Tauranga Argus and Opotiki Reporter

When the Tauranga Argus and Opotiki Reporter, the first Bay of Plenty of Plenty newspaper, produced its first issue on 24 November 1866, there were still hostilities in the area after the war, adding to the uncertainty for any new journalistic venture.

In early December, the Hawke’s Bay Times commented on the first issue:

‘We cannot say much for its appearance, but knowing by experience the many difficulties that lie in the way of a new journalist, we pass them over in the hope that future numbers … will be an improvement on No. 1. Its show of advertisements (so essential to the well-being of any newspaper) are, we observe, very limited, but doubtless they will soon increase’. (Hawke’s Bay Times, 3 December 1866: 2)

During its short life, the weekly Tauranga Argus did not mince its opinions, which was possibly surprising given the relations between Māori and settlers in the Bay of Plenty at the time. The ferocity of one report, on 15 December 1866, about a tangi for the chief Kanapu, was remarked on by other papers and reprinted in the Hawke’s Bay Times:

‘Murder, theft, deceit, cowardice, treachery, are crimes that pall before the bestial orgies of what we term ‘friendly Maoris’. Heaven grant that we may never more see the perpetrators of such atrocities again. In our mind they are simply food or ought to be—for dogs’. (Hawke’s Bay Times, 31 December 1866: 3)

Barely six months later, on 25 May 1867, the Tauranga Argus published its last issue. Later that year, it morphed into another, similar-looking weekly, the Tauranga Record and Bay of Plenty Examiner.

As a prospectus issued by the Record pointed out, the paper’s editorial tone is likely to have hastened its end. Published in the Daily Southern Cross on 13 July 1867, it made clear the vacuum left by the Argus, and its failings:

‘A serious crisis has now 'arrived in the affairs of this district, affecting its permanent prosperity which, in the opinion of the proprietors, renders it imperative, that a public journal, possessing the confidence of the public, integrity, candour, and a freedom from local prejudices or personal attacks, should be supplied to the inhabitants of-this very important, and promising locality.

It is clear to every careful observer that the minds of the public have recently been enlightened upon the policy hereafter to be pursued. We have just learned that in proper hands and in a proper manner peace may be secured without bloodshed. The natives are not indisposed to listen to reason when we do not approach them with the gun in our hands ….’ (Daily Southern Cross, 13 July 1867: 3)

Another contributor to the demise of the Argus was the reputation and legal difficulties, detailed in the press for some years, of the paper’s proprietor and publisher, Walter Isaac Donchaisse. On 6 June, he appeared in Tauranga’s Magistrate’s Court, charged with fraud and false pretences, and was committed for trial at the next sitting of the Supreme Court in Auckland.