaps be the better
for a less liberal use of the bludgeon, but his remarkable energy and
force on the platform, and his bold and thorough sincerity, made him
a power in the land. Mr. Walker had much to do with securing tangible
results for the force which Mr. Isitt's harangues aroused, and in
which the Liberal Party was to a large extent enrolled. In 1893 the
temperance leaders thought themselves strong enough to make sweeping
demands of Parliament. Ballance, the Liberal Premier, had just died;
his party was by many believed to be disorganized. In Sir Robert
Stout, the Brougham of New Zealand public life, the Prohibitionists
had a spokesman of boundless energy and uncommon hitting power in
debate. He tabled a Bill briefly embodying their complete demands, and
it was read a second time. Old parliamentary hands knew full well that
the introduction of so controversial and absorbing a measure in the
last session before a General Election meant the sacrifice for that
year, at least, of most of the policy bills on labour, land, and
other matters. But, whether it would or would not have been better to
postpone Licensing Reform to a Parliament elected to deal with it, as
matters came to stand, there was no choice. The Ministry tried to deal
with the question on progressive, yet not unreasonable, lines. A Local
Option Bill was passed, therefore, and nearly every other important
policy measure, except the Female Franchise Bill, went by the
board--blocked or killed in one Chamber or the other. The hurried
Government licensing measure of 1893 had of course to be expanded and
amended in 1895 and 1896. Now, though it has failed to satisfy the
more thorough-going Prohibitionists, it embraces a complete and
elaborate system of local option. Except under certain extraordinary
conditions, the existing number of licenses cannot be increased.
The licensing districts are coterminous with the Parliamentary
electorates. The triennial licensing poll takes place on the same day
as the General Election, thus ensuring a full vote. Every adult male
and female resident may vote: (1) to retain all existing licenses; or
(2) to reduce the number of licenses, and (3) to abolish all licenses
within the district. To carry No. 3 a majority of three to two is
requisite. No compensation is granted to any licensed house thus
closed. Two local option polls have been held under this law. The
first resulted in the closing of some seventy houses and the carrying
of a total prohibition of retail liquor sales in the district of
Clutha. Limited Prohibition has been the law in Clutha for some four
years. The accounts of the results thereof conflict very sharply. In
the writer's opinion--given with no great confidence--the consumption
of beer and wine there has been greatly reduced, that of spirits not
very greatly. There is much less open drunkenness. In certain spots
there is sly grog-selling with its concomitants of expense, stealthy
drinking, and perjury. The second general Licensing Poll was held in
December, 1896. Then for the first time it was taken on the same day
as the Parliamentary elections. In consequence the Prohibitionist
vote nearly doubled. But the Moderate vote more than trebled, and the
attacking abstainers were repulsed all along the line, though they, on
their side, defeated an attempt to recapture Clutha.

[Footnote 1: In 1884 the consumption of liquor among New Zealanders
per head was--beer, 8.769 gallons; wine, 0.272 gallons; spirits, 0.999
gallons. The proportions had fallen in 1895 to 7.421 gallons of beer,
0.135 of wine, and 0.629 of spirits.]

The Prohibitionists are now disposed, it is believed, to make the
fullest use in future of their right to vote for the reduction of the
number of licensed houses. They still, however, object to the presence
of the Reduction clause in the Act, and unite with the publicans in
the wish to restrict the alternatives at the Local Option polls to
two--total Prohibition and the maintenance of all existing licensed
houses. They have also decided to oppose having the Licensing Poll on
General Election day. Strongest of all is their objection to the three
to two majority required to carry total and immediate Prohibition.
These form the line of cleavage between them and a great many who
share their detestation of the abuses of the liquor traffic.

[Illustration]




Chapter XXII


EIGHT YEARS OF EXPERIMENT

  "For I remember stopping by the way
   To watch a potter thumping his wet clay."

In 1890 a new force came into the political field--organized labour.
The growth of the cities and of factories in them, the decline of the
alluvial and more easily worked gold-fields, and the occupation of the
more fertile and accessible lands, all gradually tended to reproduce
in the new country old-world industrial conditions. Even the sweating
system could be found at work in holes and corners. There need be no
surprise, therefore, that the labour problem, when engaging so much
of the attention of the civilized world, demanded notice even in New
Zealand. There was nothing novel there in the notion of extending the
functions of the State in the hope of benefiting the community of
the less fortunate classes of it. Already in 1890, the State was the
largest landowner and receiver of rents, and the largest employer of
labour. It owned nearly all the railways and all the telegraphs just
as it now owns and manages the cheap, popular, and useful system of
telephones. It entirely controlled and supported the hospitals and
lunatic asylums, which it managed humanely and well. It also, by means
of local boards and institutions, controlled the whole charitable aid
of the country--a system of outdoor relief in some respects open
to criticism. It was the largest trustee, managed the largest life
insurance business, did nearly all the conveyancing, and educated more
than nine-tenths of the children.

It will thus be seen that the large number of interesting experiments
sanctioned by the New Zealand Parliament since 1890 involved few new
departures or startling changes of principle. The constitution was
democratic: it has simply been made more democratic. The functions
of the State were wide; they have been made yet wider. The uncommon
feature of the last eight years has been not so much the nature as the
number and degree of the changes effected and the trials made by the
Liberal-Labour fusion which gained power under Mr. Ballance at the
close of 1890 and still retains office. The precise cause of their
victory was the wave of socialistic, agrarian, and labour feeling
which swept over the English-speaking world at the time, and which
reached New Zealand.

[Illustration: THE HON. JOHN BALLANCE]

The oft-repeated assertion that the Australasian maritime strike of
August, 1890, was not only coincident with the forming of Labour
Parties in various colonies, but was itself the chief cause thereof,
is not true Colonial Labour Parties have, no doubt, been influenced
by two noted strikes, themselves divided by the width of the world. I
mean the English dockers' strike and our own maritime strike. But
the great Thames strike may be said rather to have given a fillip to
Colonial Trades Unionism, apart from politics altogether, than to have
created any Party. As for the other conflict, though the utter rout
of the colonial maritime strikers in 1890 undoubtedly sent Trades
Unionists to the ballot-box sore and with a keen desire to redress the
balance by gaining political successes, it was not the sole or the
chief cause of their taking to politics. Before it took place New
Zealand politicians knew the Labour organizations were coming into
their field. The question was what they would do. The Opposition of
1889-90, though not without Conservative elements--the remnants of
a former coalition--was mainly Radical. It had always supported Sir
George Grey in his efforts to widen the franchise, efforts which in
1889 were finally crowned by the gain of one-man-one-vote. And in 1889
it choose as its head, John Ballance, perhaps the only man who could
head with success a Liberal-Labour fusion. A journalist, but the son
of a North Irish farmer, he knew country life on its working side. His
views on the land question were not therefore mere theories, but part
of his life and belief. Though not a single-taxer, he advocated
State tenancy, as opposed to freehold, and his extension of village
settlements had made him amongst New Zealand workmen a popular Lands
Minister. Experience had made him a prudent financier, a humane temper
made him a friend of the Maori. His views on constitutional reform
were advanced, on liquor and education reactionary. In Labour
questions apart from land settlement he took no special part. He was
an excellent debater and a kindly, courteous, considerate chief. In
Ballance and his followers in 1890 New Zealand Labour Organizations
found a ready-made political Party from which they had much to hope.
With it, therefore, they threw in their lot. The result showed the
power the agrarian feeling of Unionism and of one-man-one-vote. In New
Zealand, all the elections for the House of Representatives take place
on one day. In 1890 the day was the 5th December. On the 6th it was
clear enough that Ballance would be the Colony's next Premier. His
defeated opponents made a short delay, in order to commit the huge
tactical mistake of getting the Governor to make seven additions to
the Upper House. Then they yielded, and on 24th January, 1891, he took
office.

Within his cabinet, he had the staunchest of lieutenants in Mr. John
McKenzie aforesaid, whose burly strength combined with that of Mr.
Seddon, now Premier, to supply the physical fighting force lacking in
their chief. Mr. Cadman, another colleague, was an administrator of
exceptional assiduity. But none of these had held office before,
and outside his cabinet Ballance had to consolidate a party made up
largely of raw material. Amongst it was a novel and hardly calculable
element, the Labour Members. At the elections, however, no attempt
had been made to reserve the Labour vote for candidates belonging
exclusively to Trades Unions, or who were workmen. Of some score of
Members who owed their return chiefly to the Labour vote, and who had
accepted the chief points of the Labour policy, six only were working
mechanics. Moreover, though the six were new to Parliament, several of
their closest allies had been there before, and were old members of
the Ballance Party. Not only, therefore, was a distinct Labour Party
not formed, but there was no attempt to form one. For the rest, any
feeling of nervous curiosity with which the artisan parliamentarians
were at first regarded soon wore off. They were without exception men
of character, intelligence, and common-sense. They behaved as though
their only ambition was to be sensible Members of Parliament. As such,
they were soon classed, and lookers-on were only occasionally reminded
that they held a special brief.

Anything like a detailed history of the struggles which followed would
be out of place here. Nor is it possible yet to sum up the results of
changes, none of which are eight years old. A mere enumeration of them
would take some space: a succinct description would require a fairly
thick pamphlet. Some were carried after hot debate; some after very
little. Some were resolutely contested in the popular chamber, and
were assented to rather easily in the Upper House; others went through
the Lower House without much difficulty, but failed again and again to
run the gauntlet of the nominated chamber. The voting of some was on
strict party lines: in other instances leading Opposition Members like
Captain Russell frankly accepted the principle of measures. Some were
closely canvassed in the newspapers and country; others were hardly
examined outside Parliament. But, roughly speaking, the chief
experiments of the last eight years not already dealt with many
be divided into three sections. These relate to (1) Finance; (2)
Constitutional Reform; (3) Labour. One of the first and--to a New
Zealander's eyes--boldest strokes delivered was against the Property
Tax. This, the chief direct tax of the Colony, was an annual impost of
1d. in the £ on the capital value of every citizen's possessions, less
his debts and an exemption of £500. Its friends claimed for this tax
that it was no respecter of persons, but was simple, even-handed, and
efficient. The last it certainly was, bringing as it did into the
Treasury annually about as many thousands as there are days in the
year. But inasmuch as different kinds of property are by no means
equally profitable, and therefore the ability of owners to pay is by
no means equal, the simplicity of the Property Tax was not by many
thought equity. The shopkeeper, taxed on unsaleable stock, the
manufacturer paying on plant and buildings as much in good years as in
bad, bethought them that under an Income Tax they would at any rate
escape in bad seasons when their income might be less or nothing.
The comfortable professional man or well-paid business manager paid
nothing on their substantial and regular incomes. The working-farmer
settling in the desert felt that for every pound's worth of
improvements made by muscle and money he would have to account to the
tax-collector at the next assessment. Nevertheless the Conservative
politicians rallied round the doomed tax. It was a good machine for
raising indispensable revenue. Moreover, it did not select any class
of property-owners or any description of property for special burdens.
This suited the landowners, who dreaded a Land Tax, for might not a
Land Tax contain the germ of that nightmare of the larger colonial
landowner--the Single Tax? It suited also the wealthy, who feared
graduated taxation, and the lawyers, doctors, agents, and managing
directors, whose incomes it did not touch. So when in the autumn the
rumour went round that the Ballance Ministry meant to abolish the
Property Tax and bring forward Bills embodying a Progressive Land Tax,
and Progressive Income Tax, the proposal was thought to represent the
audacity of impudence or desperation. When the rumour proved true, it
was predicted that the farmers throughout the length and breath of the
country would rise in wrath and terror, scared by the very name of
Land Tax. Nevertheless Parliament passed the Bills, with the addition
of a light Absentee Tax. The smaller farmers, at any rate, took the
appeals of the Property Taxers with apathy, suspecting that under a
tax on bare land values they would pay less than under a Property Tax
which fell on land, improvements, and live stock as well. Since
1891, therefore, progression or graduation has been in New Zealand a
cardinal principle of direct taxation.

