"Strange, isn't it," he said without any preamble, "how money goes from one man to another, from here to Auckland and to Sydney? So much money." He became reminiscent: "Maories didn't know a thing about money. They were rich. See, across this lake,—that little island,—the whole was once a battle-field. The Maories went out in their canoes and fought with their battle-axes. What for? Oh, to gain lands. But now they are poor. Things are so dead here now. Nothing doing." A moment later he was called and disappeared. It was the only time he was ever communicative. The tent had roused in him racial regrets.
One evening he came up to my door and told me there was a dance at the hall, and that he was going to it. Again that strange revival of racial memories, but these of hope and prospect, came into his face, "I'm going to take my 'tart' (girl) with me," he announced. And later in the evening, as I sat alone, watching the moon rise over the lake, the laughter of those Maories rang out across the hills.
Though I wandered for many miles, running into the hundreds, the number of Maori villages and people I came across were few and far between. Yet records show that once these regions were alive with more than a hundred thousand fighting natives. At Rotorua, the hot-springs district in the North Island, the pah was in exceptionally good condition, but it was so largely because the New Zealand Government has made of the place one of its most attractive tourist resorts and the natives are permitted to exact a tax from every visitor who wishes to see the geysers. Elsewhere the villages are dull, dreary, and neglected: the farther away from civilization, the worse they get. The consequence is not surprising.
According to the census of 1896, there were 39,854 people of the Maori race: 21,673 males, 18,181 females, of which 3,503 were half-castes who lived as Maories, and 229 Maori women married to Europeans. The Maori population fell from 41,993 in 1891 to 39,854 in 1896, a decrease in five years of 2,139. But in 1901 it had risen to 43,143, going steadily up to 49,844 in 1911, and dropping to 49,776 in 1916 on account of the European war.
There was considerable discussion in the New Zealand Parliament on the question of whether the Maories should be included in the Draft Act, most white men declaring that a race which was dying, despite this seeming increase, should not be taxed for its sturdiest young men in a war that was in truth none of its concern. But the Maories—that is, their representatives—objected, saying they did not wish to be discriminated against. Among the young men, however, I found not a few who were inclined to reason otherwise. So it was that while I was talking to the young fellows who were washing their horse in the Waikato, one of them said to me:
"Yes. Years ago the white men came to us with guns and cannon and powder and compelled us to give up our warfare, which kept us in good condition individually and as a race. We put aside our weapons. Now they come to us and tell us we must go to Europe and fight for them." And he became silent and thoughtful.
As I came back into Huntly from my visit to the pah I passed the little court-house, before which was a crowd of Maories. Some of the wahines sat with shawls over their heads smoking their pipes as though they were in trousers, not skirts. I chatted with the British Bobby who stood at the door, asking him what was bestirring Maoriland so much.
"Oh, that bally old king of theirs has been subpoenaed to answer for his brother. The blighter has been keeping him out of sight so that he won't be taken in the draft."
"But," I protested—democrat though I was, my heart went out to the old "monarch"—"can't the king get his brother, the archduke and possible successor to the throne, out of performing a task that might hazard the foundation of the imperial line?"
"King be damned! Wait till we get the blighter in here," said the servant of the law, pressing his heels into the soft, oozy tar pavement as he turned scornfully from me.