No. 1.

The Secretary of the Company to Mr. Gladstone.

New Zealand House, 19th February 1846.

(Stating that the Directors are about to consider the suggestions Made by Mr. Wakefield in No. 3.) No. 2.

The Secretary of the Company to Mr. Gladstone.

New Zealand House, 26th February 1846.

(Stating that the Directors approve generally of the suggestions contained in No. 3.) No. 3.

Mr. Wakefield to Mr. Gladstone. (Alluded to in Nos. 1 and 2.) Nayland , Colchester. 21st January 14116. SIR—I have seen a letter of yours, in which you express yourself desirous to be put thoroughly in possession of my views on the subject of New Zealand, and willing to receive a communication of them by letter.

In thanking you for this ready compliance with my wish to be -placed in communication with you, I must bespeak your indulgent consideration of the difficulty with which I set about the task of ad- dressing you by letter, on the subject of a bitter controversy between the Government and the New Zealand Company, without knowing anything of your present opinions on the many points in dispute. In particular, I beg of you to excuse that plain-speaking which I might have adopted with less risk of giving offence if I had possessed some knowledge of your own views, but which is indispensable to putting you thoroughly in possession of mine. And I must further ask you to make allowance for the necessity under which I am placed, of choosing out of a vast number the topics to be mentioned. I assure you that the rule by which I hope to be guided in this respect, is a 'wish to save your tune, by avoiding, as far as possible, the specific points of a bygone controversy, and by taking those paths in the laby- rinth of subjects into which I imagine that you would probably have led a conversation with me.

Conceiving that your first inquiry might be into the view taken by the Company of the arrangement between them and the Government, recently made by Mr. John Lefevre, I will begin by stating that they have always regarded it as a kind of suspension of hostilities, and nothing more. As such, it was doubtless very convenient to them ; for the pecuniary part of it saved them from bankruptcy. In any other point of view it was most unsatisfactory, having been avowedly framed, not on the sound principle of adopting a new course so as to avoid the decision of questions in dispute, but on that of adhering strictly to whatever the Government had said during the past con- troversy. Whilst a manifest consistency was to be preserved with previous official decisions, the Company abandoned none of the main objects or principles for which they had contended. In reality, there- fore, this arrangement left all the main questions unsettled; • it was only a method of postponing or suspending those questions for the present accommodation of both parties. That it was regarded in this light by the Government as well the Company, may, I conceive, be safely inferred from the fact, that ever since the arrangement nearly all our communications with her Majesty's Government have taken place, though in form through the department to which our affairs relate, still, in reality, through a member of another department with which we have no proper concern. It was, indeed, a portion of the arrangement, and one which we greatly valued for its temporary pur- pose, that Mr. Lefevre was to be for a time the real medium of com- munication between the Government and the Company. In the making of this truce, most of the Directors took little part, and all felt less interest. We have never cared for the pecuniary wellbeing of the Company except as a means to our public object ; and we were prepared to save the Company as an instrument for that purpose notwithstanding its bankruptcy. It is right to add, that to :njerknowledge many Who are unconnected with the Company, con- the arrangement in question as an unworthy sacrifice by us of the interests of the colony and the public ; and there is some reason to fear that amongst these will be found the statesman who has most

completely mastered the subject of New Zealand affairs—I mean Lord Grey.

Dismissing, therefore, Mr. Lefevre's arrangement, as wholly insuffi- cient except for a temporary purpose, I would next observe, (intend- ing thereby to brush away tiresome details and matters of past con- troversy,) that in my own opinion there is nothing peculiar in the miserable issue of New Zealand colonization. In degree there may be a peculiarity; but in the quality of disaster I find a close resemblance to what has happened in many other cases. Lord Sydenham said that it was no wonder the colonists of Canada rebelled. But in Canada, the main cause of revolt in old countries was wholly unknown : every- body had always plenty to eat. Lord Sydenham meant that the country had been so grossly misgoverned as to drive to desperation a people who never feel want. I cannot help agreeing with him on this point, at least. Without going into particulars, it may be said that till recently there was no government in Canada, but only a perpetual conflict between representative institutions and a despotic administra- tion of them. I have observed that in communities where the natural state is one of rapid progress, where everything is in the course of creation or quick extension, grievances consist mainly, not of wrongs inflicted by thehand of power, but of the things which happen be- cause active good government is wanting. Thus the principal griev- ance of New Zealand has been the want of a government to give any man a title to a single acre of land, whilst colonization on a large scale, with a great outlay of capital, was going on for five years. But there is not a colony free from serious grievances arising from the want of government. I am persuaded that very few of the colonies of England would abstain from rebellion, if they were strong enough to be sure of success. Canada is now an exception, because she is strong enough to rebel with success ; because her past rebellions, and her proximity to the United States, have procured for her such a measure of self- government as places power for local purposes in her own hands. Though the want of active good government is still manifest in every township and parish of Canada, the colonists now feel that the re- medy is at their own disposal ; and if they suffer henceforth, they will blame, not the mother-country, but themselves. Their loyal at- tachment to the great empire, which all colonists are very proud of belonging to, is thus insured. But if, as I am convinced, notwith- standing this colonial attribute of loyalty to the empire, our colonies in general, and especially such as are formed of the active progressive British race, are only deterred from asserting their independence by a sense of utter weakness, there must be some general cause of wrong and disaster, productive of a general disaffection. This cause has ope- rated in the three Australias, Van Diemen's Land, and South Africa, not less grievously than formerly in Canada, and now in New Zea- land. The only important difference between the two last cases and the others consists of this—that Canada by her rebellions, and New Zealand by its Company of public-spirited colonizers in London, made their grievances known, whilst those of the other colonies were con- cealed in the obscurity of distance and feebleness. As to Canada Lord Durham's mission, and as to New Zealand the Company in London, have resembled (to use a figure of Archbishop Whately's) the sunlight gleaming through some chink into a dark and dusty room, and showing in the line of its direction the particles of dust which re- main elsewhere invisible. It is not because the case of New Zealand is "so very bad," as people say, that it has occupied so much of the time of Parliament, filled so many Blue-books, and even for a moment placed a strong Ministry in some danger ; it is because there was a Company to make that case known here. I have no hope of seeing public matters in New Zealand placed on a sound footing, I see no prospect of rendering the country fit for the progress of a good kind of colonization, so long as the present system of government is maintained. Though well acquainted with Go- vernor Grey, and disposed to think highly of him, I have no faith in the probability of his success. I believe that the task in which he now may be engaged, is more likely to kill him than to bring him any credit. I feel sure that it is not in the power of any man, though his authority should be despotic, his abilities preeminent, and his dis- positions perfect, to govern New Zealand with advantage to the people and credit to himself, by means of the present wretched ma- chinery of government. His utmost success would be personal, and would consist of an adroit or fortunate escape from the country. I

am satisfied that the governorship of New Zealand will have many victims in addition to Captain Hobson and Captain Fitzroy. it the system of government remains unchanged. Nor is this opinion by any mean.; peculiarly mine. Almost every person of note who took part in the discussions last year, condemned that system of govern- ment, to which they attributed the misfortunes of the colony far more than to the misconduct of any individual. Lord Grey, Lord John Russell, and Mr. Ellice on one side of the House of Commons, declared loudly for a total change of system. On the other side, Sir James Graham zealously endeavoured to substitute for the present system one directly opposite to it ; and Sir Robert Peel made a remarkable declaration of opinion in consonance with the active exer- tions of his colleague. No creature attempted to defend the present system from this general censure.

It appears to me that the relations between the Company and your Department are as defective in their very basis, as the constitution of government for the colony. Colonization is a part, perhaps the most

important part, of the government of such countries as New Zealand. It might not be incorrect to say that government is a part of coloniza-

tion, but I will adhere to the common terms. By placing colonization in one set of hands and leaving all the rest of government in another set a sure provision has been made for collision between the two

The case resembles what would happen if the several limbs of the human body were not impelled by one mind but by several ; for you can no more separate the impulsion of settling a waste country from that of governing the settlers at least with any hope of a good per- formance of either function, ;him you could walk well if the volition which directs both legs were not one and the same. As the legs would inevitably try to go different ways, and thus come to a stand-still, so the mere colonizers and non-colonizing rulers of New Zealand have necessarily quarrelled, and brought the functions of both to a stop. The whole proof might be distinctly set down, were I not fearful of wearying you with particulars. I have long been of opinion, there- fore, that Lord John Russell's arrangement of the Company's position and functions requires alteration quite as much as the system of government apart from colonization. Here, if what I have written had been said to you, and you had expressed your dissent from it, it would be my business to stop and ask pardon for having troubled you in vain. For nothing can be plainer than that it would be deceitful as well as idle in me, holding the opinions before expressed, to offer you any suggestions founded on the principle of reconciling past differences, and leaving untouched. the system both of colonization and government. I abstain from going into matters of past controversy (such as the monstrous choice of a seat of government for the Islands), because I believe that if all these questions were satisfactorily disposed of by your intelligence and sense of justice, others of a no less troublesome kind would inevitably grow out of what may be termed the constitutional arrange- ments of the Act 3 and 4 Vic., cap. 62, and the Company's Charter.

At the same time, however, deeply impressed with the necessity of adopting other principles in the government and colonization of New Zealand, I endeavour to take a practical view of the difficulties of the case; meaning by a practical view, one which perceives the obstacles to olaktof any good permanent arrangement whatever. Amongst these I imagiae one of the chief to be your unwillingness to adopt any measure deectle opposed to past decisions of the Government, or any proposal which ititaa .specifically rejected. In referring, there- fore, to Mr. Charles Buller's confidential memorandum transmitted to Lord Stanley in April last, of which a copy is enclosed, my object is not to renew the suggestions which it contained, but to show you that when Sir James Graham undertook to mediate between the Go- vernment and the Company, we deliberately adopted as a means of peace, the course of dismissing the past from our thoughts, and di- recting our whole attention to the future. Our object in thus abandoning the positions in which events had made us strong, was to facilitate a good arrangement ; to smooth the way for one by re- moving irritating topics ; to make it possible for the Government to undo the past without yielding any point in dispute. With the same view we also suggested that the adoption of any plan that might be agreed upon, should not appear to have been pressed upon Government by the Company, but to emanate from authority. Our considerate purpose was not appreciated. I revert to it now with the Same motive as before.

Instead of asking you to come to a decision against the Government on any of the questions still pending, or any of the proposals which have been rejected, I would suggest that they be all left undecided and even unnoticed.

Supposing this mode of evading a practical difficulty to be adopted, the room for a choice of plans becomes very narrow : for among the condemned are comprised those which our ingenuity was not a little taxed in framing last year on the principle of not asking the Govern- ment to concede any point on which they had insisted. III can now succeed in another attempt to propose something quite new and yet tfufficient, it will certainly be for the last time. Inasmuch as, by the rule laid down, I am precluded from reverting to the plan which we suggested in April last, I will only say of it,

that its adoption would have been agreeable to the genius of the English people (who, said Montesquieu, have alone combined com- merce with empire), to very successful practice in the best days of English colonization, and to the opinions of the most enlightened persons who have recently attended to this subject. Abandoning, though with great reluctance, the plan of a Charter of Government 'which would have placed in the hands of the Company all the powers requisite for good colonization, and thereby enabled them to raise ample funds for every purpose, I am driven to the only alterna- tive,—that of abolishing the Company altogether. They must, of *aurae, have time for disposing of their property and winding up their affairs; but subject to this condition, they would, I believe, consent to their own dissolution, if, on the other hand, it were made the condition of a plan for the good colonization of New Zealand, including government, or its good government including colonization. Our honour is deeply pledged to standing by the colorfists in their distress, and endeavouring to obtain for them some portion of good government by means of continually appealing to Parliament : =aerieresent 'circumstances, whilst adversity prevails, we should be

ashamed of giving up and leaving our work a wreck ; but if the re- tirement of the Company were suggested as part of a good plan for accomplishing the work with a view to which we reluctantly be- eome a joint-stock company, there is not-one-of us who would ob- ject to the arrangement. Nor in saying this, do I attribute to the Company any singular disinterestedness ; for that change of system as to public matters, of which their retirement should be made a con- dition, would secure the shareholders from loss by giving value to their now worthless property.

By what machinery then should the Company's functions be per- fumed ? Assuredly their performance should not -be intrusted to that machinery which everybody condemns as an instrument of Go- vernment apart from colonization. There must be a new machinery. A Company with a charter of government is given up in deference to the past. A sufficient local government without a Company is the only thing that remains. But of what sort ? A general govern- ment for the whole colony like that of Canada might, I fear, be placed in the list of the plans to which the Government has objected ; and I should myself have some objections to it on account of the extent and nature of the country, which are such as to render colo- nization by means of distinct settlements inevitable.

As distinct settlements in &country of which the products are uni- form can have but little commercial intercourse with each other, and as in new colonies there are no ways of communication except those which are made for exchange, so Wellington, New Plymouth, and Auckland are, as respects intercourse, more distant from each other than any one of them is from New South Wales. Wellington, indeed, has from the commencement had more frequent and regular commu- nication with Loudon than with Auckland. A general Government must reside somewhere; and wherever it resided in New Zealand (without supposing it placed in a corner like Auckland), it must more or less neglect those settlements which were -not in its immediate neighbourhood. Such neglect is frightful in Canada, whereof Gaspe is one of the distant extremities and has gone without government tall the people are half savage. This difficulty struck Sir Robert Peel; and I think that he suggested a wise method of evading it. Ever since that debate, moreover, I have thought that the plan of a govern- ment for New Zealand which he then indicated, would be the best, all things considered. He said,—" Now with respect to the future government of this colony, I must say, that looking at the distance at which it is removed from the seat of government at home, and consi- dering the-greet difficulty of issuing orders forita government in this country, I am for onestrongly inclined to think that a Representative Government is suited for the-condition of the people of that colony. It has not the objections that might be applied to a penal colony ;-Thr you have at any rate released New Zealand from the evils attendant on a penal settlement. Speaking, therefore, on general principles, I think the government of that colony, in connection with those imme- diately interested in its local prosperity, assigning to them the adminis- tration of its affairs, is a form of government well adapted for New Zealand. But, considering the extent of the islands, it is no estsy matter to introduce the principle of representative government, ac- cording to the construction we place upon it. It appears to me that by far the beat plan would be the formation of Municipal Governments, with extensive powers of local taxation,. andof meeting all local demands. In the opinion of Mr. Burke, the form of representative government in our North American colonies grew out of these municipal govern- ments. In, I think, his letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, he says,— ' These Representative Governments in North America have grown up I know not how • but there they are. The people who left this country left.it with-lose feelings-of pride, and of love and attachment to liberty, which belong to self-government. They began with mu- nicipal institutions. Distance and absence of control gradually nur- tured them, so that from small beginnings they grew into representa- tive assemblies ; and there I find them. I will not inspect them too narrowly. I will not inquire too close into their establishment. I believe they are the natural growth of such institutions ; and those who have colonies, and especially British colonies, must expect. such results.' Now I am strongly inclined to think that the germ of a representative government in a colony ought to be in these munici- palities, widening their sphere by degrees according as the land be- comes settled and peopled. I doubt whether that would not be a safer mode than- that of establishing among so thin a_ population a representative government that would require the people of Auck- land and of Wellington to meet together, separated as they aneby such a great distance."

I am very glad that Sir Robert Peel quoted .Burke for if he had not thus made his own meaning clear, there are persons who, since they must bow to the Prime Minister, would not have objected directly to municipal government for New Zealand, but, as they dislike whatever savours of local self-government for colonies, would have asked us to believe that "municipal" signifies "for paving and lighting." Unable to resist the principle of local self-government, they would limit its application to the business of aldermen and common-councilmen in England. But Burke knew that every really English colony down to his time had been ruled by a municipal government, and that every one of these municipalities performed within its own limits the highest public functions. That Sir Robert Peel meant government complete in function, though limited as to territory, is obvious, from his emphatic approval of "these municipa- lities' as mentioned by Burke, from his proposing to "widen their sphere by degrees according as the land becomeasettled and peopled," from his saying that they ought to have "the power of meeting- all local demands," and still more (for in ascertaining the import of words the circumstantial evidence of their logical connexion is stronger than the direct testimony of particular expressions) from his suggesting narrowness of territory for each of the several governments as the means of enjoying representation without inconvenience. And, indeed, the opposite suggestion of giving less function to governments which are limited as to territory, for no other purpose but that of fitting them to enjoy more, appears so very unreasonable, that I should

scarcely have noticed it were I not afraid that it may be urged on you by persons who would resort to it as a shift for really withholding local self-government whilst professing to bestow that inestimable boon.

I propose that a municipal government, with functions like those of any of the old English colonial municipalities, should be formed for each of the present settlements. The territory of each municipality should afford a considerable field of taxation for the cost of government, without being so large as to subject the inhabitants to the inconvenience mentioned by eir Robert Peel.

As to the remainder of the islands, the sphere of each municipality Might be gradually enlarged with the progress of settlement and road- making; and it would probably be found desirable to erect other Municipalities in some places where at present there are no settlers. Representation should of course be the basis of such municipal government ; but I have no doubt that a qualification franchise far less democratic than that of Canada would be found useful. For several reasons, indeed, I should be disposed to make the elective franchise what some would call aristocratical. The colonists, whose petition to the House of Commons Lord Howiek presented last session, Were of this opinion. I enclose a copy of the document. - At the same time, the titles of offices and officers in the municipa- lities should be as modest as possible. The title of Governor and Excellency has turned the head and proved the ruin of many a good sort of man. Humble titles, moreover, would have the effect of re- ducing salaries to the minimum, and Of discouraging among persons in office those habits of parade and extravagance which keep the bulk of the principal public servants in the Crown colonies in a state bordering on insolvency, besides setting a mischievous example to the -colonists. It should never be forgotten that the whole municipal government of thirteen English colonies in America, comprising three millions of people, cost less than 100,0001. a year. The business of disposing of waste land with a view to public pur- pews, and especially the constant immigration of labour, should be intrusted to each municipality within its own limits ; but very strict general rules for compelling the municipality to pursue the best mode of proceeding in this respect should be laid down by the municipal oharters. With respect to immigration, I have no doubt that a local Authority would manage better than any authority here, with the exception always of a Company deeply interested in doing the work The Constitutional Act of New Zealand, whether an act of Parlia- ment or a charter, should also lay down general rules for the guidance *f the municipalities in every other ease requiring uniformity of prac- tice, such as the imposition of customs' duties, or in which the Impe- rial Government chooses to insist on adherence to some principle of jurisprudence or political economy. This act should also distinctly make provision for enabling the municipalities to divest themselves of general functions, such as post. office management, and to place the same in the hands of a General Government.

This act should also determine the nature of a General Government when formed, and how one should be formed by the municipalities -When the colonists desired one. I am thus closely pursuing Sir Robert Peel's idea of making representative municipalities the germ of a General Representative Government. He would have insisted ,on having the whole process defined by the Constitutional Act, had he known of a tenth part of the misery which colonists suffer from uncertainty as to the future. Each settlement should defray the whole cost of its Municipal -Government. Any help from the mother-country would be hurtful, by leading the colonists to depend on an uncertain source of public income and to indulge in a profuse expenditure. South Australia, Port Phillip, and the New Zealand Company's settlements show, that a new colony whereof the waste land is made to promote immigration, may easily defray a moderate but sufficient public expenditure. All the municipal governments of colonizing Old England found their 'own public funds. I am sure the present New Zealand eettlers, and :those preparing to settle at Otago, would as cheerfully adopt this Suggestion as public opinion here would warmly approve of it. For the same reasons when a General Government became ex- pedient, its cost should be defrayed by a general taxation of the -Islands.

The Church which is connected with the State at home cannot extend itself in the colonies without the aid of the State. Other de- nominations can, after a fashion. Good. colonization, however, pro. reeding from England, is impossible without certain facilities of °eternal Church extension, which the State has not yet afforded. There is nothing in which the founders of this colony have been so completely balked as in their efforts to send out the Church of Bog. land with the English settlers. When we first proposed Episcopacy for a settlement not yet formed, the Archbishop of Canterbury ad- mired and speeded our object. But when he had done all he could for us, our Episcopal project fell into the hands of the State. . For a long while our wish to have Bishop* in New Zealand was effectually opposed. By dint of perseverance, however, we overcame the oppo- sition; and then our very opponents adopted our scheme and under- took to carry it out. They have carried it out in such a way that the Church of England is the only one for which hardly any provision has been made in the three settlements formed by us, and composed chiefly of English people ; and that all the Episcopacy there is now in New Zealand, consists of a single Bishop for a country as large as Great Britain, who has resided in a distant corner where there are no settlers, and whose place of residence, being the head-quarters of the " Church" Mission, is also the head-quarters of the troops engaged in warfare with the Natives. This utter perversion of our original plan (mire aloud for remedy. With respect to the best mode of enabling the Church of England settlers in each municipality to possess the institution of their Church in a complete state, they finding all the money, which I am convinced they would readily do, I should like to consult Dr. Hinds, the author of the project which has been so cruelly marred in the execution. If his matured and practical views on this subject were carried out, New Zealand would not add to the number of our colonies in which the base spirit of money-getting overgrows knowledge, religion, and honour ; where the inhabitants generally, whatever may be their material prosperity, bear a good deal of resemblance in other respects to those masses of our population at home which have grown up without any sort of in-

atitutions for moral culture ; and to which an English gentleman of ' any refinement cannot emigrate with his family without bitterly re- panting of the step.

