MR. STEPHEN.

Is the Twelfth Report by the Directors of the New Zealand Company occurs the following passage, describing the last of a series of tricky proceedings by the Colonial Office :—

"Finally, we allude to a letter from Mr. Stephen, one of the Under Secretaries of State for the Colonies, to Lord Stanley, dated 1st March 1843, which his Lordship transmitted to ns on the 15th of the same month. That letter closes the correspondence in Appendix C, and remains unanswered. In fact it never was answered. It did not reach us till the correspondence preceding it had resulted in amicable negotiation between Lord Stanley and ourselves ; and we then deemed it imprudent, on account of those interests of which we were bound to take care without regard to our personal feelings, to send an answer which must have been so very painful to Mr. Stephen, as a positive reassertion of the statements which he deliberately contradicts, together with ample proof that some of the minutely circumstantial evidence which he brings in support of the contradiction cannot be founded in fact."* The Memorandum on the Twelfth Report, submitted to the Committee of the House of Commons by the Colonial Office,t passes over this charge in silence ; but in the Counter-Memorandum of the Directors It is renewed. Repeating the words of their original statement, the Directors add

" This is not noticed in the Colonial Office Memorandum ; but the Directors feel themselves bound to declare, that the proof thus alluded to they are ready to produce, either before the Committee or at any other fitting opportunity."

From the care of the Directors not to let this charge drop, it would appear that they believe some impediment to have existed in the person of Mr. Stephen to a fair communication with Lord Stanley ; that they believed themselves not to be dealing with the Chief Secretary, but with some one who kept in the background and played them false ; the signature and the manner of the correspondence being those of • Appendix to Committee's Report, p. 606. t Appendix to Committee's Report, p. 1. Lord Stanley, or his deputy Mr. Hope—the matter or policy suggested by another. It has in like manner been for years believed that there is in the Colonial Office a hidden influence sufficiently powerful to counteract the wishes and acts of the ostensible Minister. Are there any facts to countenance that very prevalent opinion ? It is of course not easy to show the working of what is hidden, but we will mention a few facts which exist on the surface.

When the plan of the Association for the Systematic Colonization of New Zealand was submitted to Government in 1837, Lord Glenelg at first strongly opposed it. His hostility was soon overcome; and in December of that year he wrote a letter to Lord Durham, specifying the conditions on which a royal charter would be granted to a colonizing company. In this letter, Lord Glenelg, alluding to the dangers which appeared to threaten the Aborigines from the intercourse with foreigners, said—" The proposal made by the late Parliamentary Committee on Aborigines appears inadequate to meet the existing evil." Yet, in the instructions addressed to Captain Hobson, on the 14th August 1839, to which the name of Lord Normanby, the Colonial Secretary, is affixed, this very report is assigned as a reason why Ministers had abstained from colonizing New Zealand, notwithstanding the obvious advantages of such a step—" They have deferred to the advice of the Committee appointed by the House of Commons in 1836 to inquire into the state of the Aborigines residing in the vicinity of our colonial settlements."4 This is strange. The authority of the Aborigines Committee is rejected in favour of non.interference : but interference being no longer avoidable, that authority is accepted in preference to acknowledging the new influence by which action was forced upon Government. In other words, non-intervention was absolutely preferred ; but if intervention was compulsory, then intervention in deference to Aborigines-protection views, rather than those of simple colonizers, was chosen. One purpose under different Ministers, even in opposite courses.

The phases in the bearing of successive Colonial Ministers have been remarkable. We have already seen how Lord Glenelg first opposed a measure of colonization, and then yielded, though still raising difficulties.

Lord Howick, though then in the War Office, may be regarded, from his predilections and conduct, as a quasi Colonial Minister. He at first expressed approbation of the plan outlined by the Associators, and took an active part in preparing a bill for incorporating them. The bill was introduced into the House of Commons in 1838; Lord Howick opposed it, and it was thrown out.11

Lord Normanby was the next Colonial Minister. Negotiations 'between the Company and the Government were renewed in 1839; and when they had continued for about a month, Lord Normanby expressed his pleasure at seeing that " persons of so much respectability had undertaken so advantageous a public work as the colonization of New Zettland."11 This was said on the 29th of April : on the 1st of May a letter was written by the same Minister's direction, couched in the most hostile terms.

