Consedine+on+the+why+the+Treaty+was+signed

__Chapter 4__

Robert Consedine:

from “Healing our History: the challenge of the treaty of waitangi”, by Robert Consedine and Joanna Consedine. Penguin. 2001, Auckland.

“...After the Endeavour’s visit, European ships began to visit NZ in ever-increasing numbers, guided by “Cook’s meticulous maps” (Salmond, Anne, Two Worlds: first meeting between Maori and Europeans 1642-1772, pg 122.)...Scientific exploration continued for a further 90 years with visitors from France, Spain, Russia, Austria and North America. From the late 1700’s the most significant group of Europeans to roam around the shores of New Zealand were whalers and sealers, who interacted with Maori, coming and going at will. Long-term settlers began to arrive around 1800, along with timber workers and traders. (Belich, James, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders, p 116-21.)

At this point European relationships with Maori were mainly cordial and the contact mutually beneficial. Maori were still in control and could enforce their own custom. Early settlers were amazed at Maori fishing exploits-one fishing ground was located 77 kilometres from the shore. (Durie, Mason Te Mana, Te Kawanatanga: The Politics of Maori Self-Determination, p 151). Joseph Banks, a botanist on board the Endeavour described a net measuring 700 to 900 metres, while L.J. Nicolas, an early voyager, concluded in a record dating back to 1814 that “their nets are much larger than any that are made use of in Europe ...one of them very often gives employment to a whole village.” (Waitangi Tribunal, Wai 22. Muriwhenua Fishing Report, 9942-44)

the Arrival of Protestant Missionaries ...the next significant group to come to New Zealand was the Anglican and Methodist missionaries who arrived from England in 1814 with their cultural beliefs and Christian Idealism. The arrival of the Reverend Samuel Marsden in the Bay of Islands marked the start of formal contact with British missionaries. … In the period leading up to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 Protestant missionaries engaged in the usual missionary activities. they built churches and schools, preaching and teaching in the Maori language. It was English Protestant missionary policy to be fluent in the Maori language to increase their effectiveness. Around 1820 onwards they began to record the Maori language, and by the 1830’s a Maori-language version of the Bible was widely dispersed in Maori communities.

Missionaries introduced the first horses, cattle, sheep and poultry. Potatoes and other vegetables (introduced by Cook) were now available throughout the country and grown mainly by Maori. Sydney merchants were trading with Maori for flax, timber and produce. Such industry would have been applauded [thought awesome] by Samuel Marsden and his contemporaries [people at the time] who believed that Commerce promotes Industry-Industry Civilisation and Civilisation offers the way for the Gospel [bible].

The Protestant missionary promotion of the Treaty of Waitangi also needs to be seen in the light of their rapacious [greedy] land acquisition before 1840. Prior to the Land Claims Commission hearing in 1841 Anglican missionaries initially claimed they had fairly purchased 240,000 hectares from Maori. They subsequently reduced their claim to 87,800 hectares and the mission approved 27,000. Tens of thousands of hectares were also claimed by other settlers and land speculators. However the commission was ineffective and no land was returned to the Maori owners, as wasteland was now deemed to be Crown Land. Land ownership by Anglican missionaries was the subject of fierce controversy in the 1840’s between Anglican Bishop Selwyn, the Rev. Henry Williams and Governor George Grey. William’s refusal to return Maori land resulted in his being dismissed from his post at the Church Missionary Society. …

Commenting on the role of these missionaries, one New Zealand historian concludes that these Protestant missionaries were at the cutting edge of British imperialist policy:

The effectiveness of missionaries as unwitting components of Britain’s imperial machine was due largely to the anglo-centric conception of Christianity which was held by many missionaries. This was a chaotic and confused concoction of religion, withy concepts of monarchy, Empire, duty and civilisation, all tied in. (Paul Moon.)

The Civil Wars In 1820 Nga Puhi chief Hongi Hika went to England as a guest of missionary Thomas Kendall, where he obtained a small arsenal of muskets. The civil wars between hapu, which had started earlier, intensified follwoign Hongi Hika’s return. Lawyer R.D. Crosby estimates that between 50,000 and 60,000 Maori were killed, enslaved or forced to migrate from 1810 to 1840. However, demographer Ian Pool, on whom Crosby partly draws, points out that 100,000 persons could have been expected to have died over this thirty year period in the “normal course of events” with or without wars. Historian James BElich postulates a mortality rate of about 20,000.

Nonetheless, casualties of constant raiding eventually became unendurable, causing many hapu to look for safer territories. This new type of warfare made it difficult for tribes to unite. Weaker tribes suffered terribly and later may have been more inclined to look to external mechanisms such as the Treaty of Waitangi for protection.

In 1835 Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama, two major hapu of Te Ati Awa from Taranaki, made a violent and tragic claim on the Chatham Islands, which had been occupied by the Moriori for over 400 years. ...500 men, women and children of Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama emigrated to the Chatham Islands. They chartered a European ship and many were sick on the journey. Moriori could have killed them with ease on their arrival but, in keeping with their pacificist tradition, offered hospitality. The invaders responded by beginning to kill the Moriori with muskets, clubs and tomahawks and claiming the land. After a three-day meeting Moriori maintained the decision of their elders: there would be no killing by their side.

The outcome of the decision was tragic. It had been estimated that 300 died at the time of invasion and a further 1300 died subsequently of dispair. There were only 101 Moriori alive in 1862. ….It is an astonishing paradox that subsequently back in Taranaki “the Moriori were confronted by the spectacle of the people who had conquered and killed them forty years before now adopting a pacifist ideology; and choosing as their emblem the albatross feathers originally worn by the Moriori followers of Nunuku.

European Numbers Build By the 1830’s a mix of Europeans began to arrive in NZ. Some were traders who wanted to do business with Maori, some were settlers, some escaped convicts from Australia, and others were seamen jumping ship. Its potent mix of lawlessness, alcohol and prostitution established Kororareka (Russell) as the hellhole of the Pacific in the eyes of the missionaries, although it was probably no worse than any English port town. It is estimated that a thousand ships visited the area during the 1830’s. By 1840 Europeans living in New Zealand totalled around 2000.

Estimates of the Maori population at the time of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi ...The most reliable estimate comes from Professor Ian Pool, who worked back from the Census of 1874 and that of 1857-58 to establish an estimated figure of 70,000 to 90,000. This would mean that in 1840 Maori probably outnumbered Europeans by about 50 to one.

New Zealand had two potential colonisers, the French and the English. The French landed in two or three different parts of New Zealand in the early 1830’s and began to negotiate with Maori for land and sovereignty. By the late 1830’s they had a definite plan for the colonisation of New Zealand and had drafted a deed of purchase for the South Island. (Tremewan, Peter, The French Alternative to the Treaty of Waitangi” in NZ Journal of History p 100. ) As the decade wore on there was mounting pressure on Britain to respond to the situation in New Zealand, in particular to concerns about law and order, interest from other nations (France and the United States) continuing discussions within Maori society about establishing a national form of governance to unite the tribes, and the successful participation by Maori in international and local trading and other areas of European life.

Britain Stakes a Claim The British response in 1833 was to extend the laws of New South Wales to cover New Zealand and to appoint James Busby as British Resident. In 1834 Busby presented northern Maori chiefs with a flag to enable them to trade internationally. A year later, without any support from the Colonial Office, he was instrumental in forming what became known as the Confederation of United Tribes of New Zealand, an assembly of 34 leaders of northern hapu, whom he persuaded to sign a document he had prepared entitled “A Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand”. The Declaration proclaimed New Zealand to be an independent state under the designation of the United Tribes, established as “a congress, a legislative authority, which would meet annually at Waitangi to enact laws, dispense justice and regulate trade.”

A principal aim of the declaration was to sideline assertions [statements about] sovereignty by a Frenchman called Baron Charles de Thierry, who had declared an intention to establish a sovereign and independent state on behalf of France on the banks of the Hokianga River.

But Busby also had humanitarian concerns about the plight of Maori, and indeed the colony, in the face of growing lawlessness among settlers.

Mason Durie notes that “the intention in 1835 was to create a Maori nation state, a departure from the exclusively tribal orientation which prevailed, and the introduction of a confederated approach to governance.” In the face of booming trade opportunities, some Maori saw benefit in building more cohesion among the tribes. Others were less convinced, seeing no need for foreign recognition of a sovereignty that, as far as they were concerned, already existed.

The British government acknowledged the declaration and offered Maori qualified protection. According to Durie “ though the Maori legislature never eventuated, the declaration was recognised in Britain as evidence of a Maori nation and served to support a unified front by Maori as settlers from other countries arrived.”

