The Earlier Years of the Native Land Question in New Zealand

Abstract

In an attempt at an examination of the land deals made by our own countrymen with the natives of this country, we find ourselves face to face with a problem, which itself has been productive of greater heart burning, greater bitterness of feeling, and certainly greater measures of active hostility, than any other of which our historical documents bear record: a problem which has oft-times thrown the two races comprising this young country into the deepest conflict one with the other; and one which has caused the most heated variations of opinion, between conflicting parties of her statesmen. Seldom if ever have these contestants agreed upon any one thing, but perhaps they are closer in agreement over this, than is the case over any other, - namely - that before one may come to any clear understanding of the points at issue; before it is possible even to think of rendering crooked ways straight, and rough places smooth, it will be necessary to engage to some small extent in a study of the question involved in Native Land Tenure. For, if we turn to that oft quoted, and much more adversely criticised document, which was signed for better or for worse, upon the shores of the Bay of Islands at Waitangi upon February 6th 1840, do we not read that . . . "Her Majesty the Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the chiefs and tribes of New Zealand, and to the respective families and individuals thereof, the full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of their lands and 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." How then may any man expect to see that such terms, guaranteeing to a native and primitive people, the 'possession' of their lands, are either kept inviolate or irretrievably broken, if he himself is ignorant of the essential elements, which must, in the eyes of those natives, go to constitute that very 'possession' or 'ownership', thus guaranteed?