1853 - Swainson, William. Auckland, the Capital of New Zealand - CHAPTER VIII. 'NIGHT AND MORNING'. THE 'PAST AND PRESENT' OF NEW ZEALAND

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CHAPTER VIII.

Any account of "Auckland and the Country adjacent," however slight, would be imperfect indeed which should make no mention of its early history; or of the condition, "Past and Present," of its native people.

The position and natural advantages of New Zealand were such as, under any circumstances, to secure for its colonization a large amount of public attention. But it was not because it was a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig-trees-- a promising field of emigration -- that the undertaking was viewed by thoughtful men with deep and serious interest; but because it was about to be made the field of an experiment affecting the interests of humanity. A pledge was given by the Ministers of the Crown that, as to the islands of New Zealand, its native inhabitants--to use the measured language of a ministerial despatch -- should, if possible, "be saved from that process of

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war and spoliation under which uncivilized tribes have almost invariably disappeared as often as they have been brought into the immediate vicinity of emigrants from the nations of Christendom."

Awaking to a sense of its past proceedings, as the invader of defenceless heathen lands, the British nation was about to try the experiment whether a fragment of the great human family--long isolated from the world, destitute of all spiritual light, and sunk in heathen darkness -- could be raised from its state of social degradation, and permanently maintained and preserved as a civilized people! Or, whether those desolate portions of our fellow-creatures, must be for ever left in a state of hopeless barbarism? Whether, in fact, it were possible to bring two distinct portions of the human race, in the opposite conditions of civilization and barbarism, into immediate contact, without the destruction of the uncivilized race! And whether, in rendering the colonization of a barbarous country possible, by his religious teaching, the Christian missionary is not also at the same time the pioneer of the destruction of its heathen people! Such were the questions involved in the colonization of New Zealand.

While the novelist was delighting bis readers with imaginary pictures of moving incident, striking change, and high-flown sentiment, a few of our countrymen were taking part in a reality, and witnessing a "Past and Present," in the remote islands of New Zealand, too startling even for the pages of romance. Although but twelve years have elapsed since the undertaking was commenced, yet the

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modern traveller, now arriving in the country since light has dawned upon the land, seeing the neighbourhood of its Capital cultivated like an English landscape--the colonist living in the midst of peace and plenty, the New Zealanders supplying the markets with the produce of their industry, the two races dwelling together in uninterrupted harmony, English laws regularly administered, order prevailing, and Christian teaching eagerly received --can with difficulty now imagine that so bright a "morning" was preceded, and so recently, by so long and dark a "night;" and can hardly realize the difficulties, the anxieties, and the grave responsibilities of its early founders.

The importance of New Zealand, as a dependency of the British Crown, is too commonly estimated with reference only to the number of its English settlers, without taking into account its native inhabitants. Although their exact number has never been correctly ascertained, the natives of New Zealand are generally believed to amount to not less than a hundred thousand; the majority of whom reside in the northern portion of the Northern Island. Instead of being occupied as formerly in a state of constant and destructive warfare, they are peaceable and industrious, and occupied in various departments of productive industry; acquiring property to a considerable amount, the owners of the greater portion of the soil, and the principal producers of the wheat grown within the province; and large and increasing consumers of British manufactures.

In the season of harvest the English settlers are

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largely dependent upon their services for mowing, hay-making, reaping, thrashing, &c. And the following extract from the Report of the "Auckland Agricultural Society" testifies to their capabilities generally as labourers and farm-servants: --

"Aware of the advantages," says the Report, "which the district possesses in an abundance of native labour, and deeming that the Society might do something to advance the improvement of Maori labour by taking notice of the deserving, and encouraging the most meritorious brought under its observation, the Committee added to the list of prizes a premium of two sovereigns to the best and most trustworthy native servant; in consequence of which the three following certificates were forwarded to the secretaries:--

"'1. This is to certify that Inoka (Enoch), an aboriginal native, has been in my employment for four years and nine months continuously, during which period he has always been a most steady, hard working, and faithful servant. He is an excellent groom; can milk well, churn, and clean butter; he is a very good sower of seed and grain, a very good spadesman, can drive both cart and plough well; he is a very fair carpenter, has shingled houses, made gates and troughs for pigs for me. He is also a very good fencer, and an excellent helper in the garden. He has been employed by me in all the above occupations, as well as in looking after and pulling in a boat.
"'Signed) P.B.'
"'Auckland, April 13, 1850.'

