For Land

THE land has always been of the greatest econ­omic and political importance in New Zealand. Thus it is hardly surprising that the land problem was vexing the heads of Government officials even before New Zealand became part of the British Empire in 1840. The Maoris had had some harm­less dealings with whalers. Men like Guard of Te Awaiti and Hempleman at Peraki needed a foot­hold on the coasts where they made their living. But their purchases of a few acres round a whal­ing station were rather a means of paying the local chiefs for their goodwill than speculations.

But in the thirties, when the attractions of New Zealand had begun to draw adventurers of every type to its shores, white men began to buy land from the chiefs. Missionaries, runaway sailors or convicts, traders—all engaged in speculative buying. Apart from missionaries and beachcombers, who were actually resident in the country, the chief land speculators lived in Sydney.

A speculator of a different sort, the Baron de Thierry, son of a French nobleman who had fled to England to escape from the Revolution, was con­vinced that the Maoris needed a king. The mis­sionary Kendall had bought for him about 40,000 acres; but when he reached New Zealand, the Hokianga chiefs would give him only about 300 acres, and everyone laughed at his offer to take on himself the troublesome office of king. Another Frenchman, Langlois, a whaling captain, bought some 300,000 acres from the Banks Peninsula tribes. He acted for the Nanto-Bordelaise Company, a French rival of Edward Gibbon Wake field’s famous New Zealand Company. But these men bought in good faith without wishing primarily to enrich themselves.

As the rumour spread that the British Govern­ment intended to proclaim sovereignty over New Zealand, speculators began buying vast territories from any Maori chiefs who would sell. The chiefs often had no right to dispose of the land they pretended to exchange for an alluring display of blankets, axes and above all muskets. Perhaps it was not their land at all. Or they may have sold it without the consent of the whole tribe which owned the land in common. Some natives visiting Sydney were able to ‘ sell’ the whole of the South Island!

Altogether the total area claimed by various purchasers in 1840 was 56,654,000 acres, or more than the total area of land the colony was then estimated to contain. Of all land transactions between Europeans and Maoris the most important for the future of the country were the New Zealand Company’s purchases a few months before the establishment of British rule.