I believe, but am not quite sure, that the Crown alone would in these days be held incapable of conferring on New Zealand such a constitution of government as I h ire sketched ; but there can be no doubt that Parliament w-uld pass, without a division, and without debate except for the purpose of applauding the Government, a bill introduced by yourself for authorising the Crown to take the neces- sary steps. What is called the Native question, presents greater difficulties.

These are at present evaded, not wisely but weakly, by leaving everything of moment really unsettled, and professing to believe that one Captain Grey will make up for the neglect. It was thus that suc- cessive Colonial Ministers destroyed Captain Hobson and Captain Fitzroy. If the task is too heavy to be undertaken by her Majesty's Government, men in the dependent and precarious position of a Co- lonial Governor must break down under its weight. Nor does this pusillanimous shifting by Strength of responsibility from its own shoulders on to those of Weakness, accomplish its object perma- nently ; it only postpones the evil day when courage mart be mus- tered for a final decision by competent authority. What is even worse indeed, in this case, the accumulation of difficulties pending indecision, has been such, that the settlement of all Native questions by the sword seems not improbable. But if this issue can be averted, it will be only by the prompt substitution of a definite policy as respects the Natives, for the plan of leaving everything to be decided by the chapter of accidents. Fortunately, however, with reference to other considerations, this previous infirmity of decision leaves the way open for acting deci- sively and wisely now. You have not to condemn one policy in order to make room for another ; for almost no policy, no plan, not even a decided opinion has been carried into effect or so much as declared by any of your predecessors. With the exception of some of Captain Fitzroy's wildest freaks, there is scarcely anything definite to be undone in order to the doing of something definite. The mass of vague, hesitating, inconsistent sayings and doings of successive Admin- istrations with regard to the Natives of New Zealand, presents only one salient point with which it may be necessary to avoid collision. This is the (so-called) Treaty of Waitangi.

Whoever takes the troubte of examining this transaction will find, that it was on our part a fraud on the ignorant Natives and a sham towards more intelligent people. The language of one of the parties hag no words to represent its most important terms. The very ideas which those terms convey to our understanding are unknown to the other party. A present of blankets, or a musket, for signing without understanding, often without hearing, was the general consideration. Only a small minority ever signed, and nobody had authority to bind others. Most of the Natives never heard of the Treaty till long after its completion; and the individuals of a few tribes who were got to s*, were so little capable of performing the function imputed to them by the act, that their language contained no name for the country of which it is said they disposed. When, therefore, we place British sovereignty on the basis of Native concession by this Treaty,—when we found-all the subsequent proceedings of authority on the principle of Native consent,—we sow the seed of endless differences between the Local Government and the Aborigines. But the public here will never take the trouble of examining this transaction so as to discover its true character. They will not, that is, unless the Government should promote and take the lead in the investigation : and this I am pre- cluded from suggesting, by a rule before laid down. There it is then, this pretended Treaty of Waitangi, invested with the sacred character which we attach to treaties properly so called. I suppose that it must be respected accordingly, at whatever cost to the Natives, the colonists, and the Empire.

But our utmost respect for the name of treaty does not require that we should add whimsical interpretations of a written make-believe to the evil of Bo inherent falsehoods. We need not go out of our way to devise meanings which would invest the savages of New Zealand with more extensive rights of individual property than ever yet existed in my country. Still less is it necessary that we should blot out a very important pert of the Treaty in order to give to those fanciful interpre- tations the most mischievous effect : yet we commit both these follies when we assume that unoccupied land was individual property re- served to the Natives by the Treaty, and when we set aside that pro- vision of the Treaty which precludes the Natives from ceding to any- body but the Crown the occupied lands which the Treaty does reserve to them as property. The combined operation of these errors is to place all the land in New Zealand at the disposal of the Natives for "sale" to individuals ; in other words, to cast these fine islands, with . their handful of aboriginal inhabitants, as a prey to the land-sharks. In the suggestions, then, which I am going to offer, the whole Treaty of Waitangi, not a part only,—its plain meaning, not the strange interpretations which some have put on it—will be deemed the basis of British sovereignty. It appears to me, that the British Government, in attempting to compel all-the tribes of New Zealand to submit at once to its authority, undertakes a task which has become impossible. After all that has happened, an army of 20,000 men would hardly suffice for the pur- pose. It is not a nation with which we have to deal, such as might be overcome when its organization was destroyed or its leaders sub- dued, but a number of distinct and scattered tribes, each of which becomes a distinct enemy, and requires a separate force for its sub- jection, whenever our authority crosses its wild independence. With a people like the New Zealanders, the conquest. of one tribe makes little impression on the others, except as it may excite them to fear and hate us more. Though Heki should be subdued in the Northern peninsula, we may soon have half-a-dozen little wars on hand with tribes more numerous and martial than his, if we now insist on giving effect to British law all over the islands. Indeed several chiefs at this time defy our authority as openly as lieki does : but are let alone at present because all our troops are fully engaged in the contest with hen. I see no issue to the rude impulse of conquest, which has grown out of a policy of shams and whims and false indulgences, and eh/L(11th inconsistencies, but the gradual destruction of the savages whom we have spoiled. The cost of the process, too, will be immense. Heki alone must have entailed on us a war disbursement of four times as much as would suffice for the civil government of all the settlements for a year. His is a puny tribe compared with many in those parts of the North Island where the population is most dense. Are these all to be attacked in turn if they should cut down our flag- staffs—as they all surely will during the existence of the present gene- ration, should we attempt to give force to our laws within their borders ? This question leads to the only solution of the difficulty that I am able to discover.

It strikes me that we ought to abstain for the present from trying to enforce British law—from attempting to subdue the Natives to our authority—except in those parts of the country where the acknow- ledgment of British authority is essential to the wellbeing of bodies of colonists, and in those where at present there are few or no Natives. Could I have my own way in this matter, I would let the Natives alone for a long while to come, except within the limits of the pro- posed Municipalities. There, and there only, I would maintain British authority against all attack or infringement. Elsewhere I would let the Natives follow their own devices. This is a defensive policy, which the Municipal Militia would sustain in case of need ; a comparatively easy task : at any rate, not an impossible one like the other. It is further recommended by the consideration that the Natives, having plenty of room in which to do as they pleased, would probably adopt a defensive policy likewise, and would not think of attacking our settlements. They would thus learn, also, by distinc- tion and contrast, what British law is,—what are its obligations, and what its great advantages in comparison with the insecurity and pre- cariousness of savage life. By degrees, many of the outside Natives would settle within the pale, knowing and liking the consequences. In time, though not generally perhaps during this generation, the pale of the settlements would be extended with the understanding consent of the outside Natives ; and at last, all New Zealand would be brought, by a gradual and gentle process, under the municipal regime.

Before noticing some possible objections to this scheme, I would observe that its adoption would put an end to the make-believe of a general enforcement of British law throughout the country ; and that British authority would be more apt to obtain the respect of the Natives, if we professed to enforce it in those parts of the country only where we could enforce it. There has been no more efficient cause of the actual contempt of the Natives for the Queen's authority, than the spectacle of her Government falsely pretending to execute an impossible task. Nor would it be a slight advantage of the defensive system which would suffice for the Municipalities, over the aggressive one which the pursuit of a general dominion necessitates, that under the former we should never employ Native against Native in military operations, except for the purpose of self-defence ; whereas, under the latter, the main reliance of the Government in its attempts to subjugate distant tribes defying its authority, must be the setting of tribe against tribe in active hostility. We are doing this now in Governor Fitzroy's war with Heki. The last attack upon that chief's fastness in the interior was sustained by a tribe whose aid we purchased ; and the habitation of another tribe, in alliance with him, was totally de- stroyed by our Native allies. This is obviously only the beginning of a mischief which will grow till it brings shame on the very name of England, unless it be nipped in the bud. According to the proposed scheme nothing of this sort would occur. Were it objected to this scheme, that two very different regimes for the Queen's subjects in different parts of one colony would be improper, I should first ask, for I am not able to perceive, what would be the practical inconvenience of the arrangement ? And I should then observe, first, that two regimes in different parts of a country under one dominion, but inhabited by different races, have worked well in several instances ; secondly, that Sir Robert Peel proposes two regimes in proposing municipal governments of limited territory at first, to be afterwards extended ; thirdly, that this plan iof two regimes would only take the place of another already in ex- Stance, viz., that of exceptional laws for the Natives, which the pre- ent assertion of British authority all over the islands has suggested, notwithstanding its obvious inconveniences ; and, lastly, that the plan under notice would be a mode of exceptional laws, with the great improvement of assigning different localities to the rule and to the exception.

It is not proposed that British authority should be abandoned, but only that its enforcement should be suspended, and that not com- pletely, outside the Municipalities. The right of the Crown to all lands not occupied at the time of the Treaty of Waitangi, together with the Crown's preemptive right of purchase as to lands then occupied, should be, not enforced against the outside Natives, but em- phatically declared to be reserved for future enforcement ; for other- wise the outside lands and Natives would be devoured by the land- sharks : whereas few attempts to obtain land from the Natives by pretended bargains would be made, if it were certain that all such transactions would be ultimately set aside. Let me remark also, that though such a law would operate outside the Municipalities, it would not be directly upon the Natives, so as to provoke them in their igno- rance of its humane purpose, but indirectly, through its direct opera- tion upon the land-shark class, which it is so desirable to paralyze. Another possible objection to the scheme may be supposed. It may be said that the political economy, so to speak, of the Municipalities might be deranged by the lawlessness of the outside country, where -Whites might squat and cultivate lands without owning them, and where smuggling into the Municipalities might securely be carried on. To this I should reply that, until we shall have performed the now impossible task of subjugating the whole of New Zealand to British law, there will exist facilities of squatting and smuggling as great as those supposed to arise from establishing two regimes avowedly ; for in fact there gg two regimes now, though not avowed,—British law Eviipterslatia iforce it, and lawlessness where we can not. And,

rim p. uig the facilities of squatting and smuggling to be systems, the temptation would be less under that ctly marked out the territorial limits of security

,4;" ' erty ; because the motive to the pursuit of lawful from the security with which they might be pur- sued within the pale of British law, would be so very much stronger. Nay, I cannot help thinking that the full warning to colonists, that the protection of British law would in no case be extended to them against acts of the Natives outside of the Municipalities, would have the effect of almost totally preventing the residence of Whites in the outside territory. No colonist of ordinary prudence at least would prefer the lawless territory ; and if a lawless class such as now prowl about the islands should prefer it, they might be held in check by a provision, that offences against British law in the outside territory, if committed by Whites, should be punishable within the Municipalities whenever the offenders were caught there. Indeed, with the consent of the Natives obtained specially on each occasion, we might seize in the outside territory White offenders against Municipal law, and es- pecially Whites who had committed in the outside territory offences against a law framed expressly for the defence of the Natives from such agressions. And, lastly, supposing for mere argument's sake that both the facility and the motive to squatting and smuggling were even greater under two regimes avowed than under the present mode of two regimes, still the evil of some derangement of the political economy of the Municipalities would be as nothing compared with the other class of evils for which the whole plan is designed as a remedy. Everything should be done to encourage that disposition of the two races to amalgamate which was so conspicuous in the Company's settlements, and in the destroyed settlement of liororarika, before a colonial government existed. For that the Native race must disappear is a decree of nature against which we should contend in vain ; but a choice is allowed us between two ways of reaching the inevitable con- clusion; we have to choose between amalgamation and extermination. The policy of the founders of the colony has always been amalgama- tion, that of the missionaries separation of the two races. Mr. Buller wrote to Lord Stanley in April last, "The avowed object of the mis- sionaries has been to prevent colonization, to preserve the nationality of the New Zealanders, to keep them apart from European contact, and to maintain their exclusive property in the whole soil of the islands. Our system, on the contrary, was to treat the soil as unap- propriated wherever it was not in some way occupied, to vindicate to the Crown the ownership of all the unoccupied expanse, to encourage the settlement of European colonists, and to turn to account those peculiar facilities which the aboriginal race of New Zealand appear to possess for intermixture and amalgamation with the European popu- lation. These two systems are essentially antagonist. You cannot attempt to act upon both without vacillation or inconsistency, so as to give either a fair chance. Neither ever has had a fair trial ; both de- serve it ; both might have it in New Zealand, did you confine each to its appropriate field." Mr. Buller proceeded to show how an appro- priate field might be found for the system of separation ; but that is not my present concern. Here coy object is to point out the necessity of wholly discarding the separation system within the Municipalities. Supposing this intended with a view of giving full effect to the system of amalgamation, there should be no exceptional law for Natives within the Municipalities. Native Protectors, for example, are an exceptional class of officers, whose very appointment suggests the idea of a natural hostility between the colonists and Natives.; whose salary depends on the appearance of a continual necessity for their services ; whose importance would cease if the colonists and the Natives were excellent friends ; whose every personal motive of the selfish kind is engaged to thwart rather than promote that amalgama- tion which must abolish Protectors ; and whose position not only affords them great facilities of wilfully stimulating Native jealousy of the intruding race without risk of punishment for such wickedness, but also is apt to delude them into the belief that duty requires them to warn the ignorance and keep awake the suspicions of the objects of their care. Under the present system, indeed, the Native Protectors in New Zealand, relying on the support of the missionary societies at home, have kept the Local Government in fear and subjection. Were there time, I sin sure I could satisfy you that Mr. Clarke, once a missionary mechanic, to whom I have forwarded letters from his near relatives, servants in this neighbourhood, directed to" 'Squire Clarke," the Chief Protector of Aborigines under Captain Hobson, Mr. Short- land, and Captain Fitzroy, has been really Governor of New Zealand far more than any of those officers. His power over them was wholly derived from a selfish and clever exercise of the Protector's function. The Governor for the time being trembled before him, because, being constituted special defender of the Natives, he could ruin his Excellency by describing him in this country as a foe to the poor Aborigines. The Governors were ruined, indeed, by yielding to Mr. Clarke, as they would have been by opposing him ; but, to persons of their limited vision, the indirect and remote penalty of yielding would be imperceptible, whilst the direct and immediate one of opposing was plain. At last, however, everybody sees plainly what great evils the Protector's influence in the Government has brought on Governors, colonists, and Natives. Without supposing that there will be again as bad a case as Mr. Clarke's, we may be sure of the evil tendency of the Protector's office. The name is agreeable to our benevolence, but the thing itself, when examined, is quite at variance with the name. Real and lasting protection for the Natives there can be none, but in the friendly feelings of the colonists towards them, and in the progress of amalgamation. The Protector's office excites in the colonists un- friendly feelings towards the Natives, by assuming their existence, and by cultivating Native jealousy of the intruding race ; and it has a tendency to impede amalgamation by the grand distinction of races which it proclaims and rests upon, by the antagonism of interests which it presumes and engenders, and by its collisions as an imperium in imperio with the Colonial Government at one time, or its control over that Government at another by means of secret influences 16,000 miles off. The best, the only efficient protection for the feebler race, would be one law for both, administered by one set of officers, in that spirit of humanity towards the wild man which now pervades British society, which is no exclusive attribute of those who parade it most, still less of those who trade upon it, and which the colonists of New Zealand have conspicuously and uniformly manifested when they were left to the operation of its dictates. A homogeneous government, re- presenting and giving effect to that sentiment of humanity, and also to the deep interest which the colonists would have in the main-

tenance of friendship between the races, would be a consistent reality of protection : the constituted antagonism of a distinct law and officers for each of two races living together, is worse than a sham.

I also take for granted, that with equality before the law there would be an equality of privileges ; that within the Municipality,

Natives would enjoy every right possessed by the colonists ; and it is

certainly most desirable that they should be encouraged and assisted to avail themselves of those privileges, by such institutions as schools for teaching them the English language, the Company's plan of Native Reserves, and a militia somewhat resembling in character the Native military force of the East India Company. Such institutions, though special for the Natives, would be amalgamative in principle and operation. They might be guaranteed by the municipal charter; and the utter wreck of the Company's plan of Native Reserves for want of a law to preserve it, suggests that at least this institution for the benefit of the Natives should be made secure by a general rule amongst those for the disposal of waste land by the Municipalities. I dare say that some other provisions (especially with regard to lan- guage), for gradually lifting the Natives towards a social equality with the colonists, might be suggested and usefully inserted in the municipal charters. If they were thus defined by the permanent or constitutional law, every colonist would knowingly accept them by settling in New Zealand; whilst the vagueness and mutability, which have hitherto spoiled good provisions for the Natives when we happened to make any, would be avoided. The objections which I have urged to exceptional laws and officers within the Municipalities are not objections to the exceptional regime of the outside territory, nor do they apply to that exceptional part of the country. There, I think it might be useful to have officers, whether or not called Protectors, whose business it should be to instruct the Natives in useful arts and the English language, to impart to them a knowledge of the Municipal regime, to encourage them to settle within and desire the extension of the Municipalities, and to assist in securing within the Municipalities the punishment of any aggression against them by colonists in the outside territory. And further, inasmuch as the ultimate amalgamation of the races is a dream, unless the Natives embrace the religion of the superior race, I would encourage Christian Missions to the Natives in the outside territory as well as within the Municipalities. They would be pro- ductive of unmixed good, provided always that land-sharking were effectually guarded against ; otherwise they would perpetuate that great affliction of New Zealand, whereof the foundation was exclu- sively laid by missionaries exposed to irresistible temptation. It strikes me that a portion of the funds derived from Native Reserves might be very suitably set apart for the payment of outside Protectors and the promotion of Christian missions : for a Native fund would be expended on a most important Native purpose ; and the pecuniary interest of the whole class of persons whose relations with the Natives were the most intimate, would be identified with the progress of colo- nization and amalgamation.

I abstain from troubling you with any suggestions in detail with respect to the scheme first mentioned in Mr. Buller's memorandum of April last, for placing the Northern peninsula of the North Island under the system of separation or anti-colonization, to be administered by persons strongly attached to that system through the instrumen- tality of a charter framed for the purpose : but I own that it would be agreeable to me to see the system fairly tried ; I think the mere trial of it in that corner of New Zealand might afford a place of refuge for Natives of New Zealand whose dislike to amalgamation could not be overcome, as well as to the Aborigines of other islands in the Pacific already converted to Protestantism, which the modern policy of refusing to extend British sovereignty over feeble races that invite it, has placed or may place under the, to them, odious dominion of Roman Catholic France ; and I fancy the scheme might be put into a form to make it agreeable to the great missionary societies here, of whose sincere attachment to the anti-colonization principle there cannot be a doubt, in spite of the miseries to which it has led when placed in collision, as it now is throughout New Zealand, with the principle of colonization. Perhaps it is right to add, that this project was men- tioned last year to some leading members of the Church Missionary Society, in whose minds it appeared to excite a lively interest; but that I have since heard of preparations by that society for with- drawing its mission from New Zealand.

Recurring, for a moment, to the two main features of my general plan,—limited Municipal districts for the colonists, and corresponding

mi 'ts to the present enforcement of British law upon the Natives,— I.venture to hope that you may ultimately deem the whole a harmo- nious combination of means for putting an end to the many false pretences of which New Zealand is now the theatre, and, above all, for bringing the business of governing both races within manageable Compass.

Nevertheless, I submit these suggestions to you with a conscious- ness of their imperfect development, and of omissions that must be supplied if you should entertain them as the rough outline of a heal- ing measure. I anticipate objections ; though not without a hope that they may be susceptible of removal by further reflection on your part, or by modifications or improvements of the plan, to be suggested by yourself. But I cannot conclude without saying, that this exercise of my invention has been directed by an anxious wish, unencumbered by any merely personal motive, to discover such a mode of retrieving past errors and providing well for the future, as might suitably be proposed to Parliament by yourself, and would be received, if so recommended, with a general approbation.

In conclusion I am desirous of saying, that this letter has been written without the knowledge of any of my colleagues in the New Zealand Company, but that I purpose giving them a copy of it.

I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,

E. G. WAKEFIELD. The Right Honourable William E. Gladstone, &c., acc.

No. 4.

Lord Lyttelton to Mr. Young.

Downing Street, 13th March 1a46.

(Enclosing a Despatch from Governor Fitzroy, respecting difficulties anticipated in locating settlers at Otago.)

No. b.

Lord Lyttelton to the Secretary of the Company.

Downing Street, 21st March 1846. (Respecting relief to be afforded to the Company from the con- sequences of Deeds of Grant executed by Governor Fitzroy.) No. 6.

The Secretary of the Company to Mr. Gladstone.

New Zealand Houae, 2nd April 1846.

