THE PLEA FOR WILLIAM KING.

473

New Zealand on Maori laws and customs-Mr. MacLean, and other Native commissioners, Mr. Francis Dillon Bell, and other members of the House of Representatives, the Rev. Mr. Buddle, the Rev. Mr. Whiteley, and many of the oldest Wesleyan missionaries-declare that such a thing as this "Mana," set up as it now is for a case like William King's, is a thing utterly unknown in Maori Law; and it may very reasonably be said, that if Mr. Fox or Mr. Forsaith now claimed to practise Droit de cuissage among their New Zealand tenantry because the Barons, their ancestors, might once have enjoyed the Gallows Right in England, they would claim no more, and no less, for themselves than they now claim for William King in seeking to cover him with their rag of "Mana." Fearing to be driven from "part ownership" plea, fearing to be driven from 'Mana," Mr. Hadfield and Mr. Fox plead for their client ad misericordiam, and point to his loyalty in Cook's Straits, and to his custom of bell-ringing and matutinal ceremony of prayer. But it is asserted that in Cook's Straits William King did little more than preserve an armed neutrality, or that he did no more than shout with what he believed might soon grow into the biggest mob-while as to his conversion, truth and indignation reply that his conversion is but a mask; and that though, parrot like, he can repeat the Lord's Prayer, he is the sanctified savage whose fit allies murdered our boys at Omata, and who, at Wataira, sent out the young weasels of his brood to brain our wounded soldiers on the field.

66

Glancing back, then, at the New Plymouth Land Question, and at King's history and proceedings, I assert that, whether the Taranaki War be viewed as a war springing from Local causes, or from Maori-King and Land-League causes, or from a combination of both, it is, in either, or in any case, a war which William King has wickedly provoked-a war which he has commenced with atrocities worthy of the Maori's most barbarous days, and a war which, if the Queen is to reign in New Zealand and the North Island is to be preserved as a British colony, must not be stopped by any "preces armita" of the Natives, or by any maudlin sentimentality of Missionary bigots of the Hadfield school-but

474

OUR FUTURE NATIVE POLICY.

one which must be prosecuted till William King and his murderous allies from the South shall sue for peace and pardon (28), and offer an ample indemnification in land for the property they have destroyed, and for the losses they have so wantonly inflicted on the long-forbearing Settlers of Taranaki,

OUR FUTURE NATIVE POLICY.

Anterior to our taking any effectual measures for civilising and preserving the Maori race, there are now two things absolutely necessary to be accomplished: the war with William King must be prosecuted until he sues for peace--and there must be stationed in New Zealand such a military and naval force, backed by Colonial Militia and Rifle Rangers, as shall prove to the Maori that we are the stronger Power.

If we are sincere in our declaration that we wish to preserve the Maori race, and gradually raise it to an equality with our own, the absolute necessity of proving to them that we are the stronger power will instantly be apparent to every unprejudiced person who has watched the course of events in New Zealand during the last few years. And this necessity may, I think, be made equally apparent to the English reader by supposing for him a case, the like of which, virtually, has occurred in New Zealand a dozen times, and which, if we again attempt to legislate for the Natives without an armed force at our backs, will occur a dozen times more and frustrate the wisest and most benevolent measures we could possibly take for their good. In a tribe of New Zealanders, as in every other community of human beings, there are the good and the bad, the intelligent and the stupid. The former may sometimes predominate: the respectable members of the community may sometimes outnumber the vagabond and the desperate; but, vagabond and desperate there will ever be, and in many a New Zealand tribe the vagabond and the desperate still form the majority. Now a tribe composed of these mixed elements, tired, say, of the insecurity of life and property, or of the tribal troubles, or of the poverty, or of the want of progress, it suffers from under

WHY WE REQUIRE AN ARMED FORCE.

475

its old Native regime of Maori customs, petitions the Native Council, presided over, say by Bishop Selwyn, to bring it within the pale of English civilisation and to extend to it British laws. This is done, and done in the most complete and politic manner. To explain and administer the criminal law, Native magistrates sit on the bench with Colonists, the native policeman is present to execute the warrants of the Court, and every possible precaution is humanely taken to prevent the wholesome restraints of British law from galling the new subject whom it is to save. Some case of violence occurs: a robbery, an assault, arson, adultery, leading to murder, and the Bench issues its warrant for the apprehension of the offender. Does not Bishop Selwyn know that without this warrant of the Court were rendered good and valid by the offender's knowledge that there were British bayonets in the distance which, if necessary, would enforce it, he and his fellows, the vagabond and the desperate of the tribe, might tear the warrant up and tomahawk the bearer? And does not the Bishop know that the more enlightened and respectable portion of the tribe, those who had prayed the white man to give them British laws, dare not help the white man to enforce them, because, and only because, they saw that he had no sufficient force at his back to make it clear to all that if the quarrel led to blows, the White man would be able to put down the desperadoes who had thus laughed him and his laws to scorn?