Land pays no Income Tax, and landowners who have less than £500 worth
of bare land value pay no Land Tax. This complete exemption of the
very small land owners forms an almost insuperable barrier to the
progress of singletaxers. On all land over £500 value 1d. in the £ is
paid. The mortgaged farmer deducts the amount of his mortgage from the
value of his farm and pays only on the remainder. The money-lender
pays 1d. in the £ on the mortgage, which for this purpose is treated
as land. An additional graduated tax begins on holdings worth, £5,000.
At that stage it is an eighth of a penny. By progressive steps it
rises until, on estates assessed at £210,000, it is 2d. Thus under the
graduated and simple Land Tax together, the holders of the largest
areas pay 3d. in the £, whilst the peasant farmers whose acres are
worth less than £500 pay nothing. The owner who pays graduated tax
pays upon the whole land value of his estate with no deduction for
mortgage. The Graduated Tax brings in about £80,000 a year; the 1d.
Land Tax about £200,000; the Income Tax about £70,000. The assessment
and collection cause no difficulty. South Australia had a Land Tax
before New Zealand; New South Wales has imposed one since. Both differ
from New Zealand's.

Income earners pay on nothing up to £300 a year. Between £300 and
£1,300 the tax is 6d. all round; over £1,300 it rises to a shilling.
Joint-stock companies pay a shilling on all income.

Another law authorizes local governing bodies to levy their rates on
bare land values. Three times the Bill passed the Lower House, only to
be rejected in the Upper. It became law in 1896. The adoption of the
principle permitted by it is hedged about by various restrictions but
some fourteen local bodies have voted in favour thereof.

The unexampled and, till 1895, continuous fall of prices in the
European markets made it hard for colonial producers to make both ends
meet. The cultivator found his land depreciated because, though he
grew more than before, he got less for it. As the volume of produce
swelled, so the return for it sank as by some fatal compensation. To
pay the old rates of interest is for the mortgaged farmer, therefore,
an impossibility. Various schemes for using the credit of the State to
reduce current rates of interest have been before the public in more
than one colony. The scheme of the New Zealand Government is contained
in the Advances to Settlers Act, 1894. Under it a State Board may lend
Government money on leasehold and freehold security, but not on urban
or suburban land, unless occupied for farming or market-gardening.
The loan may amount to three-fifths of the value of the security when
freehold, and one-half when leasehold. The rate of interest charged
is 5 per cent., but the borrower pays at the rate of 6 per cent. in
half-yearly instalments, the extra 1 per cent. being by way of gradual
repayment of the principal. Mortgagees must in this way repay the
principal in 73 half-yearly instalments, provided they care to remain
indebted so long. If able to wipe off their debts sooner, they can do
so. The Act came into force in October, 1894. Machinery for carrying
it out was quickly set up; applications for loans came in freely, and
about a million has been lent, though the State Board, in its anxiety
to avoid bad security, has shown a proper spirit of caution.

With one exception, the constitutional changes of the eight years may
be dismissed in a very few words. The Upper Chamber, or Legislative
Council of New Zealand, is nominative and not elective, nor is there
any fixed limit to its numbers. Liable, thus, to be diluted by Liberal
nominees, it is not so strong an obstacle to the popular will as are
the Elective Councils of certain Australian Colonies. Prior to 1891,
however, the nominations in New Zealand were for life. This was
objected to for two reasons. A Councillor, who at the age of sixty
might be a valuable adviser, might twelve years later be but
the shadow of his former self. Moreover, experience showed that
Conservatism was apt to strengthen in the nominated legislator's mind
with advancing years. So a seven years' tenure has been substituted
for life tenure. Then, again, in 1891 the Liberal majority in the
Colony was scarcely represented in the Council at all. In important
divisions, Government measures passed by decisive majorities in the
popular Chamber could only muster two, three, four, or five supporters
in the Council. This not only meant that a hostile majority could
reject and amend as it pleased, but that measures were not even fairly
debated in the Upper House. Only one side was heard. In 1892 the
Ballance Ministry, therefore, asked the Governor to call twelve fresh
Councillors. His Excellency demurred to the number. As there was about
to be a change of Governors the matter stood over. The new Governor
proved as unwilling as his predecessor. Ballance held that in this
matter, as in others, the constitutional course was for the Governor
to take the advice of his Ministers. His Excellency thought otherwise.
By mutual consent the matter was referred to the Colonial Office,
where Lord Ripon decided in favour of the Premier. Twelve new
Councillors were nominated. Though this submission to the arbitration
of the Colonial Office was attacked not only by colonial Conservatives
but by Sir George Grey, it was highly approved of both by the Lower
House and the mass of the electors, and was regarded as one of
Ballance's most important successes.

Another he did not live to see achieved. His Electoral Bill, wrecked
twice in the Council, was only passed some months after his death.
Under it the one-man-one-vote was carried to its complete issue by the
clause providing for one man one registration; that is to say, that
no voter could register on more than one roll. Consequently
property-owners were not only cut down to one vote in one district at
a general election, but were prevented from voting in another district
at a by-election. The right to vote by letter was extended from seamen
to shearers. But much the greatest extension of the franchise was
the giving it to women. This was a curious example of a remarkable
constitutional change carried by a Parliament at the election of
which the question had scarcely been discussed. Labour, Land, and
Progressive Taxation had been so entirely the ascendant questions at
the General Election of 1890, that it came as a surprise to most to
learn next year that the House of Representatives was in favour of
women's suffrage. Even then it was not generally supposed that the
question would be settled. Sir John Hall, however, its consistent
friend, brought it up in the House, and Ballance, an equally earnest
supporter, at once accepted it. After that, the only doubts as to its
becoming law sprang from the attitude of the Legislative Council,
and from the scruples of certain persons who thought that so great a
change should be definitely submitted to the constituencies. Feeling
was both strengthened and exacerbated by the enthusiasm of the
Prohibition lodges, some of whose members at the same time demanded
that the Government should pass the measure, and emphatically
assured every one that its passing would forthwith bring about the
Government's downfall and damnation. There is no doubt that many of
the Ministry's opponents believed this, and that to their mistake was
due the escape of the Bill in the Council. It was passed on the eve of
the General Elections by the narrowest possible majority. The rush
of the women on to the rolls; the interest taken by them in the
elections; the peaceable and orderly character of the contests; and
the Liberal majority returned at two successive General Elections are
all matters of New Zealand history.

Most of the women voters show as yet no disposition to follow the
clergy in assailing the national system of free, secular, and
compulsory education. They clearly favour temperance reform, but are
by no means unanimous for total prohibition. On the whole, the most
marked feature of their use of the franchise is their tendency to
agree with their menkind. Families, as a rule, vote together, and the
women of any class or section are swayed by its interests, prejudices,
or ideals to just about the same extent as the males thereof. Thus,
the friends and relatives of merchants and professional men, large
landowners, or employers of labour, usually vote on one side; factory
girls, domestic servants, wives of labourers, miners, artisans, or
small farmers, on the other. Schoolmistresses are as decidedly for
secular education as are schoolmasters. It is too soon to pronounce
yet with anything like confidence on the results of this great
experiment. We have yet to see whether female interest in politics
will intensify or fade. At present, perhaps, the right of every adult
woman to vote is more remarkable for what it has not brought about
than for what it has. It has not broken up existing parties, unsexed
women, or made them quarrel with their husbands, or neglect their
households. It has not interfered with marriage, or society, or the
fashion of dress. The ladies are not clamouring to be admitted to
Parliament. They do less platform-speaking than Englishwomen do,
though many of them study public affairs--about which, to say truth,
they have much to learn. Observers outside the Colony need not suppose
that New Zealand women are in the least degree either "wild," or
"new," or belong to any shrieking sisterhood. Though one or two have
entered learned professions, most of them are engaged in domestic
duties. Those who go out into the world do so to work unassumingly
as school teachers, factory hands, or household servants. As school
teachers they are usually efficient, as domestic servants civil and
hard-working, as factory hands neat, industrious, and moral. It is
true that they are, without exception, educated to the extent of
having had at least good primary school teaching. But though they
read--clean, healthy English books--this, so far from making them
inclined to favour frantic or immoral social experiments, should have,
one may hope, just the opposite effect. Far from being a spectacled,
angular, hysterical, uncomfortable race, perpetually demanding
extravagant changes in shrill tones, they are, at least, as
distinguished for womanly modesty, grace, and affection, as
Englishwomen in any other part of the Empire.

There are some who connect the appearance of women in the political
arena with the recent passing of an Infants' Life Protection Act, the
raising of the age of consent to fifteen, the admission of women to
the Bar, the appointment of female inspectors to lunatic asylums,
factories, and other institutions, improvements in the laws dealing
with Adoption of Children and Industrial Schools, a severe law against
the keepers of houses of ill-fame, and with the new liquor laws and
the Prohibitionist movement which is so prominent a feature of New
Zealand public life.

A handy volume issued by the Government printer contains most of
the Labour Laws of New Zealand. They are now twenty-six in number,
comprising Acts, amending Acts, and portions of Acts. Their aim is not
the abolition of the wages system, but, as far as may be to make that
system fair and tolerable, and in protecting the labourer to protect
the fair employer. Some twenty of these laws have been passed during
the last seven years. Of these an Employers' Liability Act resembles
Mr. Asquith's ill-fated Bill. Worked in conjunction with a law for
the inspection of machinery and a thorough-going system of factory
inspection, it has lessened accidents without leading to litigation.
It neither permits contracting-out nor allows employers to escape
liability by means of letting out contracts.

