punishment.'
'If a man brought about the death of several other men, what would you
say?'
'Who could be so cruel? It is not possible that anybody could be so
wicked.'
'If that is your view, Tawhiao, what words would you have for a man who
destroyed the happiness of a whole nation, and that his own?'
Tawhiao could not frame words for such a person, more especially as he
now began to realise that the parables were fitting himself. 'Yes, yes,'
was his exclamation, 'I understand, I understand!' Then he cried like a
baby.
What judgment would England pass upon King Tawhiao if, while a visitor
there, he gave way to drink? He would disgrace, not himself only, but the
whole Maori race.
'Alas, yes,' sobbed Tawhiao; 'what can be done?'
'I'll tell you,' said Sir George gently. 'We'll both sign a pledge,
agreeing to abstain from alcohol in any form. That pledge will mutually
bind us for a term of years, and there could be no more sacred contract.'
It was a bright contract for Tawhiao. And now here he was, at a New
Zealand wayside station, where there drew up the train carrying Sir
George Grey, on his last New Zealand journey, to the Plymouth-bound
liner. 'I wished him farewell,' Sir George described this parting, 'and
he wept. I was much touched, remembering that he had been all through a
Maori war against me.'
That was retrospect. The second Maori war afforded Sir John Gorst an
experience not without humour.
In Sir George Grey's phrase, Sir John Gorst went out to New Zealand to do
good and did it. He conducted a school for the education of the Maoris,
and acted as Government Commissioner. 'He had been at work for some
time,' Sir George added, 'and had achieved excellent results altogether.
He was popular with the Maoris, and indeed they never had a truer
friend.' However, some of those ardent in the 'king movement,' regarded
his mere presence in the heart of their territory, as an influence
against its success. The crisis arrived from an encounter of wits which
fairly set the Waikato river on fire.
'The Maoris,' Sir George retailed this affair, 'had founded a paper to
propagate the king movement. They christened it by a name which might be
freely translated as "The Giant Eagle Flying Aloft." With my approval,
Sir John Gorst brought out a protagonist to the Maori weekly. I furnished
the requisites for the venture, the money coming from revenues applicable
to native purposes.
'The idea was to counteract the teaching of "The Giant Eagle Flying
Aloft"; to show how absurd it was for any section of the Maoris to think
they could beat the English. Our organ was designed to be educative, and
in that respect to help in the maintenance of peace. The title of the
Maori paper was in allusion to a great eagle, which, at a remote period,
had existed in New Zealand. The Maoris had chants about it, and in their
legends it was described as "Bed-fellow of earth-shaking thunder." 'Very
well, Sir John Gorst replied to their grand title by another in Maori,
signifying: "The Lonely Sparrow on the House Top." This, of course, was
suggested by the Scriptures, and its force of contrast at once tickled
the Maori sense of humour. Sir John Gorst's satire was so keen that they
could not, themselves, help laughing over the fun which "The Lonely
Sparrow on the House Top" made of "The Giant Eagle Flying Aloft." It went
on for several numbers, perhaps half-a-dozen, when the Maoris informed
Sir John that he must stop his paper, or they would throw his printing
materials into the river.
'The conductors of "The Giant Eagle Flying Aloft" had the view, if I am
not mistaken, that "The Lonely Sparrow on the House Top" did not fight
with adequate dignity. It was too anxious to make merriment of its
adversary, so causing the latter to appear ridiculous to many Maoris. Sir
John Gorst paid no heed to the threats against him, and next, there
arrived a band of Maoris who uprooted his printing machinery. He happened
to be from home at the time, and when he returned it was to find this
disorder, and the Maoris in possession. 'The scheme thus to dispossess
him and the "Lonely Sparrow on the House Top," had been headed by the
chief Rewi. It was Rewi who flung, from a besieged pa, the defiant
message that the Maoris would never surrender, that they would fight "For
ever, For ever, For ever!" I am inclined to believe that he put himself
at the head of the raid upon Sir John Gorst, in order to be able to
protect him from any hurt,'
Be that as it might, Rewi and the raiders were determined that Sir John
Gorst should depart the 'king country.' They pronounced this verdict upon
him with every ceremony, and his answer was equally determined. It was:
'Nothing but a direct order from Sir George Grey shall induce me to leave
my post.' At that, Rewi granted time for a reference to the Governor, who
instructed Sir John Gorst to withdraw. Had it been otherwise; or had the
order lagged, Sir John would most likely have shared the fate of 'The
Lonely Sparrow on the House Top!' The sword proved mightier than the pen
in that duel.