Next came Lord John Russell. Had the Company been represented to him in the blackest colours while he was yet new in office, he could not have been more ready to take every opportunity of disclaiming any sanction—almost disclaiming any knowledge of its proceedings.** He declared that the Company's titles to land would not be recognized; and ordered troops to be despatched in support of Captain Hobson against the settlers. Lord John is cool and politic; sometimes, on in. quiry, he thinks for himself; and when he does so distinctly, he is dogged in adherence to his opinion. He had been in office about a year, when, in October 1840, his opinions were so far modified that he entertained, or perhaps originated, that arrangement with the Company which is commonly called "Lord John Russell's Agreement." The Company carried out that Agreement, in its plain meaning, promptly and vigorously. The manner in which the Colonial Office treated the document was very different. It originated in "the Office," and its terms are so uncertain as to admit of varying interpretations. During the remainder of Lord John Russell's stay in office, Government were busied almost wholly in suggesting and discussing such interpretatiqns; the Office always in the first instance taking the view most adverse to the Company, and gradually yielding under remonstrances addressed to Lord John. His share in the matter did not cease with his retirement: after he had gone, the Office took up a new interpretation destructive to the Company ; Lord John has been appealed to, and his interpretation of the Agreement to which he had put his name is against the Office. That interpretation has been confirmed by the Select Committee of the House of Commons. Here, by an accidental circumstance, Lord John Russell's view is seen to be quite separate from that of the Office to which he belonged, on a matter agitated while he was still in the department.

We observe in this review a series of Colonial Ministers of widely different characters : all of them show a disposition friendly to the Company, most so when most standing out and apart from the Office, least so when putting their names to papers that emanate from the recesses of Downing Street. Personally they evinced a desire to facilitate the operations of the Company : when lost to sight among the Subordinate officials, they raise difficulties, even fatal difficulties, as if they would totally defeat the Company and the colonization of New Zealand —as if the object were to thwart the New Zealand Company by every means in their power. Throughout these shiftings, marked by one steady under-current of purpose, Mr. Stephen was the one permanent official actively engaged.

Is it improbable that there should exist some such hidden influence in an official department ? Does it not consist with the experience of those profoundly versed in official matters ? It does. Some time back, a book was/published by Mr. Henry Taylor,ff expounding his idea of "statesmanship." Mr. Taylor is not only a person esteemed of very IIAppendix to Report of Commons Committee, 1840; p. 148. Papers presented to the Rouse of Commons, 8th April 1840. Evidence before the Committee of 1840, p. &c. ts Papers presented to the House of Commons, 8th April, 1840; pp. 22 and 27. ** See Lord John Russell's Correspondence from September 1839 to January 1840, in the Appendix to the Directors' Twelfth Report. The sequel of that correspondence will be found to exhibit the changes described in the text. ft The Statesstax. By Henry Taylor, Esq.,Author of "Philip Van Artevelde." 113116.

great ability, but is a clerk of high standing in this very Colonial Office* Bis views were based upon experience—" derived," he says, "from practical observation and an extensive and diversified conversancy with business "—with business, that is, in the Colonial Office. He asserts, that "the far greater proportion of the duties which are performed in the office of a Minister are and must be performed under no effective responsibility ;" an assertion which must be very largely modified if applied to some departments—as, for example, the Home Office—but it needs no qualification when applied to the Colonial Office. This generalizing from a particular experience is some test how strictly the writer's observation has been limited to the one department. With these experiences, he tells us that the ostensible Minister, "who takes part in considerations with the Cabinet or in a legislative assembly," (which the Chief Secretary and the political Under Secretary always do,) ought to be relieved of " all business which is not necessary to the performance of his duties as councillor and legislator." The writer condemns all interviews with Ministers, and argues that all real business ought to be done by means of writing ; and all writing, he says, is done by a person who is not the ostensible Minister :—

" Interviews, indeed, make a show of transacting business ; but (as I shall presently take occasion to explain) business is seldom really and usefully transacted otherwise than in writing. Whilst therefore the popular statesman, ready at all hours to receive all applicants, open to hear every side of the question with his own ears, flatters with a listening look or imposes with a look of reserved fulness, and thus sends from his presence twenty trumpeters of his merit in a day, the questions to which this show of attention has been given will commonly be disposed of by the obscure industry of some person who studies the papers relating to them." * * "In the rapid succession of topics which chase each other through the mind of a Minister of State, especially of one who grants many interviews, words spoken are for the most part as evanescent as those which are written On the running stream. Delentque pedum vestigia caudd.' But even if he should recollect what has been said for a day or two with sufficient precision to give effect to it in business, that effect must be given by writing ; and to think that a Minister who gives frequent audiences can himself write, and that at once and without choice of time, on many or on even a few of the questions brought before him in those audiences, is to indulge an expectation which not one Minister in fifty will be found able to fulfil. And when one man hears what is to be said concerning a case, whilst another writes what is to be written on it, not hastily is it to be believed that one operation will have much reference to the other ?"