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"'2. This is to certify that the bearer, Jacob, otherwise Hakopa, has for two years been working as a farm-servant at St. John's College, during which period he has been found to be an honest, obedient, and trustworthy servant, possessing that stability of character whereby natives are most likely to acquire a knowledge of European labour, for which he has always manifested the greatest anxiety. He is a native from an inland district (Rotorua), from whence he came in search of employment. At the time of his engagement he was totally unacquainted with European habits or labour; but from the progress he has made in the same during the above period, he is now frequently entrusted with a team of six bullocks for the day, ploughing with a native boy for a driver, harrowing and carting, giving general satisfaction; he is also a very good hand with the flail, and at other manual labour.
"'Signed) R.P.,
"'Superintendent.'
"'St John's College, March 12, 1850.'

"'3. The bearer, Tiaha, has been employed by me for eighteen months; he can plough, drive horses or bullocks, milk, churn, reap, mow grass, ditch and fence, and is in every respect a complete farm-servant; in proof of which I have engaged him for another year, at twenty pounds per annum and food.
"'(Signed) W.F.P.'
"'Waiparera, April 10, 1850.'

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Experience has also proved them to be capable of acquiring skill in various descriptions of labour. Some time ago, one hundred and forty-seven different natives, belonging to twenty-one different tribes, were in the course of twelve months employed by the Royal Engineer Department, on the public works. At the end of the year, the clerk of works reported that he had employed them in rafting timber, making mortar, removing stone, and other labourer's work. That in the erection of the barrack wall, hospital, and barrack stores, he had instructed several to dress stone and build; that he had then ten good stone-dressers, who could dress splayed quoins in hard stone, and throut and sink a window-sill as well as most stone-dressers in the colony; that he had also amongst them thirteen good masons or builders; that at the quarry they were employed in boring and blasting, and that they used the hammer and wedge; that of the one hundred and four then employed by the Engineer Department, all were able to read the New Testament (in their own language), and that all but two could write: a statement which could probably not he made of an equal number of labourers so employed in the most civilized country in the world.

The progress of the native settlement at Rangiawhia, in the Waipa district, affords a proof of their capabilities for cultivating the soil on an extensive scale. The population of the settlement does not comprise more than two hundred adult males; yet this small community have seven hun-

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dred acres of land under wheat: they have twenty ploughs and harrows, twenty carts and drays with harness, sixty-five horses, twenty-five head of cattle, and two water-power flour mills, amounting altogether in value, at a fair calculation, to upwards of six thousand pounds.

From a distance of nearly a hundred miles, the natives supply the markets of Auckland with, the produce of their industry; brought partly by land carriage, partly by small coasting craft, and partly by canoes. In the course of the year 1852, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two canoes entered the harbour of Auckland, bringing to market by this means alone two hundred tons of potatoes, fourteen hundred baskets of onions, seventeen hundred baskets of maize, twelve hundred baskets of peaches, twelve hundred tons of firewood, forty-five tons of fish, and thirteen hundred pigs; besides flax, poultry, vegetables, &c. They are the owners also of numerous small coasting craft -- many of them purchased at a cost of upwards of two hundred-pounds each; as also of numerous flour-mills, worked by water power.

Of the coasting craft which trade between Auckland and the Bay of Islands, the most regular, clean, and orderly, and that which is commonly preferred by the public for the conveyance of passengers, is a vessel wholly owned and navigated by the natives of the country.

Between the months of April, 1851, and December, 1852, nearly seventeen hundred pounds have

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been advanced by the Colonial Government to the natives of the north, by way of loan, chiefly to enable them to purchase small vessels to bring their produce to the market; of this sum nearly three-fourths had been repaid at the end of the past year. And that they are deemed trustworthy by the English settlers is evidenced by the fact, that they have accounts in the books of the tradesmen of Auckland alone to the amount of several thousand pounds.