And despite Sir George Grey's efforts, the sword was again to be drawn
over a wide area of New Zealand. A particular land dispute, which meant
cleavage with the confederated Maoris, had been gnawing its way along.
Sir George investigated it, reached the decision that the Maori claim was
just, and made up his mind to rescind the purchase. He was not autocrat
now, as he had been before, the New Zealand constitution which he had
drafted, being in operation. Things had to move by routine, there was
muddling somewhere, and in the middle of it all, the Maoris waylaid a
small party of soldiers.
Nobody had dreamt of such a thing. Sir George's ministers asked him:
'What are you going to do after this outrage and challenge?' He answered:
'We must give the land back, according to promise. The duty of a powerful
State is to be just, and re-introduce the proper owner to the land. We
cannot refuse to do so, because persons, over whom he has no control,
have massacred our soldiers.' But war surged across New Zealand, a wild,
unwholesome spectre, and Sir George must take it so. It had the tale of
Wereroa Pa, which again presents him as the mailed hand.
A British officer held a post which could not be relieved, until the
Maoris in Wereroa Pa had been scattered. That enforced the necessity,
urgent enough in itself, for capturing the fortress. The Maoris had spent
all their craft of defence on Wereroa, as, in the former New Zealand war,
they did on Ruapekapeka. Engirt by palisades of wood, high and strong,
they cried defiance to the Pakeha. The general in control of the British
troops would not tackle Wereroa with the strength at his disposal. Sir
George Grey resolved to do it himself, and got together what force he
could. It was bestriding the military regulations, usurping all forms and
traditions, but it was war.
The Maoris in the pa had a passing mind to surrender, and Sir George was
anxious to catch them thus. He rode up to take possession, though those
with him counselled 'Be careful lest we come to grief.' The parley was
perilous, for the bulk of the Maoris inside the pa were inclined, after
all, to resist to the uttermost. Sir George and his escort drew up within
easy range of the Maori muskets, and he was loth to turn back. He only
did so, when it had become evident that further delay might bring a
disaster. 'I wanted to convince them,' he emphasised, 'that if they would
not give up the place we should have to take it. Our welcome was so risky
that we might, perhaps, be compared to the little boy who scrambled up a
garden wall, only to find himself face to face with the Scotch gardener.
"Where are you going?" demanded the gardener; and the boy answered, "Back
again."
'That was our situation; we must return, since nothing could be achieved
by debate. No, I don't think that I had any bodily feeling as to the
danger we ran, any burden of danger. Nobody can be afraid who has the
lives of others hanging upon his actions. A man who every instant is
applied to for orders, has not time to think of fear. It finds scope when
a person is acting under the direction of somebody else, and thus is
ignorant of the measures being carried out for the common protection and
success. Ignorance is ever the channel through which fear attacks a human
being, as watch a little child when it understands, and when it does
not.'
Perhaps Sir George Grey's nearest passage with death, in Maoriland,
occurred during the first war, but he did not learn of it until later. 'I
was,' he said, 'in the habit every forenoon of riding between our
military camp and the sea-shore, where the warships lay at anchor. Having
regard to the unsettled state of the country, it was maybe imprudent of
me to do this, and moreover I was only accompanied by an orderly
sergeant. It seemed that some Maoris hid in wait for me in a valley,
intending, I am afraid, to fire upon me. Two things fortunately happened.
I rode down very early that day, and some turn of duty took me back by
another road. Then, it proved to be the last day on which it was
necessary for me to communicate with the ships. Good luck attended me, as
I congratulated myself, when informed of the plot and its failure by a
Maori who had knowledge of it, Upon what slight chances do things depend!
No, they only seem so to depend!'
