Notwithstanding the treaty of Waitangi, the Maoris continued to retain their own customs, manners, and laws, and to act in every way as an independent people. Their chiefs, far from acknowledging the supremacy of the British crown, frequently waged war against us and with one another. When they fell into our hands they were never treated as rebels. In short the Maoris tolerated our presence in the island because they found our colonists useful for purposes of trade; but when they discovered that the British population was constantly on the increase, and their lands fast slipping from their possession, they resolved to assert their ancient independence, and to pass such laws as would prevent the alienation of their property. They were willing that the colonists should remain subject to their own Sovereign and laws, but they claimed the same right for themselves, and in the exercise of that right elected one of their chiefs to be Maori king, and formed themselves into a league to prevent any lands from being sold by any individual member of a tribe without the consent of the whole. Such a league would at once be pronounced illegal in England, where it is a recognised principle that every man has a right to do as he likes with his own; but the Maori tenure of land is different. It rarely belongs to a single family or to a single individual; it is the property of the whole tribe, much in the same way as a common in England is the property of all whose lands are adjacent. Every member of a tribe has the right to hunt and fish over the land which belongs to the whole community; no man, not even a chief, has a right to dispose of any part of that land without the consent of the whole tribe. When a piece of land is sold the money is distributed equally among all who are entitled to a share, the chief rarely retaining anything for himself. The only way in which a piece of land can become private property is by an individual selecting and cultivating it with the consent of the tribe; it then belongs to all the descendants of the original cultivator, who may be dispersed among other tribes, and it cannot be sold without their consent. Now this peculiar tenure of land was the cause of the Taranaki war of 1860-61, and of the present war in which so many valuable lives have been lost. The establishment of a Maori sovereignty would have ended in nothing; the Maori king was a mere puppet in the hands of a few ambitious chiefs; the great body of the nation would never have acknowledged his supremacy; and the movement would have covered its originators with ridicule. But when the local government interfered with the rights of property, and violated the first principles of Maori law by purchasing from an individual land which belonged to the whole tribe, and enforcing possession by violence, they struck at the root of Maori independence, and brought on that fierce struggle of which we have not yet seen the end. The Maoris are fighting for their lands and