THE TREATY OF WAITANGI.
So much has been founded on "the treaty of Waitangi," that it has become desirable to ascertain its real position in respect to other parts of the question, and its intrinsic value. In order to a proper understanding, some previous matters concerning the relations between the New Zealanders and the official representatives of Great Britain have to be stated.
In December 1814, the first English Missionaries sailed from Sydney for New Zealand ; and of three who settled at the Bay of Islands, one, Mr. Kendall, was appointed by Governor Macquarie a Justice of the Peace, with authority to apprehend runaway convicts and sailors and to punish abuses committed against the Natives by masters of vessels. Three Native chiefs, who accompanied the Missionaries on theirvoyage, "were joined to aid Mr. Kendall in the punishment and apprehension of offenders."
On the 24th July 1819, Governor Macquarie issued a commission, in which he appointed "the Reverend John Butler a Justice to keep his Majesty's peace and for the preservation thereof, and the quiet rule and government of his Majesty's people within and throughout the British settlements of New Zealand, a dependency of the said territory" [of New South Wales.]
In November 1831, the Reverend William Yate forwarded a petition to the King, signed by thirteen Native chiefs of the Bay of Islands, pray
ing that his Majesty would "become the friend and the guardian of these islands." The answer emanated from the Colonial Office; and it stated, that "in order to afford better protection to all classes, both Natives of New Zealand and British subjects who may proceed or be already established there," the bearer of the reply, Mr. James Busby, was appointed "his Majesty's Resident" in New Zealand, with the duty of investigating "all complaints that may be made to him." Busby was furnished with instructions (dated in April 1833) from Sir Richard Bourke, Governor of New South Wales. The gist of the instructions, was, that Mr. Busby was to learn whether the New Zealanders had a government, and whether they were civilized enough to enter into diplomatic arrangements with him ; and he was also accredited to the Missionaries, that they might assist him. Mr. Busby did a great deal more than that : he prepared a declaration of "the independence of New Zealand "; which de clared New Zealand to be an independent state, under the designa tion of the United Tribes of New Zealand, and "all sovereign power and authority" to be exclusively vested "in the hereditary chiefs and heads of tribes in their collective capacity," "acting under the authority of laws regularly enacted by them in Congress assembled," every autumn at Waitangi. This declaration was issued in the name of thirty-five chiefs, whom Mr. Busby and the Missionaries collected, at a meeting on the 28th of October 1835. This Congress, as it has been called, was in reality a political ruse of Mr. Busby to thwart the pretensions of Baron Thierry : Mr. Busby admits as much, in his not very flattering picture of its members. Writing to the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales, in 1837, he says, that although "in theory and ostensibility " the government would be carried on by the chiefs, "in reality it must be that of the protecting power," as the chiefs could not be intrusted with any discretion in lawmaking; their "moral principle, if it exist among them at all, being too weak to withstand the temptation of the slightest personal consideration : " "in truth, the Native chief has neither rank nor authority beyond what any person may acquire above the condition of a slave."