The book "concerning the attributes of a statesman," in which the foregoing passage occurs, is dedicated to Mr. Stephen, "as the man within the author's knowledge in whom the active and contemplative faculties most strongly meet ;" as if Mr. Stephen were its model. Of course he cannot be the model of an ostensible Minister, because he has never displayed himself in that capacity : he must be the model of the man who "writes what is written," the beau ideal of the veritable but not ostensible Minister. There is, then, in all departments, Mr. Taylor supposes, a person who does not appear as Minister, but holds the real power : in the Colonial Office that person is Mr. Stephen.

If there were such a person in the department, we might suppose that the conduct of the department would partake of his peculiar characteristics, and be modified by the circumstances that surround him as an individual. Is that the case in the present instance ? As Mr. Stephen is little known beyond a select circle, it is not very easy to give a complete answer to the question. But some facts do appear. Mr. Stephen was connected with the late Mr. Wilberforce; at whose recommendation he was appointed, by Earl Bathurst, Counsel to the Colonial Office, about eighteen years ago. He was thus introduced into public life by the head of the original Anti-Slavery Movement ; and gratitude to a party to whom his advancement was owing was only natural, even if he had not shared their sentiments from the intimacy of personal relations. His advancement was worth gratitude : he remained in the post which Mr. Wilberforce obtained for him until 1835; when, it has been said at his own suggestion, he was made permanent Under Secretary for the Colonies. Of course he had already obtained no small influence in the Office. Mr. Stephen is also an office-bearerinthe Church Missionary Society ; which professes to be governed in its proceedings towards the aboriginal races of wild countries by the same principles as those of the old Society for the Abolition of Slavery ; it comprises many of the same members ; the leaders of the Anti-Slavery movement were the warm friends if not the founders of the Church Missions ; they were also the relatives and personal friends of Mr. Stephen. His brother, Sir George Stephen, figured lately as the prosecutor of Mr. Pedro de Zulueta for the Anti-Slavery Society. Such have been Mr. Stephen's connexions out of doors. The great opponents of New Zealand colonization were the Church Missionaries there and the Parent Society at home: we have already seen how the Colonial Office at first refused to colonize New Zealand at all; how, under a different Minister, the Office, when compelled to colonize, deferred to the Aboriginesprotection view; which, again, is asserted in a paper recently presented to the House of Commons by the Colonial Office, written by the lay Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, Mr. Dandeson Coates. That person is described as having pledged himself "to thwart the [New Zealand] Association by every means in his power." We have already seen how the Colonial Office, under successive Ministers, all more or less favourably disposed to the Association and its heir the Company, uniformly and pertinaciously acted in a way best described in the words of Mr. Dandeson Coates.

A circumstance of another kind has been noticed as betraying the singular power which Mr. Stephen has had over a superior. In the letter which drew upon him the accusation of the New Zealand Company, he says—" On the 3rd April [1841] I requested Lord John Russell to relieve use from the duty of again receiving any of the Directors of the Company at any interview on the affairs of that body. That permission was accordingly given use by his Lordship, on the 15th of April 1841; since when, no interview has taken place with me." This has been held to indicate, not only Mr. Stephen's scarcely disguised hostility to the Company, but the exercise of a very extraordinary Influence by a subordinate officer over his chief.

Mr. Stephen's letter of the 1st March 1843, to Lord Stanley 1111ffices to show what opportunities must exist for exerting such an

• Appendix to Twelfth Report, p. 218C.

influence. From that letter we learn, that the general outline of the proposed Agreement with the Company was only sketched by the Secretary of State, and that the details were left to be filled up by a subordinate officer,—Mr. Stephen himself: in the course of that duty he had several interviews with the Directors ; through him, and through him alone, did the representations of those gentlemen reach Lord John Russell ; and thus we learn that, in fact, the Agreement, with all its ambiguities, was virtually Mr. Stephen's. We have already alluded to what flowed from those ambiguities.

If the Colonial Office were swayed by such personal influences, we might expect to see the public service performed on narrow and sectarian, instead of broad and national views. We might expect to see attempts to keep New Zealand, even since the Government proclaimed it a British colony, as a kind of tabooed farm for the uses of Missionary Societies and their experiments, instead of being thrown open for national uses. We might expect to see substantial and national interests in the West Indies sacrificed to benevolent crotchets and prejudices. We might, in short, expect to see the policy of the Colonial Office Anti-Colonial, whenever the private views of the veritable Minister are Anti.Colonial : we might expect to see just what we have seen. Where all is hidden, the workman can seldom be detected at his task ; and one may have to answer for the deeds of others. The " influence" that pervades the whole system may have more spirits that embody it ; but the chief of them represents the mysterious class, and the name of that influence is " Stephen."

The yet undenied charge brought against Mr. Stephen by the Directors—that of producing minutely circumstantial evidence which cannot be founded "in fact"—is a matter which rather concerns the individual than the public questions at issue.