Dogs, protests, and a victory

THE DOG TAX COMES TO THE CHATHAMS

Words adapted from “Chathams Resurgent”, by Hugh Rennie.

Illustrations by Ronnie Baker.

TAXES: resentment for them drove the French revolution, revolt against them helped form the United States, and Benjamin Franklin famously noted that there was nothing sure in life except themand death. But as Sir Hugh Rennie writes in Chathams Resurgent, in the late 1880s the good folk of the Chatham Islands fought a tax and proved Mr Franklin wrong.

IT STARTED OUT SIMPLY ENOUGH.

An annual dog tax was levied throughout New Zealand in 1880 to enforce registration and control dogs, and to modern eyes this seems pretty pedestrian. But in colonial Aotearoa it was met with some opposition, not least from Māori who often owned numerous dogs and who called for a boycott.

Then, in 1888 following a petition from some local landowners, the dog tax came to the Chathams and things got interesting.

The mainland call to oppose the tax was readily taken up by Māori and Moriori on the island, with one local, Wa Te (or Wita) Tahuhu, persuading other locals to refuse to pay the dog tax, other taxes, or attend any court proceedings that arose from this.

It was the unenviable task of the local constable to summons those who would not pay, and of the magistrate to deal with this rebellion, but both proved somewhat inadequate for the task! The Chatham correspondent of the Lyttelton Times reported that several ‘natives’ had refused to pay the tax and also refused to appear before the court:

“Warrants were issued for their arrest, and the constable, accompanied by Mr Alex Shand as interpreter, proceeded to vindicate the law. Rumour says they got rather the worst of an encounter with an enraged “wahine” who “floored” the constable and sat on him…(then) proceeded, like Samson of old, to attack Mr Shand with, not the jawbone of an ass, but with that of a defunct bullock.”

To modern eyes this seems pretty pedestrian. But in colonial Aotearoa it was met with some opposition.

Smarting from this colourful encounter, the authorities decided that a show of force was needed to bring such unruly wahine into line and a Major Gudgeon, with members of the Permanent Artillery, took the government steamer Hinemoa to the island and arrested Wa Te Tahuhu and another objector Heta. Brought before the magistrate, they refused to obey the Court or to plead and each was sentenced to a fine, in default a month’s hard labour in the Lyttelton gaol. Other ‘tax evaders’ were imprisoned on the island.

All this seemed to achieve was a satirical editorial in Wellington’s Evening Post that mocked the “military expedition” and proposed “…it is just possible that the Morioris do not pay the dog tax for the reason that they do not have the money”. This, it said, would leave Major Gudgeon to kill all the dogs, but this could have been done much more cheaply by sending a packet of strychnine.

Rising to the occasion, the paper then asked why the Prime Minister (Sir Harry Atkinson) had not gone himself: “His thirst for military glory is well known, and as he cannot harry Te Kooti right now, and disclaims all idea of a raid on Tawhaio, this Chatham Islands expedition would have prevented his sword rusting in its sheath. … It is unworthy of the importance of the mission and the question at issue that our gallant forces should have been sent to the dogs under command of a mere Major.”

In 1888 the dog tax came to the Chathams and things got interesting.

All levity aside, Gudgeon’s military expedition did not resolve the issue. For the 1889 tax year summonses were issued, but no-one attended Court, and the magistrate did nothing, so for 1890 he swore in special constables and sent them into the community to finally enforce the letter of the law. The 8th of January issue of The Press takes up the story:

“The whole of the inmates of the pah, men, women and children rushed towards the Courthouse, following the officials, who were on horseback. The officials got into the Courthouse first and tried to single out certain leading natives, to deal with them first. The women and children and younger men, however, blocked the gates, and eventually forced their way into the yard and took possession. The officials were powerless to maintain order and the yard was for about eight hours a perfect pandemonium. The women and children formed lines and the men for two hours danced a haka and worked themselves up into a state of perfect frenzy.”

It is worth noting that nothing violent occurred at any point, the protest ended with all going peacefully home, and one local told The Press that the haka was specially composed for the occasion, with its words saying, “the limbs of the magistrate were trembling and that he was perfectly powerless to enforce the law”. The reference to the trembling magistrate was probably not just poetic license; indeed, he was sacked and replaced by a semi-retired military officer, Major Gascoyne.

In March 1891, the government reduced the dog tax in New Zealand, and the following year excluded the Islands altogether from the tax, but, worried about the confrontation but not wanting to show this, also decided to send a gunboat. And this time it would not be the government steamer with its trivial armament, but a real warship!

the Auckland Star wryly observed, a war vessel collecting the dog tax is “certainly a rather ludicrous idea”. And so it was; the arrival of this major warship created more puzzlement than awe amongst the Islanders, with Gascoyne merely recording it as a visit, and the Goldfinch sailed off to rule the waves elsewhere.

In 1895, when introducing the Dog Registration Bill, which included a provision excluding the Chatham Islands, Prime Minister Seddon noted this came from the recommendations of the hapless local magistrate, telling Parliament that the “Natives absolutely set the law at defiance and could not be fined for breaches of it.”

So, threats, special constables, gunboat diplomacy - all had failed. Reputations had come to grief, the dog tax had descended into farce, and Chatham Islands canines remained resolutely untroubled by the tax man.

Adapted from “Chathams Resurgent”, by Hugh Rennie, published by Fraser Books, $60.