HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 



i73 



Maoris in small bands continued to plough, and the Constabulary to make arrests which 

 were never resisted, until at the end of the month one hundred and eighty men were 

 in custody. Forty were sentenced to two months' imprisonment for malicious injury to 

 property, but the rest were never brought to trial. Notwithstanding the declaration in 

 Parliament of the Hon. J. Sheehan, then Native Minister, that "from the White Cliffs 

 down to Waitotara the whole country is strewn with unfulfilled promises," and that "grants 

 have been kept back until the people have come to the conclusion that the whole thing 



TE WHITI S VILLAGE OF PARIHAKA. 



is a sham and a delusion, the promised reserves had not been proclaimed. Te Whiti 

 went on preaching passive resistance, counselling his followers to abstain under all provo- 

 cation from anything in the shape of violent reprisals. Parliament on the other hand 

 continued to pass Measures authorizing the Government to detain without trial the 

 arrested plough-men. In July, 1880, the untried prisoners were still detained in custody. 

 Meanwhile, the Armed Constabulary had been carrying a road through the Parihaka 

 District. In May it was taken without warning through a fenced field held under culti- 

 vation by some of the natives. The fence was repaired by the Maoris, and for three 

 weeks thereafter fences were being continually taken down by the Constabulary, and 

 with singular imperturbability were being re-erected by the natives. At the end of July 

 the fencers began to be arrested ; but as soon as each party was drafted off another 

 party was found with cheerful alacrity to take up the work. The patience and self- 

 restraint of the Maoris compelled even the admiration, while it excited ^ the annoyance, 

 of the Authorities. By the end of August two hundred and sixteen arrests had been 

 made in the two months, and fifty-nine Maoris were sentenced, under the Maori Prisoners' 