A Truck Act declares the right of every wage-earner to be paid
promptly, in full, in the current coin of the realm, and to be allowed
to spend wages as they choose. Two more enactments deal with the
earnings of the workmen of contractors and sub-contractors, make them
a first charge on all contract money, give workers employed on works
of construction a lien thereon, and compel a contractor's employer to
hold back at least one-fourth of the contract money for a month after
the completion of a contract, unless he shall be satisfied that all
workmen concerned have been paid in full. A Wages Attachment Act
limits without entirely abolishing a creditor's right to obtain orders
of court attaching forthcoming earnings.

The Factories Act of 1894, slightly extended by an amending Act in
1896, consolidates and improves upon no less than four previous
measures, two of which had been passed by the Ballance Government. As
compared with similar European and American laws, it may fairly claim
to be advanced and minute. Under its pivot clause all workshops, where
two or more persons are occupied, are declared to be factories, must
register, pay an annual fee, and submit to inspection at any hour of
the night or day. A master and servant working together count as two
hands. Inspectors have absolute power to demand such cubic space,
ventilation, and sanitary arrangements generally as they may consider
needful to preserve life and health. The factory age is fourteen;
there are no half-timers; and, after a struggle, the Upper House was
induced to pass a clause enforcing an education test before any child
under fifteen should be allowed to go to factory work. This is but
logical in a country wherein primary education is not only free, but
compulsory. Children under sixteen must be certified by an inspector
to be physically fit for factory life. Women and children under
eighteen may not work before 7.45 a.m. or after 6 p.m., nor more than
forty-eight hours per week. Whether time-workers or piece-workers,
they are equally entitled to the half-holiday after 1 p.m. on
Saturday. In the case of time-workers, this half-holiday is to be
granted without deduction of wages. The rates of pay and hours of
work in factories have to be publicly notified and returned to the
inspectors. Overtime may be permitted by inspectors on twenty-eight
days a year, but overtime pay must be not less than 6d. an hour extra.
The factory-owners who send work out have to make complete returns
thereof. All clothing made outside factories for sale is to be
ticketed "tenement made," and any person removing the ticket before
sale may be fined. No home work may be sublet. A peculiar feature in
the Act relates to the board and lodging provided on sheep stations
for the nomadic bands of shearers who traverse colonies, going from
wool-shed to wool-shed during the shearing season. The huts in which
these men live are placed under the factory inspectors, who have power
to call upon station-owners to make them decent and comfortable. The
Act has clauses insisting on the provision of a separate dining-room
for women workers, of fire-escapes, and protection against dangerous
machinery. Girls under fifteen may not work as type-setters; young
persons of both sexes are shut out of certain dangerous trades; women
may not work in factories within a month after their confinement.
Such are the leading features of the Factories Act. It is strictly
enforced, and has not in any way checked the growth of manufactures in
the colony.

The laws which regulate retail shops do not aim at securing what is
known as early closing. A weekly half-holiday for all, employer and
employed alike; a fifty-four hours' working week for women and young
persons; seats for shop girls, and liberty to use them; sanitary
inspection of shops. These were the objects of those who framed the
acts, and these have been attained. Under a special section merchants'
offices must close at 5 o'clock p.m. during two-thirds of each month.
On the weekly half-holiday shops in towns must be closed at 1 o'clock,
but each town chooses its own day for closing. Nearly all choose
Wednesday or Thursday, so as not to interfere with the Saturday
market-day of the farmers. Much feeling was stirred up by the passing
of this Act, but it has since entirely died away.

Until 1894 the legal position of Trade Unionists in New Zealand was
much less enviable than that of their brethren in England. The English
Act of 1875 repealing the old Labour Conspiracy law and modifying the
common law doctrine relating thereto, had never been enacted in New
Zealand. The Intimidation law (6 George IV.) was still in force
throughout Australasia; the common law doctrine relating thereto had
not been in any way softened. Within the last few years Australian
Trade Unionists had found the old English law unexpectedly hunted up
for the purpose of putting them into gaol. Three short clauses and a
schedule, passed in 1894, swept from the Statute-Book and the common
law of New Zealand all laws and doctrines specially relating to
conspiracy among members of Trades Unions who in future will only be
amenable to such conspiracy laws as affect all citizens.

In New Zealand most domestic servants and many farm hands and
gardeners are engaged through Servants' Registry Offices. A law,
passed in 1895, provides for the inspection of these, and regulates
the fees charged therein. Office-keepers have to be of good character;
have to register and take out a license; have to keep books and
records which are officially inspected. They are not allowed to keep
lodging-houses or to have any interest in such houses.

To certain students the most interesting and novel of the New Zealand
labour laws is that which endeavours to settle labour disputes between
employers and Trade Unions by means of public arbitration instead
of the old-world methods of the strike and the lock-out. Under this
statute, which was passed in 1894, the Trade Unions of the Colony have
been given the right to become corporate bodies able to sue and be
sued. In each industrial locality a Board of Conciliation is set up,
composed equally of representatives of employers and workmen, with an
impartial chairman. Disputes between Trade Unions and employers--the
Act deals with no others--are referred first of all to these Boards.
The exclusion of disputes between individuals, or between unorganized
workmen and their masters, is grounded on the belief that such
disputes are apt to be neither stubborn nor mischievous enough to
call for State interference; moreover, how could an award be enforced
against a handful of roving workmen, a mere nebulous cluster of units?
At the request of any party to an industrial dispute the District
Board can call all other parties before it, and can hear, examine, and
recommend. It is armed with complete powers for taking evidence and
compelling attendance. Its award, however, is not enforceable at law,
but is merely in the nature of friendly advice. Should all or any of
the parties refuse to accept it, an appeal lies to the Central Court
of Arbitration, composed of a judge of the Supreme Court sitting with
two assessors representing capital and labour respectively. The trio
are appointed for three years, and in default of crime or insanity can
only be removed by statute. Their court may not be appealed from, and
their procedure is not fettered by precedent. No disputant may employ
counsel unless all agree to do so. The decisions of this Court are
binding in law, and may be enforced by pains and penalties. The
arbitration law has been in active operation for about three years,
during which time some thirty-five Labour disputes have been
successfully settled. As a rule, the decisions of the Local
Conciliation Boards are not accepted. Either some of the parties
refuse to concur, or some of the recommendations are objected to by
all those on one side or the other. In nearly all cases the awards of
the Arbitration Court have been quietly submitted to. In three minor
cases proceedings have been taken for penalties. Twice these have been
dismissed on technical grounds. In the third instance a small penalty
was imposed. All the important Labour disputes of the last three years
have been brought before the tribunals set up under the Act. The only
strike which has occurred and has attracted any attention during
this period was by certain unorganized bricklayers working for the
government. As the Act applied to neither side an attempt was made to
settle the dispute by voluntary arbitration. Some of the men, however,
refused to accept the arbitrators' award, and lost their work. But of
strikes by Trades Unions there have been none, and there should be
none so long as the Act can be made to work.

As to the kind of questions arbitrated upon, they comprise most of the
hard nuts familiar to students of the Labour problem. Among them are
hours of labour, holidays, the amount of day wages, the price to
be paid for piece-work, the proportion of apprentices to skilled
artizans, the facilities to be allowed to Trade Union officials
for interviews with members, the refusal of Unionists to work with
non-Union men, and the pressure exerted by employees to induce workmen
to join private benefit societies. A New Zealand employer, it may be
mentioned, cannot take himself outside the Act of discharging his
Union hands, or even by gradually ceasing to engage Union men, and
then pleading that he has none left in his employ. A Union, whose
members are at variance with certain employers in a trade, may bring
all the local employees engaged in that trade into court, so that the
same award may be binding on the whole trade in the district.

Most of the references have been anything but trivial affairs,
either as to the numbers of workmen concerned, or the value of the
industries, or importance of the points in dispute. It is wrong to
suppose that the operation of the Act is confined to industries
protected by high customs duties, or to workers in factories. It may
be applied wherever workers are members of legally constituted bodies,
set up either under the Trade Union Act, or under the Arbitration
Statute itself. Unions who want to make use of it, register under
it; and some eighty have already done so. Trade Unions who do not
specially register may nevertheless be brought before the Arbitration
Court by the employers of their members. So far the Act has met with
a remarkable measure of success. The Trade Unions are enthusiastic
believers in it,--rather too enthusiastic, indeed, for they have shown
a tendency to make too frequent a use of it. Some of their officials,
too, would do well to be more brief and businesslike in the conduct
of cases. On the other hand, employers in most of the localities have
made a serious mistake in refusing to elect representatives for the
local Conciliation Boards, and thus forcing the Government to nominate
members. This has weakened the Boards, has hindered them from having
the conciliatory character they ought to have, and has led in part
to the frequent appeals to the Central Court of which the employers
themselves complain. The lawyers claim to have discovered that the
penalty clauses of the Act are badly drafted, and some of them assert
that unless these are amended, they will be able to drive a coach
and six through the statute. No doubt technical amendments will
be required from time to time. What is still more requisite is an
understanding between the more reasonable leaders on both sides of
industry, by which arrangements may be made for the more effectual and
informal use of the Conciliation Boards. Meanwhile it savours of the
absurd to talk and write--as certain fault-finders have done--as
though every arbitration under the Act were a disturbance of industry
as ruinous as a prolonged strike. Other critics have not stickled to
assert that it has mischievously affected the volume of the Colony's
industries, a statement which is simply untrue. It is the reviving
prosperity of the Colony during the last three years which has led the
Trade Unions to make so much use of the Act. In place of striking on
a rising market, as they do in other countries, they have gone to
arbitration. Public opinion in New Zealand has never been one-sided on
the question. It has all along been prepared to give this important
experiment a fair trial, and is quite ready to have incidental
difficulties cured by reasonable amendment.

The Shipping and Seamen's Act, 1894, and the amending Acts of the two
following years, mitigate the old-fashioned severity of punishments
for refusal of duty, assaults on the high seas, and other nautical
offences. The forecastle and the accommodation thereof become subject
to the _fiat_ of the Government inspector, as are factories on shore.
Regular payment of wages is stipulated for, overcrowding amongst
passengers is forbidden. Complete powers are given to the marine
authorities to enforce not only a full equipment of life-boats and
life-saving appliances, but boat-drill. Deck loading is restricted,
and the Plimsoll mark insisted on. But the portion of the Act which
gave rise to the intensest opposition was the proviso by which all
sailing vessels are obliged to carry a certain complement of able
seamen and ordinary seamen, according to their tonnage, while steamers
must carry a given number of able seamen, ordinary seamen, firemen,
trimmers, and greasers, according to their horse-power. Foreign
vessels, while engaging in the New Zealand coasting-trade, have to pay
their crews the rate of wages current on the coast. Parliament was
warned that the passing of this Act would paralyze the trade of
the Colony, but passed it was--with certain not unreasonable
amendments--and trade goes on precisely as before.