If Bishop Selwyn, and Bishop Abraham, and Archdeacon Hadfield, and the Church Missionary clique, do not know this, they have lived in New Zealand for years with their ears stopped and their eyes shut. But they do know it; and further, they know, or ought to know, that after one or two instances of the wholesome enforcement of British laws had occurred in cases such as I have supposed, there would be no need to employ force, inasmuch as the mere presence of the force in the Colony would be sufficient to give us the the active support of half the Natives in bringing the whole colony under British law, and would prevent the other half from obstructing us in the process. The sick or dying child needs medicine, he tastes it, and turns from the cup-but the good physician uses kind force, he makes him take it, and the child is saved;

476

THE NECESSITY OF TROOPS,

and kind force must be used to save the Maori against himself. There must be no mistake in this matter. Men in authority, if they do me the honour to read my pages, will, I trust, believe me, when I say that we can now do nothing effectual in New Zealand for the good of both races, save and except we have a strong armed force in the country on which to base our operations.

Redoubled missionary efforts-cargoes of pictorial bibles, multiplication of chapels, translations of Robinson Crusoe, and Jack and the Bean Stalk-redoubled legislative efforts admission to local parliament, admission to general parliament, Native council, Native magistrate, Native policemen, Native school, Native hospital-will each and all prove useless if we do not first prove to the Maori that while we are a just and merciful race we are a strong and a warlike race-a race as well able to fight as to work, or trade, or talk, or write. Here and there among the Natives, some man of superior intellect may be found who, owing to a long intimacy with families of colonists who would converse with him on some other subjects than his own merits, or salvation, or adult baptism, and the like, has formed a reasonable idea of the strength of the White man; and here and there a Native has personally visited England and seen and measured for himself Portsmouth, Woolwich, and the Guards-yet only to be called a liar on his return. But, except in a burlesque smattering of scriptural knowledge, the New Zealand Natives, intelligent, astute as they are, are really, even now, little other in many important essentials than they were in the days of Tasman and Cookeven now, in many respects, mentally and morally, they are little other than clever, overgrown, turbulent, vicious childrenchildren who have no more idea of the power and resources of the far-off country which would rule them than the savages of Central Africa.

The Church Missionaries, who, in consideration of the great sums lavished on them by the public, might have been expected to attempt to do some public good in New Zealand by imparting to their converts some knowledge of things practical and civil, have been too much engrossed in expatiating to the Native

NATIVE INSOLENCE AND AGGRESSIONS.

477

on the mysteries of the Trinity, the errors of Rome, the heresies of Wesley, to have had much time or inclination to teach the Native anything that would be terrestrially useful to him; and wherever missionary teaching has stooped to things mundane, it has, as before observed, sought chiefly to exalt the Black man and to debase the White.

One marked characteristic of the Maori race is their stupid, Chinese-like contempt for any other race. They sneer at Frenchmen as Wee-Wees, make mock of Englishmen as a people who can work, like beaver-rats, but who can run away like rats, and esteem dark-skinned races so little that I have heard them figuratively boast that they could eat an Australian aboriginal for breakfast, and dispose of a negro for supper. They know that we have soldiers, and gasconade as they may, they would gladly never see a soldier again. But, they believe that we have but few soldiers. They have been told too, that our soldiers are wanted elsewhere, and that the Queen would not again use soldiers in New Zealand. The 58th Regiment was sent away; the 65th, it was rumoured, would follow, and this gave strength to their belief, and confirmation to the reports they had heard. Physical force, the might of the strong arm, they respect-this, they think, comes and goes with the Soldier. Moral force, industry, the wealth of the working arm, they covertly despise-this, they think, and this alone, is the poor possession of the Colonist. We are the busy beavers-they, the warlike wolves-and they will be ruled by none of our Beaver laws till we show that we can enforce them with the Lion's teeth and claws.

Their whole history, in common with the history of all aboriginal races, the whole of our twenty years' intercourse with them, shows that they reverence physical power and esteem it the only qualification for command. For ten years we attempted to live with them without the presence of a Soldier: we trusted to prayers, to mild persuasion, to missionaries, to missionary governors. The dirt they made us eat during this humiliating period is revolting to think of-they committed twenty murders, rose in two rebellions, and sacked a Settlement. Troops appeared, and for the next ten years the Native hid his arms and turned to the plough, and the Colony twice quadrupled her wealth and population. Half the troops are withdrawn-Colonial