(c)   Constraints on Crown acting as the 'honest broker'

In 1852-53, as later, the determinant of policy was the economic needs or ambitions of the white settler community, not a concern for the material benefit of Maori. Although the Crown (from Wynyard down) sought to win Maori agreement to concessions for mining, by setting itself up as 'the honest broker', with promises to supervise payment of revenues to Maori landowners and to maintain order on the field, the reality of its role was otherwise.

Conflict of Interest in Role of Crown

This first short-lived Coromandel rush had shown how difficult the mediating role of the Crown would be in the future. For the Crown, sticking to its obligation to honour the Treaty of Waitangi while throwing open the field to Pakeha prospectors (most of whom were insensitive to Maori rights) in such a way as to satisfy them without offending Maori owners, evolved into a task equivalent to squaring the circle. Haglund points out the early appearance of digger insensitivity. A group whom he describes as 'a party of new arrivals from Australia' in February 1853 made a hostile response to the limits imposed on their prospecting by Paora and Taraia: they 'became impatient of restrictions and adopted an abusive attitude towards the Maori.'38 This early experience left little in the way of a legacy of goodwill among Coromandel hapu. Salmon speaks of them as 'disillusioned', and 'increasingly resentful of the failure of some of the prospectors to honour their [licensing] agreement'.39 The lesson had not been lost on the strongly independent and influential Taraia, by this time the acknowledged leader of Ngati Maru as well as Ngati Tamatera. Earlier subjected to pressure to throw open his lands to prospectors, Taraia had opted for a policy of wait and see.40 How he had seen the leases given by other Coromandel chiefs work out in practice had not encouraged him to change his mistrustful position.

Economic Pressure in Auckland to Have Local Goldfields Opened

We can understand why Hauraki Maori were exposed to intense pressure to open up the area around Coromandel in 1852 only if we appreciate that the motives of the authorities in Auckland were primarily economic in origin. And it was less a matter of an attack of gold fever among would-be diggers than one of the self-regarding desire of settlers of consequence to keep Auckland buoyant economically, and to stem the outflow of young male labour from the province, a scarce commodity Auckland could not afford to lose.

38 J.R. Haglund, 'History of Coromandel Goldfield, 1853-1868', MA thesis, Auckland University College, 1949, p. 11.

39 Salmon, A History of Goldmining, p. 29.

40 Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Vol. 1, p. 428.

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