As to Wereroa, it must be captured by strength of arms, or rather by a
subtle use of these. There could be no idea of attacking it from the
front. That would have been a funeral march for Sir George's handful of
men. He devised the capture of a rough spur of ground which commanded the
pa. The Maoris built square to a hostile world, and forgot this height
behind them. If it should be attained, they were out-manoeuvred and
helpless. The British fighting men, with Maori allies, marched off to
break in upon the rear of the Wereroa. They filed past the Governor,
shaking hands with him; the moment was tense.
'Assuredly,' Sir George remarked, 'the mission was not without danger, as
what venture can be in war? Only, my people must have felt that I would
not put them to it, unless there was every hope of success. That little
parade brought up thoughts in all of us, and was very touching.'
The vital spur was captured, and with it a cohort of Maoris who were
marching to relieve the pa. The garrison of Wereroa were beaten by
tactics, the most deadly of weapons, and they accepted the verdict. The
victory was the more complete, in that the Governor lost never a man of
his tiny army. It would be hard to aver that he did not, even as the
grave Pro-Consul, love such an adventure for itself. That tune sang in
the blood.
Here a signpost is reached. Thirty years had passed, since Sir George
Grey waded into the surf where savagery and civilisation meet, stilling
it for the latter. The harness of empire on him, had been at full strain
all the time. He had come through the passes, alike in the conduct of
wars, and in the higher mission of spreading light and happiness on the
wings of peace. But much sunshine had covered his track, and it was a
light which would not fail.
What think'st thou of our Empire now, though earn'd
With travail difficult?
No, the cold hand of Downing Street intervened; his second Governorship
of New Zealand slammed to a close. It was an era when the Imperial spirit
was niggardly, obscurantist. Brushing aside details, it is easy to see
how the servant and the official masters, choosing different roads, would
ultimately part. The 'dangerous man' was outcast, and thereon he said in
ripeness: 'If my going was equivalent to recall, I have nothing to regret
in what I did. Farther, I think history has vindicated my work as a
whole.'
XVII FOR ENGLAND'S SAKE
'Suppose,' urged Sir George Grey, 'that in my lifetime a hundred men have
died from disappointment and chagrin--that is enough to condemn the whole
system!'
He was speaking of Disraeli's discovery, that the great colonial
Governorships should go to those who had been 'born in the purple' or had
married into it. It was, in a way, a matter personal to him, because the
plan came into operation about the date his Pro-Consulship ceased. He
felt that possibly it influenced the manner of his going, and, if so,
that a wrong was done him as an individual. But he was merely bringing
out his attitude to the system itself.
'I thought it was bad for everybody. In effect, it shut the field against
simple merit; anyhow, discouraged it. A person might have all the
qualities for a Governorship, except part and parcel in the peerage. On
the other hand, it was injurious to the Colonies, because it set up men
on an eminence, not for sheer merit, but because they happened to be born
to rank. How did Napoleon Bonaparte make his army? By opening the very
highest places to whoever could best fill them.'
Governor or no Governor, Sir George Grey must still work for his ideas
and ideals, and after a little he hied him to England. Thinking, perhaps,
that it had been abrupt with him, Downing Street was affable and kindly.
But he was never, no matter how British Governments came or went, to be
more employed. South Africa yearned for a strong pilot, and he was ready
to step aboard. 'I even asked,' he said, 'to be sent back there, the one
occasion on which I ever asked for anything, but without result.'
Disraeli offered to find him a seat in Parliament, perhaps as a sort of
balm for wounded feelings. 'I put that meaning on the offer,' Sir George
remarked, 'and really it was very good-natured on Disraeli's part. It was
so, all the more, when I remembered our contest over the affair of the
Kaffir chiefs and their allowance. You see, I rather had the best of
that, and his friends chaffed him about it.' Sir George was his own
political party all through life, so far as he was a politician at all.
Disraeli asked no pledges, but, as Sir George observed, 'We were far
divided in our views, and I should have been in revolt almost before I
had taken my seat. Therefore I declined with thanks.'
Meanwhile, being free of official shackles, he hurled himself against the
movement, rampant in England, to throw off the Colonies. He was Pro-
Consul at large, under warrant of a duty for which he held himself
accountable to the English-speaking people. He doubted whether he was
not, thus, doing even better work, than he would have found to his hand
as an employed Governor. There rang from end to end of the country a
shriek of dismemberment: 'Cut the painter, chop off the Colonies, they
are a burden to us; we should confine ourselves to ourselves!'
