TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEW ZEALAND QUESTION.
"THE renewed negotiations between the Government and the New Zealand Company terminated pretty much in the way that was • generally anticipated—by exhibiting a new specimen of Colonial Office diplomacy.
According to Mr. Charles Buller—whose statement is rather confirmed than shaken by Sir James Graham's additions—the idea of resuming neg,otiations was first suggested by the Home Secretary, in the course of a conversation at the House of Com- mons, before Easter. When, subsequently, an amicable settle- ment of the disputes between Lord Stanley and the Company was suggested to the Secretary of the Colonies, he at once gave into the idea ; he took part in the conferences of Sir James Graham and Mr. Buller; he suggested modifications of the scheme which they had been considering ; he authorized Sir James Graham to intimate to Mr. Buller that he [Lord Stanley] "had no insuper- able objection to the plan of accommodation." He only stipulated that the proposal should be " officially " made by the Company, instead of coming from the Government ; and that Mr. Boiler's motion on New Zealand should first be withdrawn or otherwise disposed of, lest Government should appear to act under com- pulsion. The Company, through their Committee, conformed to Lord Stanley's notions of etiquette. The only result was, after the lapse of about a month a curt intimation from Lord Stanley to the Company, "that the difficulties of proceeding on the basis suggested are insuperable." The "insuperable difficulties" which obstruct a plan of accommodation in framing which Lord Stanley himself took part, are veiled in impenetrable mystery. To Mr. Charles Buller they were imparted, "in dreadful secrecy," after the decision. But neither Mr. Buller nor the Directors of the New Zealand Company were invited beforehand to hear them, to argue against them, or suggest means of obviating them. The proposal was "officially "transmitted to Lord Stanley on the 5th of May— having been in his possession unofficially from the 26th of April ; but it was not taken into consideration by the assembled Cabinet till the 19th of May, and then it was disposed of in one sitting. It is barely possible that Lord Stanley's colleagues might thus unceremoniously reject a proposal belonging to his department, in concocting which he had taken part: but, looking to the ha- bitual conduct of that department, it is no breach of charity to infer that the proposal never had received any serious attention ; that the Colonial Office never examined it with a view to action ; that the whole object of "the Office" throughout the negotia- tions was, as Mr. Buller expressed it in his note to Mr. Hope, to _preserve appearances—to do its "very best to guard Lord Stan- .ley "—and (which Mr. Buller has not said) to gain time, for by Ale semblance of negotiation six weeks of the session have been -.wasted.* It is not on this occasion only, but throughout the whole of the protracted wrangling which has been waged by the New Zealand 'Company and Lord Stanley since he last came into office, that the two parties appear tohave exchanged characters. The private irresponsible Company drives earnestly and pertinaciously at a practical termination of the dispute : it proposes and urges one mode of settlement after another. The responsible Minister does nothing—proposes nothing—he merely cavils at the plans sub- mitted to him.
In the present case, the plan devised by Mr. Buller and Sir James Graham, (under the critical inspection and coiiperation of Lord Stanley,) and adopted by the New Zealand Company as a proposal to be made to the Government, whatever its merits or its defects in detail, had at least breadth of conception and practicalness to recommend it. The plan was this—That, seeing it is impossible to reconcile the Missionary and the Colonizing
• In the very curious documentary matter appended to the Eighteenth Report of the Directors of the New Zealand Company, will be found, by those who seek it, proofs of the remarkable precautions taken by the Colonial Secretary and Under-Secretary to prepare beforehand for denying their own acts. Sir James Graham, who, after the original conversation with Mr. Buller, became the mere channel of communication between that gentleman and Lord Stanley, suggested that the motion must be "withdrawn or disposed of" before the negotiations could proceed: Mr. Boller acquiesced, and adopted the suggested alternative of withdrawing the motion: Mr. Hope wrote to Mr. Buller that he meant to tell the House of Commons that the course thus adopted was Mr. Buller's own; and afterwards, to prove that misrepresentation, he had the face to read a note from Mr. Buller, consisting of these words—" Dear Hope, You are Tate right to do what you propose ; and the words which you have used In your .note seem to me the very best to guard Lord Stanley, without any imputation on the New Zealand Company." There is another instance. The first proposal, devised by Dlr. Buller, encouraged by Lord Stanley, and formally made by the Company, was rejected by Lord Stanley, with hints at two other alternative proposals: but the Company declined again to propose Lord Stanley's own plans for his rejection; on which he coolly writes—" Mr. Buller had no authority to make any statement as from me in the nature of a new proposal"! "Asfrom me "—those are the words that serve as a loophole to save Lord Stanley's character for veracity in the letter, but in the letter only. Mr. Buller expressly states, that Lord Stanley, in the presence of Sir James Graham, proposed either to attempt a settlement with the Company, leaving the Company on its present footing, or to buy up the interests of the Company: afterwards, writing to Lord lngestre, Lord Stanley himself says—" If, however, the New Zealand Company should have any other proposition to offer," "her Majesty's Government are ready to give their best attention to such proposition,"—evidently alluding to what passed in the conversation: but these advances being rejected by the Company, who declined to entertain the suggestions, Lord Stanley thinks it dignified to my that "there were" "no 'suggestions' for the Company to' entertain' or de- cline to entertain." He thought that he had made them in such a way as to prevent its being said that he made them; and therefore he deemed it honourable to deny them.
