A map published in 1916 (Census of New Zealand, 1916, facing p. 175) shows the relative position of the two populations. In Coromandel there were I0-24 Maori for every ioo others; in Thames and Ohinemuri 5-9; for the neighbouring counties the figures were: Franklin 5-9 and Manuka 1-4. (Only in Great Barrier county did Maori remain a substantial presence at 25-49 per ioo others, but this county had in 1916 a non-Maori population of only 245.)
1.22 The consequences of change were many-sided. For Maori it was a loss of authority, standing and well-being; they became a small and overshadowed minority as well as an economically insignificant and socially disadvantaged one. The greater part by far of the land, an essential basis for recovery and progress of the kind that was underway in the Ngati Porou rohe by the late 19th century, had passed into other hands. No doubt vestiges of the traditional food-gathering and gardening economy persisted, but they would have been severely limited by Pakeha ownership and competition. Such meagre resources provided an unreliable subsistence even for a reduced population and were totally inadequate for future development.
1.23 In the face of these transformations, occurring within a few decades, the life of Hauraki Maori changed radically and, in essence, for the worse. The modes of adaptation, which had been effective before the 186os and which had shown the capacity of traditional social structures to adapt to new economic possibilities, had been overwhelmed by the capitalist order of the mining and timber companies, the land dealers and the settlers, by the dislocation of a communal society, and by the New Zealand state as the agent and the facilitator of these new forces. Although, in the rest of this report, there is inevitably an emphasis upon loss—simply because loss on a major scale occurred, of land and economic autonomy, mana and authority, well-being and health—Hauraki Maori also exhibited a persistence in self-assertion, self-reliance and protest, which testifies to their capacity to survive.
The argument
1.24 The basic argument in this report is that underlying the plight of Hauraki Maori is the far-reaching loss of their economic resources and the frustration of the commercial initiatives they had taken earlier. On the one hand, the resources upon which the vestiges of a traditional economy relied were severely diminished and, in any case, inadequate for the requirements of a more developed capitalist and exploitative economy. On the other hand, the sharp and radical decline in the ownership and control of the major economic factor—land and land-based resources—precluded even a modest
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