In 1891, moreover, the colonial laws relating to mining generally,
and to coal-mining especially, were consolidated and amended. An
interesting feature in the New Zealand Coal Mines' Act is the
provision by which mine-owners have to contribute to a fund for the
relief of miners or the families of miners in cases where men are
injured or killed at work. Every quarter the owners have to pay a
halfpenny per ton on the output, if it be bituminous coal; and a
farthing a ton, if it be lignite. Payment is made into the nearest
Post Office Savings Bank and goes to the credit of an account called
"The Coal Miners' Relief Fund." From 1891 mineral rights are reserved
in lands thereafter alienated by the Crown.

Most of the Labour laws are watched and administered by the Department
of Labour, a branch of the public service created in 1891. It costs
but £7,000 or £8,000 a year, much of which is recouped by factory
fees and other receipts. It also keeps labour statistics, acts as
a servants' registry office, and by publishing information, and by
shifting them from congested districts, endeavours to keep down the
numbers of the unemployed. In this, though it is but a palliative, it
has done useful and humane work, aided--so far as the circulation of
labour goes--by the State-owned railways.

[Illustration:

TE WAHAROA    HENARE KAIHAU, M.H.R.    HON. JAMES CARROLL, M.H.R
RIGHT HON. R.J. SEDDON (_Premier_)  MAHUTA (_The Maori "King"_)

Photo by_ BEATTIE & SANDERSON, Auckland.]

From what has gone before, readers will readily understand that the
New Zealand Government has usually in its employ several thousand
labourers engaged in road-making, bridge-building, draining, and in
erecting and repairing public buildings. To avoid the faults of both
the ordinary contract and the day-wage system, a plan, clumsily called
The Co-operative Contract System, has been adopted by the present
Premier, Mr. Seddon. The work is cut up into small sections, the
workmen group themselves in little parties of from four to eight men,
and each party is offered a section at a fair price estimated by the
Government's engineers. Material, when wanted, is furnished by the
Government, and the tax-payer thus escapes the frauds and adulteration
of old contract days. The result of the system in practice is that
where workmen are of, at any rate, average industry and capacity, they
make good, sometimes excellent, wages. In effect they are groups of
piece-workers, whose relation with each other is that of partners.
Each band elects a trustee, with whom the Government officials deal.
They are to a large extent their own masters, and work without being
driven by the contractor's foreman. They are not encouraged to work
more than eight hours a day; but as what they get depends on what they
do, they do not dawdle during those hours, and if one man in a group
should prove a loafer, his comrades, who have to suffer for his
laziness, soon get rid of him. The tendency is for first-class men
to join together, and for second-class men to similarly arrange
themselves. Sometimes, of course, the officers, in making estimates
of the price to be paid for work, make mistakes, and men will earn
extravagantly high wages, or get very poor returns. But as the
sections are small, this does not last for long, and the balance is
redressed. After some years' experience, it seems fairly proved that
the average of earnings is not extravagant, and that the taxpayer
loses nothing by the arrangement as compared with the old contract
system, while the change is highly popular with workmen throughout the
Colony.

Those who know anything of politics anywhere, will not need to be told
that the changes and experiments here sketched have been viewed with
suspicion, alarm, contempt, or anger, by a large class of wealthy and
influential New Zealanders. It is but fair that, in a sketch like
this, some emphasis should be laid upon their dissent and protests.
Into the personal attacks of which very much of their criticism
has consisted this is not the place to enter. A summary of the
Conservative view of the progressive work ought, however, to have a
place. Disqualified as I might be thought to be from attempting it, I
prefer to make use of an account written and published in 1896 by an
English barrister, who, in the years 1894-95, spent many months in the
Colony studying with attention its politics and public temper. As his
social acquaintanceships lay chiefly among the Conservatives, he had
no difficulty in getting frank expressions of their views. In the
following sentences he sums up the more moderate and impersonal of
these, as he heard and analysed them:--

  "... It must not be supposed that the Conservatives of
  New Zealand, any more than those of the mother country, are
  apologists for 'sweating.' Indeed, as Mr. Reeves himself has
  acknowledged, the labour legislation with which he is associated
  was inaugurated by the Government's predecessors, and in carrying
  his Bills he had the cordial support of Captain Russell, the
  leader of the Opposition. At the same time it is urged that this
  protective legislation has been carried to an unreasonable extent,
  and people allege, no doubt with a certain amount of exaggeration,
  that they feel themselves regulated in all the relations of life. The
  measure which has created the most irritation seems to be the
  Shop Assistants Act. Employers say that Mr. Reeves has made
  every man 'a walking lawsuit,' and that they are chary of having one
  about their premises. Moreover, this constant succession of labour
  laws, and the language of some of their supporters, have created, so
  they say, in the minds of the working classes the impression that the
  squatters, manufacturers, and the classes with which they associate,
  are tyrants and oppressors, and their lives are embittered by the
  feeling that they are regarded as enemies of the people. Further,
  they say that the administrative action of the Government tends
  to keep up the price of labour, that the price of labour is unreasonably
  high, and that this fact, coupled with the necessity of keeping
  all the provisions of the labour laws in mind, and the spirit which
  they have generated, makes them disinclined to employ labour in
  the improvement of their lands. As to the Government's land
  policy, while it is admitted that small settlers are desirable, it is
  not admitted that large properties are necessarily a curse. What
  is resented more fiercely than anything else is the fact that they
  are liable to have their own properties appropriated at the
  arbitrary will of the Minister of lands, and though the Government
  promises to work the law reasonably, neither this nor any other of
  their declarations is regarded with confidence. It is asserted that
  the Government is flooding the country with incompetent settlers,
  who imagine that anyone can get a living out of the land; that the
  resumed properties have been purchased and cut up in such a way
  that a cry for a reduction of rents will soon become inevitable, and
  that the Cheap Money Scheme has created a class of debtors,
  who, in conceivable circumstances, might be able to apply
  effectual political pressure for the reduction of their interest. In
  point of fact they do not share the Progressist idea, that much can
  be done by legislation to ameliorate the condition of the masses of
  the population, nor do they see that in a country like New Zealand,
  where labour is dear, food cheap, and the climate mild and
  equable, their condition need necessarily be so deplorable. They
  still cherish the old theories of individualism. The humanitarian
  ideals of Mr. Reeves, not being idealists, they regard with little
  interest. What they see is the Government of their Colony, which
  they had been accustomed to control, in the hands of men whose
  characters they despise or detest, and the House of Representatives,
  which was once the most dignified and distinguished
  assembly in the Colonies, now become (in their circle at any rate)
  a byword of reproach--full of men who vote themselves for a three
  months' session salaries which many of them would be unable to
  earn in any other walk of life."

Despite the Socialistic tendency of the Acts thus denounced, it must
not be thought that there is any strong party of deliberate State
Socialists in the Colony at all corresponding to the following of
Bebel and Liebknecht in Germany, or even the Independent Labour Party
in England. There is not. The reforms and experiments which show
themselves so many in the later chapters of the story of New Zealand
have in all cases been examined and taken on their merits, and not
otherwise. They are the outcome of a belief which, though much
more boldly trusted and acted upon by the Progressives than by the
Conservatives, is not now the monopoly of one political party. The
leaders of the rival parties, the robust Mr. Seddon and the kindly
Captain Russell, both admit one main principle. It is that a young
democratic country, still almost free from extremes of wealth and
poverty, from class hatreds and fears and the barriers these create,
supplies an unequalled field for safe and rational experiment in the
hope of preventing and shutting out some of the worst social evils and
miseries which afflict great nations alike in the old world and the
new.

To sum up the experiments themselves, it may be said that the Colony
has now reached the stage when the State, without being in any way
a monopolist, is a large and active competitor in many fields of
industry. Where it does not compete it often regulates. This very
competition must of course expose it to the most severe tests and
trials. Further progress will chiefly depend on the measure of success
with which it stands these, and on the consequent willingness or
unwillingness of public opinion to make trial of further novelties.




Chapter XXIII


THE NEW ZEALANDERS

"No hungry generations tread thee down."

Some 785,000 whites, browns, and yellows are now living in New
Zealand. Of these the browns are made up of about 37,000 Maoris and
5,800 half-castes. The Maoris seem slowly decreasing, the half-castes
increasing rather rapidly. 315,000 sheep, 30,000 cattle, many horses,
and much land, a little of which they cultivate, some of which they
let, support them comfortably enough. The yellows, some 3,500 Chinese,
are a true alien element. They do not marry--78 European and 14
Chinese wives are all they have, at any rate in the Colony. They are
not met in social intercourse or industrial partnership by any class
of colonists, but work apart as gold-diggers, market-gardeners,
and small shop-keepers, and are the same inscrutable, industrious,
insanitary race of gamblers and opium-smokers in New Zealand as
elsewhere. At one time they were twice as numerous. Then a poll-tax
of £10 was levied on all new-comers. Still, a few score came in every
year, paying the tax, or having it paid for them; and about as many
went home to China, usually with £200 or more about them. In 1895 the
tax was raised to £50, and this seems likely to bring the end quickly.
Despised, disliked, dwindling, the Chinese are bound soon to disappear
from the colony.

Of the 740,000 whites, more than half have been born in the country,
and many are the children, and a few even the grandchildren, of New
Zealand-born parents. An insular race is therefore in process of
forming. What are its characteristics? As the Scotch would say--what
like is it? Does it give any signs of qualities, physical or mental,
tending to distinguish it from Britons, Australians, or North
Americans? The answer is not easy. Nothing is more tempting, and at
the same time more risky, than to thus generalize and speculate too
soon. As was said at the outset, New Zealand has taken an almost
perverse delight in upsetting expectations. Nevertheless, certain
points are worth noting which may, at any rate, help readers to draw
conclusions of their own.

