MAORI MEMORIES AIR MAIL FROM SYDNEY

Taranaki Daily News, 17 August 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

MAORI MEMORIES AIR MAIL FROM SYDNEY

NEFARIOUS TRAFFIC

(By

J.H.S.— Copyright.)

Britain’s sovereignty over Maoriland was recognised at the Peace of 1814, which is said to have “coincided to the day, a century later, with the momentous declaration of war in 1914.” Nominally the New South Wales Government watched our interests, but the settlers had to protect themselves as best they could. The Maoris found little difficulty where it came to arms; but peace was desired by both sides for the sake of traffic in guns, produce and land. Pakehas took a mean advantage of the Maori, trading a few old muskets for a shipload of silky hand dressed muka (flax), or a fig of tobacco for a kauri mast. Land transactions were an outrage upon virtue. In the mind of the Maori, land was pre-eminently sacred. No Maori at that time could or would part with land which was inherited from his ancestors. All land “sold” was believed by them to have been merely subject to the law of occupation at will (whaka noho). Official records show that one million acres were bought by Sydney speculators from 1830 to 1835— 27,000 square' miles of the best land (13,000,000 acres were reported as having been “acquired” by our religious teachers). ' Baron de Thierry entrusted £lOOO worth of merchandise to the Rev. Mr. Kendall to purchase a splendid block of kauri timber land. The Baron was disappointed to learn that his agent had “purchased only 40,000 acres, though at a reasonable cost of 36 fixes. ’ Several years later, he found- to his dismay that the axes were merely a deposit. No Maori sold land even to another. The only tenancy they knew was an occupation license. An abominable traffic was carried on by a score of unworthy pakeha traders in preserved human heads, for which relatively high prices were paid. Low down traders induced lbw grade Maoris to steal the sacred heads held in veneration by their fathers or sons. 'Phen followed murder for the heads of slaves and those made prisoners in war. In 1830, the drunken skipper of a brig which - visited Tauranga showed his Maori visitors the Shears he had purchased for guns and powder, when they actually recognised those of fathers, brothers and sons. When the Governor heard of this atrocity, he ordered the return of all heads; but the proclamation was scarcely less effective than some of our latter day rules and regulations.

Episodes. Kororareka (the home of the testy bird) became notorious for the misdeeds of the younger generation described as “brown, white or checkered. Sir Richard Bourke of New South Wales appealed to the British Government to appoint a strong man as its virtual ruler. Major Busby came in 1833, his first proposal being that all New Zealand should be ruled by a Parliament of Maori chiefs with a national flag of independence. The flag and a meeting of 35 chiefs was the beginning and end. The Maoris began to recognise that, pakeha land purchases were not too clean, and petitioned the “gracious chief to put an end to such robbery.” The task was too big for him. The grave injustice inflicted upon the natives who had loyally befriended Mrs. Guard . and other survivors of the “Harriet” near Egmont, created a serious breach between us. Not even common honesty .was . shown, for after the prisoners were brought on board, a Maori friend of Mrs. Guard, was deliberately shot, the ransom agreed upon was not paid, and the “Alligator” shelled their villages. Law breakers made Kororareka too hot for Kororarekans. A local committee approached the Governor, who haughtily refused to receive them. Like the American cow boys, .they tarred and feathered the worst offenders, and rode them out of town on a rail shoulder In 1836 “The New Zealand Association” was formed, but it was not supported. The missionaries hurled invectives, and the Iron Duke of Wellington declared that "Britain had more than enough Colonies without them,” Then the New Zealand Land Company came under the limp light by declaring its independence of all Governments. The first intimation of their intentions to reach the British Cabinet was that the company’s ship was actually on the way to New Zealand. Men of distinction were on the directorate, many of whose names aie remembered only by association with our townships and streets—the earl of Durham, ex-Governor of Canada, Colonel Wakefield, Petre, Baring, Boulcott, Hutt, Molesworth and others. The Govern-, ment suddenly awakened, informed the directors that the Crown alone could make Colonies. Captain Hobson was at once sent out as “Consul,” and after battles royal, New Zealand saw the first hope in 1839 of becoming a British Colony. Ocean Race of Four Months.

The New Zealand Company’s “Tory,” bent on “buying New Zealand,” left hurriedly and secretly in June, 1839. Tn her wake, with due dignity, H.M.S. “Druid” followed up. On board was tlfe first Lieutenant Governor to .be. Still behind these in the race was a French ship bound for Akaroa. Well for New Zealand, Britain had a good start; but ill indeed for many a pioneer the New Zealand Company was ahead of both. Fortunately the Queen’s emissaries were men of grit and fearless, who realised that the Maoris were deluded into selling their lands for a handful of tetere (child’s tin trumpets) and tangi te roria (crying Jew’s harps) in the belief that it was merely a. right of occupation at will. More than/1100 “purchasers” and their families came within six months, only to find that the company had no land. “The man who sold the lion’s skin was killed while hunting it.” The agent of the company was not concerned with the titles of Hinga tu (the strong hand) or Raupatu (conquest). He found the names of rivers, ranges and headlands as boundaries, then asked the chiefs E Puni and Wharepouri if they would sell. The chiefs had as little right to the tribal heritage as the company that sold it before. it bought it. The price paid was in blankets, spades, axes, fish hooks, guns, soap, sealing wax, trousers and trumpets. The boundaries described within the mystic terms of parallels, latitude end longtitude, comprised an.area the size of Ireland. Had it not been for the kindly care and warm friendship of the Wellington Maori tribe of Ngati Awa, the first 1500 pakehas would have been cooked in the Maori umu. To the credit of the pioneers, the rights of the Maori were honourably recognised by these early settlers, and later by the Government. Both the Maoris and many of those who purchased from the original land company were shamefully swindled, the one from his birth right, the other from the results of his life’s work.