systems, they should have separate fields of operation : that the North of New Zealand should be left free to the mercies of the Missionaries and the Colonial Office; while the Company's settle- ments, and all the other territory to the South, should be erected into a separate province : that the colonization and government of this province should be intrusted to a Company with a capital of a million sterling, into which the present Company should merge ; that the principles for conducting the Company's colo- nizing operations should be precisely defined in advance; that in matters of government the settlers should have the advantage of representative institutions : that ample provision should be made to guard the rights and interests of the Aborigines, and a Com- missioner of high character, nominated by the Crown and report- ing to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, appointed to act for them in civil or criminal proceedings, and to be heard in their be- half by the Legislature: lastly, that yearly reports of the Com- pany's proceedings should be laid before Parliament a fortnight after its meeting ; and that the charter might at any time be re-
yoked or altered by the Crown on the address of both Houses of•Parliament. As we hinted above, objections might be made to
some of the details of this scheme. For example, it may be asked, if such an arrangement is the best for the Cook's Strait settlements, why should the Northern population be denied a share in its benefits? It may even be asked, why delegate to a Company what is the peculiar function of Government! This question, however, suggests the great recommendation of the plan : it is demanded by circumstances ; the Colonial Depart- ment of the Government will not discharge its functions, and some other instrument must be found. The measure struck out and matured in the private conversations of Sir James Graham and Mr. Buller, and to which Lord Stanley at first had "no insuperable" objection, offers the advantages which the expe- rience of American colonization has proved, combined with checks against abuse more efficacious than were ever before con- templated.
This large yet definite and practicable plan is dismissed by Lord Stanley—who was in nowise startled by its boldness when first Propounded—with a vague statement that there are "insu- perable objections" to its adoption. The Secretary of State for the Colonies has no alternative measure to propose. He simply offers to buy up the Company's interests--to pay off one impor- tunate creditor, in the hope that the rest may not be such inde- fatigable duns. In his last letter to the Directors of the Com- pany, Lord Stanley takes fire at their remark that they could not even entertain his offer to buy them up without some guarantee that the interests of the White settlers and the Aboriginal tribes should be cared for. Lord Stanley intimates that Governmeht. - will take care of the Aborigines and the Whites. But the past _ history of the colony is ill calculated to inspire confidence in Go-, vernment—at least so long as Lord Stanley shall remain in office. From first to last, Government—that is, the Colonial Office—has done nothing for New Zealand but obstruct its settlement and appoint bad Governors. The regular colonization of that country has been the work of the Company—the irregular, of the traders . and Missionaries in the North : a local government it has never had. The Colonial Office has not only sent out bad Gover- nors in succession, but prescribed no definite system of policy for their guidance. It has seen their inconsistent and vacillating conduct distract settled industry, give a stimulus to ruinous speculation, engender discord between the two races, and finally destroy even the revenue—the exaction of which was the only function of a government ever really exercised; and, instead of seeking to redress these grievances, the Colonial Office has been solely intent upon concealing or palliating the abuses of its agents in the colony. That time which might have served a more com- petent Minister to devise and enforce a wise plan of government, has been wasted by Lord Stanley in devising captious sophisms, inventing safe expressions to insinuate incorrect impressions of facts, and undignified personal attacks. Though clothed with the power of the British empire, he has, in the almost four years since 1841, done no more than the paltriest pamphleteer might have accomplished in his own garret in a tenth part of the time. He has reviewed the plans suggested by the New Zealand Com- pany, in the spirit of the least respectable articles in the Quar- terly and Edinburgh Reviews of old. The tameness with which this great colonizing nation has sub- mitted to such treatment, session after session, is unaccountable. There never was a nation in which the colonizing propensity was so irrepressible. By this spirit, within these six years, Govern- ment has been baffled in its attempt to prevent the formation of two new colonies and the extension of a third. And yet both people and Parliament, if they are for a moment startled from their apathy by some new instance of gross misgovernment in the Colonies, relapse into acquiescence if Government contrive to put off discussion for a month. Experience of this, doubtless, induced Lord Stanley to encourage the last negotiation with the New Zealand Company. This time, however, he seems to have outwitted himself. He has got the debate in the House of Com- mons postponed from a time when the impressions produced on . the public mind by the Wairau massacre and the Auckland as- signats were beginning to grow faint, to a time when fresh intel- ligence of more general hopeless confusion has roused a strong feeling of indignation. The present week has brought intelli- gence from New Zealand of fresh outrages committed at the Bay of Islands, which have obliged Governor Fitzroy to offer rewards for the apprehension of no fewer than four chiefs; of simulta- nenus outrages by the savages at Wanganui ; and of alarming threats by the savages at Nelson. Governor Fitzroy has again sent a request for troops to Sir George Gipps,—to be met, pos- sibly, by the reply., that to send troops is needless, since ]ffitz- roy, is incapable of using them. But, though thus threatened by the Native savages, Governor Fitzroy does not intermit hit injuries to the English settlers. He has attempted to remove the Company's cranes at New Plymouth, to furnish forth his shipless wharfs at Auckland ; he has paid a large sum to savages at New Plymouth, which the Commissioner of Claims had declared not to be due ; and announced his inten- tion of repaying himself by confiscating the Company's land at Otako. He has substituted for the abrogated customs-duties an impost of three per cent on all goods sold ; which, as goods may pass through several hands on their way to the consumer, may amount, in some cases, to an impost of six, nine, or even twelve per cent. All these things are producing their effect. The settlers at Wellington, with the sanction of the unsalaried Ma- gistrates, have resolved to organize a militia, without the consent of the Governor—in defiance, indeed, of his formally-expressed hostility to such an armament ; the settlers at Nelson have formed the nucleus of a militia ; and the New Plymouth settlers are ready to follow the example. The savages are armed and plun- dering; the settlers are arming for self-defence the Missionary Native-Protectors are trembling under the threats of the Abo- rigines; and the Governor, without either money or troops to give him power, is outraging and insulting all. This state of anarchy the Imperial Government has allowed to be created by parties acting by its authority and in its name.
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