The New Zealanders are a British race in a sense in which the
inhabitants of the British Islands scarcely are. That is to say, they
consist of English, Scotch, and Irish, living together, meeting daily,
intermarrying, and having children whose blood with each generation
becomes more completely blended and mingled. The Celtic element is
larger than in England or in the Scottish lowlands. As against this
there is a certain, though small, infusion of Scandinavian and German
blood; very little indeed of any other foreign race. The Scotch muster
strongest in the south and the Irish in the mining districts. In
proportion to their numbers the Scotch are more prominent than other
races in politics, commerce, finance, sheep farming, and the work of
education. Among the seventy European members of the New Zealand House
of Representatives there is seldom more than one Smith, Brown, or
Jones, and hardly ever a single Robinson; but the usual number of
McKenzies is three. The Irish do not crowd into the towns, or attempt
to capture the municipal machinery, as in America, nor are they a
source of political unrest or corruption. Their Church's antagonism to
the National Education system has excluded many able Catholics from
public life. The Scandinavians and Germans very seldom figure there.
Some 1,700 Jews live in the towns, and seem more numerous and
prominent in the north than in the south. They belong to the
middle class; many are wealthy. These are often charitable and
public-spirited, and active in municipal rather than in parliamentary
life.

[Illustration: MAORIS CONVEYING GUESTS IN A CANOE

Photo by Beattie & Sanderson, Auckland.]

Among the Churches the Church of England claims 40 per cent. of the
people; the Presbyterians 23 per cent.; other Protestants, chiefly
Methodists, 17 per cent.; and Catholics 14. Methodists seem increasing
rather faster than any other denomination. Though the National School
system is secular, it is not anti-Christian. 11,000 persons teach
105,000 children in Sunday-schools. In the census returns about
two per cent. of the population object or neglect to specify their
religion; only about one per cent. style themselves as definitely
outside the Christian camp.

The average density of population throughout the Colony's 104,000
square miles is somewhat less than eight to the mile. Two-thirds of
the New Zealanders live in the country, in villages, or in towns
of less than 5,000 inhabitants. Even the larger towns cover, taken
together, about seventy square miles of ground--not very cramping
limits for a quarter of a million of people. Nor is there overcrowding
in houses; less than five persons to a house is the proportion. There
are very few spots in the towns where trees, flower gardens, and grass
are not close at hand, and even orchards and fields not far away. The
dwelling-houses, almost all of wood, seldom more than two storeys
high, commonly show by their shady verandahs and veiling creepers that
the New Zealand sun is warmer than the English. Bright, windy, and
full of the salt of the ocean, the air is perhaps the wholesomest on
earth, and the Island race naturally shows its influence. Bronzed
faces display on every side the power of sun and wind. Pallor is rare;
so also is the more delicate pink and white of certain English skins.
The rainier, softer skies of the western coasts have their result in
smoother skins and better complexions on that side of the Islands than
in the drier east. On the warm shores of Auckland there are signs of
a more slightly-built breed, but not in the interior, which almost
everywhere rises quickly into hill or plateau. Athletic records show
that the North Islanders hold their own well enough against Southern
rivals. More heavily built as a rule than the Australians, the New
Zealanders have darker hair and thicker eyebrows than is common with
the Anglo-Saxon of Northern England and Scotland. Tall and robust, the
men do not carry themselves as straight as the nations which have been
through the hands of the drill-sergeant. The women--who are still
somewhat less numerous than the males--are as tall, but not usually
as slight, as those of the English upper classes. To sum up, the
New Zealand race shows no sign of beating the best British, or
of producing an average equal to that best; but its average is
undoubtedly better than the general British average. The puny myriads
of the manufacturing towns have no counterpart in the Colony, and, if
humanitarian laws can prevent it, never should. The birth-rate and
death-rate are both strikingly low: the latter, 9.14 per 1,000, is the
lowest in the world. The birth-rate has fallen from 37.95 in 1881 to
25.96 in 1897. The yearly number of births has in effect remained the
same for sixteen years, though the population has grown thirty
per cent. larger in the period. The gain by immigration is still
appreciable, though not large.

Their speech is that of communities who are seldom utterly illiterate,
and as seldom scholarly. I have listened in vain for any national
twang, drawl, or peculiar intonation. The young people, perhaps, speak
rather faster than English of the same age, that is all. On the other
hand, anything like picturesque, expressive language within the limits
of grammar is rarely found. Many good words in daily use in rural
England have been dropped in the Colony. Brook, village, moor,
heath, forest, dale, copse, meadow, glade are among them. Young New
Zealanders know what these mean because they find them in books, but
would no more think of employing them in speaking than of using "inn,"
"tavern," or "ale," when they can say "hotel," "public-house," or
"beer." Their place is taken by slang. Yet if a nation is known by its
slang, the New Zealanders must be held disposed to borrow rather
than to originate, for theirs is almost wholly a mixture of English,
American, and Australian. Most of the mining terms come from
California; most of the pastoral from Australia, though "flat" and
"creek" are, of course, American. "Ranche" and "gulch" have not
crossed the Pacific; their place is taken by "run" and "gulley." On
the other hand, "lagoon" has replaced the English "pond," except in
the case of artificial water. Pasture is "feed," herd and flock alike
become "mob." "Country" is used as a synonym for grazing; "good
country" means simply good grazing land. A man tramping in search of
work is a "swagman" or "swagger," from the "swag" or roll of blankets
he carries on his back. Very few words have been adopted from the
vigorous and expressive Maori. The convenient "mana," which covers
prestige, authority, and personal magnetism; "wharé," a rough hut;
"taihoa," equivalent to the Mexican _manana_; and "ka pai," "'tis
good," are exceptions. The South Island colonists mispronounce their
beautiful Maori place-names murderously. Even in the North Island the
average bushman will speak of the pukatea tree as "bucketeer," and
not to call the poro-poro shrub "bull-a-bull" would be considered
affectation. There is or was in the archives of the Taranaki Farmers'
Club a patriotic song which rises to the notable lines--

  "And as for food, the land is full
  Of that delicious bull-a-bull!"

In Canterbury you would be stared at if you called Timaru anything but
"Timmeroo." In Otago Lake Wakatipu becomes anything, from "Wokkertip"
to "Wackatipoo"; and I have heard a cultured man speak of Puke-tapu as
"Buck-a-tap."

The intellectual average is good. Thanks in great part to Gibbon
Wakefield's much-abused Company, New Zealand was fortunate in the
mental calibre of her pioneer settlers, and in their determined
efforts to save their children from degenerating into loutish,
half-educated provincials. Looking around in the Colony at the sons
of these pioneers, one finds them on all sides doing useful and
honourable work. They make upright civil servants, conscientious
clergymen, schoolmasters, lawyers, and journalists, pushing agents,
resourceful engineers, steady-going and often prosperous farmers,
and strong, quick, intelligent labourers. Of the "self-reverence,
self-knowledge, self-control" needful to make a sound race they have
an encouraging share. Of artistic, poetic, or scientific talent, of
wit, originality, or inventiveness, there is yet but little sign. In
writing they show facility often, distinction never; in speech fluency
and force of argument, and even, sometimes, lucidity, but not a flash
of the loftier eloquence. Nor has the time yet arrived for Young New
Zealand to secure the chief prizes of its own community--such posts
and distinctions as go commonly to men fairly advanced in years. No
native of the country has yet been its Prime Minister or sat amongst
its supreme court judges or bishops. A few colonial-born have held
subordinate Cabinet positions, but the dozen leading Members of
Parliament are just now all British-born. So are the leading doctors,
engineers, university professors, and preachers; the leading barrister
is a Shetlander. Two or three, and two or three only, of the
first-class positions in the civil service are filled by natives. On
the whole, Young New Zealand is, as yet, better known by collective
usefulness than by individual distinction.

The grazing of sheep and cattle, dairying, agriculture, and mining for
coal and gold, are the chief occupations. 47,000 holdings are under
cultivation. The manufactures grow steadily, and already employ 40,000
hands. A few figures will give some notion of the industrial and
commercial position. The number of the sheep is a little under
20,000,000; of cattle, 1,150,000; of horses, 250,000. The output of
the factories and workshops is between £10,000,000 and £11,000,000
sterling a year; the output of gold, about £1,000,000; that of coal,
about 900,000 tons. The export of wool is valued at £4,250,000. Among
the exports for 1897 were: 2,700,000 frozen sheep and lambs; 66,000
cwt. cheese, and 71,000 cwt butter; £433,000 worth of kauri gum;
£427,000 worth of grain. The exports and imports of the Colony for
the year 1897 were a little over £10,000,000 and £8,000,000 sterling
respectively. It would appear that, taking a series of years, about
three-quarters of the Colony's trade has been with the mother-country,
and nearly all the remainder with other parts of the Empire. The
public debt is about £44,000,000; the revenue, £5,000,000. The State
owns 2,061 miles of railway.

[Illustration: A RURAL STATE SCHOOL

Photo by BEATTIE & SANDERSON, Auckland.]

Socially the colonists are what might be expected from their
environment. Without an aristocracy, without anything that can be
called a plutocracy, without a solitary millionaire, New Zealand is
also virtually without that hopeless thing, the hereditary pauper
and begetter of paupers. It may be doubted whether she has a dozen
citizens with more than £10,000 a year apiece. On the other hand, the
average of wealth and income is among the highest in the world.

Education is universal. The lectures of the professors of the State
University--which is an examining body, with five affiliated colleges
in five different towns--are well attended by students of both sexes.
The examiners are English; the degrees may be taken by either sex
indifferently. Not two per cent. of the Colony's children go to the
secondary schools, though they are good and cheap. It is her primary
education that is the strength and pride of New Zealand. It is that
which makes the list of crimes light. Criminals and paupers are less
often produced than let in from the outside. The regulations relating
to the exclusion of the physically or mentally tainted are far too
lax, and will bring their own punishment. The colonists, honestly
anxious that their country shall in days to come show a fine and happy
race, are strangely blind to the laws of heredity. They carelessly
admit those whose children to the third and fourth generation must be
a degrading influence. On the other hand, the Colony gains greatly by
the regular and deliberate importation of English experts. Every year
a small but important number of these are engaged and brought out.
They vary from bishops and professors to skilled artizans and
drill-instructors; but whatever they are, their quality is good, and
they usually make New Zealand the home of their families.

With wealth diffused, and caste barriers unknown, a New Zealander,
when meeting a stranger, does not feel called upon to act as though in
dread of finding in the latter a sponge, toady, or swindler. Nor has
the colonist to consider how the making of chance acquaintances may
affect his own social standing. In his own small world his social
standing is a settled thing, and cannot be injured otherwise than by
his own folly or misconduct. Moreover, most of the Islanders are, or
have been, brought face to face with the solitude of nature, and many
of all classes have travelled. These things make them more sociable,
self-confident, and unsuspicious than the middle classes of older
countries. Such hospitality as they can show is to them a duty, a
custom, and a pleasure.

