Problems of the Pacific Part 6

In due time twelve ships carrying 1125 people sailed for New Zealand.

That was the beginning of a steady flow of emigrants mostly recruited by various Churches, and settled in groups in different parts of the New Zealand islands--members of the Free Church of Scotland at Otago, of the Church of England at Canterbury, men of Devon and Cornwall men at New Plymouth.

The British Government could hardly shake off all responsibility for these exiles. But it did its best to avoid annexation, and even adopted the remarkable expedient of recognising the Maoris as a nation, and encouraging them to choose a national standard. The Maori Flag was actually flown on the high seas for a while, and at least on one occasion received a salute from a British warship. But no standard could give a settled polity to a group of savage tribes. The experiment of setting up "The Independent Tribes of New Zealand" as a nation failed.

In 1840, Great Britain formally took over the New Zealand islands from the natives under the treaty of Waitangi, which is said to be the only treaty on record between a white race and a coloured race which has been faithfully kept to this day.

"This famous instrument," writes a New Zealand critic, "by which the Maoris, at a time when they were apparently unconquerable, voluntarily ceded sovereign rights over their country to Queen Victoria, is practically the only compact between a civilised and an uncivilised race which has been regarded and honoured through generations of difficulties, distrust, and even warfare. By guaranteeing to the Maori the absolute ownership of their patrimonial lands and the enjoyment of their ancestral rights and customs, it enabled them to take their place as fully enfranchised citizens of the British Empire, and to present the solitary example of a dark race surviving contact with a white, and a.s.sociating with it on terms of mutual regard, equality and unquestioned loyalty. The measure of this relationship is evident from the fact that Maori interests are represented by educated natives in both houses of the New Zealand Parliament and in the Ministry. The strict observance of the Treaty of Waitangi is part and parcel of the national faith of the New Zealanders, and a glorious monument to the high qualities of one of the finest races of aboriginal peoples the world has ever seen."

The New Zealand colonists, having won the blessing of the British Flag, were not well content. Very shortly afterwards we find Mr James Edward FitzGerald writing to Wakefield, who was contemplating a trip to New Zealand.

"After all, this place is but a village. Its politics are not large enough for you. But there are politics on this side the world which would be so. It seems unquestionable that in the course of a very few years--sometimes I think months--the Australian colonies will declare their independence. We shall live to see an Australasian Empire rivalling the United States in greatness, wealth and power. There is a field for great statesmen. Only yesterday I was saying, talking about you, that if you come across the world it must be to Australia; just in time to draw up the Declaration of Independence."

But that phase pa.s.sed. New Zealand to-day emulates Australia in a fervent Imperial patriotism, and at the 1911 Imperial Conference her Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Ward, was responsible for the following proposal which was too forward in its Imperialism to be immediately acceptable to his fellow delegates:

"That the Empire has now reached a stage of Imperial development which renders it expedient that there should be an Imperial Council of State, with representatives from all the self-governing parts of the Empire, in theory and in fact advisory to the Imperial Government on all questions affecting the interests of his Majesty's Dominions oversea."

He urged the resolution on the following grounds:

(1) Imperial unity; (2) organised Imperial defence; (3) the equal distribution of the burden of defence throughout the Empire; (4) the representation of self-governing oversea Dominions in an Imperial Parliament of defence for the purpose of determining peace or war, the contributions to Imperial defence, foreign policy as far as it affects the Empire, international treaties so far as they affect the Empire, and such other Imperial matters as might by agreement be transferred to such Parliament.

In advocating his resolution Sir Joseph Ward made an interesting forecast of the future of the British nations whose sh.o.r.es were washed by the Pacific. He estimated that if the present rate of increase were maintained, Canada would have in twenty-five years from now between 30,000,000 and 40,000,000 inhabitants. In Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand the proportionate increase could not be expected to be so great, but he believed that in twenty-five years' time the combined population of those oversea Dominions would be much greater than that of the United Kingdom. Those who controlled the destinies of the British Empire would have to consider before many years had pa.s.sed the expansion of these oversea countries into powerful nations, all preserving their own local autonomy, all being governed to suit the requirements of the people within their own territory, but all deeply concerned in keeping together in some loose form of federation to serve the general interests of all parts of the Empire.

At a later stage, in reply to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada, Sir Joseph Ward indulged in an even more optimistic prophecy.

