the maori king,

Te Ao Hou, December 1956, Page 54

the maori king, by J. E. Gorst (first published 1864, reprinted in 1956 by Paul's of Hamilton). Gorst writes the inside story of the King movement with the detachment of one on the outside. Unlike most of our all-too-sturdy pioneers, Gorst had the time and the training both to make and to write history.

He had the great advantage of first-hand knowledge. He was, until 1862, trusted on both sides of the Waikato River. But his appointment by Grey as Commissioner for the Waikato led to the enmity of extremists, such as Rewi Maniapoto, who later became dominant on the Maori side. However, unlike the now overrated Judge Maning, Gorst remained a friend of the Maori people to the last. But Gorst's friendship fortunately did not mean the suspension of his critical faculty. He could so easily have added one more to the many vitriolic pamphlets of his day. Instead he produced a history that demands reprinting, and unlike most reprints, demands no revision. Gorst is one of the few men of university training who managed to write more than a potted history of New Zealand. He described the minor misdemeanours and misunderstandings and the major incompetences and injustices that finally made the Waikato war inevitable. He is equally at home in the corridor intrigues and backroom jealousies of official Auckland, as he is in the three-day sessions and six-day journeys of the Waikato and King Country. Yet he belongs neither to Waikato, nor to Auckland. He observes, with an objetcive eye, the attempt of the more enlightened leaders of the Maori people to impose order upon chaos. The Native Department's main concern was buying native land. There was little law, and that late. Ignoring frequent petitions from across the Waikato, the government refused to govern. So denied the right to European law and order, the Maori people, under their traditional leaders and the new influences of Christianity and nationalism, set up their own kingdom. Then, too late, the Europeans asserted their right to govern. That, vastly oversimplified, is Gorst's account. Sir John Gorst relies mainly on parliamentary files to authenticate his account. He sets out purposefully to write the truth that had been suppressed in most of the official and newspaper reports, but because Gorst takes good care to maintain an objective attitude his “Maori King” seems a more effective defence of the Maori position than Scott's “Parihaka Story.” His style, good though it is, appears thin and tired beside quotations from speeches and letters in the Maori Biblical style. The integration of Bible English with the old Maori tradition of oratory is seen at its best in the letter of Wiremu Tamehana to Governor Browne and in many of the quoted speeches during the great korero at Rangiriri (May 1857) Modern politicians are pale lilies beside a Tamehana, Te Whiti or Te Heu Heu. –Barry Mitcalfe.