Busby was also becoming increasingly concerned about the high rate of disease among Maori in the wake of the settlers’ arrival and soon recommended to the Governor of New South Wales that New Zealand become a protectorate. In a report to the British House of Commons in 1837, the committee on Aboriginal Peoples soon backed up his concerns when it noted that native races tended to die out with the impact of European settlement. The anti-slavery movement also wanted Britain to intervene to protect Maori.

The Declaration of Independence of New Zealand, witnessed by the Crown resident, James Busby, was an international declaration, which acknowledged the sovereignty of the independent tribes of New Zealand. As a forerunner to the Treaty of Waitangi, it followed the adoption of a flag in 1834, which symbolised tribal rights to trade as independent nations. Walker concludes that “it was the ceremonial raising of this flag beside the Union Jack [of Britain] at Waitangi, witnessed by the British resident James Busby and 25 chiefs, which signified the recognition of Maori sovereignty over New Zealand.”

Meanwhile Captain William Hobson, another representative of the Governor of New South Wales, had come up with a plan for New Zealand. At this point, writes historian Claudia Orange, some sort of treaty became inevitable as Britain sought a method by which to legitimise its activities in the new colony. Mason Durie goes so far as to say: “There might never have been a Treaty at all were it not for the Declaration of Independence signed five years earlier in 1835. Having recognised Maori sovereignty and independence then, Britain needed a mechanism [way] to justify imposing its own will on Maori…”

Meanwhile the New Zealand Company was promoting its own plan for colonising New Zealand, supported by an abundance of British capital and talk of cheap land, plentiful raw materials and unlimited trading opportunities in a distant paradise. Britain was in a state of domestic crisis and a population excess, [over-population] coupled with pressing poverty, were other factors influencing prospective settlers.

It was close to 1840 before the Colonial Office finally decided to appoint Hobson, as a Consul representing the Crown, to return to New Zealand to negotiate a treaty with the Maori people. Maori had requested intervention to deal with the lawlessness of British settlers. Hobson’s initial appointment as consul (rather than Governor) may suggest, as historian Paul Moon argues, an intention of the British Government to “curtail [curb] the extent of British rule in New Zealand.” The Colonial Office gave Hobson specific instructions: he was to negotiate a treaty which both sides understood fully and with the ‘free and intelligent consent of chiefs’; he was to obtain sovereignty, but only if Maori were willing to cede it [give it up to Britain]. He was to obtain land, but on the condition that Maori retained enough for their own purposes and would not be disadvantaged. His instructions were clear: Maori “title to the soil and to the sovereignty of New Zealand is indisputable and has been solemnly recognised by the British Government.” (Paul Moon.)

During the first week of February 1840 northern Maori chiefs were invited to Waitangi in the far north to meet with Captain Hobson, British Resident James Busby and other representatives of the Crown, along with Reverend Henry Williams and other missionaries. The purpose of the gathering was to facilitate the signing of a treaty between the British Crown and Maori chiefs.
 * Sovereignty or Governance? The Treaty of Waitangi **

On 3 February Hobson drafted a treaty in English, assisted by Freeman, his secretary, and Busby. The English text acknowledged that the chiefs had collective sovereignty over New Zealand, which they agreed to cede [give up] to the British Crown and in return were promised undisturbed possession of their lands and estates, forests and fisheries, yielding [giving] an exclusive right of pre-emption [Crown has first dibs] to the Crown over such lands as the chiefs wished to alienate [sell] at prices agreed upon by both parties. Maori were also granted all the rights and privileges of British subjects.

Overnight the Anglican missionary Reverend Henry Williams and his son Edward then translated this English version into a dialect of the Maori language. But there were important differences between the two versions, rendering [making] the Maori text more saleable. In the Maori text of the Treaty, the Maori signatories gave the Crown kawanatanga (governance) [not sovereignty] over their land and the Crown promised to protect the tino rangatiratanga (the unqualified exercise of authority) of the chiefs over their lands and villages ‘and all their treasures’. The Crown also promised to protect Maori peoples and extended to them the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England.

Clearly the Maori were ceding a lot more than they thought they were. The final draft of the Maori text was presented to the chiers for signature on 6 February. Some Maori were very suspicious of British motives, believing they would be deceived over authority and land, and initially rejected the idea of a treaty outright. It took considerable reassurance from British representatives, Protestant missionaries and some of the pro-Treaty chiefs to persuade them to sign. The advantages of British settlement were stressed, while the effects on Maori independence were downplayed.