Nearly four hundred natives and half-castes are now receiving religious education, industrial training, and instruction in the English language, and are boarded, lodged, and clothed in the schools of the district, which receive aid from the public funds, under the provisions of the ordinance for promoting the education of youth. And they are reported by the conductors of these institutions to exhibit an aptitude for the acquirement of the arts and habits of civilized life, and considerable capability for moral and social advancement. Such, then, is the present condition of a people, whose very name, not twenty years ago, was a by-word throughout the civilized world.

But to appreciate fully the contrast between the "Night and Morning" of New Zealand, it is not sufficient to call to mind some general vague impression that once upon a time these islands, on account of the savage character of their people, were so dreaded by the mariner that nothing but the last necessity would induce him to land upon their

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shores. A yet nearer and a clearer view of their condition must be presented to the mind. Go back but sixteen years--not to witness a picture drawn from imagination, but to view a stern reality. The conflict ended, traverse a native field of battle. Horror-struck you may be; thankful indeed you ought to be, that you have lived yourself in a blaze of Christian light: but repress all feeling of self-exultation--remember the revolting barbarities once committed in the streets of the boasted capital of refinement and civilization -- and learn, with all humility, to what depths we ourselves might fall, if, like the inhabitants of New Zealand, we should be left for ages without all knowledge of a God. Take, then, for instance, the scene at R * * *. Time, 1836. The bodies of fallen men, weltering in their blood, are here and there strewn about the ground. Here "a number of bodies are laid out, previously to their being cut up for the oven." You "turn away in disgust, and sick at heart;" but whichever way you look, "some sight of horror salutes you." By-and-by, a body, apparently that moment killed, is dragged into the camp. "The head is cut off almost before you can look round; the breast is opened, and the heart, streaming with warmth, pulled out and carried off." At every turn you are exposed to the most revolting scenes: "Halves of bodies, quarters, legs, and heads, are carried away, and some of them are purposely thrust into your face." You now visit the spot where the opposite party is encamped, and where "for two

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days after the battle they remained to gorge on sixty human bodies." "Bones of all kinds, the remains of their cannibal feast, are spread about in all directions." "Two long lines of native ovens mark the spot where the bodies were cooked; and a smaller oven, with a wreath around its edge and two pointed sticks by the side, on the one of which was a potato and on the other a lock of hair, points out the place where they set apart a portion of their horrid meal for the Evil Spirit." Retired somewhat apart is a little child, "nursing in his lap, as if a plaything, one of the slain chief's hands."

Such were the frightful scenes to be witnessed in these islands but sixteen years ago. Standing in the midst of them, the appalled spectator might hardly have been persuaded, though one rose from the dead to assure him of the fact, that he himself should live to witness, within less than sixteen years, native children of New Zealand, neatly clad in English dresses, assembled for Christian worship on the sabbath day, chanting the "Magnificat" and the "Nunc Dimittis," and singing, in English, the "Evening Hymn" in a manner to put to shame many an English congregation. With the battle-field of R------

fresh painted on its pages, what author of romance would venture to represent the actors in these scenes, after so brief an interval, assembled together at a meeting to promote the spread of Christianity among the heathen people of the neighbouring islands-- gratefully acknowledging the benefits they had received from their own Christian teachers--quoting

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from Scripture the command to "Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature"-- animating each other to speed the Christian work, and contributing, according to their means, in aid of the newly-founded "Melanesian Mission." If made the subject of romance, a contrast so striking would be deemed to outrage probability. But fact is stranger than fiction; and there are those now living who can bear witness to its truth. JOWETT KUMUMOMO, addressing the native missionary meeting at Taupiri, may be taken as a striking illustration of the "Past and Present" of New Zealand, and as a living personification of its "Night and Morning:"-- "My Friends, --Although I am not an old man, I have tasted human flesh; some years ago it was sweet: the Gospel came, and I would not receive it. I then went to Taranaki, and again tasted human flesh--but it was no longer sweet. Why was it not as sweet as before?--it was now bitter to my taste. The reason is, the Gospel told me it was wrong: and if any one in this assembly should again taste human flesh it would no longer be sweet to him. Although he may not believe in Christ, yet he would find that his old habits and customs were no longer sweet, because he has heard the truth and the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit would speak to his heart. The light had come, and he would be unhappy. The Bishop and myself have been to the islands near to us: many of the islanders are cannibals; five Europeans had been killed a few months ago, and perhaps eaten. What are we to do? We must send the