PROPOSAL 90 YEARS AGO

(By

H.E.C.

The Prime Minister’s statement last week that he considered the trans-Tas-man air service should form part of the Imperial service now established between Sidney and London may or may not lead to controversy when Mr. Forbes returns to the Dominion. A good many people who are interested in the. transTasman service may not be aware, however that an air service between Sydney and London was proposed seriously over ninety years ago. The proposal caused a good deal of discussion in the Sydney newspapers, and was by no. means as fantastic as were so many of the easier discussions in regard to aviation. The Sydney project arose from the claim of an Australian inventor that a flying machine described in the English newspapers in the year 1843 was constructed upon principles he had explained to visitors * from the United Kingdom. He had not beenable to apply them to the construction of a flying machine himself, as he had no money for experiments on a large scale, Lut lie claimed that a machine built upon the principles he had discovered would be able to convey passengers and mails by air from Sydney to London m ten days. His calculation of the tune to be taken was apparently based upon a report of an alleged journey in the English machine from London, to Liverpool in a few hours. ' < ' The report was not founded upon fact, nor, on investigation, was. it found that the Australian discoveries had been used in the construction of the English machine. Nevertheless the history of that machine, given by Hariy Harper in his book “The Evolution of the' Flying Machine,” shows that its construction; represented a remarkable advance in the evolution of the heavier-than-air flying machine. . Just a century ago William Samuel Henson, a resident of Chard, a small town in the West of England, “first began to work upon an idea which, a few years later, was to develop into a remarkable scheme.” Twenty-six years earlier Sir George Cayley, “the father of British aeronautics,’ had delivered a remarkable address to the British Society of Civil Engineers. In this lecture Sir George propounded the theory that success in flying could be possible by the construction of a machine in which there was a development of the wing surface so driven by mechanical means as to take advantage of the resistance of the air. Sir George carried cut a series of researches with lifting surfaces of various types, and with model gliders. He never succeeded in obtaining a power-driven air-craft, however, the difficulty being that he “could not obtain any mechanical prime-mover which gave an adequate power for a sufficiently low weight.” Henson proposed to use a specially designed steam engine for this purpose, and by 1842 considered his experiments with models sufficiently near success to warrant the flotation of a company to build and operate a large steam-driven monoplane. A Bill was introduced into the House of Commons in March, 1843, to incorporate what was called the “Aerial Steam Transit Company.” The Bill was read a first time, and a prospectus was issued in the hope of .obtaining financial support for the construction of the large machine estimated to cost £2OOO. The project received generous treatment by the Press of Great Britain, but the prospectus gave few de? tails of the proposed machine and the general scepticism that prevailed in regard to aviation dissipated. any chance of obtaining the necessary finance.. Henson had now been joined in his experiment by a fellow townsman, John Stringfellow, and they constructed a large model with a 20 foot wing spam Thi.g was not ready for a trial until 1847 and then proved so disappointing that Henson abandoned the project and emigrated to America. . Stringfellow, however, continued his experiments and a year later “succeeded in building a model steam-driven monoplane which made _ number of short flights, being the first engine-driven model aeroplane in the world to do so.” The wings of the model contained 14 square feet of surface and had a 10-foot span, while the tiny steam engine had cylinders three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and with a two-inch stroke. The two four-bladed propellers were 16 inches in diameter and the total weight of the model was 81b.

For his experiment Stringfellow used a deserted factory. According to his son’s account of the trial light: “The inclined wire for starting the machine occupied less than half the length of the room, and left space at the end for the machine to clear *the floor. At first the tail was set at too high an, angle, and the machine rose too rapidly on leaving the wire. After doing a few yards it slid back, as if coming down an inclined plane, at such an agle that the point of the tail struck the ground and was broken. The tail was repaired and set at a smaller angle. The steam was again got up and the machine started down the wire, and, upon reaching the point of self-detachment, it gradually rose until it reached the l ' farther end of the room, striking a hole in the canvas placed to stop it, and flying well when rising as much as one in seven.” Among those who watched that memorable experiment were some officials from London’s great playground, Cremorne Gardens. They suggested some flights at the Gardens, regarding the flight as spectacular rather than a triumph of engineering, but the facilities promised were not forthcoming and. after one unofficial test at Cremome Stringfellow gave up that project and—for a time —the experiments in which he had “found nothing but pecuniary loss ■ and little honour.” He had, however, produced the first heavier than air model aircraft that really flew, <.and he had evolved a machine very nearly resembling the monoplanes of thirty years ago. Sixteen years after the failure at Cremome the Aeronautical Society of'Great Britain was formed and encouraged. Stringfellow to continue his'‘experiments. He -designed a model triplane, which had a total area of 28 square feet and, with its engine, weighed less than 121 b.. This model was shown at the society’s exhibition at the Crystal Palace held in 1868, and Stringfellow was awarded a prize of £lOO for the engine he had designed for the triplane. It developed just over one horse-power and was considered a triumph of light-weight design. The inventor continued his researches until his death in 1883 but a suitable “prime-mover” was not evolved until the arrival of the internal combustion engine.

Although there had been no attempt to steal the designs of Mr. Forbes, the Australian inventor, the reasoning of Forbes and Henson was undoubtedly in close approximation. Like Darwin and Wallace in later years, the researches of two men, each ignorant of the other’s work, led to similar conclusions being held by hoth. Also like Darwin, Henson, Forbes and Stringfellow opened a new