NEW ZEALAND

Aspects of New Zealand - Part 3

MAORI AND SETTLER - (1642-1870)

THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE STATE

 

The first 'colony' in New Zealand company settlers reached Fort Nicholson late in January 1840. A few days later Captain Hobson, with his little entourage of civil servants transferred from New South Wales to the prospective government of New Zealand, arrived at the Bay of Islands. these two evens marked the beginning of a struggle between settlers and Governor which was to continue, with little intermission, for thirty years, and the inception of a rivalry between north and south (terms with more than a geographic significance) which was to become a permanent feature of New Zealand life. What was more important, they also marked the transfer to New Zealand of the argument between humanitarians and 'systematic colonizers'. the theories of both parties were now to be put to the test.

 

On 3 February several hundred Maoris gathered at Waitangi - the Waters of Lamentation - to discuss the greatest question which ever came before a Maori assembly. The debate in the marquee which was erected on the lawn in front of the British Residency was no academic contest of wit, no organized parties made the result a foregone conclusion. Had the majority refused to accept him, Hobson could no have annexed the country. Many powerful chiefs longed to return tot he golden Polynesian age before white sails had divided their unchanging horizons. They had no need, they argued, for blankets or bread; flax matting and fern-root had satisfied their ancestors. Furthermore, they were afraid that if the Governor stayed, chiefly dignity would be overthrown and they would be as low as worms. Already much land had been sold to the missionary or trader. They own past improvidence with their chief possession now seemed, in Maori eyes, to accuse the European. soon, one chief foretold, the Maori would 'be reduced to the condition of slaves, and be obliged to break stones for the road'. some of them feared a worse fate, for they had heard of the Tasmanian Aborigines.

 

In the end these conservatives were defeated. Tamati Wake Nene, one of the greatest chiefs of the Ngapuhi tribe, won the day when he called on necessity and hope to put down nostalgia and fear. It was too late to turn the white man away. They should be said, have told the grog-seller to depart a generation ago. British colonization had begun and British authority must follow, but to him it held out the promise of better days. Christianity, trade, tribal peace were blessings for which he would exchange the pagan past for the anarchic present. He called to Hobson:

 

remain for as a father, a judge, a peacemaker. You must not allow as to become slaves. You must preserve our customs, and never permit our lands to be wrested from us ... Stay then, our friend, our father, our governor.

 

On a February some fifty chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, Missionaries and officials then carried it about the country and, after much farther discussion, over five hundred Maoris, mostly chiefs, added their marks. The chiefs of the Arawa, the Ngatihaua, the Ngatimaniapoto and many other tribes either were now asked to sign or, like Te Wherowhero, the great leader of the Waikato, refused to sign away their power. What those who signed or those who refused may have understood by the treaty, it is difficult to say. by the first article the chiefs ceded their sovereignty to the Queen. In return the Queen guaranteed the Maoris in the possession of the lands, forests, fisheries and other property which collectively or individually, they possessed. the chiefs yielded to the Queen the sole right of purchasing their lands. Finally the chiefs were given the rights and privileges of British subjects. One chief interpreted the treaty as meaning that 'the shadow of the land goes to Queen Victoria, but the substance remains with us'. As under-Secretary in the Colonial Office, reading these words, feared that the Maoris would discover the they had parted with a not substantial shadow. 

 

It is improbable that Captain Hobson was aware of the fact that the Treaty of Waitangi had no standing in international law, but though he was no lawyer, he seemed determined that the country should become as firmly British as his ingenuity could make it. He had been given two commissions; one appointing him consul, the other, Lieutenant-Governor over any territory which might be acquired for Great Britain in New Zealand. the mention of the British Government was plainly that, in his capacity as Consul, he should negotiate with the Maoris for the recognition of British sovereignty, and should then take office as Lieutenant-governor over such parts of the country as they should cede. On arriving at the Bay of Islands, however, and before the negotiations at Waitangi, he declared himself Lieutenant-Governor of a British colony that did not, as yet, exist. 

