Treaty of Waitangi

“ Hope endeavour by moving amendments to induce the Committee to adopt a view of the Treaty of Waitangi more favourable to the natives, but through the divisions of several days the Company held its majority, and on July 23 the Committee agreed to the draft report proposed by Lord Howick, and which was based on the resolutions previously approved. ”

“ The meeting in the north, which must rank next in importance to the gatherings at Waitangi and Hokianga, was that conducted by Lieutenant Shortland at Kaitaia. Indeed it is questionable whether in some respects it has not achieved a greater celebrity, for it was here that the {146} eloquent chief Nopera (Noble) coined the phrase which has been more often quoted than any other in connection with the history of the treaty: "The shadow of the land goes to the Queen, but the substance remains with us." ”

“ Its most virulent enemies have ever been the land speculators, and there are not wanting signs in these times of unsatisfied land hunger—of never-ceasing speculation—that the treaty has either been forgotten by those whose duty it is to remember it, or that its obligations have ceased to have their old-time moral value. Lest we forget that the treaty is still in force, and that native lands are not common plunder for the avaricious Pakeha, let us briefly review the circumstances which made the compact between the two nations a political virtue, if not a political necessity. ”

“ The Europeans were very numerous but the natives were more so, many who came from a distance carrying guns. What, thought I, if these savages refuse to accede to the treaty, is to hinder them from driving us into the sea, or into their ovens? What greater proof of their sovereignty than their willingness to yield it up to us? ”

“ Grey said that those who did not wish to sell their land could keep it by the treaty of Waitangi; but that no one must hinder another man from selling what was his own. The land for which Governor Browne had given £200 at Taranaki was still in the occupation of armed Maoris, and it must be given up. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is a native proverb which says, with reference to a man of great keenness and sagacity, 'He was born with his teeth,' and in the matter of making bargains the New Zealanders may be said to be a people who were born with their teeth. I believe it is a very long time since it was possible to overreach the natives much in a bargain. I know that their particular clause of the treaty was there by their own urgent request, and that it met with the universal and unqualified approbation of the chiefs. ”

“ All white men who wished for land could then buy from the Governor. Three days later the respectable white men of Kororarika waited on Captain Hobson to congratulate him on his arrival and to promise him their obedience and assistance.
5. Treaty of Waitangi.—Meantime Hobson had asked the missionaries to send word round to all the neighbouring chiefs that he would like to see them, and on the 5th of February, 1840, a famous meeting took place on the shore of the Bay of Islands near the mouth of the pretty river Waitangi. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Indeed complete clarity of mental vision could not have been expected, and would not have been attained in all particulars had civilised men instead of savages been concerned. The natives, however, understood clearly enough that for the advantages they hoped to reap from the treaty they were yielding much of their existing power to the Pakeha Governor, and whether it was much or little they were the more willing to surrender it because they realised that the advent of the European had so altered their social conditions that rule by the old method was no longer possible. ”

“ O, the Queen! you do not consider that act of retaining their land to be unjust; but the Government of New Zealand held it to be wrong, inasmuch as war was declared against the Waikatos, and the confiscation of their land followed, although the Waikatos had no desire to fight—the desire came from the Governor and his council. When the Waikatos were overpowered, armies of soldiers went forth to engender strife against the Maoris at Tauranga, at Te Awa-o-te Atua at Whakatana, at Ohiwa, at Opotiki, at Turanganui, at Ahuriri, at Whanganui, at Waimate, and various other places. ”

“ I, Rewa, say to thee, O Governor, go back. Send the man away. Do not sign the paper. If you do you will be reduced to the condition of slaves, and be compelled to break stones on the roads. Your land will be taken from you and your dignity as chiefs will be destroyed."
The next speaker was Moka, a chief of the Patukeha tribe, from Rawhiti, the burden of whose speech was also against the acceptance of the treaty. "Let the Governor return to his own country. Let us remain where we are. ”

“ That while it appears highly probable that much of the soil of New Zealand will ultimately rest in the British Crown, as land to which no proprietary title of any kind can be established by an individual, or by any tribe, yet it is impossible, by any fair construction of the treaty, to limit the native claims either to the pas or to the grounds in actual cultivation by the natives at any particular time. ”

“ This course, he pointed out, was preferable to leaving the sale of large tracts of country to themselves, when they would almost surely pass into the hands of men who would never come amongst them, but would by their speculations hamper the industrious. The Government being aware of the intentions of these men—many of whom had no doubt counselled them against signing the treaty—would nevertheless unceasingly exert themselves to mitigate the evils following in the train of the speculators, by purchasing the land directly from the natives at a more just valuation. ”

“ In no sense does the act of discovery confer the right of property in the land, or the right of sovereignty {216} over its people. That is to say, in the abstract, no nation whatever can under any pretext violate the rights of any other independent nation. This was clearly the principle which guided those British Governments to whose lot fell the establishment of the first colonies in America. In all these cases was the property of the Indian tribes respected, and no land was acquired save by purchase, or by some other equitable arrangement made with the aboriginal owners. ”

