Hau-hau became a political movement, being inseparably connected with the "king" rebellion. The Kingite Maori have given a good deal of trouble in former years, but have now been quiescent for long. Their territory occupies Kawhia county on the West Coast, being bounded by the Waikato, Waipa, and Mokau rivers, and the sea. Their numbers are but few.
Till lately these rebels held themselves wholly aloof from intercourse with the outside world, and threatened any one who should enter their territory. At last they began to bring produce to the nearest Pakeha market, and to buy stores, though still maintaining their reserve. In 1881 there arose some dispute about land that had been confiscated after the war, but that had not been taken possession of. There was talk of a furious row between the rebels and the settlers. This was magnified by English newspapers into a "threatened Maori war," an absurd piece of ignorance, truly!
The "war" was put an end to the other day, by a few policemen arresting the "King," in the midst of his dominions and surrounded by his subjects, and conveying him off to durance vile at Wellington. A demonstration of Taranaki volunteers was enough. No blood was spilt; no violence offered.
Maori wars are things of the past entirely. When are British journalists going to awake to that fact? Now, settlers outnumber Maori everywhere ten to one. There are roads and railways and steamers, sufficient to convey constabulary to any riotous neighbourhood pretty quickly. But the great point is that the Maori of the present day are decent, quiet, and orderly folk. They are intelligent, and possess as much civilization as would be found in many rural districts of England, Scotland, and Wales—I will not add of Ireland, too, for fear I should be Boycotted! Maori and settler are on perfectly equal terms, and the former know it; moreover, they are not an homogeneous people, but live scattered in small communities. The Kingites, who are the least civilized, and who profess not to acknowledge our authority, showed what they thought of the possibilities of war by their submission to a party of constables the other day. There is no strength among them to make a war if they wished it, which they are much too sagacious to do. Riots, or brigandage, even, in isolated localities, are less to be feared than similar outbreaks in Lancashire or Staffordshire.
To read, as we did a short while ago, in influential London newspapers, that war with the Maori was again imminent, strikes us as excessively ludicrous. "Our shanty" even regards it as a dire insult, and there was some talk among us of going to war ourselves—with the fourth estate in England. Anyhow, it shows how little our friends at home really know about this land of the blest and the free. Have there not been books enough written about it yet?
There are, it is true, a good many Maori who adhere to primitive custom. Here and there you may find a kainga, containing from a score to a hundred souls, where there is not much apparent advance from the state of things fifty years back. But even here you will find that men and women turn out in European clothes, on occasions of state; that the children receive schooling of some sort; that there is a surprising degree of intelligence and knowledge of the great world and its ways; and that there is a fervent, and often dogmatic, Christianity among the inhabitants.
On the other hand, there are Maori of a more cultivated condition, and these have no small influence with their less sophisticated compatriots. Maori members sit in both houses of the Legislature; Maori have votes at elections; there are some comparatively wealthy Maori; there are Maori farmers, store-keepers, hotel-keepers, artisans, policemen, postmen, teachers, and clergymen. There are two or three Maori newspapers, partly written by Maori, for Maori to buy and read. They are no longer to be regarded as savages, or as a distinct race, even. They are but one of the classes of our community.
The present total Maori population is no more than 42,819; and the European population is 463,729. In 1874 the Maori numbered 46,016, so they have decreased considerably since then. But it is probable that the numbers six years ago were not taken with the same accuracy as at the last census, so that it would, perhaps, be too hasty to say that the race has decreased by 3000 during the last six years; yet this estimate cannot be very far from the truth.
There is no doubt that the Maori race are dying out, and that with great rapidity. At the beginning of this century—about 1820—the missionaries estimated their numbers to be 100,000, a guess that most likely fell far short of the truth. The frightful slaughtering that followed the introduction of fire-arms had, no doubt, much to do with the diminution of the population, but evidently that can have no effect at the present day; nor have the wars we have fought with certain tribes, subsequent to 1840, been of such a bloody nature as to be set down among the immediate causes of decrease.