fairly attribute the scheme to Rauparaha. However, I satisfied myself
that the information which had reached me was well-founded. It had been
brought by a man who was in touch with the Maoris creeping down the
coast, and who could speak Maori. These bodies of natives, you
understand, had prevented all news travelling. That was how they were
able to get so near, without our being aware of it.
'What was I to do? Was I to delay until actually attacked? That would
have been to wait for too much proof of the plot; and my information
satisfied me. I had a picked force put on board a man-of-war lying at
Wellington, and with it, and another small vessel, we set out for
Rauparaha's country. Besides myself, only three or four of the officers,
I suppose, knew the nature of our mission. We landed, after dark, at a
point of the sea coast near Rauparaha's camp, quietly surrounded it,
burst in and captured him. The thing was to swoop into the camp before
the Maoris could have any warning, or attempt to resist. Thus an
encounter, involving slain and wounded, would be avoided. Rauparaha was
taken off to the ships in a boat, and we conveyed him to Wellington.
'The results were as I had anticipated, for Rauparaha being our prisoner,
there was nobody to give the word of command to the Maori disaffectants,
who melted away. I told Rauparaha there were two courses open to him. He
could take his trial, before an open court, for what he had done, or he
could remain a prisoner, until I thought the interests of peace would
permit me to release him. He elected to continue my prisoner, and other
chiefs became bail for him when I did let him go.
'Rauparaha's defence was that he intended no harm, and that he was not in
the plot, for he admitted there was a plot. I asked him why, if he meant
no harm, he did not tell me that all these men had come so near. To that
he had no answer, and besides I submitted to him a letter, which had been
sent up the coast, telling the men to march down. He called the letter a
forgery, but there was no question, in my judgment, that it was dictated
by him and circulated by his desire. The best proof of its genuineness
was that its plan was carried out, that the Maoris did collect in
response to it. Nobody could have managed the business but Rauparaha.
'What would have been the outcome of an attack on Wellington? Turmoil! I
certainly believe that it would have been attacked. Then, a large force
must have been sent to punish the raiders, or Wellington would have had
to be abandoned. In either event, the progress of New Zealand would have
been thrown back for years.'
Though restored to his tribe, Rauparaha never regained his power, and was
a desolate man. It was a characteristic of the Maoris, that when a chief
had a tumble he lost his influence. To that detail Sir George added
another, namely that Rauparaha was a very good speaker. Indeed, many of
the Maoris had the true gift of eloquence. Rauparaha left some Maori
manuscripts, about himself, to the Governor who had so unceremoniously
made him captive. It was a tribute to that Governor's genius for
attaching the regard of men, converting even enemies into friends.
Another instance, and another incident, lie in the conversion of
Rangihaeta to road-making. He had rushed to the rescue of Rauparaha, on
hearing of his capture. It was the chivalrous daring of one chief,
towards the brother in distress, but unavailing. Not a hair of anybody's
head had been hurt, yet Rauparaha was already beyond his friend's reach.
Rangihaeta sulked into his own fastnesses--a rumble of discontent and
vengeance. Sir George did not wish him to remain in a state holding so
little happiness. Moreover, the all-important high roads must invade even
Rangihaeta's territory. Diplomatic overtures were not wasted; they
blossomed quietly, and then bloomed on an inspiration.
'When the old fellow had begun to get frail and ill,' said Sir George, 'I
sent him a pretty pony and trap. The sea shore, at his part of New
Zealand, offered a splendid stretch of firm sand, one of the finest
drives in the world. Delighted with his carriage, he would use it; only a
breadth of rough land intervened between his pa and the beach. He could
not drive across it, so what does he do but turn out his men to make a
roadway.
'There was merriment in Maoriland at the idea that Rangihaeta, hitherto
sternly opposed to our roads, should himself be constructing one. That
was as I had hoped, and he made no more difficulties for us. How could
he? There he was, almost every afternoon, driving on the sands in all the
pride of peacock feathers. Not merely that, but he aired his sister
Topera, a woman of first-rate abilities, and of wide influence among the
Maoris.'
Meanwhile, an outbreak at Wanganui furnished Sir George with material for
his administrative wits. He was strolling up and down, deep in
meditation, on a sort of terrace at his residence in Auckland. Turning,
he noticed a Maori running towards him, and the next moment the Maori was
rubbing his nose against the Governor's, the native fashion of salute.
Sir George, himself, had raced one of the fleetest members of a Maori
tribe, throwing off his coat to do it, and proving the victor. 'I was
somewhere on the coast, with several of my officers and a number of Maori
chiefs, and there was a debate as to running. I ventured the statement
that I could, perhaps, beat the Maoris at a distance contest. They
selected their best man, a young chief, and I fancy it took me more than
half a mile to get away from him.'
Those civilities were very well in their place, but the Governor would
have dispensed with the nose rubbing of the native at his doorstep, so
anxious was he to learn the reason. There was news in the man's face, and
when he gathered words, it proved to be that of the Wanganui outbreak.
A spark there, had been the going off, by mishap, of a midshipmite's
pistol. The lad was toying with it, amusing himself and a Maori chief.
'Look here, old fellow!' he had exclaimed, and to his own amazement the
pistol went bang, hurting the chief in the face.
Extracting from his Maori mercury, every point of information he could
furnish, Sir George ordained silence upon him, lest uneasiness might be
caused among the people of Auckland. Then, on the plea of making a rapid
tour of the outposts of the Colony, he organised a move on Wanganui. He
went thither by sea, with a contingent of troops and a body-guard of
leading Maori chiefs.
'These,' Sir George smiled, 'had been vowing all sorts of handsome things
to me, and I took them at their word. I said to them that no better
opportunity could arise, enabling them to fulfil their promises. They
would be beside me, ready to send orders to their several tribes, should
the assistance of these be needed. I need hardly add, that nothing
untoward could happen in the localities which the chiefs denoted, while
they were absent with me. Generally, I went about with a group of them in
my train, as I preferred to have the possibilities of trouble with me.
They took kindly to travel, and they always behaved most admirably
towards me.'
As his vessel touched the Wanganui shore, a Maori was seen scouring along
it, in desperate haste. Behind, there raced a thread of enemies, Maoris
on the war-path, but the man plunged into the surf before they could
overtake him. Sir George imagined that here was another messenger, with
information from the little Wanganui garrison of British soldiers. It was
necessary he should hear tidings without a moment's delay, and he jumped
into the ship's boat, which had been lowered to pick up the swimmer. The
latter was pulled into it dripping wet, and in a rare state of
excitement.
He seized Sir George, to salute him in Maori fashion, and the roll of the
boat sent them both sprawling among the thwarts. Not minding that, the
Maori kept vigorously rubbing the nose of his Excellency, who made the
plaintive comment, 'I could not help myself. Besides, I had no grievance,
unless that the Maori was using up, with his nose, precious minutes, to
which he might better have given his tongue. That's an unusual compliment
to pay the latter human member.'
The Wanganui crisis was settled by a show of strength, and a shrewd
ukase, for Sir George set himself against more fighting. The recalcitrant
Maoris had been accustomed to come down the river to trade, getting in
return, sugar, tobacco, and other dainty necessaries.
'I shut them off from all that, until such time as they should submit,
and undertake to live in peace. Neither could they meet their friends,
and tiring of these laws, they gave in.' It was the boycott, employed by
a Queen's servant, long before the word itself entered our language.
During the disturbances, a Maori leader, in sincere quest for tobacco,
found something more deadly. He was rummaging a provision chest, not his
own, when a wandering bullet plunged through the roof of the wooden
cottage. It entered his head and put out his pipe for ever. The
occurrence gave the Maoris an eerie shiver, for it was as if death had
fallen straight from Heaven. They were learning to look up there, though
a chief, the story went, once rebuked a missionary: 'You tell me to turn
my gaze to Heaven, not to care for earthly things, and all the time you
are grabbing my land.'
XI THE THRILL OF GOVERNING
Nothing is small in the making of an empire. It is the seeming trifles
that often shape the way, fair or foul. This was a clear article of faith
in Sir George Grey, and he would give it picturesque sittings. It had
been with him wherever he carried the flag; it dotted Australia, New
Zealand, and South Africa with milestones of policy. These might not be
visible to others, but he knew, having planted them. They told of what
had been done, by means of the little things; a bulwark against the
undoing of the great things. Ever, the handling of personal elements was
the master touch, the vast secret.
