462 Tramactions. — Miscellaneous. 



that the natives are not dead, but only gone farther inland. This argu- 

 ment in the case of the Maoris in the South Island, is clearly disproved by the 

 fact that it has long been possible there accurately to count every native, no 

 matter how far back they may go. Altogether apart from the mere question 

 of statistics, I am quite positive that this objection in this island is perfectly 

 groundless. Take this island : the natives round this city have almost died 

 out ; at the Hutt, but a remnant exists ; the j^a at Waiwhetu is gone ; there 

 are no natives in the Wainui-o-mata valley; or up the Hutt valley. In the 

 Wairarapa many pas have vanished, and but a remnant remains in the 

 others. My own knowledge of Hawke's Bay, extending back about twenty- 

 five years, assures me that recent statistics even do not prove sufficiently 

 clearly the rapidity of extinction. In that short time I know of several 

 populous kaingas quite deserted. I know that formerly, twenty years ago, 

 there were a large number of natives in the district where now but very few 

 exist. All along the east coast, from this spot to Napier, they have greatly 

 dwindled. If we go up the other coast we find the same thing. About 

 twenty years ago there were 300 living at Porirua and near neighbourhood, 

 now there are 53. At Waikanae some forty years ago there were 500 fight- 

 ing men besides women and children, now there are only 20. There was 

 a i)a at Paikakariki, now one family dwells there. Farther up is Otaki, 

 where the population has greatly dwindled, and so we may go up through 

 Horowhenua, with a fraction of its former population, onwards through the 

 now almost deserted Manawatu and Eangitikei, to Wanganui, and right 

 along the coast to Parihaka and Taranaki. How many warriors could now 

 be put in the field as compared with those who encountered our troops 

 under General Cameron. Clearly the natives have "gone farther back" 

 than Hawke's Bay and Taranaki. If we start at the North Cape and travel 

 downwards from the Three Kings, we have seen by statistics but a fraction 

 of their numbers now exist north of Auckland, and a journey southwards 

 to the Waikato and Thames will reveal the same scantiness of population. 

 Judge Fenton showed us how they decreased in the Waikato in a few 

 years, and all observers admit that the natives are fewer in the centre 

 of this island and about the East Cape than they were twenty years ago. 

 The proof is overwhelming, the natives have not gone farther back — they 

 have died. 



The Maoris and the weaker Morioris in the Chatham Islands are almost 

 extinct. Bishop Selwyn preached to 1,000; now the entire population, 

 Maoris and Morions, is 126. 



Without going into the still disputed question as to which great division 

 of the human family the Malay race belongs, according to the best evidence 

 it seems clear that the Maoris are a part of the race which stretches west 



