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NEW ZEALAND.
THE MANAWATU PURCHASE COMPLETED;
OR,
The Treaty of Waitangi
BROKEN.
by
THOMAS C. WILLIAMS.
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON
AND 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
1868.
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The more I have reflected upon this subject, and the more information I have received respecting it, the more I have been confirmed in the persuasion that the main requisite for the support and preservation of the Natives of New Zealand is that justice should be done to them; and that, if savage tribes have hitherto melted away before the white man, it is only because the white man takes so little trouble to discover what is justice, when he stands in the threefold character of judge, jury, and principal in the suit." --"Earnest address to New Zealand Colonists with reference to their intercourse with the Native inhabitants." By the Rev. Montague. T. G. Hawtrey, M.A.
[PREFACE]
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PREFACE.
THE following pages contain matter bearing upon the famous Manawatu purchase which, I trust, may not prove uninteresting to those who are acquainted with the past history of New Zealand.
There are those who think that the Waitara purchase and the Waitara war were a great injustice and a cruel wrong. An open investigation into all the circumstances in connection with the Manawatu purchase, may tend to throw some light upon the question as to who have been "the cause of that long and protracted war, the burdens of which now hang about our necks, to the hindrance of public and private prosperity."
The Reverend, afterwards Archdeacon, Henry Williams, in 1840, translated the Treaty of Waitangi, "and repeated in the native tongue, sentence by sentence," all Governor Hobson said. He afterwards, requested by Governor Hobson, "fully authorised thereto by Her Majesty's instructions conveyed to him by her principal Secretary of State," obtained the signatures to the Treaty of all the principal chiefs on the North side of Cook's Strait, as far as Whanganui.
As I hold the opinion, in common with many others, that the Treaty of Waitangi has been clearly broken by the Government of this country in their dealings with the Natives for the acquisition of the Manawatu block, and as I am the son of the Rev. Henry Williams above-named, I need offer no apology for
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now coming forward to assist the Natives "on the north side of Cook's Strait" in standing up for their rights guaranteed to them by the said Treaty.
I bring no charge against the colonists, for whom, as a body, I, in common with Parakaia and many of his countrymen, have a great respect. I believe them to have been misinformed and misled. When I ask any intelligent Maori the question "who are to blame for the past and the present state of things in New Zealand?" the reply is a ready one-- "Ko nga kai mahi o te Kawanatanga." When I am myself asked a similar question, my reply is the same--"the Government and the officers of the Government."
THOMAS C. WILLIAMS,
A Native of New Zealand.
Taita, Wellington, July 18, 1867.
