By 1870 it was possible to try and count the cost of the ten years’ conflict.  It was not so easy to do so correctly.  The killed alone amounted to about 800 on the English side and 1,800 on the part of the beaten natives.  Added to the thousands wounded, there had been many scores of “murders” and heavy losses from disease, exposure and hardship.  The Maoris were, for the most part, left without hope and without self-confidence.  The missionaries never fully regained their old moral hold upon the race, nor has it shown much zeal and enthusiasm in industrial progress.  On the other side, the colonists had spent between three and four millions in fighting, and for more than fifteen years after the war they had to keep up an expensive force of armed police.  There had been destruction of property in many parts of the North Island, and an even more disastrous loss of security and paralysis of settlement.  Since 1865, moreover, the pastoral industry in the south had been depressed by bad prices.  It is true that some millions of acres of Maori land had been gained by confiscation, but of this portions were handed over to loyal natives.  Much more was ultimately given back to the insurgent tribes, and the settlement of the rest was naturally a tardy and difficult process.  Farmers do not rush upon land to be the mark of revengeful raids.  The opening of the year 1870 was one of New Zealand’s dark hours.

Nevertheless, had the colonists but known it, the great native difficulty was destined to melt fast away.  Out of the innumerable perplexities, difficulties, and errors of the previous generation, a really capable Native Minister had been evolved.  This was Sir Donald McLean, who, from the beginning of 1869 to the end of 1876, took the almost entire direction of the native policy.  A burly, patient, kindly-natured Highlander, his Celtic blood helped him to sympathize with the proud, warlike, clannish nature of the Maori.  It was largely owing to his influence that Ropata and others aided us so actively against Te Kooti.  It was not, however, as a war minister, but as the man who established complete and lasting peace through New Zealand, that his name should be remembered.  By liberal payment for service, by skilful land purchases, by showing respect to the chiefs, and tact and good humour with the people, McLean acquired a permanent influence over the race.  The war party in the Colony might sneer at his “Flour and Sugar Policy”; but even the dullest had come to see by this time that peace paid.  Into the remnant of the King Country McLean never tried to carry authority.  He left that and the Urewera country further east discreetly alone.  Elsewhere the Queen’s writ ran, and roads, railways, and telegraphs, coming together with a great tide of settlement, made the era of war seem like an evil dream.  It is true that the delays in redeeming promises concerning reserves to be made and given back from the confiscated Maori territory were allowed to remain a grievance for more