THE KINGITES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 30, 5 February 1935, Page 5

THE KINGITES

THEIR DISSENSIONS I WAHANUI WON OVER BIRTH OF TRUNK RAILWAY. How the anti-pakeha soldier i.ewi and the anti-pakeha diplomat Wahanui were at last appeased is sketched in an article contributed to the New Zealand Railways Magazine by Mr. Jas. Cowan. The defeat of the Maoris in the Waikato War of 1833-64 by the. soldiers, and the subsequent confiscation of Waikato Maori land?, had driven the Waikato tribes over the Puniu River and into the country of the Rohepotae tribes, where, all the tribes combined to close the King Country (Rohepotae) against all pakehas and pakeha roads and rail ways; but by the eighties the owner tribes of the Rohepotae anil the tenant tribes that had been pushed out of the Waikato were getting along no better than land lord and tennant usually do. So the Government sought and at last obtained (in 18S3) the consideration of Wahanui and his people to railway penetration of the Rohepotae. Wahanui and Taonui, as NgatiManiapoto chiefs, were favourable in 1885; the Waikatos dissented, but they were not the owners of the Rohepotae land, and at the dramatic moment they were made to feel their position as people living in somebody else's place. Mr. Cowan writes:— Not until the year 1883 did Wahanui relax his strong anti-pakeha policy. It was in this year that he consented to the Native Minister’s request that Government surveyors, should be permitted to enter the King Country and make reconnaissance expeditions aiong likely road and railway routes. When the pioneer surveyor, C. W. Hursthouse and his assistant, News-ham, were captured and ill-treated by the fanatic Hauhau prophet, Tp Mahuki Manukura. at Te Kunii, near Te Kui-li, in 1883, it was Wahanui’s men, with some of Te Kooti’s, who released the pakehas from the whare in which they had been chained up. Mahuki's point of view was that pakeha surveyors were thp first wedge to split the log of Maori independence.

Restitutions or Bribes? From that time onward Wahanui supported the Government, or at any rate his antagonism ceased. But it was observed that he did not modify his anti-pakeha policy until the Government of the day had discreetly recognised his position and dignity by building him a large house at Alexandra and offering him a pension. At the same time—it was in Mr. John Bryce's period of office as Native Minister—Rewi Maniapoto was presented with a house at Kihikihi. It could not fairly be said that these gifts of the Government were bribes. They were rather expressions in a tangible form of the Government’s recognition of the chief’s mana, and of the newlycome permanent peace. Rewi certainly was only receiving a small measure of what was due to him from the white people; the fine pakeha house built for him was close to the site of his old homo and council house “ Hui-te-Rangiora.’’ which the British soldiers burned when they invaded Kihikihi village in 1864.

Had it not been for Wahanui’s in fluence, supported by Rewi Maniapoto and Taonui, the construction of the North Island Main Trunk railway through the King Country, which was begun in 1885, would have been delayed for many a year. The turning of the first sod of the section south of the boundary river ,-the Putuu, near Te Awamutu, was a ceremony of uncommon importance and political significance, for it marked the end of the twenty years of implacable opposition to pakeha enterprise and settlement in the King Country. “ But the sod was nearly not turned that day,” was Sir Robert Sout’s expression when he narrated to me (it was in a conversation in Wellington some twenty years ago) his share in that crowning episode of the long negotiations with the Maori lords of the soil. Te Taute’s Diplomacy. Sir Robert was Premier of the colony in 1885, and he and his colleague, Mr. John Ballance, Native Minister had to tread delicately and tactfully with the very touchy Kingite chiefs. But “Te Taute,” as the Maoris called Stout, was. a diplomatist and he made great friends of the Big Three of Ngati-Maniapoto, who were by that time becoming rather weary of the Waikato tribes’ occupation of the King Country and the Waikato chiefs’ dictation of policy. At the last moment, when all had been arranged with Wahanui and his fellow-chiefs for the ceremony on the south bank of the puniu, which was to signal the beginning of the. line formation, Waikato endeavoured to stop the sod-turning. Early on the morning of the day fixed for the event, there was a conference at Te Awamutu between the Premier and the leading chiefs. Wahanui, Rewi and Taonui wore there. But there also came to the meeting—which was held privately in the hotel in which Sir Robert was staying—two chiefs of Waikato, Major Wiremu te Wheoro, and another. They came from Whatiwhatihoe, on the Wai pa, the large village of King Tawhiao and his people; and they pro tested in the name of the Ki •■'Oiinst the beginning of the railwax.

and his council of chiefs were opposed to the making of the line although the King Country was- not their territory. Silent. But Firming. Speeches were made by Te Wheoro and his fellow-chief strongly opposing the arrangement with the Government. One man al the conference remained silent. That was Wahanui. The great, chief sat there regarding the Waikatos with intense indigation. He was fuming with anger; his big chest heaved in his efforts to suppress his feelings; for the moment they were too strong for words. At last one of the Waikato chiefs, regardless of the fact that his tribes people were only in the Rohepotae by sufferance of NgatiManiapoto, had the hardihood to declare that the earth would not be turned that day, for (he reason that it

was Waikato’s land; it was under the mana of Tawhiao; it was his land. ‘‘Oh, well,” said Stout (he. was Mr. Stout then), quietly regarding the deeply-incensed Wahanui, “if it is Waikato’s land we have come to the wrong place.” When this was translated to the chiefs by the Government interpreter (Mr, G. T, Wilkinson), Taonui rose and spoke. He was a tall, dignified mai , almost, as big and commanding a figure as Wahanui. Angrily he de dared: “It is our land. The sod shall be turned; it shall be turned to-day.” And it was done. The Waikato chief retired, baffled; literally they had no locus standi in the Rohepotae. The ceremonial turning of the sod, for the rail was carried out, as arranged, by the three chiefs of the NgatiManiapoto. '.rhe Preniiei very tactfully contented himself with wheeling the barrow containing the sods. And the line went forward, the slow but inevitable stage in (he transformation of the great Rohepotae.