The United States, he said, had something like 100,000,000 people. The prospective possibility of Canada for settlement purposes was not less than that of the United States, and the Dominion was capable of holding a population of 100,000,000 in the future. Australia also was capable of holding a similar number, although it would necessarily be a great number of years before that position was reached. South Africa, too, could hold 100,000,000 people. It was no exaggeration to suggest that those three Dominions were capable of holding 300,000,000 of people with great comfort as compared with certain overcrowded countries. New Zealand, in the opinion of many well-qualified men, could carry upwards of 40,000,000 people with comparative ease and comfort.

But these figures are hardly scientific. Climatic and other considerations will prevent Canada from reaching quite the same degree of greatness as the United States. British South Africa could "hold"

100,000,000 people, but it could not support them on present appearances. The possibilities of Australian settlement are difficult to be exaggerated in view of the steady dwindling of the "desert" area in the light of recent research and exploration, and of the fact that all her area is blessed with a genial climate. New Zealand, to keep 40,000,000 people, would need, however, to have a density of 400 people per square mile, a density surpa.s.sed to-day in Belgium and Holland but not reached by Great Britain. A fairly conservative estimate of the possibilities of the British Empire would allow it for the future a white population of 200,000,000, of whom at least half would be grouped near the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific. Presuming a British Imperial Federation on Sir Joseph Ward's lines with such a population, and the mastery of the Pacific would be settled. But that is for the future, the far future.

Sir Joseph Ward, in the event, was not able to carry the Imperial Conference with him, the majority of the delegates considering that the time had not yet come for the organisation of an Imperial Federal system. But it is possible that with the pa.s.sing of time and the growth of the population of the Dominions overseas, some such system may evolve: and a British Empire Parliament may sit one day at Westminster, at Vancouver or at Sydney. Certainly the likelihood is that the numerical balance of the British race will shift one day from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Following Australia's example, New Zealand has adopted a system of universal training for military service, but there are indications that she will not enforce it quite so rigorously as her neighbour. In the matter of naval defence, at the Conference of 1909 the New Zealand att.i.tude was thus defined by her Prime Minister:--

"I favour one great Imperial Navy with all the Overseas Dominions contributing, either in ships or money, and with naval stations at the self-governing Dominions supplied with ships by and under the control of the Admiralty. I, however, realise the difficulties, and recognise that Australia and Canada in this important matter are doing that which their respective Governments consider to be best; but the fact remains that the alterations that will be brought about upon the establishment of an Australian unit will alter the present position with New Zealand.

"New Zealand's maritime interests in her own waters, and her dependent islands in the Pacific would, under the altered arrangements, be almost entirely represented by the Australian Fleet unit, and not, as at present, by the Imperial Fleet. This important fact, I consider, necessitates some suitable provision being made for New Zealand, which country has the most friendly feeling in every respect for Australia and her people, and I am anxious that in the initiation of new arrangements with the Imperial Government under the altered conditions, the interests of New Zealand should not be over-looked. I consider it my duty to point this out, and to have the direct connection between New Zealand and the Royal Navy maintained in some concrete form.

"New Zealand will supply a _Dreadnought_ for the British Navy as already offered, the ship to be under the control of and stationed wherever the Admiralty considers advisable.

"I fully realise that the creation of specific units, one in the East, one in Australia, and, if possible, one in Canada, would be a great improvement upon the existing condition of affairs, and the fact that the New Zealand _Dreadnought_ was to be the flag-ship of the China-Pacific unit is, in my opinion, satisfactory. I, however, consider it is desirable that a portion of the China-Pacific unit should remain in New Zealand waters, and I would suggest that two of the new "Bristol"

cruisers, together with three destroyers and two submarines, should be detached from the China station in time of peace and stationed in New Zealand waters; that these vessels should come under the flag of the Admiral of the China unit; that the flagship should make periodical visits to New Zealand waters; and that there should be an interchange in the service of the cruisers between New Zealand and China, under conditions to be laid down.

"The ships should be manned, as far as possible, by New Zealand officers and men, and, in order that New Zealanders might be attracted to serve in the Fleet, local rates should be paid to those New Zealanders who enter, in the same manner as under the present Australian and New Zealand agreement, such local rates being treated as deferred pay.