In particular, Hobson repeated assurances that the Queen had a loving and protective concern for Maori; that she did not want the land, but rather the authority to govern her (British) subjects effectively and to punish those guilty of crime. Hobson emphasised that land would never be forcibly taken, and that truth and justice would always characterise the proceedings of the Queen’s government.

The English Protestant missionaries presented the Treaty as the personal wish of the Queen and as her act of love; a persuasive argument given that by 1840 many Maori were deeply engaged with Christianity. Inspired by missionary arguments, som Maori interpreted the Treaty as a new covenant between the two peoples.

In the middle of the negotiations Catholic Bishop Pompallier intervened and requested a promise that people be free to follow the religion of their choice. ...whereby the Governor guaranteed that the faiths of England, the Wesleyans and of Rome and Maori custom would be protected by him.

While these persuasive arguments supported the Crown’s intervention, they did not capture the entire picture. The Colonial Office had made it clear to Hobson that Maori were to be told only half the story: “Hobson was told to explain to the chiefs that Britain was intervening especially on their behalf because there was no other way to protect them. The Colonial Office meant that Britain was intervening partly to protect the Maori from lawless Europeans, other colonisers, especially France, and bring peace within the country. It was also to protect the British settlers in NZ and the interests they had created. Hobson was not directed to emphasise this, nor to explain the Government’s new willingness to promote the systematic colonisation of NZ. (Peter Adams, Fatal Necessity)”

The meaning of “sovereignty” was obviously pivotal. Under English law the sovereignty of the British Crown over its territories was exclusive and indivisible, making shared authority impossible. The British Crown shared sovereignty with nobody. On the other side of the coin, Maori chiefs were not in a position to cede sovereignty to the British Crown. The very notion of sovereignty was located in a European legal and political framework, which was based on entirely different premises [ideas] from a Maori world view. While the chiefs at Waitangi may have represented their respective communities, they did not have the authority to give away what the Europeans understood as sovereignty. Says Paul Moon: “No chief, however high his or her rank, could dispose of a single acre without the concurrence [agreement] of his [hapu]”

In this environment of deception why did Maori sign? Dr Claudia Orange explains that the deception was :” couched in terms designed to convince chiefs to sign, explanations skirted the problems of sovereignty [understood] at international law and presented an ideal picture of the workings of sovereignty within NZ. Maori authority might have to be shared, but Hobson would merely be more effective that Busby, and British jurisdiction would apply mainly to controlling troublesome Pakeha. Maori authority might even be enhanced.”

It is likely that those Maori who signed the Treaty expected a new relationship with Britain based on shared authority. Maori understood that the Crown would govern the settlers and that Maori would continue to control their own affairs, exercising full authority

over their own communities, lands and other treasures. They anticipated that troublesome Europeans and land issues would be controlled, inter-tribal fighting would cease and the benefits of trade would increase. For Maori the Treaty was not only a written document but also a spoken agreement. All that was discussed at Waitangi was integral to the spirit and intent of the new relationship.

...The Maori text was eventually signed by 512 Maori throughout NZ over a seven-month period, including five Maori women. Most did not see or sign the English Treaty at Waitangi.

...In May 1840 Hobson proclaimed British sovereignty over the North Island by right of cession [by the chiefs] and in June over the South Island by right of discovery, even though some South Island chiefs had signed the Treaty. Inevitably both sides had different understandings; they were operating from different texts and different world views.

British imposition of sovereignty over NZ was ‘gazetted’ in London in October 1840. In May the following year the proclamation establishing NZ as an independent colony of Britain (and separate from New South Wales) was read aloud at a gathering of Auckland residents, government troops and officials. Hobson then took the oath of office for his new position as Governor. “It was at this point that the Crown formally subsumed [takes]

the powers of governance and sovereignty from Maori - without a single Maori signature in sight. and still with no Maori mandage for this sovereignty to be extended to cover Maori.”

….colonisation...moved rapidly.

A serious attempt was made by the second colonial Governor, Robert Fitzroy (1843-45) to respect the promises made to Maori in the English text of the Treaty. Fitzroy, although convinced of his own cultural superiority, was a proponent of the humanitarian idealism that had earlier championed Maori rights. Soon after assuming his post, however, he found himself in an impossible situation, charged with developing a colony without adequate financial resources. On the one hand he had the honour of the Crown and upholding Treaty promises made to Maori, and on the other he faced the increasing expectations of settlers and a growing financial crisis [made worse] by the enormous pressure exerted by the New Zealand Company.