Sin—I have had the honour to receive and lay before the Directors of the New Zealand Company two letters from Lord Lyttelton,—the one dated the 13th of March, enclosing a copy of a despatch relative to difficulties anticipated in the locating of settlers at Otago,—and the other dated the 21st of March, on the relief to be afforded to the Company from the consequences of the Deeds of Grant executed by Captain Fitzroy. On proceeding to consider these documents, the Directors became early impressed with the conviction that it would be a mere waste of time and labour to attempt to devise expedients for the purpose of remedying this or that particular act of impolicy or injustice, or of removing this or that impediment to the efficient colonization of New Zealand ; and that it would be the easiest as well as the most effective course to take immediately large and comprehensive measures, for correcting at once the evils which have deformed the past administra- tion of that colony, and for providing for its future good government. They appointed, therefore, a Special Committee of their members to consider the means by which these ends could be best attained, more especially the detailed plan which, at your suggestion, had been prepared by Mr. Wakefield. The Committee agreed yesterday upon the Report which they should present ; and this having been this day adopted by the Court, I am instructed to lose no time in transmitting to you the accompanying copy, with an earnest request that it may obtain your immediate consideration.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

T. C. HARINGTON. The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, &c., &c., &a.

(Enclosed in No. 60

Report presented to the Court of Directors by the Special Conamiltee ap- pointed to peruse and consider the Detailed Plan proposed by Mr. Wake- field.

The various questions referred to your Committee comprise all those which are of the most immediate and permanent interest both to the colony and to the Company. The correspondence between the Colonial Office and the Company has brought before us particular consequences of the late Governor's grievous mismanagement of every question affecting the Natives and the disposal of the waste lands. It is matter of the greatest regret that while in this country her Ma- jesty's Government was showing a sincere disposition to correct the policy which had proved so disastrous, and to heal the dissensions to which it had necessarily given rise, the Governor of New Zealand has been taking steps which can only add to the previous causes of irrita- tion and confusion, unless they are promptly reversed by the superior authority at home. At the same time Mr. Wakefield's very interest- ing letter to Mr. Secretary Gladstone has brought under our notice a large and well-considered scheme for the future government of New Zealand, having for its aim the providing for that colony institutions which shall guard against the repetition of such errors as have hitherto marred its progress, and shall lay the foundation of a steady development of its resources. It is most fortunate, in our opinion, that these two subjects have been brought under view simultaneously. The contemplation of the present results of past impolicy cannot fail to exercise a salutary in- fluence on the construction of a policy for the future. The principles on which it is deemed wise to act hereafter, determine the nature of the remedy which we must endeavour to apply to those disorders which are consequent on past violation of those principles ; and while we are endeavouring to frame the machinery by which new in- stitutions are to be established and worked, it will probably be easy to extend its operation to a rectification of the evils which require immediate attention. For these reasons we think it fortunate that we are able to consider these questions in connection with each other. And though it is undoubtedly to be regretted that a single oppor- tunity should have been lost for transmitting to New Zealand some satisfactory information on the points which must occasion to the colonists so much anxiety, it may hereafter not be matter of sorrow that the unavoidable delay which has occurred should have afforded ample time for the full consideration of the great questions affecting future as well as present interests, and enabled us to suggest means by which the establishment of good institutions may be made to include a remedy for temporary evils.

It is with great satisfaction that we find that renewed consideration of the suggestions contained in Mr. Wakefield's letter to Mr. Secretary Gladstone enables us to repeat chat adoption of its general principles which we have thought right to express in the name of the Company. It has been our business to endeavour to embody those principles m practical suggestions. It will be found, we hope, that, in the perform- ance of this task, it has been our sincere and constant aim to suggest such a scheme as we have every reason to believe that her Majesty's Government, as well as this Company, may adopt with perfect con-

sistency and propriety. The interests of the colony demand the adoption of prompt measures as well as of sound principles. The time is past in which we could treat the Islands of New Zealand as a field in which a perfectly free scope existed for the application of the soundest theory of colonization. Unfortunately, past proceedings have been too little based on such principles. These proceedings have, however, given a character to our policy with respect to that colony, which it is impos- sible to change entirely without a prejudicial interference with rights which have been called into existence, and expectations created by the solemn acts of Government. The policy of her Majesty's Ministers, with respect to many important points, has been determined by measures which it is now impossible to recall, and by public declara- tions which speak a settled determination.

It has been with sincere satisfaction that we have found, on a full consideration of the subject with reference to such limitations on the

freedom of our speculations, that, the difficulties undoubtedly created by past acts present no insuperable obstacles.; and that the views indicated by her blejefity 's Ministers are not such that we need at all despair of making them the basis of a sound and restorative policy. On these, therefore, we have proceeded as the basis of our suggestions. and we have endeavoured to embody in our plan the views as well of her Majesty's Ministers as of the Company. But upon this basis, thus prescribed to us by circumstances, we have thought it our duty to construct on none but what our judgment and experience have induced us to regard as the soundest principles. We have availed oumelves to the utumet of Mr. Gladstone's very handsome permission to consider ourselves perfectly unfettered in the suggestion of any Meesures which may appear to us to be the best that can be con- structed on the basis thus assumed by us. We think that the end in view may beet be attained by a perfectly frank statement of our opinions on the nature and causes of the evils that demand a remedy, and by the proposal of the best remedy that suggests itself to us, without any compromise of these great principles of colonization, to any deviation from which it would be neither wise nor honest in us to cement.

In looking back on the past history of New Zealand, since its re- cegnition as a portion of the British Empire, it is not difficult in our opution to discover the main causes of existieg evils. The first and capital error has been the absence of any provision for self-government of the colonists by free institutions. The disregard that has been shown to that course of _colonization which is indicated by convenience in a country like New Zealand, the attempts to concentrate settlements in unsuitable localities, and to govern scattered communities front a single and most ineligible point, are all parts of the vicious system which attempts to apply to Englishmen settling in a new country, despotic Institutions repugnant to their feelings, and especially un- suitable to the wants and position of a new society. To provide a sufficient remedy for this evil has been the first object of Mr. Wake- field's suggestions. Fortunately, it is a point on which we need use no argument to enforce the necessity or prove the propriety of the suggestions which we shall make in conformity with his. The evil has been promptly and fully admitted : a sufficient remedy has been unhesitatingly promised. The plan which we propose for the govern- ment of New Zealand by municipal institutions commencing with the origin of every settlement, and subordinate to a general representa- tive government, in which their powers, at first large, are to merge as soon as may be found expedient, was, in fact, suggested by the Head of the present Government in the course of last year's debates. In proposing the details of a scheme based on such a principle, we believe that we are doing no more than aiding her Majesty's Govern. ment to carry into effect their own general views on the subject. Little inferior, in importance to this error have been the other two -which we shall class with it among the capital errors that. have led to the disasters of New Zealand. These are what we shall designate as the unwise policy pursued in our relations with the aboriginal inha- bitants of the country, and the system pursued with respect to the disposal of the waste lands.

The first of these topics opens a large field for our consideration. From first to last our policy with regard to the Natives has been erroneous; and evevy disaster that has fallen on New Zealand has been in some measure traceable to this error.

It would he affectation were we to pass over this subject without alluding to what we have always regarded as the great original error in our relations with the Natives—we mean the Treaty of Waitangi. It is not, however, our intention at present to discuss that treaty or urge the Government to set it aside. We understand that her Ma- jesty's Ministers deem the honour of the Crown pledged to the scru- pulous maintenance) and observance of that compact. And without in the slightest having faltered in our conviction of the exceeding =- policy of entering into any such engagements with the Natives,—and without having at. all abandoned the opinion that they might in all fairness and safety have till a recent period been set aside as worthless and prejudicial to all parties,—we are not unwilling to admit that it is now too late to apply that summary remedy to the evils resulting from the treaty. We are content that the treaty should be held to he in force wherever it legitimately extends. The interpretation which the Government has publicly put upon the clause, which recognizes the Native rights in land, must still be maintained. But the more readily that we make these admissions, the more necessary is it to insist that the treaty should neither be extended beyond its original scope nor partially enforced. We must view such a recognition of Native property in land as is asserted to be contained in the treaty as rendering that treaty a bar to sound colonization wherever its opera- tion extends. The country subject to the treaty is no country for us to attempt-at present to settle. It would obviously, therefore, be the height of impoliey to put any fanciful construction on the treaty which should extend its provisions to any portion of New Zealand which was not originally included in it. It should be at once settled that the treaty haa force nowhere but in the Northern Island. It may be a question how far it should be recognized as extending over more than a portion even of that island. If we submit to these great in- conveniences of the treaty, we are bound in justice as well to Natives as to settlers to insist on adherence to other stipulations which were inserted with a view of protecting the interests-of colonization. Her Majesty's right of preemption must be enforced no less strictly than the proprietary rights of the Natives. And all our schemes of colo- nization should be framed with a view of directing the course of European settlement as much as possible in the first instance to those portions of New Zealand in which the treaty presents no obstacle to the best mode of dealing with the waste lands. Other considerations tender it advisable that the recognized rule of our policy with regard to New Zealand should be for some time to keep European settlers as much as possible from all contact with the Natives. It WM on such a policy that the Company commenced its operations. For, though we then deemed it possible to rely on the friendly dispositions of the Natives, and secure the speedy union and eventual amalgamation of' the two races when brought in contact, we deeintd it pi udelit to refrain from planting our settlements in the midst of' lame masses of the Natives. Experience has unhappily proved the wisdom of our fears. The extravagant hopes of unuue prices for their lands, and the general expectation of submission to their menaces, which- the weakness of the first Governors of New Zealand has created in the minds of the Natives, the outrages thee have excited the insolence of one and the animosity of the other race, and the recent warfare with Heki, have produced such relations between the two races, WS it is very improbable we shall speedily reinvest with a friendly oharacter. We have so mismanaged the Natives hitherto that we must abandon the hope of conferring on them the benefits of civilization, which a wise policy might have insured. Our only resource, for the present, is to leave the Natives- as much as possible to-themselves. The sovereignty which they repu- diate should he but nominally imposed. Let them retain their laws and custorns,—deal with one another as they please,—keep the land for which theystickle so tenaciousay,—and repel the White men whom they regard with suspicion. Let them remain apart from us until they feel the want of our authority and seek the protection of our laws,—until they invite our interference for the suppression of intes- tine feud,—until they seek the benefit of intercourse with the White man,—and until they offer him their land for what it is worth, and respect the contracts which they make for the disposal of it.

Fortunately, the parts of New Zealand which have never been: affected by the Treaty of Waitangi, or itt which the Native titles have been extinguished. are sufficiently extensive to offer an ample field for our colonization during the interval. Circumstances have rendered separation perfectly possible. We hare only to leave the Natives undisturbed in the Northern and middle parts of the Northern Island," and to form our settlements in the neighbourhood either of New Ply. mouth or of Wellington, or in the Middle and Stewart's Islands, whole extent of which =encumbered by the presence or claims oi i Native tribes. This, then, appears to us to be the first rule which should be laid down for the government of New Zealand, and imme- diately carried into action. Our quarrels with Held and the other chiefs of the North should be arranged as quickly as possible ; one settlements withdrawn from she North, and the settlers compensated for the losses oceasioned by the change ; and all our efforts concen- trated in the colonized= of Cook's Strait and the Middle Island.

While this decided change in our policy is made with respect tei the locality of our settlement, it is equally necessary that a change as- great should be promptly made and steadily enforced in our policy with respect to the disposal of the waste lands. We are happy to learn that Mr. Gladstone seems to be very thoroughly imbued with, the important truth, that a sound system in the disposal of the waste. lands must be the foundation of all successful colonization. It is not enough, however, that Government should itself act on correct princie. plea with respect to those lands which it may possess in New Zealand; that it should act on a fixed rule of not allowing them to be disposed of except by sale for an adequate price, and with a view of .expending, the proceeds in promoting emigration. It is also essential that it should peremptorily prohibit White men from purchasing waste lande: within the limits of a colony from any but itself, or those whom it mayplease to constitute as its agents for the purpose. Without such a provision it is really useless to act on sound principles in any pert of New Zealand. The good system of the Government in one part would be neutralized by the bad system which would infallibly, immediately, and extensively establish itself in any part in which White =ea should be allowed to make their own bargains with the Natives. It would be useless to destroy the trade of the land-shark in two-thirds of New Zealand, while the remaining third was left me open field for its unchecked and profitable exercise. Even with all the advantages of law and order in our regular settlements, it would be impossible to obtain a sufficient price for the waste lands within. them while large tracts at a little distance might be secured for a noe minal consideration. Land-shorking in New Zealand must be peremptorily extinguished, and rendered impossible for the future. With a view to this, the first step to be taken is, that the Crown, or rather the Imperial Legislature, should declare utterly invalid alL future purchases from the Natives, except those made by the Crown or under its authority. That clause of the Treaty of Waitangi which, secures the Crown the sole right of preemption from the Natives should be openly and steadily enforced.. But the experience of all new countries shows that it is necessary to prievieledite ritost stringent precautions against the violation of elm Government's rights of property in land. In the United States, im Canada, in New South Wales, the Government has reserved to itself the sole right of disposing of the waste lands; and no -valid title tet- such land can emanate except from its grant. And yet in all thee, countries, the enterprise of the speculator outstrips the march of re, gular settlement. Flocks and herds are driven beyond the limit; assigned by Government; buildings are erected; the forestis cleared;. and farms are gradually established in the unauthorized territory. A large influx of irregular occupation is permitted, and goes on. The, consequence is that when the Government determines on extending the limits of settlement, its surveyors find the best portions of the new territory occupied, and vested interests establiehed The squat- ters the=elves are numerous ; a kind of equity is pleaded in their behalf in consideration of the results of their labour and the cone nivance of the Government; and this squatting interest is found to have so extended its relations as to have created for itself a powerful sympathy in the rest of the community. In every instance, both in the United States and in our Colonies, this squatting interest hes been found too powerful to be disregarded; a compromise which ge- nerally amounts to something like an entire concession of the rights of the Crown and the interests of the public is effected.; and the sanction of law is given to the rights acquired in defiance of law and public policy. Now, in the case of New Zealand, it is of essential importance th* no such squatting interest should be allowed to take root in that large proportion of the country which it is proposed to leave to the Natives. It is important not merely for the permanent interests of colonization and for securing the maintenance and success of a sound system in the disposal of the waste lands, but it has a character of even more immediate necessity in the present state of our relations with the Natives, which renders it advisable to keep our settle., enta in the first instance as far as possible apart front the seats of-Natbre population. The policy which dictates that separation: will net be-

carried out by the mere withdrawal of our government, if we still allow our people to go and establish themselves as they choose among the Natives. In spite of the hostile feelings excited among the lat- ter, and the tenacity with which they insist on their titles to land, they have experienced enough of the immediate rrofits of European

intercourse, to make it very certain that they will soon be eager for its continuanoe. When they feud that the Government has no inclina- tion to purchase their land, they will let the White man have it cheap enough. They will tempt him by fair promises, kind acts, and good bargains. White men will be induced to settle among the Natives and acquire property under their laws. Then will follow the usual causes of dissension. Wars between the tribes will occur, and the White settler's property will be destroyed or taken by a hostile tribe. Or the vender will deny his bargain : the White man will be dispossessed, very possibly massacred. The feelings of the colonist community will be excited in behalf of the sufferers ; a cry will be raised that the British Government must not allow its White subjects to be robbed and massacred by another portion of its subjects while following a lawful occupation in British territory ; and in the end the Government will be obliged to interfere and renew hostilities with the Natives. Or, what is quite as possible, the aggression will com- mence on the side of lawless and rapacious settlers, who, wishing to get more than their right, will take advantage of their numbers and courage, and oppress their uncivilized hosts. Or, if their own strength be insufficient, will not find it difficult to excite hostilities between Native and Native, aid one party or the other, and make one tribe the instrument of its rapacious projects against another. These intestine disturbances and this oppression of the weaker race will excite the fears or sympathies of the prudent and humane ; and the interference of the Government will again be rendered necessary. Such mischiefs it appears to us that nothing will effectually pre- vent, short of the adoption of the most stringent precautions to render the separation of the two races complete in those portions of New Zealand which it is our policy to leave under the practical dominion of the Natives. Nor do we see any mode less stringent for attaining this end, than the adoption in New Zealand of a regulation similar to that which theEast India Company enforced till a very late period, in its territories, for the purpose of preventing the settlement of Whites among the Native population. In conformity with that precedent we think that it would be advisable as a general rule, to prevent the residence of White persons in any place beyond the limits sparked out for British settlement. It would not be desirable un- doubtedly to destroy the establishments of whalers or sawyers, which it has been found advantageous to form on some spots of those por- tions of the coast which would be left to the Natives ; still less would we wish to throw any obstacles in the way of establishing missions among the tribes. But these cases might be provided for by em- powering the Crown to grant licencea for residence in the Native territory in conformity with the precedent set by the East India Company. And in no ease should it be permitted to anyone to make any contract for the acquisition of land outside the limits of British settlement. The residing in any other part of New Zealand and purchasing therein any land or interest in land should be made punishable offences. The enforcement of these principles would no doubt find a serious obstacle in the existence of individual rights already acquired under grants from preceding Governors, and purchases effected under Captain Fitzroy's proclamations. If we wish to do any good in New Zealand, we are firmly convinced that the Government must begin by peremptorily setting aside every such grant or purchase. With respect to Captain Fitzroy's proclamations, no great amount of con- sideration can be claimed for those who chose to take advantage of proceedings so palpably contrary to the Governor's instructions, to the policy of our Government, and, we believe, to the very letter of the law. But still, as the primary offence and cause of mischief originated with the Governor, it would be right to take care that the purchasers were not losers by a proeeeding by which we would not allow them to be gainers. They would have no right to complain if they received back the purchase-money paid by them. The seine rule we would apply to those who would by the proposed regulation he prohibited from holding the lands which they may have acquired under grants in the Native territory. Their original acquisitions are undoubtedly not open to the objections which we have urged against those effected under Captain Fitzroy's proclamations. But there is a limit to the power and, consequently, to the duty of Go- vernment to execute its engagements in a country like New Zea- land. No man has a right to call upon the Government to main- tain a sanguinary and mischievous war, to incur the risk of a constant repetition of outrages and hostilities, and to mar a sound colonial policy, in order to put or keep him in possession of particular portions of land. Here, as in a hundred cases of every-day occurrence, indi- vidual convenience must be sacrificed to the public good ; the indivi- dual being contented with a compensation equivalent to the pecuniary worth of the sacrifice imposed on him. The compensation for the original purchase-money and subsequent outlay should in the case of such grantees be liberally awarded. However liberally, and to what- ever extent, we have no fear that the compensation thus allotted would be at all equal to the amount which must be wasted in war, were we to persist in maintaining possession of all the lands hitherto granted in the midst of powerful and turbulent tribes.

Having thus laid down at considerable, but, we trust, not unneces- sary length, the principles on which we believe that her Majesty's Government must proceed in order to establish a satisfactory state of things in New Zealand. we need not give any very detailed exposition of our reasons for the various measures which we should propose for adoption. The ground for many of them will be found in the pre- ceding statement of our views; and others seem to us sufficiently re- commended by the reasons stated in Mr. Wakefield's letter. Without entering into very minute details, it will be sufficient if at present we content ourselves with laying before you the main provisions of the scheme which we would recommend for adoption.

The principal of these provisions could only derive effect from an act of the Imperial Legislature. The first and most essential steps to be taken for the rectification of past evils, and the establishment of a good system for the future, could only be taken isyettch an authority. Nor do the circumstances of New Zealand admit of any delay or fur- ther delegation to a distant agent of any of the first steps of the reme-

dial process. The provisions which we shall now proceed to speed* should at once he embodied in the shape of a bill which ought speedily to be trought into Parliament.

The first provision of such an act should be for the formation of Municipal Districts of the nature suggested by Mr. Wakefield in none futurity with Sir Robert Peel's views. All the country beyond these

districts should be included in the general denomination of Outside Territoi y.

The laws of England should be in force in such Municipal Districts, as well as any by-laws or ordinances passed by the respective Muni-

cipal Courts, or by the General Legislature of the Colony. In the Outside Territory the laws of England or the Colony should have no force unless where it may be specially included in an act of the Imr penal or Colonial Legislature. Each Municipal District should have its Lieutenant appointed by the General Government, to be the head of its Executive, and also its local Legislative Body. These municipal bodies should elect Representatives to form the Representative branch of the General Legislature. The number of these Representatives should be in proportion to the population of the Municipal Districts.

The Legislative Bodies of the Municipal Districts should possess such powers as the General Legislature might from time to time think proper to determine. They should at first have all the poweis which

the General Legislature itself would have. These powers %you'd be subsequently restricted as the General Legislature should think pros per. 'f he tendency of things would be to a gradual absorption of mu. nicipal powers by the General Legislature. But that absorption should be general; whatever powers were left to one Municipal Legis- lature should be enjoyed by all. The General Legislature should have the power of altering the limits of the Municipal Districts, and dividing or enlarging them salt might think fit. It should also have the sole power of managing aline. latins with the Outside "ferritory, and of forming new Municipal ,Districts out of that territory.

It is not now necessary to discuss more minutely the provisions which we should en:gest for the determination of the elective frail: chise in the Municipal Districts, the period for which the Municipal

Legislature should be elected, and various other points which must be determined in such an act as that which we contemplate. In

like manner we would for the present postpone any specific Runes. tines as to the composition ot the General Legislature of the Colony, beyond specifying that there should be a Representative branch, and that the Representatives should be delegated by the Municipal Bodies. Into the difficult questions connected with the constitution of a second Chamber or Ihmse in that Legislature we will not now enter.

The General Legislature should have power to make sinews, and exercise all powers, not specifically withheld from it by the act.