"The determination of the agreement with Australia has, of necessity, brought up the position of New Zealand under that joint agreement. I therefore suggest that on completion of the China unit, the present agreement with New Zealand should cease, that its contribution of 100,000 per annum should continue and be used to pay the difference in the rates of pay to New Zealanders above what would be paid under the ordinary British rate. If the contribution for the advanced rate of pay did not amount to 100,000 per annum, any balance to be at the disposal of the Admiralty.

"The whole of this Fleet unit to be taken in hand and completed before the end of 1912, and I should be glad if the squadron as a whole would then visit New Zealand on the way to China, leaving the New Zealand detachment there under its senior officer."

From the difference between the naval arrangements of Australia and New Zealand can be gathered some hints of the difference between the national characteristics of the two young nations. Australia is aggressively independent in all her arrangements: loyal to the British Empire and determined to help its aims in every way, but to help after her own fashion and with armies and navies recruited and trained by herself. New Zealand, with an equal Imperial zeal, has not the same national self-consciousness and is willing to allow her share of naval defence to take the form of a cash payment. Probably the most effective naval policy of New Zealand would be founded on a close partnership with Australia, the two nations combining to maintain one Fleet. But that New Zealand does not seem to desire. She is, however, content to be a partner with Australia in one detail of military administration. The military college for the training of officers at the Australian Federal capital is shared with New Zealand. The present Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Fisher, is taking steps towards securing a closer defence bond with New Zealand.[4]

In an aspiration towards forward Imperialism, New Zealand is fully at one with Australia. But she has the idea that the control of the Southern Pacific, outside of the continent of Australia, is the right of New Zealand, and dreams of a New Zealand Empire embracing the island groups of Polynesia. It will be one of the problems of the future for the British Power to restrain the exuberant racial pride of these South Pacific nations, who see nothing in the European situation which should interfere with a full British control of the South Pacific.

In addition to Australia and New Zealand, the British Empire has a number of minor possessions in the South Pacific. In regard to almost all of them, the same tale of reluctant acceptance has to be told. New Guinea was annexed by the Colony of Queensland, anxious to set on foot a foreign policy of her own, in 1883. The British Government repudiated the annexation, and in the following year reluctantly consented to take over for the Empire a third of the great island on condition that the Australian States agreed to guarantee the cost of the administration of the new possession. The Fiji Group was offered to Great Britain by King Thakombau in 1859, and was refused. Some English settlers then began to administer the group on a system of const.i.tutional government under Thakombau. It was not until 1874 that the British Government accepted these rich islands, and then somewhat ungraciously and reluctantly, influenced to the decision by the fact that the alternative was German acquisition.

It was no affectation of coyness on the part of the successive British Governments which dictated a refusal when South Pacific annexations were mooted. Time after time it was made clear that the Home Country wanted no responsibilities there. Yet to-day, as the result mainly of the impulse of Empire and adventure in individual British men, the British Flag flies over the whole continent of Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, a part of New Guinea, Fiji, and the Ellice, Gilbert, Kermadec, Friendly, Chatham, Cook, and many other groups. It is a strange instance of greatness thrust upon a people.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Since writing, in March 1912, there has been an attempt on the part of the Australian Prime Minister to come to some closer naval arrangement with New Zealand; and the attempt seems to promise to be successful.

CHAPTER IX

THE NATIVE RACES

The native races of the South Pacific, with the possible exception of the Maori, will have no influence in settling the destiny of the ocean.

Neither the Australian aboriginal nor the Kanaka--under which last general t.i.tle may be grouped all the tribes of Papua, the Solomons, the New Hebrides and other Oceanic islands--will provide the foundation of a nation. It is one of the curiosities of world-history that no great race has ever survived which had its origin in a land south of the Equator.

From the earliest civilisations to the latest, there is not a single instance of a people of the southern hemisphere exercising any notable effect on the world's destinies. Sometimes there seems no adequate reason for this. That Africa north of the Equator should have produced a great civilisation, which was the early guide and instructor of the European civilisations, may be explained in part by the curious phenomenon of the Nile delta, a tract of land the irrigation of which at regular intervals by mysterious natural forces prompted inquiry, and suggested that all the asperities of Nature could be softened by effort.

(The spirit of inquiry and the desire for artificial comfort are the great promptings to civilisation.) But it is difficult to understand why in America the aboriginal Mexicans should have been so much more warlike than the Peruvians or any other people in South America; and why the West Pacific should wash with its northern waters the lands of two great races, and with its southern waters flow past lands which, though of greater fertility, remained almost empty, or else were peopled by childlike races, careless of progress and keen only to enjoy the simple happiness offered by Nature's bounty.