 

After the transactions at Waitangi, while Maori signatures were being collected throughout the country, he learned that the New Zealand company setters were making their own laws, and had already had a man imprisoned. he thought it imperative to put a stop to those proceedings, which he regarded as treasonable; so witho9ut waiting to hear from his agents whether the Maoris in the cook Strait region and the south island had signed the treaty, on 21 May he proclaimed British sovereignty over the whole country, the North Island on the ground of cession by the Maoris, the south island by right of discovery. Although he had been authorized, if he saw fit, to ignore the few Maoris inhabiting the South Island, it is difficult to see what justification there was for doing so.

 

That Hobson fleet something was lacking in this procedure was suggested in July when a French corvette arrived in the Bay of Islands. Knowing of the French plans for a settlement on Banks Peninsula, and suspecting that to be the destination of the French vessel, he instructed the captain of a British brig, H.M.S. Britomart, to hurry there in order to consolidate British claims by establishing effective occupation. the British flag had been hoisted when the French gunboat, followed immediately by a ship brining a handful of French colonists, arrived at Akaroa. There was, however, no 'rave' to Akaroa, for the French captain had no intention of contesting the British claims.  New Zealand was at last British, by discovery, occupation, cession and - the definitive act - by virtue of Hobson's proclamation of 21 May. the islands were technically part of New South Wales for a year; and thereafter a separate colony. Though the acquisition of sovereignty had been altogether a curious business, nevertheless British policy proce4ded from an assumption which was unquestionably as just as it was unusual. The government accepted that the country, or at least the populous North Island, belonged to its native inhabitants, and neither ignored their rights nor attempted to qualify their dominion out of existence by appealing to international law.

 

The Treaty of Waitangi was intended to lay a basis for a just society in which two races, far apart in civilization, could live together in amity. It merited the symbolic significance which it came to assume in the minds of both peoples. At the time, however, though almost everyone concerned received some satisfaction, it pleased no one entirely. The British Government had been forced to accept more responsibility than it wanted, the treaty (and official proclamations invalidating land purchases unless confirmed by the Crown) prevented unrestricted settlement by the New Zealand Company; and the missionaries had lost their preserve. but at least Wakefield could derive some satisfaction from the fact that New Zealand was British, while James Stephen and Dandeson Coates could hope that, under a humanitarian government, Maori interests might not be entirely overlooked.  

 

No Delphic oracle was needed to prophesy the history of the first few years of regular settlement and government in New Zealand. Anyone in he colonial Office, anyone who had read the history of colonization in America or Australia, could imagine something of the native and land troubles, the shortage of capital, the confusion in the Civil Service, the unpopularity of the governors, and the settlers' demands for self-government. Despite lofty talk of systematic colonization and British law and order, for some years after 1840 New Zealand exhibited a scene of anarchy more varied than before. where cultures met or colonies were planted it was always so. What distinguished the situation in New Zealand from that in earlier days in Australia was the numerical supremacy of the Maoris, their proximity and their formidable fighting prowess. The European towns for a decade or more were mere encampments on the fringe of Polynesia; the settlers held their land on the doubtful tenure of Maori sufferance. consequently a solution of the problems arising from the contact of the two cultures was a necessity upon which, for both races, all progress attended.

 

Almost all of the more serious difficulties of the settlers and their government were related to - if they did not derive from - the fundamental problem of racial relations. but, though they were dependent on the Maoris even for food, the New Zealand Company setters were blind to this reality or reluctant to face it. For instance, when governor Hobson decided, in 1840, to take his capital on the Waitemata Harbour and not at Port Nicholson, the Company settlers were indignant. they maintained that the site should be decided on geographical grounds alone and that a glance at the map was sufficient to reveal the superior claims of their own town. But Auckland was central in another sense. It lay between the two chief European settlements at Kororareka and Port Nicholson (where Wellington was to be built), and between the two areas with the densest Maori population, the Waikato and surrounding districts, and the country to the north of Auckland. It was a good choice for the site of a capital for the kind of New Zealand society which Hobson envisaged: a bi-racial community. this was the natural anticipation of such persons as Hobson and his successor, Robert FitzRoy, who had visited the country in the days before British sovereignty. In his book Poenamo, Dr Logan Campbell relates how, on his arrival in 1840 at the Waitemata harbour (where Auckland was soon to be established), he realized that, since the Maoris would long be 'the dominant race', his fortunes rested with them. For a time he went to live with a nighbouring tribe, where he served his apprenticeship in the new land by helping to hollow out a canoe, and came to love his hosts. But to the Company settlers, as to Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the man who inspired their migration, New Zealand's destiny was to provide a home for British migrants. There was no room, except perhaps on the periphery of their vision, for Maoris. It was many years before they would admit that the success of their settlements depended to their ability to live with the native New Zealanders.

