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a Government released report by Francis Dart Fenton 120 entitled Observations on the State of the
Aboriginal Inhabitants of New Zealand, which provides census figures compiled in 1857-58 by
various individuals, with the intention of “draw[ing] attention to the state of the Native
Population, - especially to its decrease in numbers, - with a view to invite inquiry as to the cause,
and suggestions of a remedy”. 121 Fenton himself acknowledged the limits of such an exercise
“obtained for the most part in a somewhat cursory manner”, 122 whereby not all tribes were
actually counted, in which case information was merely relayed about respective numbers, while
only specific groups were examined properly as certain tribes remained suspicious of the
Europeans’ motives and were therefore reluctant to provide information regarding tribal numbers,
and half-castes were also omitted from the combined figures. 123 Although this report does not
endorse the popular belief in natural laws governing the extinction of weaker or ‘unfit’ non-
European peoples when in competition with vastly superior, and therefore ‘fitter’, European
peoples, 124 Hochstetter seems to take to heart the compelling statistical evidence of the projected
rate of decline based on the difference between the unreliable 1844 and underestimated 1858
census figures, when he uses the same present population figures and projected estimates in
increments of fourteen years over the next century, “being, perhaps, a term equal to half the
duration of a generation”. 125 Provided the Maori continue to decrease at the same rate of 19.42
per cent, their projected population would decrease from 56,049 in 1858 to 45,164 in 1872,
36,363 in 1886, 29,325 in 1900, 23,630 in 1914, 19,041 in 1928, 15,343 in 1942, and 12,364 in
1956. The factors given to support this are as follows:
120
See William Renwick, “Fenton, Francis Dart 1820-1825? – 1898: Magistrate, judge, public administrator,
musician”, in: DNZB 1, 121-23.
121
F. D. Fenton, Observations on the State of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of New Zealand [1859]. Facsim. Ed.
Christchurch: Kiwi Publishers, 1998, front cover.
122
Ibid., 1.
123
“Generally imperfect as the statistical knowledge relating to the aboriginal population of this country confessedly
is, or, where perfect, embracing such a limited portion of people, and so inconsiderable an extent of country, as
scarcely to afford certain bases whence to draw perfectly reliable influences applicable to the whole race, it is,
notwithstanding, suggested that the foregoing calculations are of a character, and the information on which they are
grounded are of sufficient value to afford certain evidence that the numbers of the people are diminishing, and must
continue to diminish until the causes of the singular characteristics are discovered and removed” (ibid., 28; cf. Pool,
Maori Population, 55-57).
124
“The theory that the colored race must fade away before the white race can receive little confirmation from the
present decay of this population, for the great evil existed, as we have seen, in full force during the decade of years
ending 1840, a period antecedent to the colonization of the country, when the whites were insignificant in numbers
and sparsely located. […] Moreover, the theory named has never been satisfactorily established as a law of nature.
The idea that the inferior race is ordained by some mysterious but certain natural law to dwindle and fade away in the
presence of the race of superior physical endurance and greater intellectual energy, like the low vegetation in the
neighbourhood of the baleful upas tree, receives little confirmation from facts” (Fenton, Observations, 32).
125
Ibid., 28.
193