MEMOIRS OF THE EARLY DAYS THE CHURCH IN NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 48, 28 November 1907, Page 11

MEMOIRS OF THE EARLY DAYS

THE CHURCH IN NEW ZEALAND

(Contributed.) (Continued from last week.) AUCKLAND. The Treaty of Waitangi.

On June 19, 1839, a proclamation was issued by the British Government extending the boundaries of New~"South Wales 1 so as to include certain portions of New Zealand, ,and in about a month afterwards Captain Hobson, of the Royal Navy, was made Lieutenant-Governor 'of any territory which is or may be •acquired in that country by Her Majesty.' The newly appointed Governor arrived in the Bay of Islands on January 29, 1840, and -immediately issued an invitation to the British residents to meet him next day at" the church, so that he may read to them her Majesty's commission. It may be said here that Captain Hobson had been appointed Lieutenant-Governor of a Country which at that time had not been" acquired by the •Crown, and therefore did not belong to England, which fact would, from a legal point of yiew, render his Commission worthless. In less than a week after -his arrival in the country he convened a meeting of the natives to lay his plans before them, and to discuss the question of the Sovereignty of the Island and of ceding their rights to the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation. The Conference was held at a spot.!

where the river Waitangi- (weeping water) falls'into the sea, and the natives remarked to each other that the circumstance boded no good to them. At noon, on February 5, Captain Hobson, accompanied by a number of .missionaries, French and English,' European residents, and the officers of H.M.S. ' Herald,' which then lay in .the harbor, ascended a large platform, which had been prepared for the occasion. The scene must have been an imposing one, and was, no doubt, meant to. impress the savage mind" with the importance of the pakeha and "his wonderful achievements in' the way of dress. The Governor -read the 'Treaty,' which, sentence after sentence, was translated into Maori by Mr. Henry, Williams, a naval officer who had been for some, years in the country. Whether such a document could be faithfully translated into a language that had no words to express many^of its terms, is a question which has been often raised. Such expressions as confederation, pre-emption, alienate sove-, reignty,. etc., would of course be utterly incomprehensible to men who had no equivalent terms in their language, and who did not fthen .know what a treaty meant. Even the name given to their, country was a sort, of puzzle to people "who had, from time immemorial,, known it as Ao-tea-i'oa, ' the long white cloud.' After the reading .of the Treaty the natives were requested to. speak their mindsf upon ( it, wHereupon some twenty or thirty of their number addressed the meeting. Of -these it is said that five or six "were opposed to it. Ultimately, however, it was signed by forty-six out of the 500 or more who were present. In recording this incident in his book; ' The Long White Cloud,' the Hon. W. P. Reeves, our present 'High Commissioner, says :— ' The French. Bishop Pompallier appeared in full canonicals, and it was found that chiefs under his influence had been well coached to oppose the new departure. Behind the scenes, too, that worst of all beachcombers, Jacky Marmon, secretly made all the mischief. he could' (cha-p. x., p. 179). ~^As it would break the thread of this narrative to refute the part of this statement referring to the Bishop here, .1 shall return to it again. .A. few days after the meeting at Waitangi Captain Hobson went to Hokianga to meet the natives there, and acquaint them with the object of his mission. By this time the interest in the Treaty Jiad increased to such an extent that no less than »3,000 "natives, of whom between 400 and 500 were chiefs of "various ranks, had collected in response to Captain Hobson's invitation. The proceedings were initiated and conducted on similar lines to those at Waitangi, and the manner of his reception by the- chiefs will be best understood, i'rom his own words. "In a despatch to Sir George Gipps, telling him of this gathering^ he says : — ' At the appointed time of meeting I was mortified to observe a great disinclination on the part of the chiefs to assemble. After some delay, however, they began to collect, and at last the different tribes marched up in procession, taking their seats somewhat in the same order, as was observed at Waitangi. Still I could not fail to observe that an unfavorable spirit prevailed amongst them. The business of the day began as at Waitangi, the Rev. Mr Hobbs, of the Wesleyan Mission, acting as interpreter. ... On this occasion all their best orators were against me, and every argument they could devise was used to defeat my object. . . . Towards the close of the day one of the chiefs, Papa Haika, made some observations that were so distinctly of English origin that I called on him to speak his own sentiments like a man, and not to allow others who were self-in-terested to prompt him, upon which he fairly admitted the fact, and .called upon the European who had advised him to come forward and tell the Governor what Jie had told him. . -. . The chiefs Rewa and Thakara, who are followers of the Catholic Bishop, were the principal opposers, and their arguments were such as convinced me they had been prompted.'