Fitzroy introduced policies such as waiving [the Crowns right of] pre-emption [meaning that Maori could sell their land to who they wanted] and he introduced direct taxes to deal with the financial crisis, without the authority from the Colonial Office. His intention was to both protect Maori interests and help the settlers purchase cheaper land, but these policies were often at odds. His recall to London after two years, engineered by the New Zealand Company, was a bitter blow for the missionaries and humanitarians. The company was determined to pursue its goal for systematic colonisation with little regard for the Crown’s Treaty obligations or Maori as a sovereign people. George Grey, who was anti missionary and more sympathetic to the New Zealand Company, replaced Fitzroy.

From 1846 the legislative process became increasingly anti-Maori and anti-Treaty. The new Governor soon restored the right of Crown pre-emption [first dibs at buyin Maori land] with the Native Land Purchase Act of 1846 which directly overrode the provisions of the Treaty. This Act also made Maori land ownership uneconomic by outlawing leases and restricting trade in timber and flax, which put pressure on Maori owners to sell.

When Maori had signed the Treaty they understood that the right of pre-emption was a protection clause that gave the Crown the first right of refusal; that it was primarily a mechanism to protect Maori from unscrupulous Europeans. In fact the Crown used its right of pre-emption to acquire Maori land at low prices, onselling much of it to settlers at significant profits in order to raise funds to develop infrastructure in the rapidly growing colony. Many Maori, who were initially welcoming of settlers, became willing sellers in the belief that they were entering into the equivalent of a leasing arrangement only to find later that private title meant that the land had gone for ever.

Maori soon found that the Crown, manipulating the law to its own advantage, began removing land from Maori ownership by any means, including deception.

The Kemp Purchase was the largest block of land ever bought by the Crown. In 1848 the Crown purchased 8 million hectares (almost a third of the country’s land area) in the South Island from Ngai Tahu for 2000 pounds on the condition that the tribe would retain their villages and homes, their gardens and natural food resources, as well as substantial additional lands. Not only were these conditions never honoured but the Crown also manipulated the sale to obtain further land without the knowledge or consent of Ngai Tahu. The deal had the effect of reducing Ngai Tahu’s remaining lands to “a pitiful remnant of their previous vast territory”.

In 1852 the New Zealand Constitution Act created the first New Zealand Parliament. Voting was based on individual title to land, which had the effect of excluding Maori from political power because Maori land was communally owned. Despite the fact that Section 71 of this act allowed for Maori authority over certain areas of the country ( by establishing Native Districts where Maori rules would apply) successive settler governments refused to implement it.

By the late 1850’s settlers were pouring into the country with an expectation of land but were met with increasing Maori resistance to sell. While settlers had been in the minority, the colonial government was limited in its ability to enforce British rule, but as settlers became the majority population and the demand for land outstripped supply, the Crown exerted its own determination to control the manner of land acquisition, often defying Maori wishes.

In 1858 the King Movement emerged within the Tainui Confederation of Tribes, proposing a parallel parliament based on shared sovereignty and seeking to stop all further land sales. The settler Parliament refused to recognise or resource this or subsequent efforts by Maori to establish their own parliament and proceeded to develop coercive [tricky] mechanisms to ensure that the alienation of Maori land continued. A series of events starting at Waitara in 1860 ...led to the the land wars or as Claudia Orange refers to them as “the wars of soveriegnty”.

At the same time as this laws were passed from 1862 in the form of Native land Acts which effectively required many Maori owners to attend lengthy court hearings to prove ownership and then sell land to meet the court costs. Land Titles could be granted if there were no Maori challenge, even if the real owners did not know of the claim. [effectively with these Native Land Courts, if they didn’t turn up to defend their titles then it could be sold].

The Native Land Court established in 1865 (known to Maori as the Land-taking court) became a vehicle [way] to transfer and privatise [one owner only] ownership of Maori land regardless of Maori consent [giving the ok or not]. It was in opposition to Maori customary ownership traditions. The effect of the legislation aimed at individualising Maori land ownership was to make sales easier for settlers and to destroy the power of the tribal system.

Apart from the Native Land Acts, two other laws of the 1860’s deserve special note. The 1863 New Zealand Settlement Act which enabled the Crown to confiscate land and property from any Maori who were believed to be in rebellion, whether the land belonged to the ‘rebels’ or not. [Whakatohea]. Some 1.3 million hectares was confiscated under this Act, with the assistance of 28,000 imperial troops brought to New Zealand from 1856 by Governor Grey to subdue Maori. The Settlement Acts were underpinned by the 1863 Suppression of Rebellion Act which suspended basic rights for those found to be rebellion against the Crown, carrying a penalty of confiscation and death. the main beneficiaries of these acts were the Crown and land speculators.