'It is difficult,' said Sir George, 'to make anybody, who was not in that
struggle, understand it. One would have called it simply freakish, if the
possible outcome had been less grave. It was a strange fit to seize upon
the country, and unfortunately it expressed the view of nearly all the
leading statesmen. Cut the painter! You cannot imagine any sensible
person of these later, and regenerate, days having such an idea. Throw
away Australasia or South Africa! You have heard my retort on such a
demand. Who had the right, to tell another man, of the same blood, that
he was no longer a Briton, because he lived many sea miles distant? Who
could answer that? None! It was all a whimsy, a craze, a nightmare, which
will never return--Never, Never!'
Sir George instructed the country, by word and pen, on the true value and
destiny of the Colonies. He moved about, a crusader, indignant at
separatism, eloquent to knot, and re-knot, the painter. For the slash of
the knife he offered federation, and, springing therefrom, a happier,
better world altogether. He did not doubt, to his last days, that the
peril of the Empire was very real. Neither did he doubt that it was
overcome, largely by the wisdom and foresight of the Queen. 'But for her
action,' he declared in so many words, 'events would most probably have
ended in the cutting adrift of some of the colonies. She saw true, and
clear, and far, as the Prince Consort when alive had seen, and the Anglo-
Saxon race has reason to be thankful.'
Wherever he had been, Sir George Grey had endeavoured, in his own phrase,
to extend the liberties and right's of the people. 'Thus,' he instanced,
'until I went to the Cape, no judge had been appointed to the supreme
court there, except from England. On vacancies occurring, I named two
local men, both, I fancy, of Dutch family, thus breaking down a bad
custom. I felt that it was impossible to govern a nation upon terms which
hurt its manhood and dignity.' His crusade in England was on a like note,
and eventually it found him a parliamentary candidate for Newark.
'Immediately my friends heard of the vacancy,' he narrated, 'they
proposed that I should stand for it. I did so, an independent Liberal,
and I was ostracised by the party leaders, who had another candidate they
wanted to get in. I suppose I was too advanced altogether, and indeed I
preached a kind of new gospel. It included emigration; a handmaid to
federation when the Colonies had ripened. Then I was for free education,
and disestablishment all round, as a necessary thing in relation to
Christianity--in fact as one of its main doctrines. Farther, I advocated
Irish Home Rule, even drafting a short Bill, and in fine I was for a
variety of innovations.'
Apart from all else, he understood that his Liberal rival was required in
the House of Commons, to help Cardwell with military affairs. Anyhow, he
gathered that impression from a visit which Mr. A. J. Mundella,
journeying over from Nottingham, paid him at Newark. The encounter
supplied a good story, and its manner was Sir George Grey in a
characteristic mood. This was how he gravely met Mr. Mundella's gentle
overture, 'Now, won't you withdraw from the contest?'
'Yes, I quite see the difficulty. You want somebody to assist Cardwell.
However well your suggestion might obviate the difficulty, I have an
alternative which I think would equally suit. I had a military training,
I did very creditably as a student at Sandhurst, I served with the
colours, and I attained the rank of captain. I shall be glad to show you
my papers, proving my knowledge of military affairs; and altogether, if
your War Minister requires somebody to prompt him, I don't see why I
should not fill the place as satisfactory as another. 'Oh,' exclaimed Mr.
Mundella, 'there's no use in coming to you with anything, for you always
make a joke of it.' So they parted, and laughing, over the years, at the
incident, Sir George said: 'You know Mundella was a capital fellow, of
sterling ability and many qualities, but I'm afraid he was never a
humorist.'
Sir George was not to be member for Newark, since, in the long run, to
save the loss of a Liberal seat, he retired. His committee put it to him
that this was the rule of the road, and he felt it no sacrifice to quit
the field. The tribes had to be, pacified, but how different the methods
in primitive and civilised society! Two tribes fell out during his first
Governorship of New Zealand, and they must settle their difference by
combat. Sir George deprecated such things, as not being conducive to the
welfare of the Colony. No sooner did he hear of the duel, than he ordered
a warship to up-steam and carry him to the spot. He was put ashore, when
the day was breaking, at a point still sixteen miles from the combatants.