The Australian aboriginal race is rapidly dwindling: one of its branches, that which populated the fertile and temperate island of Tasmania, is already extinct. In Tasmania, reacting to the influence of a mild and yet stimulating climate, a climate comparable with that of Devon in England, but more sunny, the Australasian native had won to his highest point of development. Apparently, too, he had won to his highest possible point, for there is evidence that for many generations no progress at all had been made towards civilisation. Yet that point was so low in the stage of evolution that it was impossible for the poor natives to take any part, either as a separate race, or by mingling their blood with another race, in the future of the Pacific. The black Australian is a primitive rather than a degraded man. Most ethnologists have concluded that this black Australian is a Caucasian. Wallace ascribes to him kinship with the Veddas and the Ainus of Asia. Stratz takes the Australian as the prototype of all the races of man.

Schoetensack contends that the human race had its origin in the Australian continent.

But, however dignified by ancestry, the Australian aboriginal was pathetically out of touch with modern civilisation. He broke down utterly at its advent, not so much because of his bad qualities as because of his childishness. Not only were alcohol, opium and greed strange to him, but also weapons of steel and horses and clothing. He had never learnt to dig, to build, to weave. War organisation had not been thought of, and his tribal fights were prodigal of noise but sparing of slaughter. When the White Man came, it was inevitable that this simple primitive should dwindle from the face of the earth. It is not possible to hold out any hope for the future of the Australian blacks. They can never emulate the Maoris of New Zealand, who will take a small share in the building up of a nation. All that may be hoped for is that their certain end will be kept back as long as is humanly possible, and that their declining days will be softened by all kindness. A great reserve in the Northern Territory--a reserve from which the White population would be jealously excluded, and almost as jealously the White fashions of clothing and house-building--holds out the best hope for their future. It is comforting to think that the Australian Government is now resolved to do all in its power for the aboriginals. Indeed, to be just, authority has rarely lacked in kindness of intention; it has been the cruelty of individuals acting in defiance of authority, but aided by the supineness of authority, that has been responsible for most of the cruelty.

The Maori or native New Zealander was of a different type. The Maori was an immigrant to New Zealand. Some time back there was an overflow of population from the fertile sub-tropical islands of Malaysia. A tribe which had already learned some of the arts of life, which was of a proud and warlike character, took to the sea, as the Nors.e.m.e.n did in Europe, and sought fresh lands for colonisation. Not one wave, but several, of this outflow of colonists struck New Zealand. The primitive people there, the Morioris, could offer but little resistance to the warlike Malaysians, and speedily were vanquished, a few remnants finding refuge in the outlying islets of the New Zealand group. Probably much the same type of emigrant occupied Hawaii at one time, for the Hawaiian and the Maori have much in common. But whilst the perpetual summer of Hawaii softened and enervated its colonists, the bracing and vigorous climate of New Zealand had a precisely opposite effect. The dark race of the Pacific reached there a very high state of development.

The Maori system of government was tribal, and there does not seem to have been, up to the time of the coming of the White Man, any attempt on the part of one chief to seize supreme power and become king. Land was held on a communal system, and cultivated fairly well. Art existed, and was applied to boat-building, to architecture, to the embroidering of fabrics, to the carving of stone and wood. War was the great pastime, and cannibalism was customary. Probably this practice was brought by the Maoris from their old home. If it had not been, it might well have sprung up under the strange conditions of life in the new country, for New Zealand naturally possessed not a single mammal, not a beast whose flesh might be eaten. There were birds and lizards, and that was all.

The Maoris brought with them dogs, which were bred for eating, but were too few in number to provide a satisfactory food-supply; and rats, which were also eaten. With these exceptions there was no flesh food, and the invitation to cannibalism was clear.

A more pleasant feature of the national life of the Maori was a high degree of chivalry. In war and in love he seems to have had very much the same ideas of conduct as the European of the Age of Chivalry. He liked the combat for the combat's own sake, and it is recorded as one of the incidents of the Maori War that when a besieged British force ran short of ammunition, the Maori enemy halved with them their supply, "so as to have a fair fight."

