MORE BLUNDERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18333, 24 February 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

MORE BLUNDERS.

THE KING MOVEMENT. BY KOTARE. According to Pascal, the length of Cleopatra's nose determined the destiny of nations and the course of history. Had an inch more, or an inch less marred its prefect proportions, the rulers of Rome would never have sat at her feet. But in spite of Pascal, great events usually spring from adequate causes. The roots of any present crisis strike far and deep into the past. The sudden explosion that startles tho world may have been caused by a stray spark, but the powder has been long accumulating. There was not a peasant, not a serf in Russia's tragic past, who was ground into the dust by injustice and tyranny, but contributed his share of dynamite in the racial memory, and gave something to the cataclysm that produced Russia's tragic present. The explosions that scattered to the winds tho social organisation and the politics of the old French regime had been gathering for centuries in the mind and heart of a down-trodden and despised people. A small happening might precipitate the crisis, but the tremendous forces suddenly liberated are the slow growth of all past ages. No one believes that, the crack of a pistol at Sorajevo was the cause of the Great War, but in a flash it focussed a hundred lines of racial enmity that until then had never met at one point, and the civilised world in a moment fell into two armed camps. In our small way, wo have had tho same experience' in our New Zealand history. The Waitara, blunder was the proximate cause of tho Maori War, but it is idle to blame Governor Browne and the civil servants who misled him as if the whole responsibility for the tragedy rested with them.

Maori Discontent.

There is always a point in ©very colonising movement, where the demands of the newcomers are met by an emphatic refusal from the natives in possession, and almost invariably the issue has to be submitted to the arbitrament of war. The Maoris, a high-spirited and sensitive people, did not realise until the colonisation of New Zealand was well under way, that they had received into their country a strong virile race of unlimited ambition. They had accepted the white man's religion; they had acknowledged the sovereignty of the white man's Queen. But it seemed to many of their leaders that they had made a very bad bargain. The Government was not able to maintain order; it made laws it could not enforce. British rule was a mere name over much of the Maori territory. In dealing with any native people it is worse than futile to claim a sovereignty where then is no attempt to make it effective; with a race like the Maoris, it was to court disaster. " A man of war without guns " is a fit object of ridicule anywhere, and that it what the British authority had become even in some of the white settlements. A Government that does not keep control is almost worse than no Government at all. Many of the leading chiefs realised that. In their loyalty to their own people, they found their loyalty to Britain's Queen was becoming more difficult. - And there were always, the fighting chiefs like Rewi who . pro-; erred an enemy to a friend any day; It was the growing dissatisfaction with the inadequate attempts made. by the authorities to preserve law and order in the Maori lands that led to the King movement, and ultimately brought the Waikatos into the war. The leading Waikato chiefs were men of the highest intelligence and character— Tamihana and Rewi. If the Government could not keep control then they would exorcise authority and enforce the law in their own way. The Maoris had always been too proud of their tribal leaders and privileges to accept an over-lord or king who would unify the tribes under one rule. But they had lesvrned from the

missionaries of the exploits of Saul and David, and other Old Testament heroes, who had formed a collection of scattered tribes into a powerful nation, and it seemed to them they had scriptural warrant for setting up a king. A' king, they believed, would enable the tribes to present a united front to the increasing menace of white encroachment, and to preserve their tribal customs and laws. With a united nation, resolved to sell no more land to the whites, and able to enforce their decision against any possible aggression, the Maoris could live out their lives in their own way* in their own country; friendly with the white man, and still loyal to their British allegiance. That is how the matter appealed to Tamihana, perhaps the most influential chiel in the Waikato. The Insult. But Tamihana was above all things a man of peace. He found that the Government could not permit the election of a Maori king. He could see no incompatibility between his duty to a king of Jiis own race and his duty to the Queen recognised by the chiefs at Waitangi. But the authorities took another ' view, and Tamihana, at a time when his word would have swept the whole Waikato into the king movement, held his hand. And now occurred one of those foolish incidents that act as a spark to the powder magazine. Tamihana journeyed Auckland to interview the 'Governor. Grey did not always get on with white men, but ho knew the Maori mind, and understood and. appreciated the Maori point of view. And Grey was ever punctilious in showing all courtesy to 'tho chiefs of 6. race always remarkable for its courtesy and hospitality-. But there was 110 man with Grey's understanding of the Maori to greet the powerful Waikato chief -in Auckland. Tamihana was refused an interview, turned from the door with curt dismissal. Tamihana was cut to the heart. An application for financial assistance was refused by the Government about the same time. Tamihana returned to the Waikato and summoned the tribes. At Rangiriri, an immense gathering elected Potatau king. Throughout, the loyalty to Britain was affirmed. The Union Jack and the Maori royal standard flew side by side. But this was the vital fact there were two monarchs now in the Waikato, and the time must inevitably come when the loyaly to the one would clash with the loyalty to the other. Fortunately for colonists, the king movement did not spread much beyond the Waikato. War in the Waikato. The Waitara trouble precipitated war in Taranaki before the Government could take any active steps to deal with Queen Victoria's rival in the Waikato. The Waikato tribes took no official part in the Taranaki fighting, though small war parties were present at some of the fiercest engagements. But the smouldering resentment of the king tribes burst into flames some three years later,. when a large war party left Ngaruawahia, the Maori king's capital, and met on the Koheroa Hills the force General Cameron had sent across the Waikato tribes' boundary, the Maungatawhiri Stream- The Waikato War was made a certainty when a proud chief was contemptuously turned from the Governor's door.