 

Even the government finances were largely derived in one way or another, from the Maoris. Formany years the settlers were poor and could not be expected to pay much in taxation. the British Government, in the face of all its past experience of colonies, persisted in hoping that Wakefield was to be trusted at least in his promise that systematic colonization would pay for itself. The Treasury waited until the colony was bankrupt before giving grudging aid. At first Hobson was hopeful that the re-sale of Crown land, purchased from the Maoris, would provide a large revenue. When sales failed to come up to expectations he tried to rely on customs revenues, which largely fell on the Maoris; but it was impossible to stop smuggling; and the cost of collecting the duties on such a; long coastline absorbed a large part of the paltry revenue gained. Eventually he had to discount bills drawn on the British Treasury, at exorbitant interest, with an Australian bank; and the Treasury had reluctantly to pay them. When he died in 1842, worn out by his task, his successor, Robert FitzRoy, against instructions, issued government debentures which he declared legal tender. Needless to say this bad paper currency drove out good sovereigns. 

 

FitzRoy found himself in an impossible situation and succeeded in making it worse. The Maoris at the Bay of Islands were rapidly becoming discontented with the new order. One of their chief complaints was that the levy of customs was driving away shipping and hence their long-established trade. In 1844 FitzRoy abolished the customs duty and substituted for it a property tax, thus leading the world, he boasted, in putting into practice the 'true and beautiful' theory and free trade. In later years New Zealand was to prove rather fond of claiming for its4lf world leadership, but in this case it proved a costly mistake, for it led to a rapid drop in revenue. FitzRoy also proceeded to extend the free trade principle to land dealings, and thus to destroy the sole potential source of substantial revenue which remained. 

 

Old settlers greatly resented the Crown monopoly of purchasing Maori lands, which excluded them from a speculation bound to be profitable as immigration increased. Since the impoverished Government was unable to buy much land for re-sale to settlers, newcomers sometimes joined in the protests of the would-be speculators. furthermore, some of the Maori were disgusted with the Crown ire-emption, both because of the few purchases made and because the Government, which relied on the profits from land sales for part of its revenue, paid much less for their land than they could have obtained on an open market. FitzRoy bowed to what he called 'popular feeling', though it seems in reality to have been merely the noisy agitation of a minority. Early in 1844 he waived the Crown right of pre-emption and allowed individual settlers to purchase land from the Maoris on payment of a tax of ten shillings an acre to the Gove4rnment. A few months later he reduced the tax in a penny.

 

The political question that most interested the settlers was land policy, which, since the Maoris owned most of the land, was in practice a branch of native policy. the English authorities, briefed by the humanitarians, were well aware of the vital importance of land in the relations between European settlers and the native inhabitants of colonies. consequently they had both guaranteed the Maoris in their landed possession and declared that no European land claims would be recognized until they had been investigated and confirmed by a Crown grant. Hobson and his successors instituted a scrutiny of pre-Waitangi land claims, whether of missionaries, settlers, or Sydney speculators, to determine to what extent purchases had been fair. The investigations went on interminably and kept old settlers in a constant state of litigation and apoplexy.