We approve of Mr. Wakefield's suggestion that the colonial con- stitution thus created should be liable to revocation at the pleasure of the Imperial Parliament.

It now remains to determine the provisions to be adopted with respect to the Outside Territory. The main principle which should

here guide legislation should be, the exclusion of English law and

European settlement from the district. The injustice and impolicy of imposing on these rude tribes, merely because they have acknow- ledged her Majesty's sovereignty, all the obligations and restraints of a law repugnant to their habits, and incomprehensible by their under- standings, are so obvious, that those who have deemed it right to assert a theoretical uniformity of law throughout the whole of New Zealand, have had recourse to the expedient of establishing a species of exceptional code in favour of the Native race. The effe et of this double system of law in the same district has been to create um. certainty, to perpetuate separation, and to weaken the force of Native laws and authorities without imposing the effectual control of our own. It would he far better in our judgment, not to pretend to ex, tend our laws over a race unprepared to receive them with advantage, Whatever Natives may be found within the pale of the Municipal Districts we should subject to the laws by which the White inhabitants ate ruled. No distinction should be recognized between different inhabitants of the same territory. The Natives living among British colonists should share, without any exception, all their rights and franchises, while at the same time they should be in all respects subject to the same laws. In the Outside Territory, on the contrary, we would leave the Native and the licensed settler subject to Native laws and Native rule. As the sphere of our Municipal Districts shall be enlarged by the formation of new Districts or the extension

of th-se &et, fom med, additional bodies of Natives would giadually become subjected to British law. But this would not be wad they had become familiarized with its principles, and had learned to est& mate the advantages of ins protective influences. The desire of becoming members of a civilized and orderly community would, in all probability, act so strongly on the more intelligent Native, as to

induce them to court the extension of our rule. And thus, by a sure and constant process, we should effect the complete and voluntary amalgamation of the races.

In tl.e Outside Territory we would abolish all semblance of juris- diction. It would be advisable to keep among the various tribes the control of some Agent or Resident, who might watch their movement* and exercise a superintendence over their condition. The mischievous name and office of Protector should be at once abolished. And the whole of our relations with the Outside Territory should be placed under the Governor and General Legislature of the Colony.

The act, after declaring that no laws in force in the colony should have any effect or force in the Outside Territory, except when

specially named, should go on to provide that it should be a misde- meanour for any person not an aboriginal Native of New Zealand to make any contract for land therein : that all such contracts should be utterly void: and that it should also be a misdemeanour for any White person to reside within the Outside Territory without special licence from the Governor and Council of the Colony. It should declare Captain Fitzroy's proclamations and all purchases wider them

null and void : and that the purchasers should receive back the amount of their purchase-money, whether paid to the Government or the Natives. Another clause should declare void all grants in the Outside Territory : the grantees receiving full compensation for all outlay in respect thereof.

These are the main provisions which we would suggest for regu- lating the general management of our settlements and the Outside Territory. It should, in conformity with Sir Robert Peel's expressed view, be left to the General Legislature to determine the seat of its residence.

But questions of considerable practical importance arise when we come to determine, as the act must determine, the number and limits of the Municipal Districts to be at first formed. 'We append to this a note by Mr. Wakefield on the boundaries proposed by him for these districts, together with a coloured map in which they are marked and numbered.

In this matter we entirely concur with Mr. Wakefield as to the districts numbered 1, 2, and 3; except that -we would propose that the Southern or Stewart's Island be included in No. 1. The whole of the Middle and Stewart's Islands would thus be formed into three districts. These districts are no doubt apparently very extensive in proportion to the actual settlements therein ; and inconveniences might possibly arise hereafter from the formation of future settlements which it might be inconvenient to unite under the same Municipal Government. But the pastoral character which all these settlements will, in all probability, at once assume, renders it advisable that the settlers should have from the first, ample room for the spreading of their flocks and herds within the limits of their own districts. A still more weighty reason is derived from the paucity of Natives in these districts, and the absence of any difficulties from the Treaty of Waitangi. It seems indispensable that no temptations should be afforded to Native tribes to migrate into these Islands, in the hope of there maintaining an independent existence. 'We think it advisable, therefore, that no Outside Territory should ever be established in these Islands ; but that the whole of them should be included within the three districts marked out, leaving it to the General Government to guard against any inconveniences that may hereafter arise from their too great extent, by the power which it will always have of sub- dividing the districts, and altering their boundaries. The act should specifically declare that the Treaty of Waitangi has no force in the Middle and Stewart's Islands.

'We agree to the boundaries assigned by Mr. Wakefield to the two districts numbered 4 and 5. It is with some regret that we consent to place our settlements at Wanganui in the Outside Territory, and to the consequent abandonment of them. But we are of opinion that the necessity of leaving to the numerous Natives of the interior a free access to the sea by their natural highway, the Wanganui river, and the probability of constant disputes for the site of the present settle- ments, render it advisable that we should at present abandon those email establishments, compensating the settlers for their land and outlay by money and grants in the Municipal Districts.

On the same principles which have led us to recommend this sacri- fice, we are induced to doubt the policy of forming any such districts in the North as those marked 6 and 7 in Mr. Wakefield's map. The motives of the Company may perhaps be doubted when it recom- mends the entire abandonment of those settlements which have hitherto occupied a position of injurious rivalry to our own. Objec- tions may naturally be felt to abandoning to Native and hostile tribes the ancient settlement at the Bay of Islands, and the first seat of British Government in New Zealand at Auckland. But the attempt to maintain settlements at spots so situated in the very heart of the most numerous and warlike tribes of New Zealand, seems to us so inconsistent with that policy of separating the two races for a while, which we deem to be of paramount moment, that we cannot suggest so wide a deviation from our own views of sound policy. It must be recollected that Kororarika no longer exists ; that it has been de- stroyed by Reki ; that it never can be considered in safety, unless its former assailants are exterminated ; and that it will always be sub- ject to the attacks of a numerous and warlike foe. The settlement of Aucklend no doubt still exists. But our advices give us reason to be- lieve that it has been abandoned by at least one half of its original inhabitants. There may have been some slight progress made in the cultivation of the surrounding territory ; there may be some hopes of lucrative and useful enterprise in the mineral resources of its neigh- bourhood. But it must be recollected that the position of Auckland is even more precarious than that of Kororarika. It lies in the imme- diate vicinity of the Waikatos and other powerful tribes, whose armed warriors, to the number of 4,000, were at a day's notice assembled by Captain Fitzroy within sight of its houses. The meeting, then invited for friendly purposes, may ere long be renewed for other objects. Nothing, indeed, can long guard Auckland against the caprices or cupidity of its powerful neighbours, except the constant presence of a large military force. Even such a force would not, in all probability, for any long time retain the Natives in obedience without being obliged to exhibit its powers of repression in sanguinary conflicts. And if by such means security could be enjoyed under the protection of our guns, cultivation would be confined within their range. On the whole it would seem that the cost and mischief of maintaining this settlement in such a manner would far exceed that of abandoning it for the present, and compensating the existing proprietors. It has been suggested that it might be advisable, with a view to our general interests in the Pacific and the China Seas, to take advantage of some one of the fine harbours in the Northern extremity of New Zealand, for the formation of a great naval and military position. The idea is one well worthy of the consideration of our Government. But it is clear that if such an establishment be projected, it should be made in the position most suited to its real purpose, without any reference to the choice already made of a seat of government for the Colony. It is doubtful whether a much more eligible situation for the pur- pose than that of Auckland may not be found. At any rate, this is a project which it would be premature to take any steps for carrying into effect without much fuller information than is now possessed. It would seem to us best to leave it entirely, and in the meantime to include in the Outside Territory the whole of the Northern Island, with the exception of the Wellington and New Plymouth districts. We have now gone through the main provisions of a legislative measure for placing the affairs of New Zealand on a satisfactory basis. It would perhaps be advisable that these suggestions should be brought under Mr. Gladstone's attention, so that we may know whether he would be inclined to adopt them, or how far he might choose to accept them with modifications, before we enter into any description of the machinery which it would be necessary to create for the purpose of carrying into execution an act in conformity with our views. Mr. Gladstone has been good enough to say that it is open to us to propose any practical arrangement that we might deem most suitable, even though it should have been previously rejected by her Majesty's Government. This permission extends even to a renewal of our last year's proposal of investing the Company with the govern- ment of New Zealand, under a proprietary charter. If we should find Mr. Gladstone now inclined to assent to such a course, we are still of opinion that it would be one in every way the most eligible. And it would at once provide a very efficient machinery for bringing the other portions of the new system into operation. If, however, Mr. Gladstone should not be prepared to adopt this large scheme, he might be inclined to consider whether it would not be advisable to put this Company avowedly in the position in which we believe that it was the intention of her Majesty's Government virtually to place us at the time when Lord John Russell entered into the agreement with us and gave us our first charter. He might deem it expedient to intrust us with the entire business of colonizing New Zealand ; and might, with that view, make over to us the whole rights of the Crown in the soil of New Zealand. It would of course be part of such an arrangement that we should be bound to expend a certain portion of the proceeds of our land-sales in emigration, and another portion for other public purposes incidental to colonization. Our profits might with propriety be limited to a reasonable com- mission on our land-sales, and we might be precluded from all other speculations. The expense of defraying the requisite compensations- might also be imposed on us. These are conditions on which WO might safely and usefully accept such powers under a new charter, concurrently with such institutions for the free self-government of the colony, and relations with the Natives, as we have indicated above) and without which we must frankly say that we can see but little security for any enterprise in New Zealand. On such a footing this Company might really become an useful instrument of colonization,. And we own that unless we can be turned to such account we can- see but little utility to the public in our existence being prolonged ; but think it would be far better that Government should on just terms put an end to our operations, and take on itself the whole work of colonizing New Zealand. In the event of Mr. Gladstone's inclining to the course of confining the functions of this Company to the specific objects of effecting emigration and disposing of the waste lands, instead of intrusting us with the general powers of government, it would be necessary to invest some individual specially sent from this country with the large powers which would be requisite for bringing the new institu■- tioias of the colony into effective action. We trust that we shall not be suspected of intimating any distrust of Captain Grey in suggesting that such powers should be intrusted rather to a Special Commissioner than to the Governor of New Zealand. We have no ground of objection to Captain Grey being selected for the performance of this task, except the one fact of his not being in England and never having been here since the debates of last year. We think it essential that the task of giving the first impulse to new institutions should be intrusted to one who is fully cognizant of the circumstances, and fully impressed with the spirit, in which they originate. We think it essential that the instructions which are really to guide and animate the agent in such a task should not be given in the formal shape of despatches 'written by successive Secretaries of State to a distant officer personally un- known to those who direct him ; but that his course should be im- pressed on him by full and frequent personal communications which shall leave on the subordinate no doubt as to the spirit and intentions- of his principal, and enable the latter to satisfy every doubt and clear up every misapprehension that might interfere with the most efficient realization of his intentions.

It would be the business of such a Commissioner to settle the questions of immediate difficulty, which the Company has thought it more immediately its duty recently to bring under Mr. Gladstone's notice. With respect to Captain Fitzroy's unsatisfactory grant in the Nelson settlement there seems to be little difficulty. It is not the grant which Lord Stanley undertook that we should have, and we do not suppose that Mr. Gladstone can make any difficulty about ful- filling Lord Stanley's engagement with us. Instantly to bring all such questions to a satisfactory close would be the first business of a Commissioner invested with the powers which we have indicated. When her Majesty's Government, or rather Parliament, shall have solemnly notified that the Treaty of Waitangi has no force in the Middle Island, no difficulty can arise from Native claims at Nelson or Otago ; and a complete grant in both places might forthwith be made. With regard to the Municipal Districts of Wellington and New Ply- mouth, the first duty of the proposed Commissioner would be to mark out such lands in each as are still the property of Natives. Let it then be notified to the Natives and the 'Whites, in conformity with the arrangement of August last, that the Crown waives its preemptive rights, at any rate within those districts, in favour of the Company. And no difficulty will then arise from Native claims in those dis- tricts. A difficulty of a somewhat more complicated nature is presented by the grants which Captain Fitzroy has actually made to Euro- peans of some of the most valuable portions of the town of Welling- ton. We do not think that it would be difficult to convince /&-. Gladstone that these are grants against which he ought, on every consideration of justice and policy, to set his face. There never was a case of more complete land-sharking than that exhibited in the purchases of Messrs. Scott and the other grantees. With no inten- tion of embarking their persons or capital in the work of colonization, they appear to have simply speculated on the probability that New Zealand would hereafter be settled by the labours of others ; and to have taken means prospectively to acquire a share of the profits to be mated by the future colonists. For the paltry considerations which satisfied the ignorant Native, they acquired a pretended title to lands in a spot which they had the acuteness to foresee would become the site of an important settlement. On the land so acquired they never expended a farthing of money or an hour's labour ; but let their claim lie dormant, and their property unreclaimed, until others gave it a value. The settlers sent out by the Company brought themselves, their families, and their capital to the spot. They cleared the forest, established a flourishing town on its site, and gave a value to the waste. When they have done all this, the unknown and idle claimant steps forth and asserts his pretensions, not to that which he affected to purchase, but to that which others have rendered a valu- able property. Claim of indefeasible legal right these persons have none. Purchases such as theirs have always been held invalid by our law and that of every civilized country. They have no claim but that which the equity of Government may admit and establish by the grant of a legal title. Now, which of these two classes of claim- ants is really entitled to a legal title from the equity of Government ? The speculating land-shark or the bond fide settler ? He whose exer- tions were limited to an illusory bargain with the savage, or those who covered the barren spot with buildings, and made it part of a thriving settlement ? We say that the first has no claim, the second every claim to the consideration of a just Government. At least every claim of the former will be satisfied by a return of his paltry outlay. Give him back his keg of gunpowder, or whatever other lure he held out to the passions of the savage : give him this, and whatever interest he may claim on such principal : and he will have no right to complain. But the land, with all its buildings, with all the fruits of the labour invested in it, with all its advantages of posi- tion, is morally the right of the individual and the body whose well- directed and costly exertions have given it its present worth.

We are not now pleading for our own pecuniary interests, nor, in- deed, for those of the colonists who purchased from us. Our rights in respect of such questions between the Company and European com- petitors are guaranteed by express stipulations in our Agreement with Lord John Russell ; and, however we may have been deprived of the benefit of some portion of that arrangement on the ground of its al- leged inconsistency with the Treaty of Waitangi, we have never yet heard an argument against the right which, as against any but Na- tives, is secured to us by its express promise of preference. But the question of pecuniary interest is put out of controversy by Mr. Glad- stone's proposal of full compensation to our vendees in case of their being dispossessed. There can be no doubt, therefore, of the perfect sincerity and disinterestedness with which we contend that Mr. Scott and his associates should not be allowed to enjoy the reward of specu- lations which no wise Government could do otherwise than most rigorously discourage. It is in the interest of every principle that should guide our colonization and disposal of waste lands that we would implore Mr. Gladstone not to allow the success of these land- sharks to exhibit a premium to land-sharking, of which no mere enun- ciation of sound principles can counteract the baneful effects. Let the original land-sharks of New Zealand be seen in possession of this glittering prize, and no laws will counteract the temptation to run the risk of violating them for the chances of such a lottery. You may prohibit purchases from the Natives in the Outside Territory ; but, if you let Mr. Scott keep his grant, the land-shark will not hesi- tate to risk a few hatchets or barrels of rum in purchasing the choicest -spots around the sites marked out by nature for some future town or fort, trusting that the chapter of accidents may hereafter favour him with a weak or vindictive Governor, who, unable to resist his solicita- tions, or desirous of thwarting legitimate enterprise, may set aside his instructions, bind the Crown by an irrevocable grant, and so give the speculator at least one ample prize for his paltry venture in the specu- lation.

We say, then, that it is a matter of public interest that the grants in question should be annulled. We suspect that her Majesty's Go- vernment will find themselves fettered by no legal obligations in doing real justice in this matter. Captain Fitzroy's grants are obviously founded on so utter an oblivion of the power vested in him by Or- dinances, so palpable a confusion of Mr. Spain's distinct offices of Commissioner and Arbitrator, that we have little doubt that the legal advisers of the Crown would hold the grant to be founded on misin- formation, and consequently to be void. But, if the grant should be held legally valid, this is a case in which, for great considerations of public policy, the legislative power should be called in to remedy the Governor's misconduct by annulling his mischievous acts, and so doing right to the public as well as to the interested parties. In closing this Report we must again repeat our opinion that the suggestions which we have made, if they have the good fortune to meet with the approbation of the Court, should without delay be brought under the notice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. It is desirable that the Company should lose no time in ascertaining how it stands ; and Mr. Gladstone's decision on the points which we have brought before you will show on what basis we can hope to co- operate with the Government in the colonization of New Zealand.

Whatever opinions he may have formed, we have reason to believe that he has great and just ends in view, and that he will not shrink from vigorous and bold exertions for the purpose of attaining them. We ourselves, therefore, have not shrunk from suggesting for prompt adoption measures of a vigorous and unusual character. The fortunes of the Colony can never be retrieved by tardiness or feebleness in the remedies to be applied to the results of long mismanagemnt. H. A. AGLIONBY, Chairman. Committee-Room, let April 1846.

(Annexed to No. 6.) Explanation of the Map.

There are very few Natives resident within Nos. 1, 2, 3; the boundaries between them are therefore determined by points of latitude and longitude, easily ascertained and understood by civilized men, and invariable. The boundary between No. 1 and No. 2 is the parallel of South latitude 44 deg. from the sea on the East coast inland as far as the meridian of longitude 171 deg. East of Greenwich ; thence the said meridian of longi- tude as far North as the parallel of South latitude 43 deg. 20 min.; and thence the last mentioned parallel of latitude until it reaches the sea on the West coast. The boundary between No. 2 and No. 3 is the parallel of South latitude 42 deg. 30 min. from the sea on the East coast inland as far as the meri- dian of longitude 172 deg. East of Greenwich; thence the said meridian of longitude as far North as the parallel of South latitude 42 deg. ; and thence the last-mentioned parallel of latitude until it reaches the sea on the West coast.

The Northern boundary of No. 4 is the parallel of South latitude 40 deg. from the sea on the East coast inland as far as the highest ridge of a range of mountains called Rua Hine ; thence a straight line to the nearest waters that fall into the Rangitikei river ; and thence the course of the said Ran- gitikei river down to its mouth in Cook's Strait. Here a parallel of latitude is adopted on the Eastern side of the moun- tain range, because it has scarcely any resident Natives ; but on the Western side, where they are more numerous, a river is adopted as more intelligible to them.

The Southern boundary of No. 5 is the parallel of latitude which passes over the summit of Mount Egmont, from the sea on the West coast inland as far as the meridian of longitude 175 deg. East of Greenwich ; then along the said meridian of longitude as far North as the river or stream which falls into the sea nearest to the South side of the mouth of the River Mokau, (or, if the said river or stream do not cross the said meridian of longitude as far as the point on the said meridian of longitude nearest to the waters of the said river or stream,) and then along the course of the said river or stream until it reaches the sea on the West coast.

The Southern boundary of No. 6 is the River Waikato, from its mouth on the West coast as far as its junction with the River Waipa ; thence a straight line in the parallel of latitude which passes over the said junction as far East as the East bank of the Piako river ; thence a straight line to the point where a stream called Wai.rere or Wai-riri falls into the Waiho or Thames river ; thence along the said stream to its most Northerly source ; thence a straight line to the nearest source of a stream which falls into the sea between Port Tauranga and Mercury Bay ; and along the last- mentioned stream to its mouth.

The boundary between No. 6 and No. 7 is a straight line from Cape Papai Utu or Bream-tail, on the East coast, to the nearest waters which fall into the Otumatea river ; and then the said river until it reaches the sea in Kaipara Harbour on the West coast.

No. 7.

Lord Lyttelton to the Secretary of the Company.

Downing Street, 30th April 1846. SIR—I am directed by Mr. Secretary Gladstone to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2nd instant, covering a Report to the Court of Directors of the New Zealand Company from a Committee of that body ; which Report has been adopted by the Directors, and is, therefore, to be regarded as expressing the sentiments of the Company in regard to the affairs of which it treats.

Before entering upon the principal subject-matter, I am to advert to two misapprehensions which appear to have occurred with respect to the meaning of Mr. Secretary Gladstone, in his recent communica- tions with the Company. The Report speaks of "Mr. Gladstone's very handsome permission" to the Company "to consider itself per- fectly unfettered in the suggestion of any measures which may appear to it to be the best that can be constructed on the basis thus assumed by it." But Mr. Secretary Gladstone is not aware of having deserved the credit thus accorded to him, or of having granted the Company permission to recommend anything which the Company would not have been fully entitled to recommend without any reference to his choice. He conceives that he has done no more than was strictly his duty, no more, indeed, than would have been owing in courtesy to any competent and credible person, in giving expression to the senti- ment that he was desirous of receiving from the Company the freest communication of its views, with regard to the interests of the colony of New Zealand. Again, towards the close of the Report it is stated., with reference to the grants recently passed to Mr. Scott and others, at Wellington, that "the question of pecuniary interest" is put out of controversy by Mr. Gladstone's proposal of full compensation to "the vendees of the Company in case of their being dispossessed." Mr. Gladstone is not aware that he has made any proposal with respect to these vendees. He found that it was not open to him to arrive at any decisive issue with regard to their case by means of the information he had received from the colony, or of the communications of the Com- pany. To have expressed the willingness of her Majesty's Govern- ment to grant compensation if a just claim to it should be proved, would have been saying too little and too much ; too little, because it would not really have advanced the question in the smallest degree towards a settlement ; too much, because vague intimations of that kind obtruded prematurely into the discussion of a given subject, have a natural tendency to excite in the minds of parties expecta- tions reaching far beyond their verbal and proper meaning.