Take Sir George's entrance into the circle of Knights Commanders of the
Bath, with Waka Nene and Te Puni for Esquires. He was one of the youngest
K.C.B.'s ever nominated, being only thirty-six, and he just preceded his
old friend Sir James Stephen. 'It struck me as a great shame,' his
feeling had been, 'that one to whom I was so much attached, whose
services to the State were so much longer than mine, should be made to
follow me in the "Gazette." I could have cried over it.'
The notion of Esquires belongs, no doubt, to the truculent age when a
brace of henchmen were useful beside the stirrup of a knight. Sir George
did not revive them, in New Zealand, as a body-guard in any warlike
meaning. Herein, there possibly lay a certain disappointment for his
friends Waka Nene and Te Puni, both Maori chiefs of martial qualities.
The purpose was to identify the Maori people with a reward, which the
Queen of England had conferred upon her representative in New Zealand.
'It is not for me alone,' Sir George Grey put the honour, 'but for all of
us in this distant part of the realm. Therefore you, Waka Nene and Te
Puni, shall join in the acceptance, in proof that the Queen forgets none
of her subjects, no matter who they may be, or where they may dwell.'
This was a sprig of the policy which he felt must be pursued by an Empire
called to boundless limits. Did it rest its control of the nations,
successively adopted into it, upon their fears, upon a compelled
obedience? Why, it would but grow the weaker as it spread, until
eventually a time must arrive when, from its very vastness, it would fall
into fragments. On the other hand, if, as it spread its dominion, it also
spread equal laws, the Christian faith, Christian knowledge, and
Christian virtues, it would link firmly to itself, by the ties of love
and gratitude, each nation it adopted. Thus, it would grow in strength as
it grew in area, its dominion being an object sought for, rather than
submitted to impatiently.
Go into the engine-room of administration, and listen to the clatter of
yon modest pinion in a corner! That is, follow the avoidance of a peril
in New Zealand, which might easily have sown more seeds of race warfare.
There had been a mysterious, deadly tragedy on the outskirts of Auckland,
a retired naval lieutenant and his family the victims. The affair
profoundly moved the young community, having regard to the unrest which
had been rife in the land. Several natives were arrested as suspects, and
Europeans put it to the Governor, 'We shall certainly all be murdered,
unless you deal sharply with them.'
A leading Maori chief of the district went away, to be out of the serious
trouble which, he feared, might arise at any moment. The Governor sent
after him the message: 'The manner in which to meet difficulty is not to
flee from it, and you must come back. I relied upon you to behave with
sense and courage, and I'm confident you will still bear me out in that
view.' The chief did return, but said Sir George, 'He upbraided me as
being, to all appearance, a Governor quite unable to deal with such a
problem as confronted me.' This was an exquisite turning of the tables.
'Why,' argued the old Maori, 'could you not at once have hanged the
natives who were arrested? If you had done that, everybody's mind would
have been at rest, but, as things are, nobody feels safe. We imagine that
we may be blamed for the crime, while the English can have no confidence
so long as no person has been punished. You see at what we have arrived.'
Any spark might now fire the bracken, and it was the task of Sir George
to prevent that. His despatches and blue-books, fodder for the browse of
Downing Street, had to wait upon this other business, which would not
even go into them. Not unless there was a crash, during a moment's want
of vigilance, or by lack of perfectly deft management. The greater empire
making, it is evident, was not to have to write any blue-books. None were
written, for the tension between European and Maori healed in the hands
of the patient doctor. It turned out that a Van Diemen's Land convict was
the villain of that remote New Zealand drama.
Patoune, an influential Maori chief, had been zealous in the unfathoming
of the mystery, and mentioning that, Sir George Grey was led to say,
'Some time before his death Patoune rowed over from Auckland to my island
at Kawau. Seeing the boat coming, I walked down to the shore to meet its
occupant and conduct him indoors, where he had a long conversation. On
leaving he spoke, "Yes, I wanted to be with you once more, before I go
the way of all men. I have had my last fallen-out tooth set in a walking-
stick, which pray accept, a mark of our friendship." As you can suppose,
this affected me deeply. A piece of bone is a kind of Maori talisman, and
Patoune meant his tooth to bring luck to me. He thought my carrying it
about with me, might one day save me from misfortune.'
