Singularly fair-skinned, and standing fully
six feet high, he looked what he was, a patriarch and leader of his
people. Scoffing at the White men and their religion, he defied
Governor and missionaries alike until his dramatic end, which came in
1846, when he and his village were swallowed up in a huge landslide.
At present, as he could neither be coerced nor persuaded, he was let
alone. For the rest, it may fairly be claimed that the Maori race
accepted the Treaty of Waitangi.

They had very good reason to do so. To this day they regard it as the
Magna Charta of their liberties. They were fully aware that under it
the supreme authority passed to the Queen; but they were quite able to
understand that their tribal lands were guaranteed to them. In other
words, they were recognised as the owners in fee simple of the whole
of New Zealand. As one of them afterwards expressed it, "The shadow
passes to the Queen, the substance stays with us."

At the same time Governor Hobson had announced to the white settlers
by proclamation that the Government would not recognise the validity
of any of their land titles not given under the Queen's authority. It
is not easy to see how else he could have dealt with the land-sharks,
of whom there had been an ugly rush from Sydney on the news of the
coming annexation, and most of whom as promptly retreated on finding
the proclamation to be a reality. But at the same time his treaty and
his proclamation were bound to paralyse settlement, to exasperate the
entire white population, and to plunge the infant colony into a sea
of troubles. Outside the missionaries and the officials every one was
uneasy and alarmed. All the settlers were either landowners, land
claimants, or would-be land purchasers. Yet they found themselves at
one and the same time left without titles to all that they thought
they possessed, and debarred from the right of buying anything more
except from the Crown. And as the Governor was without funds, and
the Crown, therefore, could not buy from the natives, there was a
deadlock. Space will not admit here of a full discussion of the vexed
question of the land clause in the Treaty of Waitangi. As a rule
civilized nations do not recognise the right of scattered handfuls of
barbarians to the ownership of immense tracts of soil, only a fraction
of which they cultivate or use. However, from the noblest and most
philanthropic motives an exception to this rule was made in the case
of