With the people thus characterized, it was Captain Hobson's first act, on being appointed Consul-Governor, to conclude a treaty— the treaty of Waitangi. The ostensible objects of the compact are to be gathered from the document itself ; and for the present we follow the official English version. By the first article, the chiefs of New Zealand are made to declare, that they "cede to her Majesty the Queen of England, absolutely and without reservation, all the rights and powers of sovereignty," which they "respectively exercise or possess, or may be supposed to exercise or possess, over their respective territories, as the sole sovereigns thereof." By the second article, the Queen of England "confirms and guarantees to the chiefs and tribes of New Zealand" and their families, "the full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of their lands, estates, forests, fisheries, and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess, so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession." In the same article, the chiefs "yield to her Majesty the exclusive right of preemption over such lands 88 the proprietors thereof may be disposed to alienate." And in the third article, the Queen extends to "the Natives of New Zealand" her royal protection, "and imparts to them all the rights and privileges of British subjects." The first article, then, cedes territorial sovereignty : this we will examine in considering the second article. As to any sovereign jurisdiction, we have already seen how much of it obtained among them. The second article guarantees to the Natives such property as they already possessed in the land ; but in case of alienation, secures to the Crown the right of preemption. Now to understand the force of these stipulations, we must know what was the property of the New Zealander in the land. We follow the account given by Mr. G. Clarke, Protector of Aborigines ; who is certainly not biased against the Natives, and who moreover appears to have attributed to them more precise notions regarding land-rights than they can be imagined capable of forming. Their property was of two kinds—individual rights, and the right of the tribe. The individual rights sprung from direct occupancy and use : a child was endowed with land by teaching him to plant in it a basket of potato-seed, and the parcel of land in which he had planted the seed thenceforth became his. The tribe also possessed a common right over lands to which they resorted for flax, for fern-roots, for eel-catching, keeping pigs, snaring pigeons or rats, and the like uses of lands not individually cultivated : each member of the tribe could resort to these lands ; but none could sell to a stranger permission to use any portion of these common lands without the consent of the majority, and the proceeds of sale would be divisible among the whole. Over lands used in no such way, but considered the territory of the tribe, their "waste lands," no other right seems to have been exercised or recognized than that of preventing encroachment by strangers from a distance. It was the sole approximation to territorial sovereignty, and was of coarse to be deemed, such as it was, transferred by the treaty to the British Crown. The other lands, held by occupancy, the Natives would understand (so far as they may be supposed capable of understanding anything in a transaction so entirely new and strange) to be guaranteed to them. The territorial right, however, was of the 'Host shadowy and precarious kind: the claims often rested on some prescription, but the power solely on that of force ; the claim and the power often being incompatible : in the North, the chief Nopera claims right to dispose of lands from which he and his father were 'driven by the tribe now resident there, more than thirty years ago ; in the South, Rauperaha and Te-Wero-Wero claim the right to dispose of all lands in the districts where they have subdued the original inhabitants. The third article extends the Queen's protection to all Natives of New Zealand, and extends to them the "rights and privileges of British subjects." This is a mere repetition of the first stipulation, recognizing British sovereignty : what the Natives understood by it may be gathered from the words of the chief Nopera at Kaitaia, as reported by Mr. Shortland in May 1840— “I am at your head. I wish you all to have the Governor. We are sawed by this. Let every one say yes, as I do. We have now somebody to look up to. • * • We have now a helmsman. One said, Let me sloe and another said, 'Let me steer,' and we never went straight." They probably understood it to mean simply that there should be a supreme chief over the rest. The ostensible effect, then, of the * Wanda of Evidence before the Select Committee of the RM. of Lords Oft the State of the Islands of New Zealand, 1838; p.52. Waitangi treaty, when we scrutinize its stipulations, is to bring the Natives individually within the protection and control of British law. to confirm their property in such lands as they held by occupancy, anti to convey the sovereignty over waste lands to the Crown.