The incidents of governing are incongruous; they jostle queerly. An
official letter was put into the hands of Sir George Grey, as he stood on
the seashore at Wanganui, watching a skirmish in progress with the
Maoris. He seated himself, opened the envelope, and forgot the crack of
muskets in the document it contained. This was the first constitution for
New Zealand, and he was instructed to introduce the same. He didn't; only
that is a very red-letter tale. It should be told simply, as Sir George
Grey told it.
'In the middle of the turmoil at Wanganui,' he stated, 'out comes a
constitution which had been passed by the British Parliament, and
published in the "Gazette." It was, you understand, to be the instrument
under which the New Zealand people should take their full, free place in
the Empire. Up to that date they had not been self-governing; the
Governor ruled. Well, having studied it carefully where I sat, I arrived
at the conclusion that it would not do at all.
'Conceive my surroundings! There I was, with Maori chiefs whom I had
brought from Auckland and Wellington. They trusted me; they were helping
me all they could to bring about a peace. This constitution, I
discovered, would destroy, at one stroke, a treaty--that of Waitangi,
which every Maori in New Zealand held to be sacred. It was a treaty
securing them in their lands; it was their Magna Charta in every respect.
Yet the constitution would go back upon all that, and I should be held
traitor to every one of my pledges to the Maoris. Moreover, it would have
seemed as if I had taken the chiefs away from their various tribes, in
order that these might be the more readily despoiled of their lands.
'Its treatment of the Maoris made the constitution impossible, in my
judgment, and there were other far-reaching objections. It was formed on
the cast-iron methods of the Old World--the methods which, I held, ought
to be kept absolutely out of the New World. My motto might have been,
"Leave us to ourselves; let us try what we can contrive." What was I to
do with a constitution unjust to the bulk of the colonists, as well as to
the Maoris; a plan going tilt against the federation idea which I hoped
would, in future years, uprise in every country speaking the English
tongue?
'What was I to do indeed? My instruction was not alone that of the
Colonial Office; but the constitution had been sanctioned by Parliament.
A man's responsibility, in the largest sense, is, after adequate
deliberation, to proceed as he determines to be just and wise. If he has
to decide, not for himself only, but for others, unto future generations,
there lies his course all the more. There was one clear line for me,
simply to hang up the constitution, and intimate to the home authorities
my ideas about it. This I did, and fortunately, as I thought, my plea
prevailed with the Colonial Secretary and with Parliament. The latter not
merely went back upon its act, a quite extraordinary event in English
Parliamentary history, but empowered me to draw up another constitution
for New Zealand.'
You seek, for a moment, to contemplate the Mother of Parliaments having a
measure she had given forth, bluntly returned upon her. It was a trying
experience, but she emerged from it more worthy than ever of her proud
title. 'We shall give him,' Peel declared, when Sir George Grey went to
New Zealand, 'an assurance of entire confidence. We shall entrust to him,
so far as is consistent with the constitution and laws of this country,
an unfettered discretion.' Parliament lived up to that promise, and Sir
George set himself to the mapping out of an adequate constitution.
'The circumstances under which I drafted it,' he resumed his account,
'were peculiar, not to say romantic. The folks in New Zealand were aware
of the work that had been delegated to me, and of the date at which it
must be carried out. I was to have the constitution going within five
years. There were various interests, and some of these would advance the
request, "Tell us what you are to recommend; let us have a part in
framing the laws under which we are to be governed. You are an autocrat
in your ways, and it is intolerable that we should not have a voice in
the matter."
'Then I consulted my Executive Council, and I found it the autocrat,
unwilling to let me do anything at all. I believed that, if left to
myself, I could fashion something which would secure the gratitude of New
Zealand for all time. I fancied I was capable of that: as I had visions
of a new form of constitution being helpful, far beyond New Zealand. In
the end, when my thoughts had bent to a shape, I went up into the
mountains between Auckland and Wellington, camped on Ruapehu, in a little
gipsy tent, and set to the task. A few Maoris accompanied me to carry the
baggage; nobody else, for I could not have drawn the constitution with a
cloud of advisers about me.