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Gospel of Christ. It has already begun to work thirteen children of the chiefs of those islands have been given to the Bishop to educate. You must do the same; send your children to the schools at Kaitoteche, Maraitai, and Auckland. They send their children a great distance while you are but a short distance from the schools, and yet some of you do not send your children. At one of the islands we had a near escape. We landed to get fresh water; when inland, the people came around us, stopped our path, but let us pass when we came in the midst of them; they then went aside, and some of them threw stones at us. They had their hands on their bows, ready to send their arrows: we were obliged to leave our water-casks. When we reached the sea, the Bishop and all of us had to swim in our clothes to the boat, which was some distance from the shore: we reached the boat and ship in safety. And why? Because God protected us; He will protect all His servants who make known his Gospel. Why did He not allow an arrow to be shot at us? Why did we not sink whilst we were swimming to the boat? I had coat and shoes on--they were heavy--but God strengthened us all. The Bishop says he will not give up the islands--he will persevere to carry the Gospel--and if he says I shall go with him and remain there, I am willing; but what am I doing? I am boasting, which is not good. That is all my speech. "

Such is a faithful version (translated) of the speech of a native of New Zealand in the year 1852.

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To have foretold, some sixteen years ago, that New Zealand--the terror of navigators, the scene of war, rapine, and cannibalism, the very by-word of barbarism--might in this present year of 1852 be traversed throughout its length and breadth in fearless security by a solitary, unarmed traveller, would in itself have been a bold assertion. But it would have taxed the faith of the most sanguine to believe that nothing in that game year should surprise the traveller more than to find, wherever two or three are gathered together, the close or dawn of a single day unmarked by the sound of prayer or praise --yet such is the record of the modern traveller.

So much for the "Past and Present." Looking to the future, the practical solution of the problem of the continued and permanent advancement of the native race will depend largely on the political institutions under which the country may be governed. If these islands had been unoccupied by an aboriginal race, and colonized only by some thirty thousand English settlers, all occupying the same district, there would have been no great difficulty in devising a constitution which, while it gave the colonists the amplest powers of self-government, might at the same time have secured imperial interests. But when it is considered that New Zealand is peopled also by a hundred thousand native inhabitants--intelligent, independent, and jealous of their rights--equal in bravery and superior in numbers, and in the use of arms, to the English settlers --that they are the owners also of the greater part

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of the soil of the country--fellow-subjects with ourselves--and, as such, entitled to the rights, powers and privileges of British subjects--it must be conceded that the circumstances are such as to render the framing of representative institutions for New Zealand, a work of no inconsiderable difficulty.

To give to the European colonists the exclusive and uncontrolled power of legislating for the colony, would not be to confer upon the people of New Zealand the power of self-government; but would, in fact, be to give to the European minority the power, not only of governing themselves, but the whole of her Majesty's subjects in the country. By extending to the whole of the inhabitants of the country, without distinction of race, equal political privileges, would be but to confer upon the natives powers which they not only do not desire to possess, but which, for want of preparatory training, they are for the most part at present unprepared to exercise. Neither would it be desirable to draw so broad a line of demarcation between the two races, as would, in effect, be done if the jurisdiction of the colonial legislature were confined to the European colonists alone.

As a body, the natives of New Zealand are, at present, unfit to exercise the elective franchise with advantage either to themselves or to the country at large. They would be impatient, at the same time, of the uncontrolled dominion of their European fellow-subjects; they would be content, however, to be governed directly by the Crown. Under these

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circumstances, therefore, we should probably best discharge the responsibility we have undertaken in their favour, by carefully and gradually admitting them to a participation in the exercise of political power; retaining to the Crown, in the mean time, such a degree of influence in the colonial legislature as would enable the executive to initiate and advocate such measures as may be required for promoting their advancement in the social scale; and securing, by a fundamental law, some fair proportion of the general revenue to be administered by the Government for the benefit and advantage of the native race. Be the constitution of the colony, however, what it may, there is happily good ground to believe that the obligation incurred towards the natives of New Zealand by the government of Great Britain, will, so far as may depend upon the colonial legislature, be justly and honourably fulfilled.

In every point of view, then, the present state of the New Zealand race presents a subject of curious interest.