Passing on from these preliminary explanations, I am desired to observe to you, that as the Report combines together a great number of propositions upon subjects connected, indeed, but yet highly diver- sified, and suggests a particular mode of proceeding as the means of giving effect to these propositions token as a whole, so in the reply which I now address to you by Mr. Gladstone's directions, I am to request that you will consider her Majesty's Government by no means as pronouncing an opinion upon the merits of each of these sugges- tions taken separately. As the Company recommends that an act of Parliament should immediately be passed for the purpose of embody- ing their entire purport in the law of the land, it is to the question thus raised, namely, the question of their adoption immediately with- out exception, and in the form of a bill for the sanction of Parliament, that Mr. Gladstone has now to reply. His reply, on the part of her Majesty's Government, to this question, must be without doubt or hesitation in the negative. But he is most anxious that the point really at issue should be apprehended by the Company precisely as it is conceived by her Majesty's Government : for the various recom- mendations contained in the Report appear to her Majesty's Govern- ment to be of very various weight and merit. The spirit of many of them is in conformity with the general views of the Government : there are others to which in different degrees they would hesitate or refuse to assent : but the one observation that applies to most of them when taken separately, and to all of them when combined together as a single and comprehensive project, is this, that her Majesty's Go- vernment are not as yet in a condition to arrive at a conclusive judg- ment upon them. The Company are aware that at the period of the appointment of Captain Grey to the Lieutenant-Governorship of New Zealand, her Majesty's Government found itself to be very imperfectly supplied with information respecting the complicated affairs of that colony. Whatever defect they then felt has not since been supplied. Her Majesty's Government are in receipt of despatches announcing the arrival of Lieutenant-Governor Grey, and extending only a few days beyond that event. They, however, convey his first impressions with respect to the most urgent of the many questions to which he was called upon to addtess himself, namely, the reestablishment of per- manent tranquillity, and of the public credit and finances of the colony. But his attention has been directed by despatches from Lord Stanley, of which he then was or would shortly after be in receipt, to other matters of which the Report now before Mr. Gladstone treats largely, concerning the institutions of New Zealand, the relations of the settlers to the Natives, and the interests of the New Zealand Company. Even were Mr. Gladstone in no immediate or very early expectation of such intelligence from Lieutenant-Governor Grey, as is likely,to bear materially on the consideration of these important sub- jects, he would find it necessary to postpone, until after the receipt of that intelligence, the attempt to deal comprehensively and definitively with the questions raised in the Report. But, considering that on the contrary, he is in expectation of the early arrival of communica- tions of this description, he is the more confirmed in the conviction of that necessity. He does not, indeed, at all enter upon the question, whether he is precluded at the present. moment from the considera- tion, with a view to immediate and final decision, of each and every part of the extended scheme submitted to him by the Company ; but having before him that scheme as a whole, and his position at the moment being such as I have described it, he anticipates that the Directors will receive with no sentiment of surprise the intimation that he must postpone until a more favourable, and, as he hopes, an early opportunity, the attempt to weigh, under his official responsi- bility, the several suggestions contained in the Report upon their respective merits ; and he has no fear of being misunderstood as implying an universal disapproval of the views contained in the Report, when he desires me to apprize you, with regard to it as a whole, that her Majesty's Government are neither prepared to assent to it, nor to entertain it.

If her Majesty's Government had judged that the period had arrived when they would be prepared to approach the consideration of the various exigencies of the affairs of New Zealand, with a view to ,decision upon them, then they would by no means seek, by alleging the impossibility of universal assent, to escape the duty of framing their own measures either from the materials afforded by the sugges- tions of the Company, or from other materials, as the case might be, for the, improvement of the condition of that colony. But it would manifestly be unwise and improper for her Majesty's Government to solicit the opinion of Parliament, or otherwise to assume the initiative with respect to any plan for meeting even a portion of the complicated • case before them, until they were conscious that they were either in the fullest possible, or at least in adequate, possession of the meank of judgment. At present they have no such sufficiency of material for the comprehensive answer of the question. Yet they by no means seek to preclude the discussion of it even at the present time, and they are still most willing to receive, either from the Company orfrom others, suggestions which the parties tendering them may consider to be useful, and which it will be the duty of her Majesty's Government to adopt, to reject, or to postpone, according as they may find cause to approve or to disapprove them, or lastly to judge that they are not Iripe for examination with a view to settlement.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

LYTTELTON.

T. C. Harington, Esq.

No. 8.

The Secretary of the Company to Mr. Gladstone.

New Zealand House, 7th May 1846.

ern—The Directors of the New Zealand Company do themselves the honour to acknowledge the receipt of Lord Lyttelton's letter of 'the 80th of April. They have to thank you for the careful considera- tion which they are aware that you have given to the important matters submitted by them on the 2nd ultimo, and the communica- tion of the decision of her Majesty's Government thereon. But at the same time they instruct me to add, they cannot but feel that the adoption of similar views on their own part would involve a delay, said include them in a responsibility, which they are extremely un- willing to encounter, and in the propriety of which they find it impos- sible for them to acquiesce. In order not merely to promote the eventual prosperity- of New Zealand, but to preserve what has been already effected in its coloniza- tion, to prevent destruction of all that has been heretofore expended upon it, to protect the properties and lives of the colonists, and per- haps to insure the continued existence of the colony which has been planted, it is, in the belief of the Directors, a matter of the utmost importance that no further time should be lost in putting an end to the destructive warfare which is subsisting between the races, in ad- justing the relations between the settlers and the Natives, in deciding upon the institutions to be established, and in thereby affording op- portunity for the early and effective colonization of those parts of the country which are now lying waste. For the attainment of these objects, it appears to them that the simplest and most direct course is to carry into effect, by the authority of Parliament, the general intentions, with regard to the future insti- tutions, which were announced by her Majesty's Government in the course of the debates of last session, together with such a regulation of the relations between the colonists and the Natives as has been since suggested by the Directors, and which is rendered necessary by the continuance and extension of a most unhappy state of collision. The measures necessary for these ends, it further appears to them, are precisely those on which a sound decision is most likely to be made by persons here, whom the inquiries and discussions of the last five years have rendered conversant with the past history and present Mate of New Zealand. Little additional light, they apprehend, is likely to be thrown upon these points by the first impressions of a new Governor, who, however able and conscientious, must Tabour under the double disadvantage of coming to the investigation of them with no practical acquaintanee with the colony, and of having his mind most anxiously occupied with the conduct of hostilities and negotiations in that portion of the islands which is most distant from the seats of actual colonization. And they consider, therefore, that whatever might be the advantage of being in possession of Governor Grey's views, this would be far more than countervailed by the evils of the delay, • which must prolong the suspense of the colonists, continue to prevent all colonizing operations in this country, and entail upon the Company a mere waste of their own resources, and of the funds which are to be advanced to them by her Majesty's Government.

For the reasons thus detailed, —the necessity for Parliamentary interference, —the ability of persons in England to decide on the questions which, and which alone, are of fundamental importance,— the absence of any necessity for awaiting the opinions of the new Governor,—and the fatal consequences of delay,—the Directors have come to the conclusion, that, with all gratitude for the attentive con- sideration which you have given to the subject, and without any abatement of their confidence in the intentions of her Majesty's Government, it is their duty not to become parties to such a postpone- ment as would preclude Parliament from taking advantage of the present session to apply an efficient remedy to the evils under which New Zealand is suffering. And they propose, accordingly, to bring the present state of that colony under the notice-of Parliament with the least possible delay.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

T. C. 31AR/NGTON. The Right /ion. W. E. Gladstone, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sur., Ste., Sze.

No. 9.

The Secretary of the Company to Mr. Gladstone.

New Zealand House, 7th May 1846.

(Enclosing the Petition from the Southern Settlements, No. 10.) No. 10.

(Enclosed in No. 9.)

Petition to Parliament from the-Inhabitants of the Southern Settlements # New Zealand.

[It has been found necessary to abbreviate the statements ofthe original Petition in parts, to bring it within the limits of the present publication: the connecting lines, substituted for the longer passages ornitted,are printed within brackets. The original had also very elaborate marginal notes of classification and reference to authorities.] "To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled,

"The humble Petition of the undersigned Inhabitants of the Settle- ments of Wellington, Nelson, New Plymouth, and Wanganui, in the Co- lony of New Zealand, showeth- " That it is with sincere regret your petitioners feel themselves under the necessity of anxiously soliciting the attention of your Honourable House to the state of affairs in this colony. - " That those affitirs are in such a condition, that, if not speedily re- medied, the result must be general ruin. That the Colonial treasury is encumbered with debt; the revenue rapidly diminishing ; the currency deranged and vitiated. That all commercial and agricultural operations axe checked and impeded, suspended or abandoned; and the colonists re- duced in numbers and in wealth. That public confidence in the Local Government is utterly destroyed ; that there exists no adequate security for property or life ; and that the European and Native races of the country are on the verge of warfare, which in one quarter has actually and disastrously commenced, and which -the slightest accident or impru- dence may render as general as it would certainly be sanguinary.

"That, in the opinion of your petitioners, the immediate causes of this lamentable state of things are to be found in the erroneous policy adopted and pursued by the present Local Government.

"That, in support of this opinion, your petitioners beg respectfully to lay before your Honourable House the following statement of facts; trusting confidently to the wisdom and justice of your Honourable House to discover a remedy for the existing cilia, and, to cause its immedia.te.ap- plication-" Financial Measures.

" The ruinous condition of the finances is attributable to several caused. Among these are the inadequacy of the retrenchments in public expendi- ture effected by the present Government, and its postponement of them to so late a period ; the misappropriation of the revenue actually raised; and the abandonment or destruction of the best means of recruiting it." [On assuming the Government of New Zealand, Captain Fitzroy found the finances embarrassed by the extravagance of his predecessors; but be at once adopted the old establishments and the old scale of expenditure. So far from retrenching, he, in the very first session, proposed additions to various departments, such as the travelling expenses of the Bishop ; the Treasury, in which he had been instructed from home to.effect reductions.; the Auckland public works and survey department,—thereby compelling the Southern settlers, who had already paid for their own surveys and roads, to provide roads and surveys for the purchasers of the Government lands in the North ; and above all, the Protectorate of the Aborigines, " although recent events have made it notorious that the only class re- quiring protection are the Europeans themselves."] " The-47th clause of the Royal Instructions declares that the costs of surveys shall be defrayed out of the Crown Land Fund of the colony ; as in all equity they should be. And the instructions of several Secretaries of State with equal justice repeatedly direct that the expense of the Pro- tectorate shall fall upon the same fund. But the very possibility of such a fund accruing has been destroyed by another of Captain Fitireey's mea- sures."

Waste Lands.

[The Australian Waste Lands Act of 1842 defines waste lands of the Crown to be, such lands "as are or shall hereafter be vested in her Ma- jesty." Captain Hobson, followed by Captain Fitzroy, taking advantage of the ambiguity of the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi,—notwithstand- ing that "actual use and enjoyment" are clearly pointed out in the Charter of the Colony, and the Instructions under the Royal Sign-manual, as alone establishing in the Natives a right to property in land,—came to the conclusion that the waste lands vested in the Aborigines themselvea; thereby affording opportunity for removing the vast tracts of uninhabited land in New Zealand from the operation of the Australian Waste Lando Act, on the pretence that they did not vest in her Majesty until purchased by the Government. Many of the ill consequences, however, were pre- vented by the adoption of the principle of the Queen's right of preemption, proclaimed by Captain Hobson in 1840, acknowledged by the Natives in the Treaty of Waitangi, and ordained by an Act of the Local Legislature in June 1841. But Captain Fitzroy, by a proclamation- dated 26th March 1844, declared even the Queen's right of preemption to be waived, and permitted the sale of public lands by the Natives as formerly, on payment by the purchasers of a fee of 10s. an acre to:Government. This proclama- tion was confirmed by a second, on the 5th of October but only five days after (October 10th) Captain Fitzroy, by a third proclamation,—disregard- ing even Lord Stanley's injunotion to keep in mind the attainment of two objects, a fund for emigration and the maintenance of the price of land guaranteed by the Waste Latids Act,—swept away all fees whatever, ex- cept one of a penny per acre to be paid at the issuing of the grant ; an almost nominal sum, apparently preserved to avoid the clause of the Act which declares wholly gratuitous grants to be null tend void. By this sudden and sweeping measure, not only are the evils before alluded to produced, but particular injustice has been done to the Inhabitants of the Southern settlements. "For all the engagements between the New Zea- land Company and her Majesty's Government, and all those between the Company and purchasers from them, were founded upon the distinct un- derstanding and secure faith that no waste lands in New Zealand should be sold at a lower than the uniform upset price of V. per acre. But all the lands purchased from the Company at the rate of from 20s. to 30e. per titre, are incalculably diminished in value by this reestablishment of land-jobbing, and of the power of purchasing from the Natives."]

"In so summary a way has an Act been got rid of, which, in the words of Lord Stanley, 'had passed into law with scarcely a dissentient voice in the House of Parliament,' and a system discarded which the same noble Lord declared in the same despatch it was impossible that any authority but that of Parliament should change.' " Land &Hp.

"The possibility of a fund from unbought waste lands thus destroyed, Fiteroy, by another measure, abandoned that derivable from lands itetually in the possession of Government. The Commissioners having awarded tracts in various parts of the country to different claimants, his Ekcellenoy, by proclamation, offered them in exchange an equivalent out Of Government lands near Auckland. Orders for the equivalent number ef titres were given to those who accepted the offer ;, these orders being [ft some instances for only a few roods, and] made reoeivable at the Trea- Suryin payment for lands to the specified meant, to be bought at Govern. /bent sales. • • • "The excessive quantity of land thus thrown into the market at once, and the fact that the land-claims, owing to the delay in settling them, had to a considerable extent been mortgaged, reduced the value of the scrip and of the land itself to such a degree, that the former is currently reported to have been sold at the price of 2s., and in some cases even of a pot of beer per acre. All sale of Government land was thus put an end to ; no fund for the introduction of labour or Other public objects has been derived even from the great quantities sold ; till chance of regular colonization is, with respect to them, destroyed. They remain in the hands of persons who cannot sell, and have no in- cement to cultivate them."

Excessive Grants.

"Captain Fitzroy has still further diminished the inducement to pur_ tillage land, by issuingsgrants greatlyin excess of the established maximum of 2;560 acres. 'When Captain Hobson repealed the previous ordinances edopting this truahrtinn, Lord Stanley, in an elaborate despatch of 10th December 1842, which communicated the disallowance of the repealing ordinance, declared the limitation to this maximum to be of the greatest importance, 'as a direct and wholesome check upon the undue acquisition of land in new colonies, the evils attendant on which had been sufficiently Established by experience to entitle him to assume them as admitted. Tet such grants, to the amount of 10,000 or 12,000 acres, have been issued by Captain Fitzroy, and, in some cases, to individuals whose relations to Goverement appear to make the grants still more impolitic and incorrect.

"Such are some of Captain Fitzroy's measures indirectly affecting the &lances. The direct ones may now be considered."

Duties and Taxes.

"His first alteration of the tariff (in June 1844) was by taking off five of the ten per cent ad valorem duty previously ex-feting on all foreign commodities, and imposing a duty of five per cent on all British and Co- lonial manufactures and produerions. By this measure he put Great !chain on the same footing as foreign countries, and taxed some of the first necessaries of life, even food and clothing, for both which New Zea- land was then mainly dependent on England, or the neighbouring colo- nies; flour especially being almost wholly obtained from abroad. But be- fore the effect of this experiment could be fully seen, in September 1844, few petitioners were startled with the intelligence that customs-duties Were entirely abolished, and all the ports of New Zealand declared free. This sweeping measure at once relinquished all the revenue previously de- rived from the Native population. Their great consumption of tobacco especially had, with that of other commodities, furnished considerable littnis to the revenue, which it was as reasonable to take as they were Unconscious of paying, and unlikely to complain of. As it then became necessary to eetablish an income and property tax, the whole burden was thrown exclusively upon the European population." [The great body even of these were entirely exempted from taxation by the limits adopted. The capital they had brought out had as yet pro- &teed little or no return. The impossibility of getting possession of their Minis had forced many of them to consume it on the means of subsistence, instead of employing it in the arts of production. And even where pos- session was undisturbed, the land-claims not having been settled, and no grants issued, the settlers revolted at the notion of being taxed for property their legal title to which was denied or withheld. In most parts, there- fore, all property in land was omitted from their returns. By some unac- Countable oversight also, or some unaccountable policy, the vast quantity Of land held by absentees was left altogether untaxed by Captain Fitzroy's bill.]

• "Five thousand pounds having thus been sacrificed in six months by the abolition of customs, and the property rate promising only 4,000/. for the next year instead of 14,0001., Captain Fitzroy gave notice of an increase of the property rate, and a 'general dealer's licensing bill,' itthich was to impose a tax of thirty per cent on the profits (reckoned at ten per cent) on all goods sold in the colony. Property sold by auction Was omitted ; which would probably have defeated the object of the bill.

Yet, so oppressive and vexatious was the measure consideredi that it

threatened to drive most of the dealers out of the country. In spite, how- ever, of the indignation and alarm it excited, the Governor seemed deter- !dined to persist in it 3 as on the 6th March 1845, be declared in Council, "that the reeStabliehment of customs would be most ruinous in its effects on the colony; and that he certainly should not countenance any deviation from direct taxation.' Yet in the very teeth of this declaration, on the 8th April, one month after, he in the same Council characterized his own abolition of the customs as • a step perhaps unprecedented in the history of colonisation' ; declared that of two evils customs was the less' ; and in- sisted on having bills for the repeal of the property rate and the reesta- blishtnent of customs read three times in that day. For this purpose, he directed the standing orders to be suspended, in spite of the opposition of the non-official members, to whom, he said, he saw no reason to give way.' So the members of Council were forced to consent to be, as one of them expressed it, dragged through the mire of double recantation within four months.' The old tariff, imposing duties on the first necessaries of life and equalizing those on British and foreign commodities, was thus re- stored."

Db " Captain Hobson havincontractedeaLdebt of 15,9801., which he was unable to pay, Captain Fitzroy was authorized to give debentures on the Colonial treasury, to be applied solely to the liquidation of this debt. But in May 1844, the Governor declaring in Council that the onlyinunediate want was a circulating medium of undoubted onaracter,"to save the colony from the extreme distress, if not ruin, which must inevitably follow such a deficiency,' proposed a bill, on which he said, the prosperity of the colony depended.' This bill was for the issue of debentures to the amount of 15,0001., for various sums from two shillings to one pbutd. [These, " in violation of his instructions," he not onlyapplied to the payment of arrears of salaries of Government officers, in order to introduce them into general circulation on their becoming depreciated, he proeured-an Ordinance to be passed, making them " a legal tender."] " The Queen's Instructions say= And we do further direct you, that you do notprimese or assent to any ordinance whatever whereby bills of credit, or other negotiable securities of whatever nature, may be issued in lieu of money on the credit of the said colony, or whereby any Governnient paper currency may be established therein, or whereby any such bills, or any other paper currency, or any coin Save only the legal coin of the realm, may be made or declared to be legal tender, without special permission from us in that behalf first ob- taMed.' Yet, in spite of this most explicit and stringent prohibition, Captain Fitzroy made his small inconvertible paper currency legal tender, and enabled every debtor in the colony to rob his auditor in pro- portion to the amount of its depreciation." • " Lord Stanley, in his despatch of October 27, 1849, peremptorily orders the redemption of these notes, Her Majesty's Gcrveruniemt deem it essentially necessary that measures should- be taken at the earliest period for the redemption of the notes which you have issued. • • * * You will withdraw them from circulation by substituting for them colonial do.. bentures for viceless than 501 ends. * * * * In conclusion, I have to impress upon you that this arrangement' (a supply of specie to be sent out) will afford no relief to the colony as regards the establishment of a proper circulating medium, unless the small notes svhich you have issued be simultaneously withdrawn from circulation.' On the 5th April 1846, Captain Fitzroy declined in Council his intention of paying salaries with the new 501. debentures, when they amounted to that sum; when to less, with the small debentures,' in partial disregard of Lord Stanley's instruc- tions. But on the 10th Of-the some April, only a few weeks after the re- ception of the despatch, the Legislative Council, (a passive instrument in the hands of Captain Fitzroy,) in the very face of the clear and decisive instructions it contains, passed the following resolution—' That it appears to this Council that-the issue of debentures under existing circumstances should be extended sufficiently to pay of ths debts due by the Colonial Go- vernment, and that the Interest on such debentures-should be a first charge on the colonial revenues.'

