HISTORY MAKING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 1, 13 July 1914, Page 3

HISTORY MAKING.

AX INCIDENT OF THE OLD DAYS. (Lyttelton Times.) The picturesque ceremonial in tin' Presence Chamber when the Waikato Maori chiefs laid their flax, mats at King George's lleet recalls a historylnaking incident in the story of Waikato and (he Thompson family, whose representative is really the leading ligiuv in the deputation, to his Majesty, although King Tawhiao's grandson is its nominal head Just forty-nine years ago William Thompson, the most enlightened and influential of all the Ki.iigitc leaders, was induced to make his submission to the white Quern, chiefly through the mediation of Mr. George Graham, a prominent northern settler ef the sixties and one-time .Superintendent of the province of Auckland. Thompson had retired to his village at Tamaheiv, in deep sorrow; at the ruin of all his hopes and the repulse of his people by th:> British troops in battle after battle. His lighting men wished to renew the war, but Thompson recognised that the Native ide.il <A indenonih - .■ was a hopeless cause, and he (loci -,i to make his peace with the wh u-. ririe-idier-Oieneral Ciirey and a few officers rode to Tamahere, anl there they met the Kingmaker, who advanced with uncovered head. He la'd hi- taiaha. his carved hardwood halherl of chieftainship, at the General's feet, i saying that he Imped it would be ac- ! cepted as bis gun, in token of submis- ! sion. Thompson and his ! friend." as he called the General, shook hands, and a peace covenant was written and sif; n ...l :l t the foot of a. flagsta!!' I upon which the Union .lack had 'been i run up. Tlie covenant was lint a. few l ; nes in length, and it was written o" I the fly-leaf of a private letter for want i of other material. Put it was .-Kir. Ih-ienl. and Wiremn Tamaliana's: peace 1 was never broken in Waikato.