A fanatic? Yes; but of very different temper from his predecessors. As it happened, Te Whiti was in the right; but the soldiers, seventeen hundred of them, did come on the 5th of November, 1881, and invested Te Whiti's pa at Parihaka. Two hundred little children came out to them and danced a dance of welcome, and behind the children followed the mothers with five hundred loaves of bread for the soldiers. When matters had gone thus far, the Commissioner read the Riot Act and Te Whiti and his councillor Tohu were led away, unresisting, with handcuffs upon their wrists. And, as they went, they cried to their people, "Do not resist, even if the bayonet is at your breast."
Te Rauparaha and Rangihaeata stood up and defied Governor and Council after Wairau, threatening massacre. Te Whiti and Tohu, preaching peace, were chained and cast into prison for sixteen months. Then right and justice prevailed, and they were liberated in February, 1883, and given reserves of land. Te Whiti lived until November, 1907, in prosperity with his people at Parihaka, enjoying that peace which he had always done his best to promote.
THE SUN OF PEACE
The colonists had won, and men asked one another how they would use their power. But we who have followed their story know that they had not waited for victory to force them to a generous attitude. We remember how in the very teeth of strife they held out their hands and lifted four of their Maori brethren to places by their side in the Colonial Parliament; so it is not surprising to learn that, almost before the blasts of war had done blowing in their ears, they made room in the Upper House for two chiefs of high rank, who were thenceforth to bear the title of "Honourable," and be for life members of the Legislative Council.
If that were not enough to show the cordial mind of the white men to their brown brothers, the Maori prisoners taken in war were treated for the most part as political offenders and, after a very short period of restraint, allowed to return to their tribes without the exaction of further penalty. Exceptions were naturally made in cases where individuals were proved guilty of actual crime; but, otherwise, everything was done to show the desire of the colony to soften as far as possible all painful memories, to erase all bitterness from the record of events, and to begin the new chapter of their history upon a page inscribed with the great words of a great man, "Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable."
As the colonists had never allowed war to hinder them from forging ahead, so, now that peace was assured, they gave rein to their energy and saw to it that their country marched with equal step abreast of the world's progress. As time went on not even that sufficed, and ever and again the old world would stop, agape, while New Zealand confidently adopted political, social or domestic reforms, at which her grown-up relatives were still looking askance as "new-fangled ideas," "dangerous radicalism," and so forth. New Zealand has never been afraid to experiment, and most of her experiments have proved successful, and in their issue "come to stay," if the phrase may be allowed.
One of the earliest products of peace was a large addition to the population, thanks to a policy by which fifty thousand immigrants were introduced into the colony in the two years 1874 and 1875. This policy did not stop there; for the Government, as far as possible, found work for the men whom they introduced, just as they are doing at this day.