"The issue of debentures for HUM certainly as low as 5t. has accord- ingly been extended to at least three times the amount originally con- demned. And the bank being necessitated to refuse them, the increased issue of these small notes has produced other injurious consequences. It has led to the issue by private individuals of their own printed debentures, and these, for sums as low as 6d., 3d., and ld., are actually in circulation at this moment in Wellington and Auckland." "But that the financial inability of the Local Government might be proved in every particular, the paper these notes were composed of was of the most perishable kind ; and their fabrication altogether so clumsy as to offer a direct temptation to the forgery of them ; for which offence, a con- vict has already been transported from Wellington. Moreover, before completion, they were passed through so many offices turto afford continual opportunities for the embezzlement of them ; which it seems have actually been taken advantage of. Many of them have been issued in a defective state; some wanting the signature of the Colonial Treasurer, some the date of issue across the face of them, some the number of the note, and some every one of these authenticating marks. The Government Gazette of4th July 1845, states that a number of forged notes were in circulation, a book containing 250 ten-shilling debentures having been stolen from the Colonial Secre- tary's office. The chief clerk of that office having been charged publicly in the Auckland papers with the commission of the theft, tendered his resignation, which was accepted without inquiry. One-pound notes thus defective are in circulation at Nelson, and have been refused by Govern- ment officers there ; and forged or similarly defective 51. notes have lately appeared in Auckland."

Financial Result,.

"But can any stronger proof of incapacity be given than the history Of these debentures—accounted for, as they were by Capfain Fitzroy when first proposed, by the assumption of a fact not existing—issued in 'violation of instructions' from the Colonial Office—made legal tender in direct de- fiance of those of the Crpwn, by an ordinance ab mitio illegal, if not void -s-continued in circulation and trebled in amount in contempt of fresh in- atructions condemning them—ruinous and in the liat degree impolitic ha their very nature—fabricated so clumsily is to have induced forgery—and completed with so many needless and circuitous fbintalitfas so carelessly observed as to have facilitated if not provoked to their freqUent embezzle- ment?

"May not your petitioners, then, conclude that Captain Fitzroy's mea- sures have destroyed the Colonial finances ? He has omitted to retrench unjustifiable items of expenditure : he has abandoned the funds derivable from lands actually in Government possession, by parting with them fot land-scrip ; and that derivable from all other waste huids, by giving lip the Queen's right of preemption: and he has by these measures incal- culably diminished the value of all lands belonging to private individuals. Further, by his imprudent abolition of the customs and the incomplete- ness and imperfections of the mode of direct taxation substituted for them, he has sacrificed a large amount of revenue, and saddled the colony with debts, the prospect of paying which is extremely distant. fly the forced circulation of quantities of inconvertible paper made legal tender, he has injured many individuals and confused and corrupted the colonial cur-

rency. And by the inconsistency, suddenness, and frequency of financial changes of such magnitude, and so clearly impolitic, he has thrown doubt over all commercial treneactions, and destroyed all confidence in the finan- cial ability or comprehension of the financial principles of Matadi* or his Government." Other Measures.

"The legislation of Captain Fitzroy's Government on other subjects has been equally unfortunate. The ordinances often contain omissions, incon- sistencies, and oversights, to say nothing of their narrow policy, which are quite unaccountable, but which greatly impede the administration of them in settlements the communication between which and the seat of Govern-

ment is so infrequent as to afford few opportunities of applying to the framers of the ordinances for an explanation of their meaning and inten- tion. A few specimens will suffice." [The omission of the lands of absen- tees in the Property Rate Ordinance has been noticed. The Imprison- ment for Debt Bill, to extend the term of imprisonment of fraudulent debtors and shorten that of others, is so framed that fraudulent debtors under 201. (by far the greater part) are punished no more than honest ones; and honest ones may be relieved of part of their punishment if they owe above 201.; but not if they owe less. Then, the Courts of Requests Ordinance allows the arrest of debtors intending to leave the colony, if the debt amount to more than 201.; all under go free. Again, a bill to tax dogs was abandoned ; but a Dog Nuisance Bill was passed to secure the destruction of dogs in the towns ; the chief desideratum being the prevention of the worrying of sheep in the grazing districts of the country ; and even in the towns its provisions have rendered it a dead letter.] "A Cattle Trespass Ordinance was amended solely to enable the cultivators of unfenced lands to obtain damages for tres- pass; a measure directly tending to facilitate squatting and dispersion and empty the labour market, and enabling the tiller of an acre or two to pitch upon the middle of a grazing district, and continually annoy and tax the owners of sheep and cattle requiring it. This bill, it is evident, was introduced under the advice of Mr. Protector Clarke, as beneficial to the Aborigines. Yet its operation was extended to Europeans, and to districts where not a single Maori exists, as that of Waimea, where more culti- vation is going on than in any other single district in the islands. Its practical effects are there very injurious. This is a striking instance of the little regard of the Local Government for the interests of the Southern settlers, or Its complete ignorance of them. And such instances of un- skilful legislation are constantly occurring. But these and the very singular demonstrations frequently made by the Government officials in the Council, as when the Colonial Secretary objected to protests because they contained no arguments in favour of the measures they condemned' ; or as when, on another occasion, after long debates upon the appro- priation of revenues, the same gentleman gravely proposed to strike out the words 'not exceeding in the whole,' which limited the expenditure to the amount it had been with difficulty reduced to ; or, as when the Attorney- General declared a bill was introduced 'with the intention to avoid putting it into execution, if possible' ; the very undignified altercations, moreover, which have often occurred between his Excellency the Governor and the members of Council; but, above all, the constitution of the Council itself, which consists of the Governor, three officials, and three non-official nominees of the Governor, who has a casting vote ; and the determination constantly evinced and sometimes avowed by his Excellency to make use of his numerical power to pass unpopular measures in spite of the oppo- sition of the non-officials ; in which way by far the greater part of his measures have been carried, as any reference to the legislative reports will prove ;—all these things have undeniably brought the Council into such low repute throughout the colony, that when, on a late occasion, Govern- ment offered to place therein an individual to be chosen by a sort of irregular universal suffrage by the Nelson settlers, the person so selected unhesitatingly refused the intended honour, on no other ground (for his expenses were to be defrayed by the public) than that attendance on such a Council was an idle and useless formality. The experiment having thus failed at Nelson, was not tried at Wellington ; but the gentleman (Mr. Clifford) who had previously sat in the Council for that place, after his actual experience of its working, refused at the same time to return to it, and for precisely the same reasons. The consequence is, that the Council is at present wholly composed of Government officials and Auckland settlers, almost entirely and necessarily unacquainted with the interests, wishes, and condition of the Southern settlers, who, however, comprise three-fourths of the whole European population."

Seat of Government.

" To this ignorance the distance of the seat of Government not a little contributes. The experience, indeed, of each succeeding year shows more clearly the inconvenience of the present site of the capital ; placed as it is

in a poor though level country, with one-sixth (about 2,000 souls) of the European and three:fourths (82,000 souls) of the Native population (109,5.50

in all) in its own or the Northern district, which comprises only one-fifth (about 16,000,000 acres) of the whole superficial area of the islands ; placed, moreover, at a distance of from three to four hundred miles from the other Jive-sixths (about 10,000) of the Europeans in the Southern district, which contains only one-fourth (26,700 souls) of the whole Native population,

though it comprises four-fifths (63,000,000 acres) of the superficial area of New Zealand. Further, the two tribes immediately investing Auckland number 18,400 and 12,000 souls respectively, and are the strongest and most united in the country, while those in the South seldom amount to 5,000 souls, and are irreconcilably divided. But if the Middle Island, which is just half as large again as the Northern, be separately compared with the latter, the position of the capital seems even more extraordinary. For the Natiie population of the Middle Island is only 4,700 souls, one to every 10,000 acres ; while that of the Northern is 104,81.50, one to every 297 acres. That is, the ratio of land to Native population in the Middle Island is thirty times greater than it is in the Northern. Does it not look as if the Government were intended for the Natives exclusively ? Again, the best and most extensive pasture lands in New Zealand are the immense grassy plains near the Southern extremity of the Middle Island, which, in a climate so favourable to the growth of sheep, must inevitably, become, are long, the seat of a numerous and wealthy population. But the present capital is situated at a distance of exactly one thousand miles from this end of the Middle Island.

"Nor has the inconvenience produced by the distance of the capital been at all remedied, as was expected, by the appointment of a Superintendent of the Southern Division of New Zealand. For so little discretionary power is allowed by Captain Fitzroy to that functionary at present, as to render his office an entirely useless though expensive sinecure. He cannot authorize the expenditure of the most trifling sum for any purposes of government without a previous application to Auckland. Indeed, as far as Nelson is concerned, the effect of his appointment is actually to double the delay incurred in conununicating with Government, because all such communications must be made through him by the circuitous route of Wellington. It is a fact, that whereas formerly a period of six months was requisite to obtain an authority to pay any accounts against Govern- ment, it now requires eleven months to do so. This is a great hardship upon creditors of Government. And all accounts and official papers having consequently to be made in triplicate, the amount of work in public offices is greatly increased, with no corresponding benefit either to Government or the public."

Land Question.

" The evils flowing from disputes about land and the non-settlement of land-claims have been so long in operation, and, with the measures of Go-,

vernment relating thereto, so often complained of and discussed, that your petitioners feel they will need all the indulgence of your Honourable House while they endeavour to restate them. And yet so many conflicting passions and prejudices are still at work about these complicated matters ; the evils alluded to are so grave and various ; have been so uniformly ag- gravated by the proceedings of Government ; are now so clearly at their height ; and press so sorely upon some of the most important interests of your petitioners, that no other course is left them than that of laying the whole case as fairly and plainly as they can once more before your Ho- nourable House, though at the inevitable risk of repeating notorious facts and urging arguments already made use of.

" The superficial area of New Zealand amounts to 78,452,480 acres. The Native population, which has been decreasing for the last thirty years, does not exceed at the highest calculation 115,000 souls. The greater part of these people, as has been said, inhabit the middle of the Northern Island and its Northern extremity. The whole population of a country larger than Great Britain is less than that of the county of Hereford or the town of Bristol. Their cultivations are so small, so scattered, and so insignificant, that from any spot commanding an extensive view of the forested hills and promontories of the country, they are hardly ever, if at all, visible. "The Natives are generally known to be keen and cunning ; on all occasions fully alive to their own immediate interests ; subtle, unscrupu- lous, disingenuous, and dissimulating in their endeavours to forward them. Numerous authorities may be cited in proof of this fact, if it be not sufficiently notorious. They have gradually come to consider all the trackless forests and wastes of the country they are scattered over as a means of obtaining the much-desired gold of the Europeans. The Treaty of Waitangi, and the constant representations of the Local Government and the missionaries, have furthered and fostered, if not chiefly caused, this notion. The Native ideas of rights of property are those of savages. Their claims to lands are generally clashing, contradictory, and confused. Different tribes constantly lay claim to the same lands ; boundaries there are none, or continually disputed ones; different individuals have different degrees of ownership, which of course vary with every varying circum- stance of personal character and position; and nothing but extermination effectually gets rid of a claim, which always revives with the power to urge it. Then they have commonly sold the same lands over and over again; 'will not hesitate,' says Mr. Spain, the Commissioner of the Court of Land Claims, to sell the lands of their enemies, to which they know they have no claim,' and to take the purchase-money and sign the deeds con- veying them away. They are the more eager to do so in order to spite the original claimants. Is it likely that the most careful dealing could render any purchase of such rights from such sellers conclusive and saris! factory ? "The New Zealand Company's Agent endeavoured to buy large tree* of land from these people. He omitted nothing one could conceive poi- Bible under the circumstances to give publicity to his proceedings and completeness to his purchases. And, although the mode he adopted has been questioned, it is remarkable that Mr. Spain himself, in settling thq claims to land bought in Blind Bay or Tasman's Gulf, finding it imprac-' ticable in court, from the falsity and inconsistency, of the evidence given by the Natives, had to resort to precisely the same method, after the ex- perience of three years employed in such transactions. Nevertheless,the sales to the Agent were, as might have been expected, in most cases after- wards disputed. Meanwhile, large bodies of settlers had arrived from England, and demanded possession of the lands they had bargained and paid for there : but the lands were withheld by the Natives. "What did Government ? Established, most unfortunately, a commis- sion to investigate all these confused claims and impracticable purchases according to the strict rules of English law as to evidence, and in some re- spects as to titles to property. Chose its advocates on the Native side front a class of men notoriously opposed to colonization of any kind, as they have often avowed and put on record ; jealous of the Europeans as interlopers, who were overthrowing their influence and interfering in the government of the Aborigines, which they had hitherto monopohzedLand enabled, by their almost exclusive knowledge of the language of the Natives and the previous influence over them, coupled with the 'Native ignorance or disre- gard of moral obligations, to give what turn they pleased to the whole pro- ceedings. And further, Government by its own continual and ostentatious professions of regard for claims it had itself raised into rights, and for the welfare of people never likely to be injured but in its own imagination, threw all its influence into the same scale ; increased the expectations of the Natives ; and aggravated all the difficulties in the way of a satisfactory adjustment of the matters in question."

Port Nicholson Land Question. 7

"A slight glance at the history of the present generation of the Native tribes about Cook's Strait will give an idea of the results likely to ensue, from the application of a mode of investigation so complex and rigid in its exactments, to purchasers of rights so confused, from a people so tut. scrupulous and insatiable. About twenty years ago the tribes about the Kawhia and the middle of the Western coast of the Northern Island, to one of which (the Ngatitoa) the notorious chief Rauperaha belonged, were driven from that part of the country by the great central tribe of the Wai- kato. The expelled tribes in their turn attacked and drove away or ex- terminated most of those to the Southward and Eastward of them along the shores of Cook's Strait. Other tribes, following their example at later intervals, completed their work. Of these the most powerful were the Ngatiawa and Ngatiraukawa. The conquering tribes divided their new possessions. The Ngatiawa separated into three bodies, and Port Nichol- son fell to one of the three, under Pomare. The great valley of Wairarapa, or Waiderop, was taken by another. But, as usual in such cases, the con- quering tribes soon quarrelled, the wily Rauperaha's intrigues originating or fomenting their dissensions. They warred with each other with various success. At length Pomare, with his part of the Ngatiawa, threatened by Rauperaha, abandoned New Zealand and emigrated to the Chatham Islands. The territory he abandoned was given by him at parting to the Ngatiawa of the Waiderop, who thereupon migrated thither. This is a slight sample, with as many names, divisions, and subdivisions of tribes, and as many particulars and details as possible, omitted, of the shifting., migrations expulsions, divisions, and resumptions of territory so con- tinual in New Zealand. And as nothing but extermination effectually quenches the claims of a tribe, and entire extermination seldom takes place ; and as the claims of all these tribes and sub-tribes (harts) are ever varying ; as well as those of all the greater and minor chiefs, according to personal character, influence, and a thousand other circumstances; and also of every family and every individual in every tribe,—it may easily be imagined how inextricably intertangled and confused these claims or rights must have been. And missionaries and others opposed to colonization were on the spot, and eager to make the most of the contusion. " The Wellington settlers arrived in January 1840. It was not until the nth May 1842, two years and a quarter afterwards, that Mr. Spain opened his court at that place. During all this tune the sinister influences alluded to had been at work ; during all this time the Native expectations of a golden harvest to be reaped from the Commissioner's decisions had been growing every day more sanguine and exorbitant. The claims of the Com- pany were strongly opposed; the Protectors of Aborigines and their able legal assistants throwing in the way of their establishment all the difficulties, formal or technical, which a knowledge of the intricacies of English law and of the practices of English courts, in addition to the command of ready hordes of Native witnesses totally ignorant of the nature of oaths,' and habitually careless about truth and falsehood, could furnish them with the means of creating. Some of the Natives, it seems, had not sold their lands at all though they had received purchase-money and signed deeds, as had Rangihaiata for the sale of the Porirua district. Some had only sold the land on one side of a river, as they pretended at Wanganui, though it was proved that Natives on the other side had received payment. Then those of the pah Petoni acknowledged they had sold the lands of those of the pah Te Aro, because the latter had curseclthem, an unpardonable offence. But the Hutt, the principal district, had, it seems, been well bought. The ceurse desired by the Natives was atlengthadopted, namely, to make com- pensation to those who were unsatisfied. The lands they neither needed nor wished for except as a means of extorting gold from the Europeans. They were encouraged to ask enormous sums. There is the clearest evidence of this. I found,' says Mr. Spain, the Commissioner himself, in a privateeand confidential letter to Mr. Shortland, 'Mr. Clarke disposed to advise thetin Co ask extravagant prices, I immediately interfered.' lint the mischief had been done : it was much easier to persuade them to make extravagant demands than to abandon such agreeable anticipations of wealth, to be so easily acquired." [After further negotiation, rendered fruitless by the exorbitant demands cif Air. Clarke jun., and further aggressions of the Natives,—originally in- tilted by the suggestive letter of Mr. Clarke sen., desiring them (in Sep- tember 1841) not to tell the English people that they will give up their pahs," and encouraged by Mr. Shordand's proclamatien of July 1843, warning the settlers against exercising" acts of ownership" upon disputed lands,—full particulars of which are detailed in the Petition,—the end of the fourth year of the settlement's existence found the land-claims appa- rently as far from satisfactory arrangement as ever.]

"Such was the state of the Land Question, and all concerned in it'

at Wellington, on Captain Fitzroy's arrival in the colony. The Commissioner idly attempting to settle claims and purchases utterly inexplicable and in- capable of satisfactory arrangement, by compensation-money it was impos- sible to approve of giving, or to consider in any respect final when given. The Company's Agent and the Protector unable to agree, from the inordi- nate demands of the latter, and his resolution to resist any provisions for the future abandonment of temporary cultivations and filthy paha in the middle of a prosperous town. The Natives themselves, wrought up to the highest pitch of cupidity and extravagant expectation of gold, to a partial disappointment of which, by a temporary postponement of the investiga- tion of certain claims, Mr. Spain directly attributes their savage conduct at the Wairao arrogant and overbearing from the impunity that outrage bad been attended with, and the increased consciousness of the power it gave them ; driving the settlers from lands they themselves had no need or possibility of need of, and treating with the same open contempt the settlers who wanted protection and the Government that was evidently too weak or too timid to afford it. Next, the officers of that Government, well aware that such policy would be most acceptable at head-quarters, exercising a bad ingenuity in inventing excuses for siding with the Natives, or refusing to interfere at all. And, lastly, the settlers themselves,—unable to get land to raise even the necessaries of life upon—wasting the resources, which should thus have been rendered productive, in buying those necessaries elsewhere—all depressed and despairing from the long years of anxiety and disappointment they had been compelled to endure' and many of them looking to the arrival of a new Governor as affording them the only chance of escaping the necessity of abandoning a settlement which no- thing but their commercial enterprise and activity had hitherto preserved from ruin.

"Captain Fitzroy came, and immediately commenced a systematic course of proceedings, which it is impossible to consider other than those of a decided and even violent partisan of one class of the people he was sent to govern. Knowing nothing whatever of the settlers of Cook's strait except from hearsay, in his very first public address at Wellington he accused them of being actuated in their dealings with the Natives by a spirit of injustice and aggression.' This charge was made in face of the notorious facts above stated, and of these further ones—that the settlers were vastly inferior in numbers to the well-armed and warlike Natives ; had been constantly petitioning Government for protection against them ; that their enemy Rauperaha had been endeavouring a short time before to unite his countrymen in an attack upon their settlement, of which distinct evidence was in the Governor's possession ; and that their attempt to arm and discipline themselves for their own defence had been repressed by Government as With all this before him, Captain Fitzroy did everything calculated to encourage the Natives ; treated individuals of them of known bad character with marked courtesy; and gave them as- surances of protection so evidently needless, and of maintenance in pos- session of lands which many or most of them had sold. Nay, at his first levee and interview following it, he attacked, among others, a gentleman well known to have been perhaps a greater favourite with a greater body of the Natives than any other White man in New Zealand, as an enemy to them, to the missionaries, and to religion ; hinted at prosecuting him for libel of the Maories, and applied to him the epithet of leader of the devil's missionaries.' In his written answer to the memorial presented on that occasion, his Excellency also declared, without any qualification or parti- cular exception, that no forcible measures' should be used with the Na- tives. 'Coercion and harsh steps, as all forcible measures must be,' would be ruinous ; and if any such steps could be authorized by her Ma- jesty's Government, he would respectfully tender his commission.' All this made the bias of Government sufficiently obvious to the Natives. "The tedious negotiation about compensation was resumed, and on the 28th February 1844, the Natives owning the lands in dispute met the Go- vernor, the Protector, and others, and, after a warm discussion, refused the compensation awarded. At a second meeting it was again refused. Finally, however, it was accepted, and 7301. paid for the lands, pahs and cultivations excepted. These very lands, pahs and all, had already been sold to the Company's Agent by the sixteen principal chiefs at Port Ni- cholson, who had received money or goods for them, as had also several members of the paha themselves. So this was the second time these lands Were paid for.

"But the Natives, usurping the Hutt, continued their molestations. Even some of those who had accepted payment and signed the agreement, recommenced their aggressions three days afterwards. At Wanganui, Where, as has been said, the Natives were allowed to have sold the land on one side the river, and many on the other had received payment, they TLOW refused compensation, or to part with the land at all. At Manawatti

the sales were declared valid; with a recommendation that additional compensation should be given to one chief, which was accordingly offered; but refused.