The Islanders are almost as fond of horses and athletics as their
Australian cousins. They are not nearly such good cricketers, but
play football better, are often good yachtsmen, and hold their own
in rowing, running, jumping, and throwing weights. Fox-hunting is a
forbidden luxury, as the fox may not be imported. But they have some
packs of harriers, and ride to them in a way which would not be
despised in the grass counties at Home. There are fair polo teams too.
They are just as fond of angling and shooting as the race elsewhere.
Capital trout-fishing, some good deer-shooting, and a fine supply of
rabbits, hares, and wild ducks help to console the sportsman for the
scarcity of dangerous game. As might be expected in an educated people
passionately fond of out-door exercises, well fed and clothed, and
with sun and sea air for tonics, drink is not their national vice.
Gambling, especially over horse races, has more claim to that bad
eminence. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why the land rings with
denunciations of drink, while comparatively little has until quite
lately been said against gambling.

Of colonial art there is not much to be said. Sculpture is represented
by an occasional statue brought from England. Architecture in its
higher form is an unknown quantity. Painting is beginning to struggle
towards the light, chiefly in the form of water-colour drawings.
Political satire finds expression in cartoons, for the most part
of that crude sort which depicts public men as horrific ogres and
malformed monsters of appalling disproportions. Music, reading, and
flower gardening are the three chief refining pastimes. The number
and size of the musical societies is worthy of note. So are the
booksellers' shops and free libraries. The books are the same as you
see in London shops. There is no colonial literature. As for flowers,
New Zealanders promise to be as fond of them as the Japanese. There is
a newspaper of some description in the Islands to about every 1,500
adults. Every locality may thus count upon every item of its local
news appearing in print. The Colonists who support this system may be
assumed to get what they want, though, of course, under it quality is
to some extent sacrificed to number. As a class the newspapers are
honest, decent, and energetic as purveyors of news. Every now and then
public opinion declares itself on one side, though the better known
newspapers are on the other. But on the average their influence is not
slight. There is no one leading journal. Of the four or five larger
morning newspapers, the _Otago Daily Times_ shows perhaps the most
practical knowledge of politics and grasp of public business. It is
partisan, but not ferociously so, except in dealing with some pet
aversion, like the present Minister of Lands. You may read in it,
too, now and then, what is a rarity indeed in colonial journalism--a
paragraph written in a spirit of pure, good-natured fun.

The working classes are better, the others more carelessly, dressed
than in England. The workpeople are at the same time more nomadic
and thriftier. Amongst the middle classes, industrious as they are,
unusual thrift is rare. Their hospitality and kindliness do not
prevent them from being hard bargainers in business.

Compared with the races from which they have sprung, the Islanders
seem at once less conventional, less on their guard, and more
neighbourly and sympathetic in minor matters. In politics they are
fonder of change and experiment, more venturesome, more empirical,
law-abiding, but readier to make and alter laws. Hypercritical and
eaten up by local and personal jealousies in public life, they are
less loyal to parties and leaders, and less capable of permanent
organization for a variety of objects. They can band themselves
together to work for one reform, but for the higher and more complex
organization which seeks to obtain a general advance along the line of
progress by honourable co-operation and wise compromise, they show no
great aptitude. In politics their pride is that they are practical,
and, indeed, they are perhaps less ready than Europeans to deify
theories and catchwords. They are just as suspicious of wit and humour
in public men, and just as prone to mistake dulness for solidity. To
their credit may be set down a useful impatience of grime, gloom,
injustice, and public discomfort and bungling.

In social life they are more sober and more moral, yet more
indifferent to the opinion of any society or set. Not that they run
after mere eccentrics; they have a wholesome reserve of contempt for
such. British in their dislike to take advice, their humbler position
among the nations makes them more ready to study and learn from
foreign example. Though there is no division into two races as in
London, it would be absurd to pretend that social distinctions are
unknown. Each town with its rural district has its own "society." The
best that can be said for this institution is that it is not, as a
rule, dictated to by mere money. It is made up of people with incomes
mostly ranging from £500 to £2,000, with a sprinkling of bachelors of
even more modest means. Ladies and gentlemen too poor to entertain
others will nevertheless be asked everywhere if they have either
brightness or intellect, or have won creditable positions. You see
little social arrogance, no attempt at display. Picnics, garden
parties, and outings in boats and yachts are amongst the pleasanter
functions. A yacht in New Zealand means a cutter able to sail well,
but quite without any luxury in her fittings. The indoor gatherings
are smaller, more kindly, less formal, less glittering copies of
similar affairs in the mother country.

Brilliant talkers there are none. But any London visitor who might
imagine that he was about to find himself in a company of clownish
provincials would be much mistaken. A very large proportion of
colonists have travelled and even lived in more lands than one. They
have encountered vicissitudes and seen much that is odd and varied in
nature and human nature. In consequence they are often pleasant
and interesting talkers, refreshingly free from mannerism or
self-consciousness.

They both gain and lose by being without a leisured class; it narrows
their horizon, but saves them from a vast deal of hysterical nonsense,
social mischief and blatant self-advertising. Though great readers of
English newspapers and magazines, and much influenced thereby in their
social, ethical, and literary views, their interest in English and
European politics is not very keen. A cherished article of their faith
is that Russia is England's irreconcileable foe, and that war between
the two is certain. Both their geographical isolation and their
constitution debar them from having any foreign policy. In this they
contentedly acquiesce. Loyal to the mother country, resolved not to be
absorbed in Australia, they are torpid concerning Imperial Federation.
Their own local and general politics absorb any interest and leisure
not claimed by business and pastimes. Their isolation is, no doubt,
partly the cause of this. It takes their steamers from four to six
days to reach Australia, and nearly as long to travel from one end
of their own land to the other. Most of them can hardly hope to see
Europe, or even Asia or America, or any civilized race but their own.
This is perhaps the greatest of their disadvantages. Speedier passage
across the oceans which divide them from the rest of the human race
must always be in the forefront of their aims as a nation.

Industrious, moral, strong, it is far too soon to complain of this
race because it has not in half a century produced a genius from
amongst its scanty numbers. Its mission has not been to do that, but
to lay the foundations of a true civilization in two wild and lonely,
though beautiful, islands. This has been a work calling for solid
rather than brilliant qualities--for a people morally and physically
sound and wholesome, and gifted with "grit" and concentration. There
is such a thing as collective ability. The men who will carve statues,
paint pictures, and write books will come, no doubt, in good time. The
business of the pioneer generations has been to turn a bloodstained or
silent wilderness into a busy and interesting, a happy, if not yet a
splendid, state.




BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books about New Zealand are numerous enough. A critic need not be
fastidious to regret that most of them are not better written, useful
and interesting as they are in the mass. Every sort of information
about the country is to be got from them, but not always with pleasure
or ease. To get it you must do a good deal of the curst hard reading
which comes from easy writing. And even then, for the most part, it is
left to your own imaginative power to see--

  "The beauty, and the wonder, and the power,
  The shapes of things, their colours, lights, and shades,
  Changes, surprises."

The undoubted and agreeable exceptions, too, require in you some
knowledge of the Islands, if they are to be enjoyed. How is that
knowledge to be obtained? A hard-headed student with a hearty appetite
for facts might, of course, start with F.J. Moss's careful and
accurate school history and the latest Government Year Book in his
hand, and would soon be well on his way. Those who like easier paths
to knowledge may try Edward Wakefield's "New Zealand After Fifty
Years," or Gisborne's "Colony of New Zealand." When one comes to
periods, districts, or special subjects, the choice is much wider.

To begin at the beginning; "Tasman's Log" is little but dry bones; of
Cook and Crozet I have written elsewhere. Of the writers who tell of
Alsatian days, none is worth naming in the same breath with Maning.
Personally I like Polack and Savage the best of them, despite the
lumbering pretentiousness and doubtful veracity of the former. Earle
and Major Cruise are more truthful than readable--conditions which
are exactly reversed in the case of Rutherford. If, as is said, Lord
Brougham helped to write Rutherford's narrative, he did his work
very well; but after the exposure of its "facts" by Archdeacon W.L.
Williams, it can only be read as the yarn of a runaway sailor, who had
reasons for not telling the whole truth, and a capacity and knowledge
of local colour which would have made him a capital romance-writer,
had he been an educated man. As a picture of the times, Rutherford's
story in the "Library of Entertaining Knowledge" will always, however,
be worth reading.

The missionaries have not been as fortunate in their chroniclers as
they deserve. The tumid cant of Nicholas is grotesque enough to
be more amusing than the tract-and-water style of Yate and Barret
Marshall, or the childishness of Richard Taylor. Much better in every
way are Buller's (Wesleyan) "Forty Years In New Zealand," and Tucker's
"Life and Episcopate of George Augustus Selwyn."

Among the descriptions of the country as it was when the colonists
found it, Edward Shortland's account of the whalers and Maoris of
the South Island, Jerningham Wakefield's of the founding of the New
Zealand Company's settlements, Dieffenbach's travels, and Bidwill's
unpretending little pamphlet telling of his tramp to the volcanoes and
hot lakes in 1842, seem to me at once to tell most and be easiest to
read.

On the Maoris, their myths, legends, origin, manners, and customs,
William Colenso is admittedly the chief living authority. For
his views it is necessary to go to pamphlets, and to search the
Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, where much other good
material will also reward the seeker. To John White's ill-jointed
but invaluable compilation "The Ancient History of the Maori," every
student henceforth will have to turn. The selections therein from the
papers of Stack on the South Island Maoris, from Travers' "Life of Te
Rauparaha," and Wilson's "Story of Te Waharoa," are less stony than
the more genealogical portions. Sir George Grey's collection of
the historical and legendary traditions of the race has not been
superseded. Messrs. Percy Smith and Edward Tregear edit the valuable
journal of the Polynesian Association; the former has made a special
study of the origin and wanderings of the Maori race, the latter has
produced the Comparative Maori-Polynesian Dictionary. General Robley
has written the book on Maori tattooing; Mr. Hamilton is bringing out
in parts what promises to be a very complete and worthily illustrated
account of Maori art.

As narratives of the first twenty years of the Colony two books
stand out from among many: Thomson's "Story of New Zealand," and
Attorney--General Swainson's "New Zealand and its Colonization." It
would not be easy to find a completer contrast than the gossipy style
of the chatty army medico and the dry, official manner of the precise
lawyer, formerly and for upwards of fifteen years Her Majesty's
Attorney-General for New Zealand, as he is at pains to tell you on his
title-page. But Swainson's is the fairest and most careful account of
the time from the official, philo-Maori and anti-Company side, and may
be taken as a safe antidote to Jerningham Wakefield, Sir W.T. Power,
Hursthouse, and others. A comparison with Rusden, when the two are on
the same ground, shows Swainson to be the better writer all round. Of
Rusden's "History of New Zealand" no one doubts the honest intent. The
author, believing the Maori to be a noble, valiant, and persecuted
race, befriended by the missionaries and those who took missionary
advice, and robbed and cheated by almost all others, says so in three
long, vehement, sincere, but not fascinating volumes, largely composed
of extracts from public papers and speeches. Sweeping condemnation of
the Public Works policy, of Radical reforms, and recent Socialistic
experiments, complete his tale. The volumes have their use, but are
not a history of New Zealand.