It will help us materially to geb rid of the fog that has been hanging .for the' last sixty-seven years around the statements of Captain Hobson if we tarn to those of Bishop Pompallier himself. His Lordship is so explicit on" the subject, and rebuts the charges so clearly, that his words deserve quoting at length : — ' All the natives in the country/, he says in his diary; ' were astounded both at the arrival of a strange Governor and at the strange reports that were flying about. The day after his arrival the Maori chiefs received -printed letters from Captain Hobson, inviting them to meet at a place in the bay called Waitang'i, where a Treaty was to be read to" them in their own language, and then signed by them. Many of the Catholic chiefs came to consult me, above all the great Rewa. They asked me . what was 'to be done under the circumstances in which their country was placed, and whether they ought or not to sign. I answered them that" these were political matters which were outside my province; I was" only in this country to pasture souls in

the Word of God, and to direct them in faith, morality, and the Catholic discipline, to confer, the sacraments of salvation on persons of whatsoever nationality who should have recourse to my ministry in the proper dispositions, and that there ended my divine mission. It was for them to determine what they might desire to do with their national, sovereignty— whether to keep it or to transfer it to a foreign nation ; they were therefore at liberty to sign or not to sign the Treaty " which was going to be put before them ; that for myself and my clergy we were prepared to exercise our ministry of salvation for' those who signed in the same manner as for those who did not sign. In a word, we were to instruct them in the faith whether they continued New Zealanders or became English While the speeches were being made (at the meeting) on behalf of Captain Hobson and of the chiefs of the Maori tribes, I remained silent ; J had nothing to say; they were simply about political matters. One question, however, interested me deeply. It was that of religious freedom, about which no one in any way seemed- to trouble themselves. Before the last meeting broke . up, I addressed Captain Hobson, begging him to make known to all the people the principles of European civilisation which obtain in Great Britain, and- which guarantee free and equal protection .to the Catholic as to every other religion in New Zealand. My demand was immediately acceded" to by the captain, who made a formal notification of it to all the assembled people, to the great satisfaction of all the Catholic chiefs and tribes,- who triumphed in the fact of my "presence and at the speedy compliance with the few words I had spoken. As to the political Treaty, was it or was it not understood by the natives? That is a difficult question to solve. But the Catholic religion gained instead of losing its dignity and its influence over the minds of the people.' Thus far Bishop Pompallier.

If we now retrace our steps and review the evidence, or the want of evidence, on which Captain Hobson bases his charge against Bishop Pompallier, we shall see that it rests upon the most; unstable of foundations — mere suspicion. Taking it for granted that because two out of the number of natives who refused to sign the Treaty were Catholics, he jumpß at the conclusion that -they, as the Hon. Mr Eeeves so finely puts it, ' had been well coached to oppose the new departure.' This is begging Jhe question with a vengeance, and one cannot help thinking that, In the case of the captain at least, the wish must have been father to the thought, and that since an explanation was necessary this would be the most plausible, as it apparently was the Readiest to hand. Why it .was that the Methodist missionaries, of Hokianga were not also charged with having 'coached* the natives of that place who refused to sign the Treaty, although they had been over eight years in their hands, is one of those things which perhaps the Hon. Mr Eeeves might be able to explain, for neither he nor Captain Hobson has aught to say about it. Even ' that worst of beachcombers, Jacky Marmon,' who, according to Mr Eeeves, worked behind the scenes, and made "all the mischief he could, and who, for all -we know to the contrary, may have got hold of Eewa and Thakara and ' coached ' them — even he, Jacky, comes in for no word of censure from the captain. As has already been pointed out, when describing the attitude of the natives at the Hokianga meeting to the Governor ' * of New South Wales, he distinctly states that all their best ora- * tors were against him, and that every argument they could devise was used to defeat his object. Yet although those orators, or me-.*, of them, were Wesleyans, he has no word of blame for their missionaries. Eewa and Thakara, who refused to sign at Waitangi, were men of large experience in the ways of the pakeha. Around them everywhere their lands were in the pos-. session of speculators, land jobbers, and the missionaries, bo that if Eewa and Thakara and some others refused to sign away ' the trifling portion of their country that still remained to them there is nothing to wonder at in the fact. The Bishop is precise and explicit in his statements concerning this matter, and until we have something stronger than the mere assumptions of Captain Hobson we must accept - them as truth. Before I leave this subject there is one other statement in Mr Eeeves's book to which I should like to refer, « W«sleyan missionaries,' he tells us., ' following in the footsteps of Marsden's pioneers, established themselves in 1822. . .' . It took ten years to make one convert,' and up to 1830 the baptisms were very few ' (p. 116). ♦ The Long White Cloud ' haß been widely read both in this colony and at Home. When a second edition is called for, as it is almost sure to be, perhaps Mr Beeves may see his ■ way to eliminate the objectionable passage about Bishop Pompallier, which certainly disfigures his book.

