THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1934 HOBSON AND HIS TREATY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21717, 5 February 1934, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1934 HOBSON AND HIS TREATY

All New Zealand, it is no exaggeration to say, is deeply interested in the doings at Waitangi to-day and to-morrow. When the gift of the Treaty House property was made to the people of the Dominion by the Governor-General and Lady Bledisloe, it was realised that a great thing had been done, and as their purpose took shape month by

month, in the restoration of the famous old Residency and the improvement of the estate, national gratitude deepened with the growing appreciation of the thought in the ! gift. Now, the initial work completed, and the appropriate time come for ceremonial transfer of the property and due rites in beginning the erection of the Maori meetinghouse near by, the signal importance of the occasion arouses enthusiasm everywhere. Nothing quite like this celebration has ever taken place in the Dominion. The imagination of both races is quickened by it in relation to past and future, and their sharing of so significant a festival of history will serve to bind them yet more closely in the comradeship they have long en"joyed. In making the gift, Their Excellencies doubtless envisagedx a prompting by its means of the lofty type of patriotism that values the service of pioneer loyalty to British ideals and strives to emulate it, and it is evident that from the first they hoped to inspire further essays of collaboration by the parties to the treaty. But they could scarcely have foreseen that their gift would draw into ardent fellowship the whole of this Maori tribes and thus perfect the unity of all within our shores. For when the treaty was concluded no Maori unity existed : ancient divisions, although redeemed from fierce and sanguinary enmities by missionary influence, continued to separate, and some tribes under chiefs of proud renown held aloof from the treaty. That with eager unanimity they should seek to rally about this memorial of it is as gratifying as it is remarkable. As each chief affixed his name or sign to the memorable document at Waitangi, Captain Hobson shook him by the hand and said—it was the first fully official word in Maori uttered by pakeha lips—" He iwi tahi tatou " (We are one people). Truer than ever is that word to-day, by reason of this uniting celebration and its call- to patriotism, and it might fittingly find a place in the memorial meeting-house. i

Time lias wrought many changes in the years since 1840, and remembrance of these is inevitable as the treaty is recalled. Captain Hobson came to a New Zealand very different from this we know. Sealers, whalers, traders had followed in ths wake of discovery, but of organised settlement there was scarcely any. The missions of the Anglican and Wesleyan Churches had done yeoman service in quelling Maori feuds and checking cannibalism. Here and there whaling stations had been established, exercising an iniluence not always of the best. Visits of ships in quest of spars and flax and food supplies had brought scattered touches from the outside world. At one place alone, Kororareka in the Bay of Islands, was there any considerable number of resident Europeans, and these notoriously included many neither prepared nor disposed to welcome the reign of law. Save for the moral and spiritual oases of the missionary enterprise l — Darwin's warm praise of Waimate in contrast to much else comes yet to mind—these islands were without sure promise of human welfare. James Busby's seven years as British Resident at Waitangi in brave efforts to discharge a duty for which he was inadequately equipped by a half-hearted Government, and the pioneer arrival in Port Nicholson of the New Zealand Company's irregular and unblessed migration, were in different ways manifestations of a non-colonising mood that seemed destined to continue. Hobson's coming, as Consul and as Lieutenant-Governor over such portions of New Zealand as he could obtain by cession from their acknowledged Maori owners, meant a new departure. In the events now being thankfully recalled the old disorder yielded place to better things for the brown man and the white. Soon came apace the "six colonies" of our early days, with other developments of a like kind, and on that broadening foundation the Dominion was built. But it was the entry of British law, whatever had been well done or ill done before it came, that made the arising of ithe Dominion possible. To Hobson and his treaty this British New Zealand owes its existence. It is well that remembrance of these things should be given so definite a focus as is provided by the Waitangi celebrations. Too often great happenings are taken for granted, as if they just had to be in some vague process of the years, without any particular exertion of human effort. A little knowledge of the time of Hobson's coming and a little thought about possible events at that time are enough to shatter such complacency. Eyes other than British were then on New Zealand. Discounting some ill-based recitals, the serious student of our history has still an assurance that the whole course of that history would have been vastly different had this particular effort not been made. To Hobson, therefore, as the actor-in-

chief of the scene now recalled, an ungrudged tribute of honour is due. He was destined to have detractors in the short span of his Governorship and from the very beginning he had difficulties. But in the light of adequate research he is utterly vindicated as a devotedly loyal and selfless doer of duty. His task taxed his strength, and in an hour when physical calamity swept down upon him he was tempted, out of consideration for the task itself, to relinquish it to other hands. Yet he manfully carried on, to see all the initial work accomplished ere he succumbed to the malady induced by earlier trials in his remarkable naval career. Literally, he died at his post. These celebrations bring him splendidly to mind. And with him in the honour now paid are others, as eager for high duty and in their several parts as worthy of renown. It is a great story, deserving to be written in the hearts of all New Zcalanders to-day and throughout generations following.