And let me remark (pace the Philanthropists) that it is not always the unwisest or cruellest policy that can be followed, for this reason, that it is simple, consistent, and easily understood. The man or the nation that consistently follows its own path, turning aside for no consideration, soon becomes at least thoroughly known if not intelligently understood. And misconceptions and misunderstandings are the most fruitful of all causes of bloodshed between civilized and savage races.
Let me confess, moreover, that there have been moments when I have felt certain carnal hankerings after that same old native policy. When, for instance, I had just left the French colony of New Caledonia, where amicable relations with the natives were preserved, and the country made as safe as Italy from end to end by the simple expedient of regularly and invariably executing a certain number of natives for every white man that they disposed of, without much inquiry into the motives of the murderers; and had returned to New Zealand to hear of a most lively massacre at Poverty Bay, perpetrated by three hundred Maori gentlemen, very well up in their Old Testaments and extremely practical in the use of the New,[1] who having satisfied the more pressing demands of their appetite upon the field of their exploit, had shown the sacred light of civilization that was burning within them by potting the remainder of the corpses in tins and sending them as presents to their friends in the country, and had then departed to the mountains, filled with the comfortable conviction that nothing worse than imprisonment would follow the improbable event of their capture, that after a year or two of most enjoyable skirmishing the matter would be allowed to drop, and that they would most of them go to their graves well-honoured and unhung.[2]
At moments like these I have had ideas on native policy that I dare not utter in the latitude of Exeter Hall, and the era of the nineteenth century.
But when New Zealand was colonized the feeling of the English public was distinctly philanthropical towards native races (especially at a distance), and the old policy was thoroughly discarded, for one, in its general theory and intention at least, more enlightened and more humane. Speaking broadly, I think one can see all through the chequered course of our Maori policy an earnest desire to treat the native as a man and a brother; to give him the status of a civilized man whenever it was possible to do so; and when not possible to consider and make due allowance for the fact of his being uncivilized, and to guide and lead him towards civilization by just and generous treatment, and appeals to his moral and intellectual faculties.
I do not wish to dwell upon the dangerous extravagances into which such a policy might and did occasionally run—such as letting off one native cut-throat by treating him as a civilized prisoner of war, and reprieving the next on the ground that he was a poor untutored savage who knew no better, to the utter destruction and confusion of all sense of power, justice, and security—great as was the amount of mischief that they did, but will confine myself to what I believe was the main cause of the almost total failure of this noble and, in the main, plausible policy.
It is quite evident that to give it a chance of success it must have been founded on a thorough understanding of the native character. It is no use making signs to a man who cannot understand them, it is no use uttering the most lovely moral precepts in language that is sure to mislead him. It was in this first necessary step that I hold that we failed, with brilliant individual exceptions no doubt, who, however, only served to make the confusion worse with their gleams of light.
Narrow-minded Enthusiasm, Ignorance, and Carelessness all contributed their quota to the mischief, and their favourite blunder consisted in jumping at conclusions concerning native character from certain analogies with our own. It did not occur to many of us that actions which marked the presence of certain qualities in the English character, might mark the presence of very different ones in the Maori, and vice versâ, or that qualities which marked the presence of certain other qualities in the Englishman might be very differently accompanied in the native; we did not realize the fact that the Maori reflected, argued, and acted in a way that was often as incomprehensible to us as our way was to him.
When we observed a band of native converts singing a hymn before advancing to battle we were filled with admiration at their piety, without perceiving that those deeper religious feelings which alone could have produced such a manifestation amongst Englishmen were entirely absent.[3] When Christianity spread through the tribes with amazing rapidity, we rejoiced over their capability for accepting the doctrines of high and pure religion, never perceiving that they accepted it simply because they thought from our superiority in ships, arms, tools, and material prosperity in general, that the "Mana" (i.e., luck, power, prestige) of Christianity must be greater than that of their old superstition, and would be quite ready to leave it again when they found out this was a mistake, their minds being as void of the higher religious elements as those of many savages far below them in intellectual powers. When we heard of a native chief supplying his enemy with food or ammunition to enable him to carry on the war we were charmed with his generous chivalry, and immediately endowed him with all the virtues that usually accompany such behaviour in an Englishman, blind to the fact that the chief simply liked fighting as we might like eating or sleeping, and furnished his enemy with arms and ammunition just as we might furnish one's cook with money to buy meat with.[4]
By radical misconceptions, such as these, we succeeded in creating in our imaginations an ideal Maori about as true to the life as a Fenimore Cooper Indian. And then we proceeded to impress the real Maori with moral lessons that he could not understand, and with practical examples that he interpreted all wrong, to appeal to qualities and ideas that he did not possess, and ignore those that he did possess, till in spite of our patience and goodwill we became puzzled by and disgusted with him, and he contemptuous of and utterly bewildered by us. I have heard several comments upon us and our policy from intelligent natives, none of them very flattering to our sagacity or consistency, but I will only give one which struck me as being a most striking comment upon a policy that aimed at conciliation, forbearance, and patient improvement of the Maori.
"You are a good people, but you have no fixed plan and no understanding either in matters of peace or war. No man can tell when you will fight or when you will give presents to buy peace, or at what sudden moment you will stop doing one and begin the other. No man can tell your reasons nor the meaning of what you do." This man had evidently caught some vague glimmerings of the meaning of our policy which only confused him the more. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.