j 02 8 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



residents of Taranaki that the Government would give them a certain sum per acre as 

 a solatium for the confiscation of their -land, and as time passed and the occupiers 

 remained undisturbed, actual ownership and exclusive possession were at times some- 

 what offensively asserted. Religious fanaticism gave cohesion to the occupiers of the 

 confiscated lands in Taranakj, and caused them to gain adherents from man)- places, 

 until a large settlement became established in the Ngatiruanui country at a place called 

 1'arihaka, under the leadership of a Maori called Te Whiti. In 1881, on the anniversary 

 of Gunpowder Plot, the Colonial Forces, under the command of Colonel Roberts, invested 

 the Maori village, took prisoners the two leaders of the movement, Te Whiti and Tohu, 

 dispersed the residents, and destroyed their habitations. In the absence of Sir Arthur 

 Gordon at Fiji, the Ministry of the day carried out the dispersion by methods which 

 his Excellency disapproved of, as he considered them of an illegal character. 



This was the last occasion upon which the peace of the colony was in danger of 

 being broken by the Maori people, all the tribes having either become reconciled to the 

 dominion of the European race, or lacking the power and desire to organize a resistance. 

 In the census of March, 1886, there were forty-one thousand six hundred and twenty- 

 seven Maoris and half-castes living as members of Maori tribes; while in 1858, when 

 the first Maori census of the colony was taken, their numbers were declared to 

 have been fifty-six thousand and forty-nine. These figures are those officially furnished 

 by the Government. 



The State has for many years been active in devising expedients to improve the 

 condition of its people. In the year 1869 an Act was passed enabling the Government 

 to grant life assurances and annuities on the security of the colonial revenue, and the 

 Government Insurance Department is now one of the most prominent institutions in the 

 State. In 1873, there was founded the Public Trust Office, by which it was sought to 

 ensure the faithful discharge of trusts, to relieve persons from the responsibilities of 

 trusteeship, and to substitute a permanent officer of the Civil Service in place of 

 guardians. The office grows yearly in favour with the public. The Government of the 

 colony always manifested a reluctance to divert any of its revenues from colonizing 

 works to costly schemes of coastal defence. New Zealand was more backward in this 

 respect than any of the Australian Colonies, and it is probably clue to this fact that 

 the Imperial Government, in January, 1883, appointed Sir William Jervois Governor of 

 the colony. His Excellency, by lectures and personal influence, aroused public atten- 

 tion to the risk which New Zealand would run in the event of an European war, and 

 under his direction the chief ports have been strongly fortified and furnished with effec- 

 tive battery and torpedo defences. As a result of the native wars, there is at the 

 present time a large military element in the population, and New Zealand is now one 

 of the best equipped of the Australian colonies for putting down any insurrection that may 

 arise within its own borders, and also for repelling any attack of foreign foe. 



HERE'S WAR.' 



t 



The first serious outbreak on the part of the Maoris,- after the proclamation of 

 British sovereignty, took place in the Bay of Islands District in March, 1845, anc l ^d 

 to an intermittent warfare of ten months' duration. From the name of the insurgent 



