LI The analysis and discussion which follows is organised under the headings of population, work, education and health. Though no separate section is devoted to land loss, that is the dominant economic development affecting the lives of Hauraki Maori during and after colonisation. It was the major factor making for change, and for an abrupt decline, in their social and economic situation. The loss of land and of its associated resources is recounted in detail in other reports presented to the Tribunal. Though the treatment of land matters in the introduction to this report is of a summary kind, it should be stressed that it is basic to the argument advanced—it underlies and permeates the developments discussed in more detail.
1.2 This report discusses social and economic change in a region which may be broadly defined as including the Coromandel peninsula, the islands of the Hauraki gulf, and districts south and west of the Firth of Thames towards Waikato and the Tamaki isthmus. It is not possible to place precise boundaries to the Hauraki rohe or, for that matter, to any region identified by tribal tradition and occupancy. However, in the preparation of this report those items were noted which had a clear application to places within this region and to the people living within it. The locations from which specific items of evidence arise are noted in the text or in the references.
1.3 Broadly, the period covered by this report runs from the 187os to the 191os, though some reference is made to earlier and later decades. This half-century is sufficient for an examination of the consequences of government action within the context of colonisation. The effective colonisation of New Zealand began around 1840 and that of the Hauraki district not long after, with the gold discoveries and the Crown land purchases of the Asos. It accelerated in the 187os and within that decade transformed the region from a Maori to a Pakeha domain. By the early zoth century the work of colonisation had been effectively completed and the role of the state sufficiently defined.