Fully to understand the value of this contract, the circumstance, under which it was procured most be kept in view. Captain Hobson's commission was read at Kororarika, in the Bay of Islands, ort the 30th of January, the day of his arrival. On the 5th of February, he presented the treaty to an assembly of the Natives of the Bay of Islands ; and on the 6th it was signed by 46 head chiefs. On the 12th, he met the Natives of the Hokianga ; and 56 more chief. signed the treaty. In March, Mr. Shortland the acting Colonial Secretary, Captain Symonds, and four Mission .ries were appointed to secure the adherence of the chiefs of the Northern Island to the treaty. One of the Missionaries deputed his colleague Mr. Chapman and the master of e coasting-trader named Fedarb, to obtain signatures. Copies of the treaty were thus dispersed about the Northern Island. Some of the chiefs refused to sign it ; but at last, between the 6th of February and the 3d of September, 512 signatures were obtained. Of these signatures, upwards of 200 were those of the chiefs inhabiting the peninsula North of the harbour of Manukau and the estuary of the Thames ; leaving only 300 to represent the inhabitants of more than three-fourths of the North Island. There is no evidence whatever that the assent of the powerful and warlike tribes of the interior—in the upper 'rallies of the Waipe and Waikato, around Lake Taupo and the Rotorua Lakes, was ever asked ; certainly it was never obtained. The greater part of the signa-• tares were obtained at flying visits, and after one or at most two interviews. Presents of blankets and tobacco were made to the chiefs who signed; and from the reports made at the time by the parties employed to obtain signatures, and since by Mr. Clarke, Protector of Aboriginera there cannot exist a doubt that to obtain these presents was with many the motive for signing.* The treaty, thus obtained, was observed by none of the parties to it. By the official party it was overridden before it was complete& On the 25th of April, Captain Hobson despatched Major Banbury, the Queen's ship Herald, "to such places as you may deem most desirable for establishing her Majesty's authority throughout these islands,—namely, that which is called Stewart's Island, Middle Island, (marked on the charts Tavai Poenamoo,) and such parts of the Northern Island as may not already have been ceded to the Queen." Major Banbury soon dispensed with the preliminary form of obtaining signatures to the treaty. He landed in a harbour of the Southern Island, on. the 4th of June ; and not meeting with any inhabitants there, he on the 5th, "in the probability of not meeting any natives, deemed it advisable the same day to proclaim the Queen's authority over the islands ; for which purpose, a party of Marines were landed from the ship, and the usual forms complied with." The declaration of sovereignty attributes the title of the Crown to Captain Cook's discovery. Subsequently, Major Banbury obtained the signatures of a very few chiefs, not head' chiefs, on the Middle Island ; and on the 17th of June he proclaimed the British sovereignty. It is true the official declaration bears in gremio the words "having been ceded in sovereignty by the several independent chiefs " : but this being a simple untruth, it has passed for nothing ; and in fact it is admitted on all hands that the treaty of Waitanoi has no application to the Middle Island. But that is not all. Governor Hobson did not wait till be had obtained his 512 sig. natures, to proclaim the Queen's sovereignty over New Zealand. On the 21st of May, when Governor Hobson had only obtained the signatures of the chiefs of the Bay of Islands, Ilokianga, Kaitaia, and Manukau, (if indeed he had then received the signatures front the lastnamed,) he proclaimed the Queen's sovereignty over the North Island. The Natives have not observed the treaty. Among the few who could have given it anything like an iatelligeut assent, the greater proportion—as Taraia on the Thames Nopera at Kaitaia, and 12Juperaha and Rangihaeata in Cook's Straits, Lave violated it repeatedly. We have hitherto spoken of the treaty as if, however limited in its stipulations, however procured or observed, it were in itself something substantial. But we must state one or two more facts respecting its structure as a matter of language, to enable the reader to ascertain its moral value. We print three versions of it below. One is the Government version; which, although officially called a translation, is evidently the original. The second is the Maori or Native version ; that is, the translation of the Government version officially made to be submitted to the Natives for their signature.t The third is an exact retranslation into English of this Maori version. In the Maori version, there are several words not before known to the Natives, and therefore not existing ia their language. These words must have been coined at the time by the person who wrote the Maori version. A Native, in reading them, would, as nearly as is possible to him, approach to an Englishman's pronunciation of the English words ; but his appreciation of their meaning would depend entirely upon the explanation made to him, at the time, of the English word which he had thus attempted to pronounce. Thus, the Continental pronunciation of the vowels being that which the Missionaries taught the Natives when they made Maori a written language, (with the addition of the English w, the Native tongue lacking the v,) Wikitoria stands in the treaty for Victoria; StaidOP Queen ; Ingarani „ tf England ; Na Tirani, New Zealand; Tfrirenin Hopiicma William Hobson; Kapitana „ If Captain ; Roiara Naloi „ Royal Navy; Kawana ,,It Governor ;
and Pepuere „ February.