In his love affairs the Maori was romantic and poetic. His legends and his native poetry suggest a state of society in which there was a high respect for women, who had to be wooed and won, and were not the mere chattels of the men-warriors. Since this respect for womenkind is a great force for civilisation, there is but little doubt that, if the Maoris had been left undisturbed for a few more centuries, they would have evolved a state of civilisation comparable with that of the j.a.panese or the Mexicans.

When Captain Cook visited New Zealand in 1769 the Maori race probably numbered some 100,000. The results of coming into contact with civilisation quickly reduced that number to about 50,000. But there was then a stay in the process of extinction. The Maori began to learn the virtues as well as the vices of civilisation. "Pakeha" medicine and sanitation were adopted, and the Maori birth-rate began to creep up, the Maori death-rate to decrease. It is not probable that the Maori race will ever come to such numbers as to be a factor of importance in the Pacific. But it will have some indirect influence. Having established the right to grow up side by side with the White colonists, possessing full political and social rights, the Maoris will probably modify somewhat the New Zealand national type. We shall see in New Zealand, within a reasonable time, a population of at least 10,000,000 of people, of whom perhaps 1,000,000 will be Maoris. The effect of this mixture of the British colonising type with a type somewhat akin to the j.a.panese will be interesting to watch. In all probability New Zealand will shelter a highly aggressive and a fiercely patriotic nation in the future (as indeed she does at present).

The Malay States bred a vigorous and courageous race of seamen, and Malay blood has been dispersed over many parts of the Pacific, Malays probably providing the chief parent stock both for the Hawaiians and the Maoris. But the Malay Power has been broken up to such an extent that a Malay nation is now impossible. Since the British overlordship of the Malay Peninsula, the Chinese have been allowed free access to the land and free trading rights; and they have ousted the original inhabitants to a large extent.

The Maori excepted, no race of Polynesia or Melanesia will survive to affect the destinies of the Pacific Ocean. Nature was cruelly kind to the Kanaka peoples in the past, and they must pay for their happiness now. In the South Pacific islands, until White civilisation intruded, the curse of Adam, which is that with the sweat of the brow bread must be won, had not fallen. Nature provided a Garden of Eden where rich food came without digging and raiment was not needed. Laughing nations of happy children grew up. True, wars they had, and war brought woe. But the great trouble, and also the great incentive to progress of life, they had not. There was no toiling for leave to live. Civilisation, alas! intrudes now, more urgent each year, to bring its "blessings" of toil, disease, and drabness of fettered life; and the Paradise of the South Sea yields to its advance--here with the sullen and pa.s.sionate resentment of the angry child, there with the pathetic listlessness of the child too afraid to be angry. But, still, there survives in tree and flower, bird and beast, and in aboriginal man, much that has the suggestion rather of the Garden of Eden than of this curious world which man has made for himself--a world of exacting tasks and harsh taskmasters, of ugly houses and smoke-stained skies, of machinery and of enslaving conventions.

With the White Man came sugar plantations and cotton fields. The Kanaka heard the words "work" and "wages." He laughed brightly, and went on chasing the b.u.t.terfly happiness. To work a little while, for the fun of the thing, he was willing enough. Indeed, any new sort of task had a fascination for his childish nature. But steady toil he abhorred, and for wages he had no use.

Some three years ago I watched for an hour or two, from the veranda of a house at Suva, a Fijian garden-boy at work. This was a "good"

garden-boy, noted in the town for his industry. And he played with his work with an elegant navete that was altogether charming to one who had not to be his paymaster. Almost bare of clothing, his fine bronzed muscles rippled and glanced to show that he had the strength for any task if he had but the will. Perhaps the gentleness of his energy was inspired by the aesthetic idea of just keeping his bronze skin a little moist, so as to bring out to the full its satin grace without blurring the fine anatomical lines with drops of visible sweat. His languid grace deserved that it should have had some such prompting. If a bird alighted on a tree, the Fijian quickly dropped his hoe and pursued it with stones, which--his bright smile said--were not maliciously meant, but had a purpose of greeting. An insect, a pa.s.sing wayfarer, the fall of a leaf, a cloud in the sky, all provided equally good reasons for stopping work. Finally, at three a little shower came, and the "model boy" of Fijian industry thankfully ceased work for the day.

A gracious, sweet, well-fed idleness was Nature's dower to the Pacific Islander, until the White Man came with his work, as an angel with a flaming sword, and Paradise ended. Now the fruit of that idleness is that the Kanaka can take no part in the bustling life of modern civilisation.