Of early days in the pastoral provinces we get contemporary sketches
by Samuel Butler, L.J. Kennaway, Lady Barker, and Archdeacon Paul.
Butler's is the best done picture of the country, Kennaway's the
exactest of the settlers' every-day rough-and-tumble haps and mishaps,
and Lady Barker's the brightest. One of the volumes of General Mundy's
"Our Antipodes" gives a nice, light sketch of things as they were in
the North Island in the first years of Governor Grey. Dr. Hocken's
recent book has at once become the recognised authority on the first
years of Otago, and also has interesting chapters on the South Island
before settlement. Fitzgerald's selections from Godley's writings and
speeches is made more valuable by the excellent biographical sketch
with which it opens. Dr. Richard Garnett's admirable "Life of Gibbon
Wakefield" is the event of this year's literature from the point of
view of New Zealanders.

Of the books on the Eleven Years' War from 1860 to 1871, Sir William
Fox's easily carries away the palm for vigour of purpose and
performance. Sir William was in hot indignation when he wrote it, and
some of his warmth glows in its pages. It is a pity that he only
dealt with the years 1863-65. Generals Carey and Alexander supply the
narrative of the doings of the regulars; Lieutenant Gudgeon that of
the militia's achievements. General Carey handles the pen well enough;
not so his gallant brother-soldier. Of Gudgeon's two books I much
prefer the Reminiscences, which on the whole tell more about the war
than any other volume one can name. Sir John Gorst describes the King
Movement and his own experiences in the King's country. Swainson takes
up his parable against the Waitara purchase.

Gisborne's "Rulers and Statesmen of New Zealand," though not a
connected history, is written with such undoubted fairness and
personal knowledge, and in so workmanlike, albeit good--natured, a
way, as to have a permanent interest. Most of the many portraits which
are reproduced in its pages are correct likenesses, but it is the pen
pictures which give the book its value.

Of volumes by travellers who devote more or less space to New Zealand,
the most noteworthy are Dilke's brilliant "Greater Britain," the
volumes of Anthony Trollope, and Michael Davitt, and Froude's
thoughtful, interesting, but curiously inaccurate "Oceana." Mennell's
serviceable "Dictionary of Australasian Biography" gives useful
details concerning the pioneer colonists.

Scientific students may be referred to the Works of Hooker and
Dieffenbach, to Von Haast's "Geology of Canterbury and Westland,"
Kirk's "New Zealand Forest Flora," Sir Walter Buller's "Birds of New
Zealand," Hudson's "New Zealand Entomology," and to the papers of
Hector, Hutton and Thompson.

Dr. Murray Moore has written, and written well, for those who may wish
to use the country as a health resort.

Mountaineers and lovers of scenery should read Green's "High Alps of
New Zealand," and T. Mackenzie's papers on West Coast Exploration.
Mannering Fitzgerald and Harper are writers on the same topic.
Murray's guide book will, of course, be the tourist's main stay.
Delisle Hay's Brighter Britain deals in lively fashion with a
settler's life in the bush north of Auckland and in the Thames
goldfields. Reid and Preshaw have written of the Westland
gold-seekers; Pyke of the Otago diggings. Domett's "Ranolf and Amohia"
is not only the solitary New Zealand poem which has achieved any sort
of distinction, but is also an interesting picture of Maori life and
character.

The Official Year-Book is a mass of well-arranged information, and the
economic enquirer may be further referred to Cumin's "Index of the
Laws of New Zealand," and to the numerous separate annual reports of
the Government offices and departments. Historical students must,
of course, dive pretty deeply into the parliamentary debates and
appendices to the journals of the House of Representatives, into the
bulky reports and correspondence relating to New Zealand published in
London by the Imperial authorities, and into the files of the larger
newspapers The weekly newspapers of the Colony are especially well
worth consulting. For the rest, Collier's New Zealand Bibliography
(Wellington), and the library catalogues of the N.Z. Parliament and of
the Royal Colonial Institute, London, are the best lists of the books
and pamphlets on New Zealand.

[Illustration: Map showing

TRIBAL BOUNDARIES OF THE MAORI]

[Illustration: (map of) NEW ZEALAND]




INDEX


  Aborigines' Protection Society, 291.
  Absentee Tax, 374.
  Adoption of children, 381.
  Advances to Settlers Act, 376.
  Agriculture of the Maori, 42.
  Akaroa and the French, 192.
  _Alligator_ brig at Taranaki, 160.
  Alps of New Zealand, 29.
  Annexation, 170, 179, 180.
  Annexation proposals, 157, 163-165.
  Arawa and Tainui, 37.
  Arbitration, Court of, 387, 389.
  Architecture of the Maori, 44.
  Artistic development, 405, 409.
  Athletic development, 402, 408.
  Atkinson, Sir Harry, 272, 274, 286, 329, 342-344, 346, 351.
  Auckland chosen as capital, 193.

  Ballance, John, 341, 345, 361, 369-371, 377, 378.
  Barrett the Whaler, 126, 142.
  Bird-snaring, 43.
  Borrowing, Prevalence of, 331.
  Bowen, Charles, 340.
  _Boyd_ massacre, 104, 105.
  Browne, Governor, 260, 264.
    recalled, 275.
  Busby as British Resident, 158-162.
  Busby's Federation Scheme, 161.

  Cameron, General, 278-283, 290, 292.
  Cannibalism, 41.
  Canterbury settled, 234.
  Cargill, Captain, 232, 233.
  Cattle introduced, 15.
  Canoes of Polynesians, 35.
  Characteristics of Maoris, 34, 53-59.
  Characteristics of New Zealanders, 399-414.
  Chatham Islands Escape, 299.
  Cheap Money Scheme, 396.
  Chinese element, 398.
  Christchurch founded, 235.
  Church endowment in the South, 247.
  Church Missionary Society, 114, 119, 172.
  Church statistics, 400.
  Chute, General, 292.
  Civilization and the Maori, 55, 59.
  Clean Shirt Ministry, 253.
  Cliff scenery, 25, 26.
  Climate, 11.
  Clutha and Prohibition, 365.
  Colenso's New Testament, 120.
  Colonising companies, 157.
  Commissioners and New Zealand Company, 197.
  Conciliation Boards, 386, 387-390.
  Confiscation of native land, 289.
  Continuous ministry, 335, 336.
  Contractors, 382.
  Contrasts in scenery, 13.
  Conveyance of land, 115.
  Convicts and Maori, 98.
  Coal Mines Act, 391.
  Cook, Captain, 79-81.
  Co-operative Contract System, 393.
  Coromandel goldfields, 318.
  Costume of the Maori, 45.
  Creation of man, 67.
  Crime, Absence of, 241.
  Crozet, 87-91.
  Cruelty of traders, 102-104.
  Customs duties, 208, 343, 352.

  Dairy produce exports, 343.
  Dark side of Maori life, 52.
  Darwin on New Zealand, 118.
  Death and future existence, 61.
  Death customs and beliefs, 72.
  Debts, private, 332.
  Defeat at Puke-te-kauere, 273.
  Depreciation of land, 375.
  Despard repulsed by Heké, 215.
  De Surville at the Bay of Islands, 86, 87.
  Discovery, 3.
  Domett ("Waring"), 47.
  Drink, 409.
  Dunedin, 232, 311.

  Education, 340, 383, 407.
  Egmont volcano, 28.
  Eloquence of the Maori, 51.
  Employers' Liability Act, 382.
  _Endeavour_ visited by the Maori, 84.
  Episcopal Church in New Zealand, 226.
  Escapes of Maori prisoners, 298.
  Export development, 335, 343.
    statistics, 406.

  Factories Act, 382, 383.
  Financial changes, 331-334, 351.
  Fitzgerald first premier, 253.
  Fitzroy, Governor, 204, 206-209.
  Floods, 23.
  Flood myth, 67.
  Flora and fauna, 5, 16.
  Forest scenery, 6-9.
  Fox, Sir William, 336, 419.
  Franchise reforms, 378.
  French attempts at colonisation, 163, 192.
  French and English in New Zealand, 86.
  Frozen meat, 343.

  Gambling, 409.
  Gaols, primitive, 233.
  Garnett, Dr. Richard, 234, 419.
  General Assembly founded, 250.
  Gisborne's book, 420.
  Glaciers and snow, 31.
  Gladstone and annexation, 172.
  Godley as Administrator, 236.
  Gold discovered in Otago, 310.
  Gorst, Sir John, 276, 277.
  Grazing, 406.
  Grey's achievements, 227.
  Grey and Atkinson, 341, 345, 346.
  Grey, Earl, 231, 245.
  Grey, Sir George, 199, 217-230, 291, 339.
    attacks Weraroa, 291.
    leaves New Zealand, 251.
    recalled, 323.
    second command, 275.
  Gum-digging, 319.
  Gun-selling, 264.

  Hadfield, the Missionary, 153.
  Hall and Atkinson, 337, 342-344, 345.
  Half-castes, 398.
  Hau-Hau defeat at Moutua, 287.
    outrages, 286, 295, 301.
  Hau-Haus finally crushed, 303.
  Hawaiki, 37.
  _Hawes_ outrage, 105, 106.
  Head-trading, 97, 98.
  Heaven and Earth separated, 65, 66.
  Heaven and the Underworld, 62.
  Heké craves peace, 219.
  Heké's bold acts, 211.
  Hobson and Auckland, 193.
    and Colonel Wakefield, 189.
    and the land-sharks, 181.
    character, 194, 195.
  Hochstetter Fall, 31.
  Hocken, Dr., 419.
  Hongi, chief of the Ngapuhi, 130-136.
    at Rotorua, 135.
    and the missionaries, 153.
    in England, 131.
  Hongi storms Mataki-taki, 134.
    his treachery at Totara, 133.
  Hot Springs, 21.
  Hokitika founded, 315.
  Hospitals and the State, 368.
  Houses, 401.
  Huka waterfall, 22.

  Imperialism, 227.
  Imperial troops withdrawn, 292.
  Income Tax, 373.
  Industrial Schools, 381.
  Infants' Life Protection Act, 381.
  Insurance Department, 337.
  Irish riots in Hokitika, 317.
    settlers, 2.

  Jade, or greenstone, 36.
  Jewish element, 400.
  Joint-Stock companies, 375.

