Again, Sir George Grey, when Premier of the Colony, attended two large native meetings in the King Country, in 1878, and opened up communication with the chiefs of the Kingites. At the second meeting at Hikurangi about seventeen miles beyond Alexandra, Sir George Grey laid before the natives definite terms of accommodation. He offered to give back to them the whole of the land on the west bank of the Waipa and Waikato rivers, and to confer certain honours on Tawhiao, the son of Te Wherowhero, who had succeeded to the kingship. At a subsequent meeting held at Te Kopua, in April, 1879, these offers were again made, but Tawhiao, for some reason which has never been satisfactorily explained, declined to accept them, and they were distinctly withdrawn.
With the advent of the Whitaker ministry into power, it was felt that another attempt should be made to deal with the Maori king, and accordingly, during the session of 1882, acts were carefully framed so as to facilitate the object. A Native Reserves Act was passed, under which natives could have placed any blocks of land they chose under a board which would have administered the property for the benefit of the owners. An Amnesty Act was also put on the statute-book, under which the government could have issued pardons to those natives who had committed crimes and taken refuge among the Kingites. The most sanguine hopes were entertained that this difficulty would at last be settled, and in a way which would be satisfactory for both peoples. The terms which Mr. Bryce, as Native Minister, laid before Tawhiao and his people at the Kingite meeting, held at Whatiwhatihoe in October of the same year, were so liberal as to surprise the whole country. A large tract of the confiscated land on the west bank of the rivers Waipa and Waikato was offered to be restored, while Tawhiao was to be secured in all the lands which he could claim in the King Country, and the government were to endeavour to procure for him and his people a block of land from the Ngatimaniapoto tribe, the most extensive landowners in his dominions. Altogether the amount of land to be restored amounted to many thousands of acres, most of it fertile and well suited for the purposes of the natives, or that section of them known as the Waikatos, of whom Tawhiao was the hereditary chief.