TREATY OF WAITANGI Dramatic Events On Bank Of The Hokianga River

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31908, 8 February 1969, Page 5

TREATY OF WAITANGI Dramatic Events On Bank Of The Hokianga River

CB« CECIL and CELIA MANSON)

The second act in the story of Waitangi was just as dramatic as the first, perhaps even more so. We celebrate the first but forget the other, though it was in the second act that the whole Treaty of Waitangi was jeopardised. And it was a pakeha rather than Maoris who nearly caused it to be wrecked.

The Maori chiefs who had signed the treaty at Waitangi were only a portion of the chiefs of the north, and Lieutenant Governor Hobson knew that without the acceptance of the larger numbers the treaty would be worthless.

So for him, the meeting with these others at the Methodist Mission Station on the Hokianga River on February 12, 1840, was in fact more vitally important than the one which we celebrated on February 6. Harassed and ill (he was to have a paralytic stroke some ten days later) he reached the mission station at Mangungu on February 11, after riding by rough tracks across from the Bay of Islands to the upper Hokianga, where he took boat. With him was the; Captain of H.M.S. Herald, which he was using as his headquarters, Captain Nias, whose continually insulting behaviour was not the least of Hobson’s worries.

As they neared the mission station a flotilla of eight boats, all flying the British flag and loaded with most of the British residents of the river, joined them; and when they were off Horeke, Lieutenant McDonnell, who owned the shipyard there, gave them a salute of 13 guns from his little battery of ninepounders.

Alive With Canoes At the mission station, young Miss Bumby, sister of the absent missionary, welcomed and somehow managed to feed and house the official party.

The following morning the great river estuary was alive with Maori canoes. It was an awe-inspiring sight as hundreds of canoes, bearing some 3000 Maoris including 400 or 500 chiefs of varying degrees, converged upon the landing place below the Mission. But after the landing, they made no move towards the mission house.

Hobson waited impatiently for the chiefs to approach.

I “Why don’t they come up?” he asked Hobbs, the Methodist missionary who acted as interpreter. Hobbs guessed well enough. The chiefs were conferring and there was no lack of opposition to the treaty. At last there was movement and the rising sound of voices. The chiefs with their followers, showing clear signs of disapproval, came close to the table which, covered with a Union Jack, had been placed in the paddock outside the mission house. Hobson, relieved that they had at least gone so far, came out with his staff to the table. At Waitangi, he was thinking, there had been Waka Nene to sway opinion in favour of the treaty. Would there be another Waka Nene today? Chiefly Harangues After addressing the Europeans present Hobson now explained the treaty to the chiefs and “the motives of Her Majesty in proposing to extend to New Zealand her powerful protection.” Then he invited discussion. He looked hopefully at his audience, but he saw nothing to make him cheerful. Soon a chief rose to speak, or rather harangue. This opened the flood-gates. For hour after hour of the hot summer’s day, Hobson watched as chief after chief declaimed—running, crouching, threatening, gesticulating as was their custom. “The New Zealanders,” wrote Hobson later in a dispatch, “are passionately fond of declamation ... on this occasion all their best orators were against me and every argument they could devise was used to defeat my object.” Shouted Taonui: “We are glad to see the Governor, but let him come to be a Governor to the pakehas. We want no governors. How do the pakehas behave to the coloured people at Port Jackson? They treat them like dogs!" And Papahi cried: “What is the Governor come for? He to be high, very high, like Maungataniwha and we low on the ground like little hills? No. Let us be equal. This is bad.” One'sentence in a speech by Tawhia made Hobson realise that it was not all genuine Maori opposition. Tawhia said; “You come to deceive us. The pakehas tell us so. We believe what they say.” And when he went on to talk about the missionaries’ and even Hobson’s own salaries, Hobson stood up and cut him ahort. “Speak your own sentiments like a man,” he said;

sternly, and accused him of making second-hand observations that were patently of pakeha origin; he challenged him to name the individual who was behind what he and other chiefs, including Taonui, had said. Then the chief Hobson refers to as Papa Haika called the name of the Irish trader, Frederick Maning. Maning, a tall, athletic, young man of 31, came forward. “You have advised the chiefs not to sign the Treaty?” asked Hobson coldly.

“Yes.” “Are you willing, then, that your Maori friends should continue to be robbed and cheated by the worst elements of the pakehas here without any opportunity of redress?”

“No,” said Maning, “but I conscientiously believe that there should be British control only of pakehas, not of Maoris.” ‘Are you aware that English laws can be exercised only on British soil?” Maning was confused. “I was not aware of that,” he said, “but I’m no lawyer.” “Please resume your seat,” said Hobson. Maning’s discomforture had a profound effect on the meeting.

Hobson rammed it home in another speech to the chiefs. “I warn you solemnly,” he said, “if you listen to ignorant advice of pakehas like

this and oppose me, it is quite certain that you will be stripped of all your land by pakehas of a worthless type who will care not how they trample on your rights. I am sent here to control such people and ask from you the authority to do so.”

“Song Of Applause”

As Hobbs finished translating there was what Hobson called a “song of applause.” Old Ngaro who had all along wanted to sign the treaty took his cue. “Welcome, welcome, Governor,” he cried. Tawhia joined in and so did others. Finally old Taonui made a moving speech. “Now Governor, for the first time my heart has come near to your thought,” he cried, “I approach you with my whole heart. You must watch over my children. There is my land too. You must take care of it. I do not wish to sell it.”

The sun had long set when the chiefs, more than 56 of them (only 46 had signed at Waitangi), crowded round the table eager to sign. It was midnight when the last mark was made.

Hobson, physically and mentally exhausted, could only just hold the pen to write a staggering signature. Maning, the discomfited, lived to become first judge of the Native Land Court, administering the very laws he had so strongly opposed. Two years later Hobson was dead.