Hill. — On the Maoris To-day and To-morrow. 155 



contact with Europeans, have always had a high ideal of the 

 capacity and power of 'the latter. Whatever was done by 

 the colonists in the shape of government was attempted or 

 imitated by the native chiefs with a view to the benefit of 

 their own people. They were not the initiators of change, 

 but they strove to imitate the acts of those whose sword they 

 feared, and whom they recognised as superior to themselves. 

 When the colonists, in 1835, formed among themselves, at 

 Eussell, in the Bay of Islands, a judicial and legislative 

 Executive Council for the punishment of evil-doers, the prin- 

 cipal natives of the North in the same year met and declared 

 the independence of "The United Tribes of New Zealand." 

 They decided to meet year by year for the making of laws 

 and the due administration of justice among their own people, 

 just as the colonists had decided a few months before. When 

 the first meeting of the General Assembly took place in Auck- 

 land, in May, 1854, a ferment among the natives began, which 

 culminated in the meeting of representative chiefs on Lake 

 Taupo in 1856, when Te Wherowhero, from Waikato, was 

 unanimously chosen by the assembled chiefs as native king, 

 under the title of Potatau 1. The aim of the representative 

 chiefs was the control and government of the native race 

 according to native law and custom. They fully recognised 

 Her Majesty as their queen, and on a pole in the centre of 

 the area where the meeting took place, and within a few 

 yards of the lake, the English flag floated gaily, and below 

 this were two others, one representing the Governor and 

 the colonists and one representing King Potatau I. and 

 the natives, both flags floating at the same elevation and 

 of equal dignity and authority. From the signing of the 

 Treaty of Waitangi, in 1840, no doubt appears to have been 

 raised by the natives as to the fact of New Zealand being 

 immediately subject to the British Crown, but they have 

 always kept in view their righc to local government and 

 control. It is curious how time alters the notions of the 

 colonists in relation to such matters. During the past few 

 years the native claims to local government have been 

 allowed, and representative meetings of rare interest and 

 importance have been held in places like Gisborne, Hastings, 

 and Taupo. These meetings are now held annually in various 

 centres, and questions are discussed and dealt with in a way 

 that would do credit to assemblies of larger pretensions. 



During the past eighteen years I have had exceptional op- 

 portunities for studying the habits of the natives, and it seems 

 to me the time has come when something should be done to 

 stay, if possible, the disappearance of this fine and noble race 

 of people. It has been explained what their characteristics 

 were in 1851, and again at the beginning of the present year. 



