ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 December 1937, Page 3

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

NEW ZEALAND IN 1837.

At the close of the year 1837 New Zealand remained a land of potentialities. Its interior was still for the most part unexplored, its resources were practicallj untouched. European settlement was confined to the Mission stations and to the coastal resorts of traders and whalers. Government in the true sense of the word there was none; James Busby, installed as British Resident at the Bay of Islands, was an official with only the semblance of authority. Nominally an independent state, New Zealand was in reality a, no man’s land whose native people were subject alike to the best and to the worst influence of European civilisation.

Yet, reviewing the incidents of the year at a century's distance, we see how surely events were moving towards one end. Against its will and by forces beyond its control, the British Government was being driven to transform this no man’s land of mere potentialities into a British Colony, 1837 was, in fact, a decisive year in New Zealand history.

It was Utting that Samuel Marsden, founder of the first New Zealand Mission, should have his part in the events of that decisive year. On February 7, 1837, he left Sydney in the “Pyramus” on his seventh and last voyage to New Zealand, arriving at Hokianga sixteen days later. There he met again many of the chiefs whom lie- had formerly known. “I had much important conversation with them on the subject of religion and civil government,” he wrote to the Secretary of the Church Missionary Society. “They have no established laws amongst them, and) they feel and lament the want of a government.” Proceeding to Waimate, Marsden saw gratifying signs that after long years of adversity the Mission had begun 1.0 succeed. "The schools and churches are well attended,” he wrote, “and the greatest order is observed

amongst all classes.’’ At the Bay of Islands, on the other hand, he described a totally different picture. In the settlement of Kororareka were Europeans who “encouraged every kind of crime.” “There are no laws, judges, or magistrates,” he continued, “so that Satan maintains his dominion without molestation.” On his return to New South Wales, Marsden announced, he would "lay the state of New Zealand before the Colonial Government to see if anything can be done to remedy these public evils.” Marsden’s report, transmitted to the Church Missionary Society, and thence to the Colonial Office, was to have its share in determining New Zealand’s ultimate destiny. CAPTAIN WILLIAM HOBSON. By one of history’s coincidences, during the course of this visit Marsden was to meet the man who later . became New Zealand’s first Governor. Under instructions from the Governor of New South Wales, Captain William Hobson, of 11.M.5. “Rattlesnake,” visit-1 ed the Bays of Islands towards the end of May. By this, time Marsden was seeking a passage- to New South Wales, and, after accompanying Hobturned on tile “Rattlesnake” to Sydturned on the “Rattlesnake’ 'to Sydney.

So another element was introduced into the complex pattern of history. Hobson’s report, forwarded to the Colonial Oilice in September, tells of "abandoned rufliians” at the May of Islands, and, in contrast, of the Maoris, “a lino and intelligent, race,” disunited by tribal conflicts and lacking “any government, whatsoever.” As a remedy, Hobson urged the establishment of factories at the Bay of Islands, Cloudy Bay, Hokianga, and in other places where “sections of. land might bo purchased, inclosed and placed within the influence of British jurisditcion. as dependencies of this colony.” (Now South Wales').

Hut developments in Ungland were to necessitate something more than such half measures. Colonisation was

being planned on a scale infinitely larger than that envisaged by Hooson. Early in 1837 the New Zealand association had been formed by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the colonising theorist whose schemes were to have their most application in New Zealand. On May 12, writing to his brother-in-law, Wakefield announced that lie had “set on foot a new measure of colonisation. fl he country,” he explained, “is New Zea-land-one of the finest countries m the world, if not the finest, for British settlement.’’ From the first Wakefield s enteipiise met with the strongest opposition. The Report of the Aborigines’ Committee, appearing in 1837, had demonstrated with a wealth of evidence, that colonisation was inevitably to the detriment of native peoples. Backed by this report, Dandeson Coates, Lay Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, launched in November a virulent attack on the Association, This was one of the first episodes in a oitter struggle which was to continue even after the despatch of the "Tory accelerated Government action. Another figure now intervened to detach the Colonial Office still further from its policy of non-intervention in New Zealand affairs. On November 4, Charles, Baron de Thierry, Hokianga seeking possession to 40,wu acres which he claimed to have _ purchased in 1822. In this domain (e Thierry aspired to reign as “Sovereign Chief.” “I am an Englishman, at heart,” he wrote to the Sydney Gazette,” "but the study of my lite will be to support the independence ot Nev Zealand under some civilised nuei, be he who he may, and to save this line people (the Maoris) from tne degradation and destruction which would inevitably follow its subjugation to the British Crown.” Such a threat, even coming from a comic-opera king, could not be wholly ignored when its author was of French nationality.