• See Letters from Rev. Mr. biaunsell, Waikato, 14th April 1840; Cap. tam n Symonds, Bay of Islands, 12th May 1840; Mr. Coleus°, Paibia, 27th June 1840. [Papers on New Zealand, presented to the House of Commons 11th May 1841; pp. 99-105.] Protector of Aborigines, Report of his visit to the Thames and Waikato, December 1840. [Papers on New Zealand, potsented to the House of Commons 12th August 1842; p. 98.] t "The Missionaries on the island were, the Committee believe, in every instance the interpreters between Captain Hobson and those who acted ander his authority and the Natives."—Letter front the Secretary of the Char& Missionary Society to Lord Stanley, Parliamentary Paper, Session 1844e No. 641. Two important words, Rangatiratanga and Kawanotava, also require some explanation. The termination tango and some variations of it are lased in the Maori language to produce the abstract notion of any noun or verb to which they are added ; thus answering to our ing, ness, ship, Iiood &c. For example, ho/so is Maori for "to buy"—hohonga, for 4‘ baling"; too, " brave"—toanga, "bravery"; haere, "to go"—haerenga, "going' or "journey"; tamarike, "child"—tamarailanga, " childhood" ; *ate, "sick "—matenga, "sickness." Rangatira is Maori for "Chief," sand Rangatiratanga is therefore truly rendered "Chieftainship." Kaesnatanga is an adaptation of the same rule to the word Kawana, which 'we have seen above to be coined from the English "Governor"; and therefore it is truly rendered by "Governorship." But the Natives could have had, at the time of the treaty, only very vague ideas as to the meaning of the English word "Governor," which they nearly promounced. In the treaty itself, they were told that Ropihona was a Mumma. Without very full explanation, Kawanatanga must therefore have represented to their ideas neither more nor less than "Hobsonness." Even to this day, in Cook's Straits, where the Governor has rarely been seen, the Natives invariably call every Police Magistrate and the Land Commissioner Kawana; and the Protectors of Aborigines, Kawanas for the Maori. Having not even the name of Governor or Government in their language, it may be supposed that the.-Natives had no very precise or definite ideas of government; a thing unknown in fact to their institutions. Having no collective name for their own country, it may be supposed that they had DO distinct idea of different countries, of national distinctions, and therefore none of foreign relations. Is there any evidence that adequate means were taken to explain those large and novel ideas to them, so necessary to the proper understanding, not only of any treaty, but even of what a treaty is ? None. We know, indeed, that Captain Symonds had been only a few months in New Zealand, knew nothing of the language, and had not the benefit of the assistance as interpreter of the Missionary at Alanukau, who was absent ; and it may be doubted whether Mr. Fedarb, the master of the trading-vessel, (who from his name appears not to have been an Englishman,) was capable of understanding the treaty, much less of explaining it to the Natives. It was obvious, from these considerations, that the framers of the treaty purposed to bind the Natives to conditions which there were not even the words to convey. And, on the other hand, they accepted of signatures from those who could not know to what they were putting their hands, and professed to the White settlers to have procured a valid adhesion to the compact. Much simpler and ruder compacts might have been intelligible to the New Zealanders ; but to cite this treaty as a document of any substantial worth in itself, is merely to misrepresent the position of the Government in relation to the Natives and settlers—to put all in a false position. The facts marshalled above seem to show—that the treaty, if worth anything, made for a part of New Zealand a supererogatory cession of sovereignty, which has been assumed on other and more generally accepted grounds for the whole of New Zealand ; that it was overridden by its own framers before it was completed ; that it was violated by all parties to it; that it was procured in a manner so heedless and informal as to be of no moral weight ; and that it was in itself unintelligible at least to one side in the compact.
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