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debentures were withdrawn, the pre-emptive right of the Crown over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.