THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SITUATION OF HAURAKI MAORI AFTER COLONISATION

and timber fell away. Puckey reported Maori discontent at a 40% fall-off in miners' rights returns in 1875; rather inconsistently, he complained that his warnings that this income would show a 'gradual decline' had been disregarded (AJHR 1875 GIB). Gold revenues fell away thanks in part to government changes in the rules as well as to declining output. In the case of timber, loss of ownership of timber-bearing lands led to the same result. As this situation progressed, land became the major remaining commodity that could be turned into cash. But returns from land sales also declined as less and less land was left for sale. Well within a lifetime the expectation of advantage proved to be illusory. The outcome of 'development' was for Maori permanent economic disadvantage, not 'treasures and riches'. The promised opportunities did not open up. On the contrary the land itself, which could have become the basis for at least a modest recovery, was gone.

1.32 In the decades following the opening of the goldfields in the 1860s, Hauraki Maori became more and more habituated to and trapped within a cash economy. Their need for cash cost them their land and thus led to a lack of resources to participate profitably in the new economy. While governments can hardly be held wholly responsible for bringing this situation about—a question to be discussed shortly—they can at least be censured for exploiting it to their own advantage and to that of settlers. As well as using the devices noted earlier, government took quasi-monopolistic powers to exclude private buyers from many blocks and so eliminated the potential benefits of competition. Its agents commonly were able to enforce the acceptance of prices well below those sought by sellers. It is surely beyond dispute that governments, whatever may have been the limits upon their capacity to protect Maori from these developments, should not have taken advantage of them and acted in an exploitative manner.

1.33 The role of government in this history of loss needs further examination. What part did it play? Further, what part might it have been expected to have played? Colonisation, it could be answered, was an irresistible historical force which operated on its own momentum from the 15th to the 19th centuries and was well beyond the control of governments. That may be satisfactory as a general statement about a long term historical trend. But it does not eliminate questions of responsibility. Its usefulness as an explanatory tool diminishes the closer one draws to specific episodes of colonisation—to, in this instance, the colonisation of Hauraki. Within the overall context of colonisation a range of options were available to those who made and administered policy. Certainly their actions can be seen within the context of a long-term historical trend, but they remain the particular actions of particular people.

1.34 The question, then, is not 'Should government have prevented colonisation?' It is, rather, 'Should government have imposed the colonising policies it in fact adopted?' And further, 'Were less penal alternatives, still within the overall framework of colonisation, available to government?' These questions call for an examination of two further questions. First, was it within the capacity of 19th century New Zealand governments to

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