He obtained a, horse for himself, another for an orderly, and the pair
were given rein.
'I believe,' he told, 'that our first mounts proved not very good, only,
at a farm on the way, we were able to replace them with better. Our ride
was across rough country, innocent of roads, but we reached our
destination just as the campaign opened for the day. I waited a minute to
master the state of parties, then galloped straight between them, and
called out "Stop! Stop!" Amazed at my appearance, they just shouted along
their ranks "Te Kuwana"--the Maori effort to say "The Governor."
'As I had ridden into the fusilade, a chief was shot in the neck, with
the penalty that he could never afterwards turn his head. Happily he was
not looking over his shoulder at the moment, for that would have been an
awkward position in which to be left. My plunge into the battle was a
little risky, but I calculated that the Maoris would, most likely, be
glad of an excuse to stop fighting. Combatants who fall out easily,
generally are. They regard as a benefactor, anybody who can rescue them
from their scrape, with due form of ceremony and guarantee of dignity. My
order to the Maoris, desiring peace, was obeyed.'
This is the Sir George Grey whose doings you follow with the keenest
tingle of interest--Grey, Pro-Consul. But his other activities all
grouped round this signature, and they are to be read with it. From
England he went back to New Zealand, thinking he could best influence the
Old World from the shores of the New World. He sat himself down in the
remote solitude of Kawau, among his books, and every morning his heart
beat round the Empire, a morning drum.
Twice Governor of New Zealand, he was yet to be its Prime Minister, a
record which is unique. Being asked to work in New Zealand domestic
politics, he replied: 'I will be a messenger if in that capacity I can
usefully serve the State.' Yet, once more, you turn to the romance maker
and discover him taking down, by the lake side of Rotorua, that of Hine-
Moa. He rescued it, a Hero and Leander legend, with a variation, from the
Maori ages, and placed it, a pearl, among his other delvings from
Polynesian mythology. The story captured him, with its naive charm, when
first he heard it from the lips of a chief, and many should know it.
''Tis odd,' he made the comment, 'how frequently like incidents occur in
the mythology of diverse races. By what means were they communicated? As
I have pointed out, in my compilation of Maori legends, there is one of
Maui, which recalls to you the finding of Arthur, in Tennyson's "Idylls
of the King." The same legendary idea occurs; a child cradled by the sea,
none knowing that it had any other parent.'
'Now, O Governor,' spoke the Maori chief, 'look round you and listen to
me, far there is something worth seeing here.' Sir George was sitting on
the very spot where sat Hine-Moa, the great ancestress of the tribe, when
she swam the lake to join her sweetheart Tutanekai. She was a maiden of
rare beauty and high rank, and many young men desired to wed her. She
found escape from these perplexities in a long swim to her choice,
Tutanekai. But the Maori chief goes forward with the idyll, and must be
followed word for word, as Sir George wrote:--
At the place where she landed there is a hot spring, separated from the
lake only by a narrow ledge of rooks. Hine-Moa got into this to warm
herself, for she was trembling all over, partly from the cold, after
swimming in the night across the wide lake of Rotorua, and partly also,
perhaps, from modesty at the thought of meeting Tutanekai.
Whilst the maiden was thus warming herself in the hot spring, Tutanekai
happened to feel thirsty and said to his servant, 'Bring me a little
water.' So his servant went to fetch water for him, and drew it from the
lake in a calabash, close to the spot where Hine-Moa was sitting.
The maiden, who was frightened, called out to him in a gruff voice like
that of a man: 'Whom is that water for?
He replied, 'It's for Tutanekai.'
'Give it here then,' said Hine-Moa. And he gave her the water and she
drank, and, having finished drinking, she purposely threw down the
calabash and broke it.
Then the servant asked her, 'What business had you to break the calabash
of Tutanekai?' but Hine-Moa did not say a word in answer.
The servant then went back, and Tutanekai said to him, 'Where is the
water I told you to bring me?'
So he answered, 'Your calabash was broken.'
And his master asked him, 'Who broke it?' And he answered, 'The man who
is in the bath.'
And Tutanekai said to him, 'Go back again, then, and fetch me some
water.'