’TIS SIXTY-ONE YEARS SINCE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1509, 31 January 1901, Page 57

’TIS SIXTY-ONE YEARS SINCE

When the New Zealand Company sent the. first batch cf colonists in the ship Tory to 'settle in magnificent harbour of Port' Nicholson, the act was a defiance of the British Government. But it was a successful defiance. The Government bad long hesitated to take the decisive step of definitely annexing the country. At first the Governor of New South Wales was given authority over thd British Alsatians (whalers, beachcombers and land-sharks) in these islands Then Mr Busby was sent as the British representative in the country, Mr Busby being found to' be without men or money was by universal consent nicknamed. the . “man-of-war without guns.” Presently Mr Busby,: having signalised himself by promulgating a Federal Gonwith, a flag, of his . own devising for the Maori tribes, was found to be also without brains. Before the: world had 1 done laughing at the discomfited official, the French Government showed practical desires in the direction of Banks Peninsula. It was then the unauthorised departure of the good ship Tory was announced. The British Government thereupon gave up the game of hesitation, in spit© of the Duke, of Wellington, who declared that Great Britain was too much burdlened with colonies already, and sent out Governor Hobson. The result was the Treaty of Waitangi. Involved in that result were many others, most of which were) very unpleasing to the new settlers in the South. The Tory’s arrival had been prepared for by & great land purchase, arranged between Colonel Wakefield of the one part and the chief Te Rauparaha of the other. The Maori surrendered millions of acres, surveyed by a careless wave of his hand, and the Colonel surrendered a few score of axes, a little ammunition and'some blankets.. On the faith of this transaction the Wellington immigrants paid down a pound an acre

for their sections to the smiling company, after which they passed the voyage in happy dreams. Before they could get their lands, the signing of the Waitangi Treaty was followed by a proclamation invalidating all jsales of native land. The settlers got a rpde awakening, and their newly-opened eyes took in the most dangerous situation that ever confronted New Zealand colonists. Certainly none of the other great centres of New Zealand’s population were called upon to make good their position against such tremendous odds. The southern part of the North Island was the seat of a vast Maori power. Founded by Te Rauparaha, the Kawhia chief, after his migration southwards, and with many ware and much diplomacy, it was ruled by that potentate when the Tory came into harbour. The Maori settlements clustered thick round the extensive shqet of water, From the pa at Te Aro their settlements ran round to their stronghold at KumitotO frowning above where now is Woodward street-. At Pipitea Point there ' was another crowded fortification, another at Takawai, which carried the line of defensive strength on to Kaiwarra-warra. Ngahauranga had another great strong place, being a strategic position commanding the road to Poriraa. At Petone yofc another set of palisades told of armed warriors ready to defend their own, and their stronghold was but the introdnption to the teeming fortified Maori life of the Hutt valley. At Forirua was another strong place,, and the Maoris were in all the bays of the West Coast, and in armed possession of every river crossing, and piece of smiling open land, Waimiij Wareroa, Waremoko, Waikanae, Waikawa, Okau, Paretawhau, and many another place of renown, up to Gtaki; and between that place and the Manawatu they swarmed in their thousands. The redoubtable Te Rauparaha ruled the whole from his lair in the island of Kapiti, and Rangihaeta, scarcely less formidrable, destined shortly to be the murderer of Arthur* Wakefield and liis misguided companions at Wairau, hold, with his skirmishers, the hills between the western coast and the valley of the Hutt. In presence of this display of overwhelming force the settlers who had paid their cash for their lands wondered how the Crown, which can do all things, was going to make the palpably recalcitrant Te Rauparaha give them possession. In the midst of their wondering came Governor Hobson’s proclamation, and Te Rauparaha adroitly took the easy course of bowing to the Queens authority. It was perhaps well. H|td he been compelled to fight, he would have swejpt every settler into the ovens of his tribesmen. - Better for them that he contented himself with saluting Governor Hobson. with the; Maori; dquivaleht for “A Daniel come to judgment.” ; The most wonderful thing in the hi»tory of those Wellington settlers is that they emerged from, that apparently impossible situation on the line, .of destiny which brought them to their present greatness. This they-did, though every possible addition was made to their perplexity. To begin with, the darkness in which they stood was deepened.by the shadow of a lost, opportunity. Governor Hobson, having to establish a capital (Kororareka having proved impossibly), ought to. have flown to the proper geographical, centre. / . He,, preferred the Waitemata. Ho did well by setting up a city: therei—did a great act of strategy ■ by cutting the great northern Maori tribes off. from cine another at the outset. But as there werei white® enough in the north for the strategy, he would have done far better had he thrown the greater part of the material strength of the Crown’s (occupation into the Port) Nicholson site. He lost a great opportunity. What is more, he angered the people by regarding them as lawless persons no better than the Alsatians of the pre-colonising days, and that only because they weire properly sturdy, and Governor Fitzroy was even worse in this respect. The consequence was that Wellington found the apparently insoluble Maori problem intensified by charges from the Crown’s representative cf disloyalty, and by strict injunctions against drilling, or any preparation whatever for : -self-defence. It is useless to follow out the story of how that brave picked intellectual population came through this terrible pressure of difficulties, the worst that any of the centres bad to encounter. To-day we are all smiling serenely on the spot where they performed- that great feat. We can only recall its memory, and hope that whenever any similar difficulty confronts i.is, the spirit of those grand old pioneers may be here to carry ns through.