" Another season having been lost, and the annoyances by the strange Natives on the Hutt continuing, a public meeting was held there on the 19th September 1844. Resolutions were passed, and embodied in a me- morial to Captain Pitney." [To obtain possession of this land, Captain Fitzroy proceeded in a way of his own. After declaring to another deputation that he would not use force, he addressed himself to Rauperaha and Rangihaiata, the perpetrators of the Wairao massacre, (one notorious for treachery and cunning, the other for ferocity,) and for a bribe of 4001. of the Company's money induced the former to agree to drive out the intruders. This expedient proving unsuccessful, a trial was made of Rauperaha's personal influence : mounted on horseback, and accompanied by the Bishop and a Government official, " the hoary murderer was paraded, to the indignation of the public, in a kind of procession through the streets of Wellington, and before the eyes of some of those in the massacre of whose husbands, fathers, or bro- thers, he had so large a share." Rauperaha's " personal influence" proving unavailing, he tabooed the usurped lands. This being ineffectual, the Su- perintendent, Major Richmond, adopted the suggestion of Mr. Sub-Pro- tector Forsaith, to issue tickets to allow traffic with the well-disposed Natives only. And this also being found inoperative, he bought their pot*. toes himself, and had a store opened for the .purpose of reselling them. But the Natives, having found a market for their crops, of course remained where they were, and laughed at his simplicity. The whole was an utter failure.]

" The effect of all this trifling has been to increase their contempt for the British and their Government, Rauperaha has abandoned the attempt to displace them, and kept the money he was to do it for ; Rangihaiata has joined the intruders openly and heartily ; and the land will have to be taken, after all, by the actual employment of that force the display of which alone would formerly have been sufficient to obtain it. Such is the history of Captain Fitzroy's mode of settling the Wellington Land Question."

Nelson Land Question.

"At Nelson, as at Wellington, Captain Fitzroy, on his arrival in February 1844, immediately betrayed a feeling of hostility towards the settlers and partiality for the Natives. The former he severely repri- manded on several occasions, principally for their proceedings subsequently to the Wairao massacre, although private and personal conduct, manners, and even abstract opinions, political and religious, came in for a share of his censure. Among others he attacked the Honourable Constantine A. Dillon in strong terms. The Natives were received with marked cordiality, good and bad indifferently.

"The Nelson settlers had never been much troubled by the Natives respecting land. The only dispute of any consequence had been the fatal one at Wairao ; but that took place in Cloudy Bay, at a distance from the settled districts. Of these, the only one in which any Natives at all are located is that of Motnaka ; and such disputes as had occasionally oc- curred there had been quietly settled, owing to the firmness of the colonists and the smallness in number of the Natives compared to the settlers in the Bay. Notwithstanding the ill effects of the Wairao affray on the minds of the Natives, aggravated particularly by a proclamation of Mr. Short. land after that event, which forbade 'acts of ownership' on disputed lands by the Whites, the utmost harmony in general prevailed between the two races. It was at an interview with some of the settlers of this district, who wished to be informed by his Excellency what course they should adopt in case of such disputes arising, that Governor Fitzroy declared

that the settlers were trespassers upon the lands ; that in case of aggres- sion by the Natives, they must give them money ; if still dissatisfied, they must give them more ; at any rate, if they resisted aggression, and blood- shed ensued, that he would try them (the settlers) for their lives.' Evidence of this fact was given to the Committee of your Honourable House ; and several of your petitioners can further depose to its truth.

"The evident bias of the Governor encouraged Paramatta (a degraded chief, with a few followers, dwelling several miles beyond the surveyed districts, from which he was separated by almost impassable woods and hills) to put in a claim on this occasion to the land on which the town of Nelson is laid out, and to the Waimea, the principal agricultural district attached to it. He was immediately interrupted by the Reverend C. L. Reay, one of the resident Episcopal ministers of Nelson in whose regular spiritual charge were the Natives in question, who declared that during his continual visits to their pah he had never once heard of such a claim; that, on the contrary, they had invariably admitted that the district last named had been fairly purchased. The Governor referred the claimant to the Land Commissioner. In August 1844, the Commissioner arrived. Owing to the prevarication of one of the Native witnesses, Te Iti, and their dislike to the mode of examination, the court was adjourned; and the business conducted and concluded in several meetings and dis- cussions with the Natives in a body in the open air. Finally, the Coin- missioner declared in open court, that the lands in Tasman 's Gulf had been paid for at the rate of a larger sum per acre than any other land in New Zealand.' Eight hundred pounds were, however, divided among the Natives, at the offer of the Company's Agent, to insure the continuance of a friendly feeling between the two races : a sum they were to receive, as the Commissioner expressly declared to them, 'not as a matter of right, but as an act of grace and good-will on the part of the Europeans: The lands thus fully paid for were those the Governor thought it not unbe- coming in him to call the settlers trespassers upon. "Four months after this, Paramatta, the petty chief just alluded to, returning with a few Waikato Natives from the Northern Island, began annoying the settlers in the district nearest him, by lighting fires close to their thatched buildings and ripe corn, ordering them off their lands, and threatening to kill and eat them,' with all the violent demonstration usual on such occasions. The Police Magistrate, formally complained to, went to remonstrate, and was threatened with the same fate as his prede- cessor (Mr. Thompson) met with at Wairao; butfinally obtained a promise from the Native to be quiet for a fortnight, till the plan, as settled upon by Messrs. Spain and Clarke, could be brought and referred to. The savage of course immediately resumed his aggressions, personally assaulted some settlers, broke into a house and stole flour, burnt a heap of shingles lying in the wood, and threatened to return immediately and com- plete the destruction he had commenced. The injured persons demanded protection ; the magistrates could give none, and refused to act ; so the settlers mustered in arms, and (in number about 100) marched to the disturbed district, to point out the boundary line to the chief, cut it so that it could not be mistaken, and warn him against further annoyances. Frightened at this demonstration, he could not be persuaded to meet the settlers ; but their determination was conveyed to hum Now, this Native had been paid originally for his part of the lands, better bought, as the Commissioner declared them, than any other in New Zealand ; had re- ceived, besides, his share of the gratuity, of 8001.; neither lived on nor very near the land; had no possible need of it ; and had ever previously been on very good terms with the settlers. The reason, then, for his

eonduct he plainly avowed to Mr. Reay. ' It was,' he said, ' because the decisions of Messrs. Spain and Clarke were neither final nor important ; for they had decided some time since that the Hutt district had been bought and paid for, but that Rauperaha had received more money since from Government for it.' Your Petitioners respectfully submit that this Case is direct evidence of the mischievous effects of the Governor's policy in making the payment to Rauperaha, and acquiescing in the =reasonable demands of the Natives."

New Plymouth Land Question.

"But the Governor's proceedings at New Plymouth respecting the land-claims have been, if possible, even more open to objection than his management of them at Wellington or neglect of them at Nelson. The original inhabitants of the New Plymouth or Taranaki district, the Ngatiawa, were, after a great battle, driven thence by the powerful cen- tral tribe before alluded to, the Waikato, under '1'e Werowero •, followed the general emigration to the Southwerd, in which Ratmeraha distin- guished himself, and settled on the Northern shores of Cook's Strait. The Waikato, however, having no need of the district, never occupied it; so ter several years it was almost entirely deserted. There were not more than 60 or 60 inhabitants when it was purchased by the Company's Agent. Colonel Wakefield bought the claims of the dispossessed chiefs and others Cook's Strait about the end of 1839; Messrs. Dorset and Jerningham Wakefield those of the actual occupants in the beginning: of 1848; and Te Werowero, some time after, asserting his better right by conquest, threatened to make an expedition to Taranaki to resume occupation of the district, but was bought off with a sum of 400/. by Captain Hobson, mid thereupon quietly returned. But long after Colonel Wakefield's pur- &Ise, hundreds of the old inhabitants who had been carried away: as Slaves to Kawhia, having been liberated at the instigation of the mission- axles, returned to Taranaki, and began immediately to put in practice the usual Native mode of extorting money from Europeans, by disputing pos- session and preventing cultivation of the lands they were settled upon. The 50 or 60 occupants at the time of the sale had never had above a quarter of an acre a man' in cultivation within the whole block claimed by the Company ; about five miles beyond it were about 50 acres more. The Whole country around is perhaps the most level, open, and fertile in New Zealand, and contains hundreds of square miles of equally good land, on Which these returned slaves might have settled. But, like the Natives on the Butt, their object being money, not crops, they preferred the spots most needed by the White men. It is unnecessary to repeat the details Of their aggressions, which were precisely similar to those in the Hutt dia- lect described above. On one occasion between 200 and 300 Natives as- sembled with tomahawks and fire-arms on the farm of Mr. Cooke, and Out down timber and lighted fires close to his crops, avowedly to try if Go- eernment would interfere.' After the Wairao massacre, and the pro- Carnation by Mr. Shortland warning the settlers against exercising acts of ownership' on disputed lands, these aggressions became more frequent. No redress could be obtained by the settlers; the interference of the 1'c:dice Magistrate was treated with ridicule and contempt; even the influence of the missionaries appeared altogether destroyed, for several of these gen- &Men, on different occasions, used their utmost efforts to restrain the Natives without effect

"At length, in June 1844, Mr. Spain gave his decision in favour of the 411 asnpany's claim, and declared their title valid to the whole block of land required for the settlement. The Natives were of course dissatisfied with this award, as Captain Hobson had, so long ago as February 1840, foretold they would be with every one unfavourable to them. But their annoy- ances continuing, an well as the complaints of the settlers, Captain Fitzroy, on the 2nd of August 1844, without communicating in any way with the Commissioner, pronounced his decision a mistake, and proceeded to set it aside altogether.

"Mr. Spain had been for above two years solely employed in the investi- gation of these claims, and had gradually acquired very considerable in- fluence with, the Natives ; so that it is undeniable that if any one's decisions

alleould have been hoped to be acquiesced in by them, no one's had so good a chance as his; there was no possibility of his having been biassed tit favour of the Company, with whose Agents, rightly or wrongly, he had leen almost without intermission at variance from his first coming South- Ward ; the authority of his court, which the force even of habit had come to support in the public mind, would be dangerously shaken—all his previous decisions brought into doubt by a reversal of one so important; the land which was utterly useless to the Natives, was indispensably requisite to the settlers ; every reason, in short, of good policy and abstract jestice told against the injudicious and hasty interference of Governor Fitzroy on this Occasion.

"The Governor's real object in taking this step was most probably to &Void the necessity of enforcing an award which dissatisfied the Natives. The professed object was to do justice to the manumitted Neatiawa slaves, whose lands had been sold during their captivity, and whom he actually compared, in answer to a deputation of New Plymouth settlers, to English prisoners of war exchanged or otherwise liberated from a foreign prison. He appears to have been guided in this view of the claims of the Taranaki slaves by Mr. Protector Clarke and Mr Forsaith, a missionary and Sub- Protector. And yet he ought to have been particularly cautious in adopt- ing Mr. Clarke's opinion on thierpoint ; for that person, by precisely similar advice to Captain Hobson in 1842, which induced him to disregard this very right of conquest, had produced the conflict between the Natives and considerable loss of life at Mangenui. Be advised Captain Hobson to buy lands there from Noble, a Kaitaia chief, which had been won from the chief This father in battle by the Wangaroa tribe, and seld by them to the Europeans, who had settled upon them. The Wangaroa tribe, in defence of their right by conquest, came to blows with Noble." • "But, as in the Mangemui case, the Natives seemed determined to ehow tarn utterly Mr. Clarke's notions and their own respecting these rights disegreed. When the manumitted slaves were declared by Captain Fitzroy 'entitled to remuneration, numbers of the old inhabitants flocked to Tara- naki to urge claims never thought of before. Six hundred of these met in Queen Charlotte's Sound on the 30th November 1844, to determine upon returning to the New Plymouth block of land, on the ground that they had more right to it than the manumitted slaves. Many who had just befbre receivedmoney from Mr. Spain for land in their new country about Port Nicholson, were among the most importunate for payment for that Which they had abandoned. A chiefnamedMoturoa was one of these, and In March preceding had received 2001. for his pretended claims at Welling- ton. So these people were actually to be paid, according to the Governor's and Mr. Clarke's decision, for lands they had gained by conquest at Port Nicholson, and lands they had lost by defeat at Taranaki. "The whole question having been thus thrown into confusion, and the Native annoyances naturally increasing, Governor Fitzroy adopted a mode of remedying the evil, as sweeping and unscrupulous as that which produced it. He went to Taranaki, and failing in an endeavour to buy over again with the Company's money some of the lands already awarded by Mr. Spain, he im- mediately proceeded to break up the whole scheme of the New Plymouth settlement. Mr. Spain had awarded a block of 60,000 acres to the Cempany. All this had actually been surveyed. Captain Fitzroy at once abandoned it all to the Natives, with the exception of about 3,800 acres which he re- purchased with another 3001. from the Company's funds, from the menu- nutted slaves and refugees from Wellington. This negotiation excited the passions of the Natives to a high pitch. They were more than mice on the point of settling their claims by battle, and totbahawks were bran- dished in the Governor's presence. The missionary, Mr. Whiteley, left in disgust before the negotiation was concluded. All the settlers outside the block thus bought, Captain Fitzroy proposed to place within it or to carry away to Auckland, Manakau, or Whangaroa, (near Auckland,) where Mr. Forsaith has land-claims. The Company'srights and interests, those of the absentee proprietors, of settlers =willing to move—all these, and the solemn contracts mutually existing between them, were altogether dis- regarded. Four of the suburban and 200 of the town sections reserved fot the Natives within the new block (of 3,800 acres) he as readily gave up, without consulting the other trustees of these reserves ; who, he decided, were to buy more as they could from time to time. " Captain Fitzroy having moved some of the settlers into the entail block so repurchased, by way of compensation presented them with certain sums in the debentures before-mentioned, and new bills on the treasury purporting to be drawn inconsequence of the suspension of payment by the New Zealand Company. Lord Stanley had authorized his Excellency to draw for the relief of the labourers thrown out of employ by that event. At Wellington, not one farthing of the money so drawn was spent for this purpose. At Nelson, there were 300 such labourers ; but for the relief of all these, though many of them suffered the most extreme distress in con- sequence, the Governor never spent more than 100/. At New Plymouth, but for his reversal of Mr. Spairt's award and his overthrow of the original scheme of the settlement, there would have been a deficiency rather than an excess of labour, notwithstanding the Company's stoppage. As it was, Captain Fitzroy, having spent 150/. upon those stripped thereby of their means of livelihood, excused himself for not more effectually assisting them, on the plea of the numbers he had to relieve at Wellington and Nelson. The money, to the amount-of 1,500/., was really spent in carry- log out his design of breaking up the originalscheme of the New Plymouth settlement. This utter disregard of inetructions, misapplication of funds, and neglect of those it ATRS his bounden duty to succour, would be incredi, ble were there not abundant proof of it."

Sunsmen'y of Land Queettens "After all the abuse and slanders heaped upon the settlers, after all the groundless outcry about the rights of the Natives and the ostentatione atIvoettey of them by. Government, it turns out, then, that the very court constituted so much in accordance with the views of Government and of the Protectors who had so great a share in its operations, but condemned so strongly in so many quarters, and by such high authorities, as inappro, priate to the matter in hand and vexatious to the settlers, has been obliged to decide that all the principal purchases of the Company, namely, the districts of the Hutt, of Taranaki and of Blind Bay, upon which all or the vast majority of the settlers of Wellington, New Plymouth, and Neb. son are located, were perfectly fair and valid. "And what have been Captain Fitzroy's proceedings with respect ttt lernds given by those awards of the Commissioner which he has allowed td stand ? The last of those awards was made at Nelson, in September 1844. In August 1845, after the lapse of almost a whole year, his Excellency has just issued conditional grants for the Nelson district, (excepting the Wairao,) and for less than two-thirds (71,900 acres out of 113,700) of the lands purchased from the Company at Port Nicholson, with exceptions of those tiortions belonging to prior claimants. The injustice and utter recklessness of all prior agreements of the most solemn and deliberate nature evinced by this proceeding, your petitioners find it difficult to give an adequate conception of. "In the first place, after the long and severe test (to say the leaat of it) which these claims had been subjected to before such a court as that of the Land-claims, your petitioners surely were entitled to absolute grants of the portions Of the awarded land which the Governor thought proper to grant at all. But the grants actually issued contain a proviso in favour of private claimants • who may hereafter prove' prior valid claims to any of these lands.

"But with respect to portions of land to which prior valid claims hoot been proved—Captain Fitzroy's exception of these and grant of them to the claimants is in direct violation of agreements repeatedly entered int& by the Crown and the Local Government with the Company at home and their Agents in the colony ; the principle of all those agreements being that the Company were to retain such lands for their settlers, and make comb pensation afterwards to the prior claimants. On the faith of these agrees ments, several thousand pounds have been expended in buildings upon lands which Captain Fitzroy hag just granted absolutely to claimante whose ease had thus been provided for already. " Governor Hobson, in a letter dated September 6, 1841, expressly prod mised to the Company's Principal Agent that the Company should receive a grant of all such lands, making compensation as aforesaid; and published the agreement in the Government Gazette. He next embodied it in a clause of a Land Ordinance, of February 25, 1842, subsequently disallowed on other grounds, but in force until after the Commissioner's decision. But the disallowance of this last ordinance revived the previous one of June 1811, which contains an express provision against the issue of grants for land directed by the Governor to be compensated for as above. Lord Stanley, in a despatch of May 12, 1842, expressed his decided approbation of the agreement entered into by Captain Hobson. And the officer administering the Governmett, in a letter of September 16, 1842, acknOW. ledged Captain Hobson's agreement, and his obligation to abide by it.

"But if all these agreements between the Local Government and the Company's Agent were not enough, Lord Stanley, by another with the New Zealand Company in May 1843, bound the Government to issue fine mediate grants for all the Company's lands on exactly the same principle of compensation to prior valid claimants as that already, agreed on in the colony. This agreement was made to avoid any further delay from the proceedings of the Land-claims Court. But Captain Fitzroy, mistaking the instructions consequent on the agreement, and considering the condition to apply to the issuing the grant, and not to the grant itself, as intended, withheld the issue until after the land-claims were decided upon, and so rendered the agreemeet with Lord Stanley utterly nugatory. And noer, disregarding altogether the repeated agreements between the respective principals and subordinates on both sides, he finishes by issuing, after the claims of the Company have been proved valid, the grants for a portion of their land, which should have been issued two years ago for the whole of them, and by depriving the Company and settlers alike of the beneficial right to compensate prior claimants, which the grants even then were to have conferred.

" Thus-, of the three principal districts inhabited by your petitioners,

and now proved to have been fairly and validly purchased, the Nativeit have been permitted FOR FIVE YEARS to keep the settlers off all but a few acres of the first, as they do to this day in spite of the Governor's bribe to hostile savages to clear the rest of it ; while the occupants of those few

have constantly been seeking protection from Government in vain from Native aggressions and injuries ;—the whole of the second district, (of Taranaki,) with the exception of one-twentieth part, has been returned to the Natives, though proved validly purchased; and now, in open breach of repeated agreements, which ought long ago to have been put into execution, grants are offered for portions only of one of them, and nothing but conditional grants for any part of any of them. May not your peti- tioners with reason complain of having been treated with injustice ? "And is this cruelty to the settlers (for it is nothing less) redeemed by anyhumanity or benefit Captain Fitzroy's policy has secured to the Natives ? Surely the facts above mentioned declare against any such supposition. The land was useless to them ; the gold injurious to them. And colo- nization—of the greatest advantage to them, if carried out as always Intended—has been for the present entirely put an end to. The only thadow of a reason for such policy is the merely technical one, that it is in

/ imposed accordance with the Treaty of Waitangi, a treaty Captain Fitzroy has not scrupled to call the Magna Charta of New Zealand.' But of that treaty what more need be said than that it first instilled into the Natives the notion of the sovereignty it attempted to induce them to relinquish, by promising gratification to their cupidity ;—that it was made with a people whose language had no terms for many of the ideas it was to convey ;- that it has been proved to demonstration that the officer who made it and his superiors who confirmed it attached entirely opposite meanings to its most important provision, Captain Hobson holding that lands in posses- sion' meant all waste lands whatever ; Sir George Gipps and Lord John Russell, that the term implied only land in actual occupation ; that by a necessary inference from another clause it makes the sovereignty of Great Britain depend on the acknowledgment of it by the Native chiefs' great part of whom, even in the Northern Island, (to which alone the treaty applies,) never signed it at all ;—that the legal adviser of Government, Mr. Swainson, denies, therefore, the sovereignty of Great Britain over these latter chiefs, for which again Lord Stanley reprimands him ; that the confidential adviser of Government, Mr. Protector Clarke, distinctly declares that it guarantees all Native customs, and therefore the pro- ceedings of Taraia at Tauranga,' which included murder and cannibalism; —that its conditions have been repeatedly broken by one of the contracting parties, the Natives, who have over and over again rejected, in the broadest terms, the sovereignty of Great Britain, and actually resumed the inde- pendence they bound themselves to relinquish, and clamorously demanded hack and obtained the abandonment of the right of preemption of waste Ends it guaranteed to her Majesty ;—that these were all the conditions on which the possession of lands (however interpreted) was guaranteed to them; —that this, hi common fairness, releases the other party from its engage- ments;—that the Natives perfectly understand and recognise this view of mutual obligation ;—and, finally, that this unintelligible, universally mis- understood, and repeatedly broken and nullified treaty was made for an object as injurious as impracticable—that of enabling the Natives to extort for lands useless to themselves whatever sums of money their ignorance or aietrice might prompt them to demand ? Is such a treaty to be maintained at the cost of the stoppage of colonization and the ruin of thousands of Englishmen ? And was not the Committee of your Honourable House right in declaring that the step' (of making this treaty) 'was a wrong one, and that it would have been much better if no such treaty had ever been made ?' "

• Government of Aborigines.