  Kaiapoi attacked, 149.
    falls before Rauparaha, 151.
  Kaikouras, 28.
  Kauri gum, 319-322.
    pines, 320.
  Kelly's escape, 108, 109.
  Kemp, 292-294.
  Kepa, _see_ Kemp.
  King-maker, 262.
  King movement, 263.
  Kingi, _see_ Wiremu, pp. 264, 265, 273.
  Kororáreka an Alsatia, 154, 155
    burnt, 213.

  Labour Department, 392.
    laws, 381, 382.
  Labour members, 347.
    party, 369.
    problems, 367-372.
  Lakes, 21.
  Land Commissioners' Strictures, 198.
    difficulties, 187, 188.
    law reforms and dissensions, 353-360.
    laws of Grey, 248.
    Minister of, 354.
    purchase, 164.
    purchase regulations of Fitzroy, 209.
    questions, 246.
    Tax, 373.
    tenure in early Maori days, 39.
    Transfer Law, 339.
    leasehold question, 357.
  Lee, Professor, 119, 131.
  Legislative Council, 250, 376.
  Literature, 409.
    on New Zealand, 415-422.
  Liquor questions, 362-366.
  Local administration, 330.
  Lodging regulations, 384.
  Lower House, 347.
  Lunatic asylums, 368.
  Lynch law at Kororáreka, 155.

  Macquarie appoints magistrates, 156.
  Maning, the Pakeha Maori, 100, 199, 416.
  Maori ailments, 54.
    before the mast, 111.
    bravery, 281.
    codes of observances, 69.
  Maori, decrease of, 398.
    fishing, 40, 43.
    language written, 119.
    lore and legend, 68.
    Members of Parliament, 348.
    place names, 51.
    trading, 262.
    voyages, 35.
  Marion du Fresne, 87-91.
  Marsden, 129.
    as missionary, 111-117.
  Martin, Sir William, 224.
  Mata-ora, 62.
  Maui, 45.
    the God-hero, 67.
  McDonnell, Colonel, 297, 298.
    defeats Te Kooti, 304.
  McKenzie, John, 344, 359, 362, 370.
  McLean, Sir Donald, 307, 308.
  Migration of the Maori, 36.
  Mining Acts, 391.
  Missionaries, 198, 199, 306.
  Missionary efforts, 111-120.
    reforms, 97.
  Mountains, 27.
  Mountain scenery, 10.
  Moko, or tattooing, 45-48.
  Municipal shortcomings, 329.
  Murray at Waireka, 270.
  Muri Whenua, the Land's End, 61.
  Muru, Law of, 56.
  Mythology of the Maori, 60-74.

  Native Department, 260.
  Nature and the Maori, 50, 51.
  Nene, 221.
  Nene at Okaihau, 214.
    honoured by Grey, 219.
  New Plymouth under martial law, 268.
  Newspapers, 410.
  New Zealand Association, 171.
    Company, 231.
    Company wound up, 246.
    Land Company, 173.
  Ngapuhi finally checked, 139.
  Ngatapa captured, 303.
  Ngutu-o-te-manu retreat, 298.
  _Niger_ bluejackets at Waireka, 271, 272.
  Notable whalers, 127.

  Occupation of New Zealanders, 406.
  Ohaeawai attacked by Despard, 215.
  Old Identities, 233.
  Omaranui victory, 297.
  Orakau besieged, 281.
  Otago _Daily Times_, 410.
    goldfields, 312, 313.
    settled, 231.
  Otira Gorge, 29.
  Overtime, 383.

  Pakeha Maori, 100.
    Maori, _see_ Maning.
  Papa, 25.
  Paper money issued by Fitzroy, 209.
  Parihaka, 308.
  Parliament, account of, 347-350.
    established, 250.
  Parties in Parliament, 258, 259.
  Pa, or fortified village, 48.
  Pastoral developments, 242, 243.
    restrictions, 356.
  Pasture land, 14.
  Payment of Members, 347.
  Pests, animal and vegetable, 18, 19.
  Physical features, 5, 10.
  Pohutu-Kawa, 61.
  Polynesian origin of Maoris, 33.
  Poll-tax on Chinese, 398.
  Population, 401, 402.
  Postal difficulties, 239.
  Poverty Bay massacre, 301.
  Pratt, General, 273, 274.
  Presbyterians, 231.
  Preservation of scenery, 32.
  Priests as instructors, 68.
  Printing, first attempts, 120.
    press established, 119.
  Prohibition movement, 363.
  Property Tax, 372.
  Protectionist policy, 352.
  Provincial Councils established, 250.
    system, 256, 324.
  Provincialism abolished, 328.
  Public debt, 406.
    Trustee Office, 337, 338.
    Works policy, 325, 330.

  Quartz mining, 319.

  Railways, 326, 367, 406.
  Rata, 8.
  Rangi, 60, 62, 65.
  Rangihaeata, 219.
    kills Captain Wakefield, 201.
  Rangitiri, fight at, 280.
  Rauparaha, 140, 143-151, 187.
    and Captain Wakefield, 200.
    at Akaroa, 148.
    taken by Grey, 220.
  Rauparaha's treachery toward the Ngaitahu, 146.
  Reeves, Hon. W.P., 395.
  Reform, 354.
  Rehua, 60.
  Rent of Government land, 359.
  Revenue, 406.
  Rewi, 282.
  Rivers and streams, 22-24.
  Robe, the Charon of the Maori, 62.
  Rolleston, 344.
  Rona of the Moon, 64.
  Ropata at Ngatapa, 302, 303.
  Ropata Te Wahawaha, 294-296.
  Ruapehu volcano, 28.
  Rua-peka-peka taken, 218.
  Ruatara, 112-115.
  Rusden's History, 418.

  Schools in Otago, 232.
    public, 340.
  Scots settlers, 232.
  Scriptures translated into Maori, 119.
  Seddon, Rt. Hon. R.J., 362, 370, 393.
  Self-reliance policy, 290.
  Selwyn, Bishop, 212, 225, 261.
  Sentry Hill repulse, 287.
  Servants' registry regulations, 386.
  Settlement by Polynesians, 33.
  Settlers among the Maori, 99.
    difficulties, 238.
    sent to Port Nicholson, 177.
  Sheep-lifting by Mackenzie, 241.
  Shipping and Seamen's Act, 390.
  Shop Acts, 384, 385.
    Assistants Act, 395, 396.
  Shortland as Acting Governor, 196.
  Shortland's financial troubles, 202, 203.
  Slang, 403, 404.
  Smith, Percy, 417.
  Social life, 412.
  Socialism, 396, 397.
  South Island a later settlement, 191.
  South Sea tribes, 33.
  Speech of New Zealand, 403.
  Spelling of Maori words, 121.
  Spirits' Leap, 61.
  Stafford and Fox, 256.
  State institutions, 367.
    Land Board, 358.
    socialism, 396, 397.
  Stewart arrested, 149.
    assists Rauparaha, 147.
  Stout, Sir Robert, 345, 362, 364.
  Strikes, 388.
  Sugar-Loaves pa attacked by Te Whero Whero, 141.
  Sunday schools, 401.
  Swainson as Speaker, 254.
  Swainson's book, 418.
    ordinances, 224.

  Tainui stories, 38.
  Tai Porutu killed, 274.
  Tané and Tu, 65, 66.
  Taniwha's account of Captain Cook, 83.
  Tapu, Law of, 46.
    (taboo) Customs 70-73.
  Taranaki devastated, 143, 267.
    crippled by Fitzroy, 208.
    settlers' grievances, 261.
  Tasman sights New Zealand, 75.
    refused a landing, 76.
    reaches North Cape, 77.
  Tattooed heads, 157.
    heads for sale, 97.
  Tattooing, 45-48.
  Tauranga defeat, 283.
    tribe attacked, 282.
  Tawhaki, 63.
  Tawhiri-Matea, the god of storms, 66.
  Taxation difficulties, 342, 343.
  Te Heu Heu opposes annexation, 180.
  Te Kooti a fugitive, 304.
    at Mohaka, 304.
    pardoned, 305.
  Te Kooti's escape from the Chathams, 300.
    revenge, 301.
  Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke, 277.
  Te Rangi engagement, 283.
  Te Waharoa, 136-140.
  Te Whero Whero, 140-142, 221, 263.
  Te Whiti, 308.
  Thames goldfields, 318.
  Thierry, Baron de, 162.
  Thompson, William, 139, 262, 278, 285.
  Titokowaru leads the insurgents, 297.
  Torere, or Maori cemeteries, 73.
  Trade statistics, 406.
    Union disputes, 386.
    Unionism, 369, 385, 388, 389.
  Trading with the Maori, 96.
  Treasury deficits, 203.
  Tregear, Edward, 418.
  Tribal customs, 41, 42, 57.
  Truck Act, 382.
  Tuapeka goldfields, 311.
  Tutari killed by Hau-Hau, 302.

  University, State, 407.
  Upper Chamber, 376.

  Vancouver, 95.
  Victorian assistance, 268.
  Vogel, Sir Julius, 325-330.
  Vogel's reforms, 337-339.
  Volcanoes, 20.
  Volckner murdered, 295.

  Wages, 382.
  Waiapu victory, 296.
  Waikato defeated at Koheroa, 278.
    land invaded, 278.
    river, 22.
    troubles, 264.
  Wairau fiasco, 200, 201.
  Waitangi, Treaty of, 180.
  Waitara massacre, 140.
  Wakefield, Arthur, 199, 200.
  Wakefield, Arthur, surrenders to Rauparaha, 201.
    murdered, 201.
  Wakefield, Colonel, 172-176.
  Wakefield, Gibbon, 166-172.
    and Canterbury, 234.
    in Parliament, 254.
  Wakefield's land schemes, 169.
  Wakefield system, 247, 257, 327, 328.
  War, a game, 49.
    customs, 48, 49.
    with Maori, beginning of, 200.
    begun by Heké, 211.
    outbreak in 1860, 265.
    at an end, 305.
    statistics, 306.
  Weld, Sir Frederick, 289, 290.
  Wellington, 127.
    as capital, 194.
    Duke of, 157, 158.
  Weraroa captured, 292.
  Wesleyan missionaries, 153.
  Westland goldfields, 314.
  Whalers approach New Zealand, 122.
    and their Maori wives, 125.
    at Kororáreka, 154.
  Whaling stations erected, 123.
  Whitaker, Sir Fredk., 337, 343, 344, 345.
  Whitmore, Colonel, 297, 298, 300, 301, 305.
  Williams, Henry, 116, 193, 212.
  Wiremu Tamihana, _see_ Thompson, William.
  Wool-growing, 244, 245.
  Women and the franchise, 378-381.
  Women-fighters, 282.
  Work hours, 383.
  Wynyard as Viceroy, 252, 253.