More or Less Eetrospective. When, Bishop Pompallier arrived at Kororareka, he tells us that among the seventy or more white people who lived there he found only one Catholic. This proportion, small as it was, has - not been kept up, for to-day, among ,a population of about 500, there are but three Catholics. The church which he built there on a section given to him by Captain. Hobson was accidentally destroyed a few years ago by a half-witted Maori boy,, .who set fire to the ti-tree scrub and the gorse by which it was, sur. " rounded. Not a trace of 'the building remains, and the _ gorse and the scrub are again fighting for the mastery of the section. Indeed, the soil of" Kororareka (now Eussell)" must be specially suited to the growth of these two. shrubs, for all the hills around the place and many of the flats are thickly .covered, with them. The township still bears evidences of its former wealth and importance, for here and there amongst,a miserable array of -wooden shanties may be seen an occasional tall dwelling, that~even now in .its tottering old age tells of its former greatness.- The principal I street— if it may be called a street— is a parade along the beach by- the water's edge, -and one of the best-kept houses on this parade is that which formerly belonged to the Bishop. In bold-bxass letters imbedded in the gate is the word '.Pompallier,' the name by which the hous_e is known, and up the avenue and along the front fence are thick hedges .of flowering shrubs some twelve feet high that bespeak the. love of its original owner for the and shrubs of his native country. The property has changed hands several times since the Bishop left it. Its first owners after his time were Catholics, and so far respected his private chapel as not to interfere with it. The present owner, however, is a non-Catholic, and -among other alterations effected on' the building he has converted the little chapel- into an outhouse.. Everywhere about Eussell one is reminded of those early French missionaries. Flowering plants -and" shrubs may be seen growing in profusion all over the place; and huge willows, offering^the shelter of their graceful pendant branches to pakeha and Maori alike. ~ The original flowering plants" were brought out by the missionaries from France, and the willows ,were cuttings taken from that which grew over the tomb of Napoleon at St. Helena, where they called on their way out. An old Maori with whom I once got into conversation while at Eussell told me that he was twelve years old when Bishop Pompallier arrived in the colony. His father and mother and all his family became Catholics, as well as all the other people round about the bay he. came from. He himself - was, of course, reared up a Catholic, and in those days always went to his duty. 'And where do you go now?' I said to him. Pointing towards the English church close by, he said : ' Sometimes Anglican, sometimes sometimes preacher— all same.' From all I could see of the Maoris up North, and I made it my business to talk to many of them,- all the Christianity they now possess is merely a veneer, which might be washed off them with a wisp of straw/ Since the Catholic missionaries left them ■ they have been falling back upon their own resources, and working up theories, more or less romantic. Looking back upon the ground covered by this cursory and disjointed narrative, it must strike every reader of these notes with surprise when he reflects on the eagerness with which from the very beginning, the Catholic missionaries were received by the Maoris. Not only were they not repulsed— their services were absolutely sought for by whole tribes which had resisted every effort of the Protestant missionaries to convert them Ten years, so the Hon. Mr Eeeves tells us in « The Long White ' Cloud,' it took the Wesleyans to make one convert, while' Bishop Porapalher tells us in his diary that the heads of several of the tribes on The Kaipara had more than once sent down their sons m canoes a distance of twenty-five leagues begging of him- to come and visit them. In the face of misrepresentation and calumny, that were as virulent as they were senseless, and in the absence of those adventitious aids which are so essential to the successful evangelisation of a rude people, Bishop Pompallier and his missionaries overcame every obstacle". (To be continued.)

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