“ Authentic and Genuine History of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, by the Rev. W. Colenso.
[64] These were all of foreign manufacture, and were the gifts of Bishop Pompallier. On this point Jameson says: "But the most virtuous of human actions are liable to be misinterpreted and misjudged, and M. de Pompallier's liberality to the natives was uncharitably stigmatised as an attempt to bribe and lure them to the adoption of the Catholic persuasion. ”

“ The injustice to be deprecated is that of seeking our own benefit solely and not theirs; and with respect to the New Zealanders our purchase of the sovereignty of their country ought not to be represented as being the same kind of bargain as if the French, for instance, were bargained with to cede the sovereignty over any portion of their territory. When the French ceded their sovereign rights over Martinique, Guadaloupe, and the Mauritius, they strictly ceded all their sovereign rights ”

“ Although the Hokianga chiefs as a body were the most determined in their opposition to the treaty, it is worthy of note that they were afterwards the most faithful in their adherence to the Government, and fought gallantly under Waaka Nēne, Aperahama Taonui, and Mohi Tawhai against Heke and Kawiti, during the Northern war of 1845. ”

“ Guaranteeing as it did to the tribes the full and complete possession of their lands, fisheries, and forests, it complied with the one condition that made the treaty tolerable to them; yet by reserving to the Crown the right, by pre-emption, [167] to become the medium of purchase between the natives and the settlers, it provided the contentious point upon which all who were interested in the acquisition of land concentrated their attacks. ”

“ This, too, is an arrangement in return for the assent of the Governorship of the Queen. The Queen of England will protect all the native men of New Zealand. She yields to them all the rights, one and the same as her doings to the men of England.
Now here's we: Here's the chiefs of the Assemblage of the tribes of New Zealand who are congregated at Waitangi. Here's we too. Here's the chiefs of New Zealand, who see the meaning of these words, we accept, we entirely agree to all. Truly we do mark our names and marks. ”

“ Fortunately New Zealand has, in the main, been blessed with administrators of wide sympathies, and a paternal parliament has generally, though not always given the native race the most indulgent exposition of the treaty. Mistakes may have been made, misapprehensions may have occurred, even technical breaches of the treaty may have been committed, but since the administration of native affairs was handed over to the Colonial Government in 1863 there have been but few instances of flagrant violation of native rights. ”

“ It was a declaration that the Island of Ruapuke was his property and that of his tribe, to different individuals to whom he had allotted portions of it. Not wishing that he should conceive that any deception was intended on our part I wrote on the back of the document, "I have seen this paper but am not prepared to give an opinion, or any information on the purport of it. The treaty guarantees the full and exclusive possession of their lands and other properties to the natives." ”

“ Te Heuheu consented to wait, and the blankets were for the moment preserved. At length news arrived that Parore, a Nga-Puhi chief, and the Queen's official were on their way to Rotorua to bear the treaty to the Arawa chiefs. Then Te Heuheu thus instructed his people: "When the officer reaches the Arawa at Rotorua I shall attend. Let the tribe accompany me, armed, as trouble may arise over my declining to accept the Queen's rule." ”

“ 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." ”

“ Provided that such measures are not used as a means of arbitrary or unjustified discrimination against persons of the other Parties or as a disguised restriction on trade in goods, trade in services and investment, nothing in this Agreement shall preclude the adoption by New Zealand of measures it deems necessary to accord more favourable treatment to Maori in respect of matters covered by this Agreement, including in fulfilment of its obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi. ”

“ I told him it was literally as he described it, but not for an evil purpose as they supposed, but to enable her to enforce the execution of justice and good government equally amongst her subjects. Her authority having been already proclaimed over New Zealand with the consent of the greatest number of influential chiefs, he would find that the tribes must no longer go to war with each other, but must subject their differences to her arbitration; strangers and foreigners must no longer be plundered and oppressed by natives or chiefs; nor must the natives be injured or insulted by white men. ”

“ The Law of Nations, we believe, recognises no other mode of assuming dominion in a country, of which the inhabitants are so barbarous as to be ignorant of the meaning of the word sovereignty, and therefore incapable of ceding sovereign rights. This was the case with the New Zealanders, from whom it would have been impossible for Captain Cook to have obtained, except in mockery of truth, a British sovereignty by cession. Sovereignty by possession is that which the British Crown maintains in a large portion of its foreign dependencies. ”

“ I have heard that some persons, evil disposed both towards the Queen of England and the Chiefs of this country, have told you that by your signing that paper you lost your lands. This I deny. By that treaty the protection of the Queen and your possessions are made sure to you. Your lands shall certainly not be taken from you without your consent. You can sell your lands to the Crown, or not sell them, just as you think proper, but, remember, that when once you do sell them, they must be promptly and justly given up. ”