G.—7

12

antagonist —Te Waharoa. This leader, Wiremu Tamihana, usually known as William Thompson, was an educated Christian and a brown-skinned gentleman, far in advance of his race in breadth of view, logical understanding, and persistence. He honestly wanted to be at peace with us, but, regarding contact with our race as deadly to his own, desired to organize the Maori as a community dwelling apart from the pakeha on ample and carefully secured territories . . . The Waikato chiefs themselves were at odds. After years of argument and speech-making they came to the point of choosing their king . . . They disclaimed hostility to the Queen, but would sell no land and would allow no whites to settle among them, except a few mechanics whose skill they wished to use. They even expelled from their villages white men who had married Maori wives, and who had now to leave their families behind. They would not allow the Queen's writ to run beyond their auhati or frontier, or let boats and steamers come up their rivers. Amongst themselves the more violent talked of driving the pakeha into the sea. . . . Thompson, while still open to conciliation, visited Auckland to see the Governor and ask for a small loan to aid his tribe in erecting a flour-mill. Governor Grey would have granted both the interview and the money with a good grace. Governor Browne refused both, and the Waikato chief departed deeply incensed." 18. Governor Browne in his despatch to the Duke of Newcastle of the 9th May, 1857, wrote thus with regard to the King movement: "It was, however, clear that they (the Natives) did not understand the term ' King ' in the sense in which we use it ; but although they certainly professed loyalty to the Queen, attachment to myself, and a desire for the amalgamation of the races, they did mean to maintain separate nationality, and desired to have a chief of their own election, who should protect them from .every possible encroachment on their own rights and uphold such of their customs as they were disinclined to relinquish." 19. In the year 1860 a Committee of the House of Representatives, known as the Waikato Committee, was appointed to inquire as to an attempt which had been made in the year 1857 to introduce institutions of Civil government amongst the Natives of the Waikato district. In the course of their report the Committee dealt with the King movement, and this is what they said on the subject : " Such a movement need not have been the subject of alarm. One of its principal aims undoubtedly was to assert the distinct nationality of the Maori race, and another to establish by their own efforts some organization on which to base a system of law and order. These -objects are not necessarily inconsistent with the recognition of the Queen's supreme authority, or antagonistic to the European race or the progress of colonization." 20. By the Third Article of the Treaty of Waitangi Her Majesty the Queen extended to the Natives of New Zealand her Royal protection, and imparted to them all the rights and privileges of British subjects. If, as Sir John Gorst has said, the Natives had been educated in civilization, and fitted for the enjoyment of these full rights as British subjects which the Treaty promised, nothing would have been heard of land leagues and King movements. But little, if anything, was done for the purpose, and every function of government seemed paralysed except that of purchasing Native land. Governor Browne, in a memorandum dated the 25th May, 1861, said that many districts had never been visited by an officer of the Government, and residents in these districts had never felt that they were subjects of the Queen, and had little reason to think that the Government of the colony cared at all about their welfare. 21. The attempt to introduce institutions of Civil government in the Waikato had been made by the appointment of Mr. Fenton as a Magistrate. He held sittings in the district in the years 1857 and 1858, and was then withdrawn. The principal reason for his withdrawal was a fundamental difference of opinion between him and the Native Secretary as to the proper policy to be pursued by the Government in the district. The opinion of the Waikato Committee was that the course taken of appointing Mr. Fenton was a wise one, and that there were not sufficient reasons for suspending the work in which Mr. Fenton was engaged. " Without in any