In the same way the King movement of 1857 only became rebellion when the Crown made it so. Two primary causes operated to call into existence this political power, the creation of Wiremu Tamihana's[192] genius, which for over fifty years was a potent influence in the Maori life of the Waikato. For upwards of fifteen years the colony had been following with more or less exactitude the terms of the treaty, and during this time the State had exercised its power of pre-emption in a manner which the more enlightened Maoris now began to regard with disfavour. When Lord Normanby despatched Captain Hobson to found the colony he anticipated no opposition to the practice of buying land from the natives at a low price and selling it again to the colonists at a large advance on what the Crown had paid. For a time these anticipations were confirmed by results, but now the fathers of the race, jealous of the rapid increase of the Europeans, and alarmed at the equally rapid diminution of their lands, began to adopt a different view. Rather than part for a few shillings with property which they knew would be sold for as many pounds, they determined to exercise their right under the treaty, and refuse any longer to sanction the large transactions in which they had been engaged with the Crown.

Their eyes, too, had been opened by the Waitara war. Here a single individual had embroiled the whole of the Ngati-Awa tribe in a sanguinary conflict with the Government, by insisting upon selling land to which his title was contested. These unauthorised sales, said the chiefs, must cease, and no individual should, by his avarice, have the power to involve the people in war. To crystallise this determination into a practical act of statesmanship Wiremu Tamihana conceived the idea of a Maori King, who was to be, not antagonistic to, nor a substitute for the Queen, but the arbiter and judge in all internal disputes, as well as the mouthpiece as to land which the tribes as a whole were or were not prepared to sell. "I do not desire to cast the Queen from this Island, but from my piece of land. I am the person to overlook my piece" was how Wiremu Tamihana once publicly stated his attitude towards the Crown. The King movement was thus a Land League and not a rebellion, and as the Maoris had the right to withhold their land from sale if they so pleased, their adherence to this restrictive policy was no more illegal than the establishment of a Trades Union or a Political Association. The movement did not become militant until after the invasion of the Waitara by the British troops, when many of the Waikato natives rose in sympathy with Wiremu Kingi, and the battle followed them back to their gates. Then the authorities began to realise what a compelling truth there was in the maxim of Bishop Selwyn: "Nothing is easier than legally and peacefully to extinguish a native title; nothing is harder than to extinguish a native war."

Worsted, though not disgraced, in the field, the dissatisfied Maoris have since sought to secure the full measure of political justice to which they believe themselves entitled by more constitutional methods. Amongst their dreams has been a native Parliament sitting in the Treaty House, at Waitangi, to approve measures for the betterment of the race, which measures would be afterwards adopted by the Government and given the effect of law. This, however, has been nothing more than a dream. Little better was the Kotahitanga, or union, in 1892, of all the tribes in the north, exclusive of the Kingites who still remained loyal to their monarchal authority. The policy upon which this new union was founded was that of inducing the Government to cease purchasing native lands, and to set aside as a reserve for the benefit of the present and all future Maori generations the considerable areas of native land still unsold. Nor was this all. Legislation had been passed, not specially directed against, but not excepting the native race, placing restrictive conditions upon the oyster fisheries of the country, and this the leaders of the movement held to be a breach of the second clause of the treaty, which guaranteed to them not only the free use and control of their lands and their forests, but of their fisheries also. The deprivation of their right to freely gather food from the sea and the sea-shore was, together with other grievances, sufficient to galvanise them into political activity, and the Kotahitanga was formed with the meteoric Hone Heke[193] at its head. The Native Rights Bill was introduced by him and rejected by Parliament, but the movement was not without its fruits, for in 1900 part of their purpose was achieved in the concessions made by the Government in the Native Land Administration Act and the Maori Councils Act.

With the accomplishment of these aims, and the early death of Heke, the Kotahitanga has failed to preserve its former vitality; but brief as was its career, it must be recorded of it that in its inception and activities it was, as most Maori movements have been, not an organisation designed to aid in the evasion of the treaty, but rather to insist upon the due observance of its contracts.

Few Legislatures in the world have had a more difficult task than has fallen to the lot of that of New Zealand in legislating for the Maori so as to preserve his nationality, his rights, his liberties, and yet not bar the progress of the European state. That it has been embarrassed times without number by the treaty is undoubted, and therefore it is the more to its credit that the diplomatic bargain which has now held good for the better part of a century should have been so little violated. The treaty has been the broad foundation upon which the intricate structure of native legislation has been reared through all these years; and if there has ever been as there must have been under changing conditions trespass upon the strict letter of the compact, it is safe to assert that this variation has only occurred when Parliament has been honestly satisfied that the wider interests of the State as a whole demanded the departure. At no time has the Legislature been callously unmindful of the true spirit of the treaty, or careless of the great trust imposed upon it as the guardian of native rights.[194] This commendable endeavour to observe that "justice which is the paramount interest of all men and all Commonwealths" has finally led to a universal acceptance of the treaty by the native race as the basis of their civil and political privileges. So far is this the fact, that to-day the Maori is more insistent upon a due observance of its covenants than is the European. The present generation of natives accept it unquestioningly; and long before the "Old Guard" of objectors had passed away they, too, were beginning to realise that the sacrifice of their independence was more than compensated for by the protection of the British flag. They felt the irresistible sweep of the white tide that had surged upon their shores, and much as they might regret the passing of their ancient mana, they were compelled to acknowledge the force of truth in the figurative statement of their diminishing power once propounded to them by Mr. Busby: "How can the little pebble dam the stream? how can the single tree stand against the storm?"

FOOTNOTES

[156] "One cannot but laud the moderation of the English Puritans who first established themselves in New England. Although provided with a charter from their Sovereign, they purchased of the savages the land they required to occupy. This praiseworthy example was followed by William Penn, and the colony of Quakers which he conducted into Pennsylvania."—Vattel.

[157] The real discoverer of New Zealand was probably a Polynesian.

[158] Stowell in his Maori-English Tutor thus defines mana: