A CENTURY AGO

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20389, 4 January 1938, Page 9

A CENTURY AGO

NEW ZEALAND IN 1837 SOME EARLY HISTORY A DECISIVE YEAR At the close of the year 1837 New Zealand remained a land of potentialities. Its interior was still for the most part unexplored, its resources were practically untouched. European settlement was confined to the mission stations and to the coastal resorts of traders and whalers. Government in the true sense of the word there was none; James .Busby, installed as British Resident at the Bay of Islands, was an official with only tlie semblance of authority. Nominally an independent slate, New Zealand was in reality a no-man’s land whose native people were subject alike to the best and to the worst influence of European civilisation. Yet, reviewing the incidents of the year at a century’s distance, events were moving towards one end. Against its will and by forces beyond its control, the British Government was being driven to transform this no-man s land of mere potentialities into a British Colony. 1837 was, in fact, a decisive year in New Zealand history. Marsden’s Last Visit It was fitting that Samuel Marsden, founder of the first New Zealand mission, should have his part in the events of that decisive year. On February 7, 1837, he left Sydney in the "Pyramus” on his seventh and last voyage to New Zealand, arriving at Hokianga sixteen days later. There he met again many of the chiefs whom he had formerly Known. “I hud much important conversation with them on the subject of religion and civil government,” he wrote to the secretary of the Church Missionary Society. “They' have no established laws amongst them, and they feel and lament the want of a government.” Proceeding to Waimate, Marsden saw gratifying signs that after long years of adversity the mission had begun to succeed. “The schools and churches are well attended,” he wrote, “and the greatest order is observed amongst ail classes.” At the Bay of Islands, on the other hand, he described a totally different picture. In the settlement of Kororareka were Europeans who "encouru\ged every kind of crime.” “There are no laws, judges, or magistrates,” lie continued, “so that Satan maintains his dominion without molestation.” On his return to New South Wales, Marsden announced, he would “lay the state of New Zealand before the Colonial Government to see if anything can be done to remedy these public evils.” Marsden’s report, transmitted to the Church Missionary Society, and thence to the Colonial Office, was to have its share in determining New Zealand’s ultimate destiny. Captain William Hobson By one of history’s coincidences, during the course of this visit Marsden was to meet the man who later became New Zealand s first Governor. Under instructions from the Governor of New South Wales, Captain William Hobson of H.M.S. “Rattlesnake” visited the Bay of Islands towards the end of May. By this time Marsden was seeking a passage to New South Wales and, after accompanying Hobson on a vißit to Cook Strait, he returned on the “Rattlesnake ’ to Sydney. . x j So another element was introduced into the complex pattern of history. Hobson’s report, forwarded to the Colonial Office in September, tells of “abandoned ruffians” at the Bay of Islands, and, in contrast, of the Maoris, “a fine and intelligent race,” disunited by tribal conflicts and lacking “any government whatsoever.” As a remedy, Hobson urged the establishment ol' factories at the Bay of Islands, Cloudy Bay, Hokianga, and in other places where “sections of land might be purchased, inclosed and placed within the influence of British jurisdiction, as dependencies ol' this colony.” (New South Wales).

New Zealand Association

But developments in England were to necessitate something more than such half measures. Colonisation was being planned on a scale infinitely larger than that envisaged by Hobson. Earlv in 1837 the New Zealand Asso-r ciation had been formed by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the colonising theorist whose schemes were to have their most extensive application in New Zealand. On May 12, writing to jiis brotner-ln-law, Wakefield announced that he had “set on foot a new measure of colonisation.” “The country,” he explained, “is New Zealand —one of the finest countries in the world, if not the finest, for British settlement.”

■From the first Wakefield’s enterprise met with the strongest opposition. The report of the Aborigines Committee, appearing in 1837, had demonstrated with a wealth of evidence. that colonisation was inevitably to the detriment of native peoples. Backed by this report, Dandeson Coates, lay secretary of the Church Missionary Society, launched in November a virulexit attack oil the Association. This was one ol' the first episodes in a bitter struggle which was to continue even after the despatch of the “Tory” accelerated Government action. An Uncrowned King Another figure now intervened to detach the Colonial Office still further from its policy of non-interven-tion in New Zealand affairs. On November 4, Charles, Baron de Thierry, landed at Hokianga seeking possession of 40,000 acres which lie claimed to have purchased in 1822. In this domain de Thierry aspired to reign as “Sovereign Chief.” "I am an Englishman at heart,” he wrote to the Sydney Gazette, “but the study of my life will be to support the independence of New Zealand under some civilised ruler, be lie who he may, and to save this line people (the Maoris; from the degradation and destruction which would inevitably follow its subjugation to the British Crown.” Such a threat, even coining from a comic-opera king, couid not be wholly ignored when its author was of French nationality. So it was that through the course of the year the affairs of New Zealand slowly moved towards a climax. < uncial machinery retarded I lie action of the drama, as did the slow and uncertain communications of I hose days. But we see the stage gradually prepared for Hie major ev'onts of I s in—Hobson's arrival, the various •■rociumations of sovereignty and the beginnings of systematic colonisation. The year 1937 formed a major prelude to 1840.