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.
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