'Where did I get my inspiration? Oh, by talking to the hills and trees,
from long walks, and many hints from the United States constitution. I
sought a scheme of government which should be broad, free, charged with a
young nation's vitality. But the greatest merit of my constitution, was
that the people of New Zealand could alter it at any point, should they
desire to do so. That was why it appeared to me unnecessary to ask a
number of leading men: Did they approve what I was doing? I aimed at a
most liberal constitution, and they could change it to their wishes as
time went on.'
Sir George held man's highest education to be that, which taught him the
rights and duties of citizenship. No call could be more noble; indeed,
here was the essence of all service and religion. Therefore, he conceived
the best system of government, to be one wherein the opportunities for
the exercise of citizenship were the fullest. What could be more pathetic
than the cramping of aspirations, such as had been seen in the case of
Ireland? It was as if the roots of a tree were half destroyed, so
preventing the full flow of strength into the trunk.
Sir George Grey's New Zealand constitution was thus inspired. There was
in it the breath of the mountains; to which he had gone, as the great
law-giver of the Jews went up into them to pray. It proclaimed a minute
self-government, ending in a central Parliament. The powers in London
approved it, with a modification which, looking backward, he pronounced a
vital wound. He made both the Houses of Parliament elective; the
modification made one nominative. It spoiled the fabric of his handiwork.
'The kernel of my plan,' he said, 'was a form of complete home rule,
denominated in provinces. My idea was to give all the localities the
right to levy their own taxes, and establish their own immediate rules.
The great landowners were always antagonistic to this, believing that
these councils would tax them, when a single Parliament, by the influence
they might assert upon it, especially through a nominated Upper House,
would not do so. Such was the force which, twenty years later, led to the
destruction of the New Zealand Provincial Councils.'
The old war-horse was not neighing for the fray, that being all over; he
was just putting his footnote to a piece of history he had fashioned. It
suggested another. The Duke of Newcastle was concerned in the drawing up
of the Canadian constitution. He informed the author of the New Zealand
one, that he had been largely indebted to it. Mention of the Duke brought
a smile on Sir George's lips, but he had doubts whether he should divulge
the cause.
'You know,' the reminiscence ran, 'I used, when in England, to visit the
Duke of Newcastle at Clumber. I was there, a member of a party, on a wet
day when we were cooped up in the house, unable to find occupation.
Towards afternoon, everybody being in despair, I proposed, "Why not have
some cock-fighting?" Not the illegal cock-fighting of course, but the
nursery-room style, where you have your hands tied in front of your
knees, and try to turn an opponent over with your toes. My proposal was
received with delight, and I suppose half a dozen of the leading men of
England were that afternoon kicking their heels in the air.'
Sir George could catch laughter, when a burden really did rest upon his
acts--catch it, to carry the burden away. The quaint instance of how he
got the better of the Maori children of Poa was in point. A member of
that New Zealand tribe had come under the weights of justice at Auckland.
The clansmen mustered to his rescue, and were willed to turn Auckland
upside down, if necessary, in achieving it. The Governor heard betimes of
the advance of their war canoes, and he arranged his welcome.
'I called out our defensive forces, including a corps of pensioners
settled in the locality, and placed them in position round the bight,
where I supposed the Maoris would land. A man-of-war, which was in the
harbour, I sent out to sea, with instructions to return when the invaders
had arrived, and to block their exit. But everything was as if there had
been nothing; not a sign that we expected callers with hostile intent.
'The Maoris rowed to the landing with vigour and confidence, forming
indeed a picturesque sight, though I was little inclined to dwell on that
at the moment. Next, they began to drag their canoes ashore; but here a
signal was given, and our half-circle of troops revealed themselves. The
Ngatipoa evidently did not know what to make of the changed situation, or
what to do. I sat on a hill and watched them, waiting for a move on their
part, which presently came. It was no business of mine to do more than I
had done; let them now propose? They sent up their leader, escorted by a
few men, to ask what I meant to do in the circumstances. That was
considerate.