"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 associating 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 passed. 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: