A better deal

in the NZ sun

Just how often historical mistakes repeat themselves is given emphasis by Alan Ward’s A Show of Justice in which he writes about the relation ship between Maoris and European settlers in 19th century New Zealand.

There was the same old urge on the part of the Maoris on first contact with the better-endowed foreigners to have a slice of their material wealth and, to better participate, a desire by many a Maori chief to have his own pet Pakeha (European) trader estab lished in his village. Jealousy and occasionally violence followed if the trader looked like dispensing his favours elsewhere.

As an extension of this, and a growing appetite for European goods like guns, ammunition, axes and so forth, many Maoris “sold” parcels of land which frequently they had no right to do. Their poor understanding of what land ownership meant to the foreigners frequently led them to think that what they were parting with was temporary land use, and not the permanent alienation of the land it self.

This sort of thing was to repeat itself again and again in the South Pacific but the lessons that should have been learned from the Maori- Pakeha land troubles of the mid 19th century had to be learned all over again right into the 19705.

The Tolais who squat on planta tions of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Guinea, and insist that the land had never been legally purchased from

their ancestors, had their counterparts almost 100 years ago in the Taranaki Maoris who refused to recognise European purchase or confiscation of land by moving in and ploughing up Pakeha farms.

By the same token, the recalcitrant Mataungan Association of the Gazelle is small beer in comparison with the efforts of the Taranaki and King Country Maoris of NZ who kept both the colonial government and the settlers on the hop between 1860 and the 1880 s, sometimes through full scale war, frequently by flaunting Euronean laws which they had no hand in making.

Basically it was the age-old battle of who was to own the land—the Maoris who had got their first or the whitemen who came 500 years later.

In the end those with the greatest material advantages won the day helped by a section of the Maori population which had, almost from the outset, been pro-Pakeha. New Zealand then entered a phase of what officially was supposed to be an integrated, multi-racial society in which Maori and Pakeha were to have equal rights and opportunities and which was held up to the world as an example of how well a plural society could work.

It has never been as simple as that.

Individual Maoris of the 1970 s benefit not at all from what were once tribal lands and now, according to the author, many believe that their ancestors were got at and milched of what was rightfully theirs so they attempt to turn back the historical clock and demand a better place in the NZ sun. It hasn’t exactly come to a brown-power movement but many are vociferous.

This book is interesting for any one seeking enlightenment on colonial land matters but, as it is based on a doctoral thesis, it is pretty hard slogging for the lay reader with its multiplicity of detached footnotes, etc.

The author, not surprisingly, was a consultant on the recent commission of inquiry into land matters in Papua New Guinea which came up with pretty revolutionary ideas on land tenure for that country.

He is a New Zealander but at present is a lecturer in history at Latrobe University, Melbourne. His writing is straightforward, with one idiosyncrasy— with him “Maori” is neither singular nor plural and seldom merits a preliminary “a” or a “the” as in (to quote). “The Crown Pro secutor rejected this saying that Maori became British subjects when New Zealand became a British colony”.

There is probably some professional reason for this but for the moment it escapes this reviewer. —Judy Tudor. (A SHOW OF JUSTICE, by Alan Ward, Australian University Press, Canberra,

Act. $10.95.)