That was why Auckland's leaders had been so anxious to have gold discovered in Hauraki in 1852. By the 1860s the need for a payable goldfield was considered greater than ever.

Reopening of Coromandel Goldfield, 1862 Motives

Unlike the earlier agitation for the opening of a goldfield as an antidote for depression, that of 1861 developed when business in Auckland was buoyant; it coincided with a property boom in town and suburbs. Discoveries in the Middle Island-Collingwood (1857) and Tuapeka (August 1861)-acted as a spur. So did alarm at the threatened loss of settlers to South Island fields as they opened up.83 Auckland had just launched itself on a scheme to settle assisted British migrants on 40-acre blocks in North Auckland. It was important that new settlers should not be drawn out of the province.84

Agitation for resumption of prospecting

During the later months of 1861, a campaign to carry out further prospecting in the Coromandel Peninsula got under way.85 Charles Heaphy,86 a former goldfields commissioner, chaired 'a great public meeting' in the capital at which it was resolved that the Coromandel 'field ought to be opened immediately' and that 'the Government be strongly recommended to extinguish the native title to the auriferous areas of the province. '87

Both the pressure to open the field and, that achieved, to encourage the interests of miners rather than those of Hauraki Maori, are explicable only in terms of the hardline uncompromising political tone of most Auckland settlers in the crisis period before the Waikato war. Maori were said to be obstructive about giving access to land. Admittedly, the main bone of contention was the valley of the Waikato. But the mood of confrontation carried over to Hauraki lands, too. Late in 1861, 26 chiefs headed by Te Taniwha, mainly Ngati Whanaunga and Ngati Tamatera, made a conciliatory move and signed an agreement with McLean, Chief Land Purchase Commissioner, to allow Europeans to prospect for gold between Waiau and Cape Colville. Auckland's settlers nevertheless grumbled. They considered the terms of the agreement much too loosely worded. Only after gold was discovered did the agreement provide for negotiations that would lay down the terms by which the goldfields would be worked.88

83 Haglund, 'History of the Coromandel Goldfield', p. 24.

84 Southern Cross, 13 Sept. 1861.

85 Haglund, 'History of the Coromandel Goldfield', pp. 25-26.

86 Charles Heaphy was as well qualified to evaluate the mining potential of Coromandel as any colonist. He had been a gold commissioner there in 1852-53, surveyed blocks in the region in 1858, and had been assistant to von Hochstetter during his geological survey (1859) of the Auckland province. (Dictionary of NZ Biography, Vol. 1, p. 182) .

87   Southern Cross, 1 Oct. 1861.

88 AJHR, 1869, A17, pp. 3, 15-16.

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