OBITUARY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 14915, 10 February 1909, Page 9

OBITUARY.

MR HONE HEIvE. [Pun Press Association.! WELLINGTON, February 9. Mr Hone Hcke, who lias represented the Northern Maori district in Parliament since 1893, died in a private hospital at Wellington this morning from tubercular htemorrhago. Ho was forty years of age. (Tlio late Mr Hone Heke, M.P. for the Northern Maori district, was horn at Kaikohe, Bay of Islands, in 1869, and was the son of Hone Ngapua Tuhirangi, of Kaikohe. He was educated at tlm Kawakawa Village School, the

Oromahoe Native School, and at Sl> Stephen’s-Native School, Auckland. In 1891 lie entered the Government service as a clerk in the Native Land Court, Wellington, but resigned in the following year to take up the leadership of the Maori Federated Tribes of New Zealand, which included practically all, the Natives of the North Island, excepting these under the movement of the Maori King, those residing in the Thames and the Waikato, and the followers of Te Wliiti and Tohu. The oh-,, ject of the union was to petition Par- ; lianient for Home Rule for the Maoris, but the movement did not find much favour among the European part of the population of the dominion. Returned to Parliament at the general elections; held towards the close of 1893, Mr Heke, on the of Parliament, introduced a Native Rights Bill, but the measure, which was referred to the Native Affairs Committee, was not proceeded with that year. In 1895 the proposal again Cam'o before Parliament ' but was thrown out by the House or Representatives. _ When ho was first elected to a seat in the House of Representatives, the late member attached himself to the Conservative Party, but after a few yeans’ experience he announced his conversion to Liberalism, and during the last five or six years had, been a staunch supporter of the present Government. At the last general election the voting for the Northern. Maori, sent was:—Hone Heke 1700, Haro To, Rangi 359.)