 

A lawyer, William Spain, was sent from London to decide the validity of the New Zealand company purchases. After holding court for three years he found that only a small proportion of the 20,000,000 acres to which the company laid claim had been fairly purchased by its agent, Colonel Wakefield. Wherever Spain went Maoris challenged the company's title. In founding its first group of anxious speculators than determined idealists. Not only did the company recruit settler before it possessed a site, but it sold in advance the land it hoped Colonel Wakefield would buy and dispatched the first settlers without waiting to hear whether he had been successful. The settlers, who had arrived to find that land unsurveyed, now learned from Spain that much of it still belonged to the Maoris. In the end Spain succeeded in smoothing the settlers' path; but it took time. The delay was disastrous for many settlers, who had to waste their capital in the town instead of getting on to their farms. that the investigations were necessary, however, may be seen from the fact that at every one of of the New Zealand company sites, within a few years of the settlers' arrival, there was either fighting, or the threat of war with the Maoris over the company's disputed land purchases.

 

In Wellington the Maoris, who denied having sold several of their villages which stood on the site intended for the town, and to stop the survey. Two years after the second Company settlement, Nelson, was established in 1841, there was a serious incident (termed by the settlers the 'Wairau massacre') when Cap0tain Arthur Wakefield and several other Europeans were killed, while attempting to arrest two turbulent chiefs, Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, ostensibly for burning surveyors' hats, but in reality for resisting the survey of land which the Maoris denied having sold. In this case Fitzroy rightly concluded that the settlers were in the wrong. While condemning the murders, he refused to take action against the murderers. Whether it would have been wiser to have demanded utu (payment, revenge), as the Maoris expected, in order to teach the chiefs that they could no longer act as they had in the tribal wars of the twenties and thirties, had been debated ever since. Certainly Ocatvius Hadfield, the Anglican missionary at Otaki and one who knew and understood the Maoris as well as any European, believed that 'a sufficient demonstration' of military strength was necessary to impress these arrogant chiefs with the realities of British power. Perhaps the governor was wiser, however, in fearing that the small forces at his disposal might create the wrong impression.  

 

At New Plymouth, in Taranaki, where the Plymouth company, an offshoot of the New Zealand company, established a settlement in 1841, the two races hovered on the brink of war for almost twenty years. Spain had reported that the Taranaki purchase, alone of Colonel Wakefield's claims, had been fair and had awarded the settlers 60,000 acres. Taranaki was almost unpopulated because in the twenties, after many of the local Maoris had migrated to Otaki and Cook Strait, the Waikato tribes had killed or enslaved almost all the rest. It seemed to Spain that a large area could be granted to the company witho9ut injury to Maori interests, but he ignored the absentee owners who had received none of Wakefield's paltry payment. After 1840 sections of the local tribes, many freed from slavery in the Waikato, began to drift back. Ariawa tribesmen, returning to the vicinity of New Plymouth and finding Europeans on their land, intimidated the 'out-settlers' and obstructed surveyors. FitzRoy ordered a fresh investigation of the company's title, and decided to set aside Commissioner Spain's award. Instead he purchased from the Maoris 3,500 acres round the town. Once again he was justified, for the Company title had been most defective and Spain's award could only have been given effect by force. The settlers, however, saw nothing except that the governor had thrown away most of their best land, the coastal strip northwards from New Plymouth to beyond the Waitara River.

 

The facts of the situation throughout New Zealand justified the views of the British Government, the first governors, and the old settlers on the paramount importance of racial relations. for some years, however, the local government was conspicuously unsuccessful in its attempts to keep on good terms with the Maoris. there was, it is true, a Protectorate Department, which had been set up by Hobson, but it was not the Maoris who most needed protection. In any case that department, hampered by lack of funds and poorly staffed, was able to do very little. It investigated a few crimes, spent a few pounds on medicine for the Maoris, and for a time acted as the government agency for the purchase of Maori land. the Chief Protector, George Clarke, an indolent and ineffectual man, who had been a missionary and before that a gunsmith, at least protested vigorously and successfully against this incongruous conjunction of tasks, to guard the Maoris' interests and to separate them from their lands.

 

The Foundations Of The State - Part 2

 

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 (E-mail: jane@janeresture.com -- Rev. 22nd February 2008)