Page 21 - Puhipi

fighting not so much for a principle as for a potential farm, and at any rate they

suspected that the British professional soldier, with no personal axe to grind had
developed more than a sneaking regard for the Maori warrior and his cause and did not
go about his business with enough energy.

To make sure there was no false sentiment about the matters 3 million acres of Maori

land were confiscated, a measure which has been described by Professor Keith Sinclair
as the worst injustice ever perpetuated by a New Zealand Government. It has
embittered relations with sections of the Maori people for generations. It is interesting

to note that the 1926 Royal Commission on confiscated lands in Taranaki held that
war had been declared against the Maori before they had engaged in rebellion of any
kind and that in the circumstances they had no alternative but to fight in their own
self defence. For the Maori then it was disillusionment and decline.

The New Zealand land act of 1862 to which the British Government assented, relaxed
restrictions on the sale of land direct to Europeans and in the next 80 years the “Dying
Maori Race” sold the best part of its heritage, the result of sound British business

methods, such as traders advancing thousands of pounds worth of credit and then
forcing the handing over of Maori lands in default of payment, a proceeding which
state and society wholeheartedly approved. When the best had been sold, someone
belatedly remembered that the Treaty of Waitangi contained a provision specifically
designed to prevent this and in 1892 the Government piously resumed the sole right of

purchase.

Thus to Hobsons honestly held belief ‘We are one people”, one may be permitted to

modify a quotation from George Orwell and say “But some are more equal than others”

na Paraire Busby