[Finally] in 1877 in [the court case] Wi Parata v. the Anglican Bishop of Wellington, Maori sought to reclaim title to land earlier gifted for the purpose of building a church that had never eventuated. In its decision the court declared the Treaty of Waitangi a legal nullity because it had not been incorporated into statute [law]. The ruling failed to uphold aboriginal common-law rights firmly embedded in English law, which guaranteed that the first occupants of a country had a natural right to the lands occupied by them. This landmark decision was directly contrary to the Treaty of Waitangi, the New Zealand Constitution Act of 1852 and some colonial statutes [laws] of the 1860’s. Yet it was to inform legal thinking for the next hundred years.

Extent and rate of Maori land deprivation overall was incredible. by the late 1860’s almost all the 14 million hectares of the South Island and about 3 million in the North Island had been purchased by the Crown. By 1899 a further 4.5 million hectares was acquired under the Native land Acts.

Such was the confusion in law and practice relating to land that in 1891 the government set up a commission of inquiry chaired by William Rees. the purpose was to inquire into the working of Maori Land law. In the final report the authors concluded “that lawyers of high standing and extensive practice have testified on oath that if the legislature had desired to create a state of confusion and anarchy in native land titles it could not have hoped to be more successful.”

Dom Felice Vaggioli, an Italian monk whose observations of life in New Zealand in the late 19th century were so critical of British settlers that his book was eventually banned, … He wrote:” The legal fraternity had no qualms about joining with settlers in their ...greed in sucking Maori dry in the Native land Courts.”

...The Education Ordinance introduced by Governor grey in 1847 began a process of continuous government policy designed to accelerate the process of settlement, to establish and strengthen Pakeha institutions, and to encourage assimilation. ...Methodists, Anglican and Catholic missions [were offered subsidies] to run boarding schools for Maori children, removing them from their villages, placing them in culturally foreign environment and exposing them to ‘religious education, industrial training and instruction in the English language.”

Later in the late 1860’s “Native Schools’” aimed to ‘civilise’ Maori children and prepare them for manual or labouring work, emphasising order, discipline, respect for the British Empire and the development of practical skills, with little regard for Maori cultural values. Their goal was not to extend the pupils intellectually but rather to provide them with sufficient schooling to become law-abiding citizens. English was the medium of instruction and may Maori children were physically punished for speaking their own language in the classroom and playground. These practices served to discourage many maori from maintaining their language - the lifeblood of any culture.

From the time of the signing of the Treaty until the mid-1970’s maori went from being an industrious, vibrant, economically viable and entrepreneurial society successfully adapting to a rapidly changing world to a dispossessed, marginalised, threatened and involuntary minority population in their own country. Maori were becoming strangers in their own land. .
 * ...Maori Dispossessed and Marginalised **

---the Native Reserves Act of 1864… allowed the Crown to lease all remaining Native Reserves to Pakeha farmers at token rentals.

In the 1890’s responding to the Rees Commission the government passed a series of laws such as the Native Land Purchase Act of 1892, the Native Land Purchase and Acquisition Act of 1893, the Native Land Validation of Titles Act of 1893 and the Native Land Court Act of 1894. Historian Tim Brooking sums up the results: “Most of the Maori land was actually acquired in the 1890’s (2.7 million acres) by the state and about 400,000 (acres) by private individuals), despite the determined ...opposition of Kotahitanga, Kingitanga and all the Maori MP)’s other than James Carroll. ...grab of farmable Maori land ensured that most first class land had passed from Maori hands by 1900.”

...Maori were often also denied government assistance to the rest of the population. Under the Advances to Settlers Act of 1894 low-interest loans were made available to Pakeha settlers. At the turn of the century many older maori found themselves excluded from receiving the newly introduced old-age pension because they could not prove their age and it was assumed they had land resources to rely on.

After World War I, Pakeha returned servicemen went into a ballot for a farm, while their Maori counterparts were excluded on the basis that Maori communities already had land of their own.

During the Great Depression unemployed Maori men were entitled to only half the unemployment benefit received by Pakeha men. The assumption was that Maori had land resources to sustain them. Yet this [all] contravened Article Three of the Treaty of Waitangi which guaranteed Maori the same citizenship rights as Pakeha.