Contemporary events, however, are seldom rightly discerned, or fully appreciated, even by their principal actors; for, to be seen distinctly, objects may be placed too near as well as at too great a distance from the eye. To those who are occupied with the near realities and the pressing exigencies of their daily life, there may appear to be nothing remarkable in the work of civilization which is going on them: nay, the very rapidity of its progress

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--the ease and quiet with which it is accomplished-- tends, in the view of the immediate spectator, to rob it of its interest. But, in some far distant age, when the "Present" of New Zealand shall have become time-honoured, and shall be dimmed in the antiquity of the "Past," it will be regarded as an historical fact of curious interest, that a little band of Englishmen, strong only in their weakness, were sent forth by the parent state to found a colony in these islands, and to govern and control, not only their own countrymen, but a barbarous, well-armed, war-like native people -- a hundred thousand strong-- jealous of their liberties, and impatient of control. How fared these early founders--what were their hopes and fears--what their difficulties--and how were they surmounted? How gained they even a footing in the land, and how maintained they their ground? How was the armed barbarian made amenable to their laws? By what means were a powerful, independent people induced to yield even a semblance of obedience to an almost powerless foreign sway? These, and questions such as these, will then be matter of curious history. And the "Past and Present" of New Zealand--though, to its living actors, it may be of little interest--will, if faithfully recorded, be read by a remote prosperity as a "strange eventful history."

Of the future power and greatness of New Zealand, and of the material prosperity of its people, no question can be made; but the future condition of its aboriginal native race--moral, social, and material

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--can be as yet but doubtfully foreseen. With nations, however, as with individuals, "the child is father of the man," and the "Future" of New Zealand will receive the impress of its character from its present early founders. "The greatest obstruction to Christianity in heathen countries," it has been observed, "is the palpable and undeniable depravity of Christian nations. The heathen abhor our religion because we are such unhappy specimens of it: they are unable to read our books, but they can read our lives." Under ordinary circumstances, individual example exercises an influence, imperceptible though it may be, on those around us. Though the early settlers of New Zealand may give little thought to the importance of their position as the founders of a future empire, as occupying the advanced post of civilization, and charged with the preservation and advancement of a native race; though they may doubt their fitness to perform that noble mission, and though they may shrink from its grave responsibilities, they can neither destroy its reality, nor evade its duties. For there is not one amongst them, be his condition as humble as it may, who, so long as he is one of the founders of a new country, does not exercise a more than ordinary influence on the character and destiny of his fellow-men. In an old settled country, indeed, where opinions are fixed and prejudices are deep-rooted, no individual, whatever may be his rank, his abilities, or his power, can exercise any perceptible influence on the character and con-

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dition of his fellow-men. But with the founders of a new country it is otherwise: we have only to call before our minds the early history and the present condition of our old American Colonies, to become alive to the extent of our own individual influence. For to this very day--after the lapse of now two hundred years--the oldest states of the American Union present the same striking characteristics which marked their early history.

But though the responsibilities of the early founders of New Zealand may be weighty, they are not without compensation in the favourable circumstances of their outward condition. For none will deny that their labours have fallen to them in pleasant places; and that in the country of their adoption they have received a goodly heritage--"a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil-olive, and honey; a land wherein they may eat bread without scarceness, they shall not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills they may dig brass;"--"a land also full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures." It may indeed be, that as pioneers in the work of colonization, they may have had to suffer hardships, and to struggle with difficulties; but nothing can deprive them of the cheering and ennobling consciousness, that in future ages, when English settlers with English habits and with English energy shall have

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raised New Zealand to the rank of a powerful state, the people of its then populous capital will have received the impress of their character from themselves, its early founders.

In other regions of the world, England has, by conquest, extended largely the bounds of her dominions--the result of many a brilliant victory. But what is won by the sword, and that which is held by the sword, by the sword may also perish. Here the issue still is pending, and the victory yet unwon; but if it shall be given to the founders of this colony to be also the instruments of preserving a barbarous native race, and of raising them in the scale of civilization to a level with ourselves; then, crowned with these unwonted blessings, the first-fruits of a coming age, the colonization of these islands will be one of the noblest conquests in the annals of our country's history; and New Zealand, already the cradle of civilization and the day-spring of light to the heathen people of the Southern Seas, will be the brightest ornament in the borders of her empire.