"But if Captain Fitzroy's proceedings with respect to the land question exhibit, as your petitioners believe, an unjustifiable partiality in favour of the Natives, and a most injudicious acquiescence in, or virtual encourage- ment of, their unreasonable demands, his treatment ofmore open breaches of the peace committed by them shows the same weakness still more clearly, and has had yet more lamentable results.

"Now, surely the general maxims for the good government of savages are well known and indisputable. To assume and maintain towards them the tone and attitude of superiors dealing with inferiors; to treat them with the kindness and patience, but with the firmness and authority, re- quisite in the management of children ; never to allow that authority to be questioned for a moment ; never to tolerate any display of that arrogance which is natural to every race of savages ; most assuredly not to instil into them notions of their own importance which even they themselves would not otherwise have conceived, by ostentatious professions of regard and manifestations of respect for them ; to concede nothing to disrespectful demands, certainly nothing to open violence—every such concession operating necessarily, as with children, only as an incentive to acts of greater insubordination ; to quell such acts promptly and at their first ap- pearance, and to do this with such a superiority of force as to make re- sistance hopeless, submission immediate - to be, in short, their guides, lawgivers, teachers, protectors, civilizers;but, as a necessary preliminary to all this, to be completely and confessedly their masters ; because, that done, strange laws are respected, kindness and clemency understood—there is clear space and free play for every mild and gentle effort for their ame- lioration. Such surely are some of the oldest, clearest, most incontroverti- ble maxims for the good government of a savage or any very inferior i people. Restraint s an indispensable part of all education ; and every race that ever emerged from barbarism has had in a great measure to be drilled into civilization. And, surely as these are the dictates of expe- rience so surely are they perfectly compatible with those of the highest humanity.

"These principles have been sufficiently laid down for the guidance of New Zealand Governors by successive Secretaries of State for the Colonies. With respect, further, to suppression or tolerance of the customs of the Natives Lords Normanby, John Russell, and Stanley have severally and distinctly nctly directed, that while harmless ones were to be allowed to die out of themselves, and such as were detrimental to be gradually suppressed, all those which were contrary to the dictates of natural morality were to be put down at once at any risk. And Captain Grey, the Governor of South .iustralia, in his Report on the Aborigines of that country, has most fully and clearly shown, by reasonings which equally apply to all savage races, that if the surest and perhaps only possible way to civilize them is to be taken, they should, as soon as they are declared to be British subjects, be taught as far as possible that British laws are to supersede their own.' He asserts his full conviction that whilst tribes in communicationwith Europeans are allowed to exercise their barbarous laws or customs upon one another, so long will they remain in a state of barbarism' ; that the Only true humanity would be to make them from the very commencement amenable to British laws, both as regards themselves and Europeans' ; for he holds it to be a manifest contradiction to suppose that individuals sub- ject to savage and barbarous laws can rise into a state of civilization which those laws have a manifest tendency to destroy.' Lord John Russell for- warded this Report to Captain Hobson (9th December 1840), declaring of the principles it inculcates that there could be little doubt of their appli- cability to New Zealand.' And the Select Committee of your Honourable House on New Zealand affairs expressly refer to this Report as containing an able exposition of the policy which ought to be pursued upon this im- portant and difficult subject."

Captain Fitzroy's Theory.

" ButCaptain Fitzroy, iteeeme, came out determined toadopt a schetne directly opposed to all these principles, so rational, practical, and highly recommended. Before a Select Committee of the House of Lords in I83 he advised in his evidence that Great Britain should declare distinctly that she will decidedly refrain from interfering with the Aborigines' ; that ' the Resident should act in concert with the missionaries." Your plan would suppose an assumption of paramount sovereignty on the partof Great Britain, subject to leaving the Natives masters for their own government, and leaving them masters of their property in the land ?" Entirely so,' Is the answer. He would have ' everything done ostensibly by the Nativee, influenced by the missionaries.' That would be precisely the distinction he would like to make ; to ward off foreign interference, but to desist from interference ourselves.' This strange scheme of leaving all government to the missionaries, and of exercising British authority without imposing British law, without indeed interfering at all—which, even if apparently feasible where such sovereignty is to be exercised over civilized people Possessing laws of their own, may be pronounced impracticable when the so-called subjects are savages following barbarous and contradictory ette- toms—besides being directly opposed to the incontestible principles talid down by Captain Grey—had on the very face of it objections equally in- surmountable. surmountable. For n the first place it had actually been tried and found impracticable by Mr. Busby, to whom the successful opposition of the missionaries, even when he attempted to govern through themselves, mutt surely be allowed to have been unreasonable. Moreover, it was cleat beforehand that when colonization had taken place on a great scale, the missionaries would unavoidably lose great part of their influence, from the comparatively inferior station it would then become manifest to the Natives they held among the Whites ; and such has actually been the cue from this cause among others. Again, many thousands of Europeatut being settled in immediate contact and intercourse with the Natives, it wail evident that eases would continually arise in which authority and jurisdiction would have to be exercised over individuals of both races at once, in the settlement of differences between them or otherwise. Unless then the missionaries were also to govern the Whites, or make them submit to be Inv juriously affected by Native customs, it is inconceivable how (the Native in no case being amenable to British laws) such differences could be set- tled. But the opposition of the missionaries to colonization altogether, and their jealousy of any interference by others with the Natives and the country, had been so openly manifested and even acknowledged by there. selves, that it is astonishing how Captain Fitzroy could have avoided foreseeing the animosities and confusion that must arise from the attempt to reduce his theory to practice, to the utter destruction of all satisfactory government of the settlers, and all useful influence aver the Natives. Or, foreseeing all this, it is equally astonishing, except on the supposition of some bias totally subversive of his better judgment, how he should ever have thought of acting upon his theory at all. Further, his scheme a4. mitted of no positive agency for the restraint of Native crime or the Mut provement of the Native character, but that of abstract reason alone ; for the influence of example would be evil as well as good in its operation.. And to expect much effect from the agency of abstract reason upon savages, was to expect from men unaccustomed to restraint, and exposed. to greater temptations than it is well possible for civilized men to be, a

vastly greater self-command, freedom from the power of habit, and respect for moral law when clearly explained to them, than is ever expected from

civilized and conformably educated people themselves. This certainly does seem...a most visionary and fanciful notion deliberately to ground a system of goveznment or &scheme of civilization upon."

Mr. Clarke's Proceedings.

"Butif the sound reasoning and high authority in favour of the mode laid down by Captain Grey, and the evident impracticability (at least-since the colonization of these islands) of his own theory, were not enough to induce Captain Fitzroy to adopt the former, he had before him the actuad experience of the British Government since its establishment in New Zealand, most convincingly demonstrative of the impossibility of avoiding interference or of governing by merely moral influence and what has been called authoritative mediation.'

"The very first Native outrage sufficiently proved this. It was the murder of a Mrs. Roberton and her family, six White people in all, and a. Native, at the Bay of Islands, by a chief named blaketu." "Again, when Mx. Clarke, the Protector, denying the Native custom right by conquest, induced Captain Hobson to believe that the lands. bought by the settlers at Manganui had been bought of the wrong tribe, and consequently to buy them again of the representative of the conquered party, the chief Noble, the combined influence of the Protector and or Government could not prevent a battle between the opposing tribes, in which many lives were lost." "How little the moral influence of Government could effect, by authori- tative mediation or otherwise, even in the suppression of crimes (such as cannibalism) which the Natives certainly have always seemed most ashamed of confessing to Europeans, was next shown in the affair of Taraia, a chief of the Thames district, who, in the early part of 1842, massacred several Natives at Tauranga, and of whom Mr. Clarke himself says he confessed to him that he had eaten two of the bodies, and that he justified it 'as one of their old practices.' 'It was a matter inwhich Natives alone were coati cerned ; he did not see what business the Governor had to interfere with it.' Even Mr. Clarke acknowledged on this occasion that force was the only possible effectual mode of interfering. But Taraia and Takardni distinctly defied the Government, and declared their independence." " But, in accordance with the advice of Mr. Clarke, nothing further wee done to punish the crimes in question and assert the snpvemaoy of British , law and government. In the latter end of 1842, 1 ongoroa, a c ief of Ma. I ketu, massacred several Natives related to the same Tanranga tribe ; and I in spite of the remonstrances of Mr. Chapman, as the latter has himself re- corded, the chief and his followets devoured some of the bodies. In title transaction a boat belonging to some White men had been treacherously' , seized by Tongoroa. Mr. Shortland went to Tongoroa, demanded the boat, ' and expressed his extreme displeasure at the violence of the conduct' of the aggressors. Tongeroa decidedly refused to comply with his demand, and' he and his friends declared their determination to persist in their murderous and cannibal practices.' Mr. Shortland thereupon sent for Major Bunbury and the troops from Auckland. They came—with a. pro- test from Mr. Clarke against their being used, and a letter from the Attorney-General, Mr. Swainson, expressing doubts' as to the Natives of Maketu being amenable to British law, or even under British sovereigntyr which he decidedly declared the Natives who had not signed the Waitangi Treaty were not. So Mr. Shortland and the troops were jeered and laughed. at ; and, having been sufficiently defied, returned to Auckland ; having produced no effect whatever save that of increasing the arrogance of the Natives and lowering still further their opinion of the English, their soldiers, and their Government.

"And yet the same Mr. Clarke, who thus materially helped to render Mr. Shortlami's proceedings indecisive, had always,' as he confesses, ' impressed upon the Natives that they were all British subjects, and an under British law.' What, then, must the Natives, thus authoritatively Informed of the opinion of Government, have thought of its tame sub- mission to their defiance of its power—the impunity with which they could break and openly boast of breaking its laws ? Mr. Shortland distinctly states= they are inclined to interpret our lenity and unwillingness to act with force, into fear to do so ' " Wairao Affray.

"It was surely now abundantly evident that mediation by moral in- fluence could produce no beneficial effect of any consequence on the Natives without the display and evident determination to make use of physical force ; and that their annoyances and insubordination needed an effectual and immediate check.

"But it was not given. Another six months elapsed, and the lament- able Wairao affray occurred in the natural course of things. That event Is too well known to make it needful to do more than repeat some of the facts which remain indisputable after all the discussions about it. It is undeniable, then, that that affray arose from a dispute with two chiefs— notorious both of them for cruelty and murder, one for cunning and the foulest treachery ; the other for drunkenness, turbulence, and ferocity— about land which they had won by exterminating the original possessors ; which was separated by the sea from their habitual residences ; which they had never cultivated more than one single acre of, if one ; which they never needed, nor were likely to need; and which all probability shows they had fairly and knowingly sold. Moreover, that the land was not being taken from them but only being surveyed to save great time and great expense ; that this might have been done without any prejudice to their just claims, as Government officers and the Protectors might easily have explained to them ; that they broke their solemn engagement with the Land Commissioner, and went armed to interfere a month previously to the time agreed on ; that the warrant they resisted (if the fact be of im- portance) was to inquire into the affair, and not to punish them ; that the

only direct and positive evidence in that particular shows that they began the fight; that most unquestionable evidence proves that a considerable interval of time elapsed between the surrender and the massacre of the prisoners, during which an interchange of friendly civilities took place between them and their murderers ; and that the massacre was perpe- trated on Government officers and on some of the most valuable and most

deeply respected settlers in the whole country. The Natives, dismayed at their own act, retired to their strongholds,

-unable to conceive that no measures would be taken against them, and endeavouring to prepare to resist the attack and punishment they felt they had rendered themselves liable to. This strong impression of theirs ren- dered the omission to bring them even to trial so much the more injudi- cious and dangerous in its effects."

Proceedings of he Local Government.

"The Local Government had hitherto shown its weak deference to the Natives in its timid and vacillating conduct towards them ; but now it began to manifest its partiality in a systematic course of petty acts of op- pression and harshness towards the settlers, and misrepresentation of their motives and conduct. This was of course partly to justify its own fear to act, and partly to conciliate the Natives whom it feared. All the subor- dinate officials zealously seconded the views of their superiors. Their proceedings are well known. Mr. Shortland issued a proclamation to

prevent the settlers exercising acts of ownership' on any disputed lands, which excited Native annoyances in districts never troubled before. Mr. Clarke again recommended 'concession,' which even to him appeared humiliating' ; assumed facts against the settlers, as when he wrote of the deep provocation the Natives received in the occupancy of lands they never alienated'; and prejudiced the case by calling the defensive movements of the Whites 'an unconstitutional and murderous attack.' And yet at this very time the Attorney-General, Mr. Swainson, was in- sisting on the dismissal of the Nelson magistrates, because' before the case had been judicially decided upon, their names appeared to a letter, in which the massacre after the surrender was styled a murder in cold blood.' And at the same time, too a third official, the Police Magis- trate at Wellington, was issuing a proclamation, in which, on the hearsay evidence of a whaler, he stated a most improbable and fanciful story tend- ing to excuse the Natives, utterly opposed to overwhelming testimony then in possession of the magistrates, which story he was obliged afterwards publicly to acknowledge to have been false. And this story was sent home by Mr. Shortland, and repeated in Lord Stanley's despatch of 10th Fe- bruary (though omitted by Captain Fitzroy in his publication of it,) as the chief circumstance exculpatory of the Natives. The proceedings of the settlers of Wellington in organizing themselves into a militia, were .condemned and attempted be stopped by Major Richmond as illegal,' though there is clear evidence that Rauperaha was actually meditating an attack ; and there can be no doubt that the Protectors and others might have made the Natives perfectly understand that these proceedings were intended as purely defensive. The expression was retracted. All these evidences of a determination on the part of Government to hush up the affair, if possible, and excuse their leniency towards the Natives even at the expense of truth and justice, being so notorious and so amply proved that no one now attempts to deny them, need not again have been alluded to except to show how distrustful Captain Fitzroy ought to have been of the representations and the policy of a Government that had found it neces- sary to resort to such unbecoming expedients for its own justification, and had so often indisputably manifested its bias against the settlers."

Consequences.

"But, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to all this, one thing WAS and is universally admitted, and that is, that the arrogance of the Na- tives and their contempt of Government and the White people were in- creased tenfold by their success at the Wairao and the impunity which followed the outrage. "The determined opposition of the Natives all this time to the occupa- tion of waste lands, however useless to themselves their seizure of the crops of settlers, their unreasonable demands and threatening demonstra- tions, the inability of the Europeans to obtain any redress from the para- lyzed authorities,—all this has been already narrated."

Proceedings of Captain Atzroy.

"With all these things before him, Captain Fitzroy's first proceedings were to denounce the settlers he knew nothing of as actuated by a spirit of aggression and injustice,' as devil's missionaries,' and 'trespassers,' all which of course was immediately made known to the Natives ; to make ostentatious promises of protection to the latter ; to treat even bad charac- ters among them with preposterous civility and attention ; to add fuel, in short, to the flame, and aggravate all the ill effects of the lamentable le- niency and partiality of his predecessors.

"It was evident immediately how the Wairao massacre would be dis- posed of. In his reply to the Wellington memorial, Captain Fitzroy had already pronounced that the Whites were in the wrong, and spoken of the ' evident injustice which characterized the fatal proceedings there.' At Nelson he reprimanded the principal magistrates, and threatened them with removal from the commission of the peace, on the ground of their in-

discretion in having issued a warrant for the apprehension of the chiefs concerned in the massacre."

" To a deputation of Nelson settlers he declared as much as that his mind was made up to have no judicial inquiry,' because satisfied of the injustice of the 'Whites, and of the difficulty of taking the offenders. Ne- vertheless, inconsistently enough, at Wellingtonand to the hour of his leaving Nelson, he had continued to repeat that he bad not yet made up his mind, and must make further inquiries.' " He hastened to Waikanai ; set aside not only all forms of judicial pro- cedure established by the constitution, but all such as are naturally resorted to by any one wishing to arrive at the truth in a disputed case ; heard the unsupported and deliberately-composed story of one of the principal crimi- nals, Rauperaha—a story directly at variance on most of the Important points of the case with the consistent evidence then in his possession of some Native and many European eyewitnesses ; tested it by no cross- examination ; demanded no explanation of these inconsistencies ; but, after a quarter of an hour's silence, declared (as it was evident he had previously determined) that the Whites were guilty, and that therefore he would not avenge their deaths.' Mr. Clarke translated the story—the main points in a voice almost inaudible except to Captain Fitzroy—and was repeatedly called on to amend his translation by the most respected and talented mis- sionary in New Zealand, the Reverend Mr. Hadfield. His Excellency then declared that ' appeal must be made to the law in all disputes about land- that- he would see justice done, and be responsible for its execution'; introduced Mr. Spain as administrator of that law, and recommended implicit confi- dence in the fairness and impartiality with which he would decide upon all alleged purchases' ' • then blessed' the murderers and dismissed them, Sir Everard Home having shaken hands with their blood-stained chief. " Yet Governor Fitzroy himself, in the following August, overthrew as far as in him lay the authority and influence of Mr. Spain, by unceremo- niously reversing his decision respecting Taranaki, without having even read his report upon the case ; and that on the ground of conquest not conferring complete title to land among the Natives, the only right what- ever that Rauperaha ever had had to the Wairao. Moreover, having thus pledged himself publicly to the Natives to see the law executed when thus decided upon, he has left them still in forcible possession of the Hutt, which the same Mr. Spain has awarded to the Company.

"The evidence of an eyewitness, who narrowly watched' the Natives, tells us that neither the threat in the first part of the Governor's speech, nor his sudden clemency afterwards, produced any great impression on their minds.' They attributed it, of course, as so long before in Mr. Short- land's Tauranga affair, to fear to act.' The Governor having himself confessed as much at Nelson, it is not wonderful if the Natives found out his motives too.

"Such was the policy of Government respecting the murder of its officers and subjects at Wairao; a murder Welt' the evident consequence of repeated acts of mistaken leniency. The perpetrators were first rewarded by Mr. Shortland with a proclamation, which put whatever lands, settled or cultivated or not, they chose to dispute the sale of or lay claim to, rightly or wrongly, into their absolute possession ; and then, without having undergone any sort of trial, constitutional or other—with- out having even acknowledged the power or right of Government to punish or try them at all—were favoured by Captain Fitzroy with an unconditional and unsolicited pardon."

Further Proceedings of Captain Fitzroy. "But now, surely, whatever may be thought about this proceeding, it cannot, at all events, be disputed that forbearance had reached its utmost limits ; that all temporizing henceforth would be madness ; that moral influence without physical force was now powerless ; that the authority of British government and law must as soon as possible be vigorously and decisively asserted.

Nevertheless, Captain Fitzroy determined to carry out his old theory of mediation and government by non-interference as far as possible. In February 1844, a Native, Te Mania, was sentenced by the authorities at Auckland to imprisonment for theft. His chief, Kawau, thereupon rescued him in open day from the constables and the court-house. A warrant was issued for Kawau's apprehension; and Major Bunbury being sent to take him, the tribe interfered, and the affair ended in the capture of three men and some canoes. But, after a consultation with Major Bunbury, Government withdrew the warrant, on the ground of insufficient strength to enforce it in case of combined resistance. Here they confessed themselves guilty of precisely similar indiscretion to that for which, though only assumed by themselves on certainly erroneous grounds, they dismissed the Nelson magistrates. Here was a really injudicious attempt to exercise authority without the power to enforce it—an open acknow- ledgment of weakness. The abandonment of an attempt to punish such a crime, such a defiance of Government, was virtually an abandonment of all pretence to govern the Natives at all. Captain Fitzroy himself seems to have felt this ; for on the 4th July 1844, he passed an ordinance through the Council to exempt the Natives from imprisonment for theft, and sub- stitute a fine, to be exacted by the chiefs of the guilty party. This, of course, exempted the chiefs themselves from any punishment whatever, and rendered that of other Natives in the last degree improbable. Captain Fitz- roy, lest his motives should not be sufficiently clear, expressly declared that the object was to avoid such scenes as that of the rescue of Te Mania' ; and the Attorney-General, confessing that the object of the bill was not to enforce the law if it could be avoided,' acknowledged that in case the chiefs refused to pay the fine, the law must remain a dead letter.' And Captain Fitzroy, on this occasion, declared in plain terms his adherence to his old theory, by asserting 'that British government of the Natives must be by mediation only,' (though he allowed that this bill went even further,) and by confessing that 'a powerful chief, who had lately told him that he- (the Governor) was Governor over the White men, and the chief himself over the Natives, was right.' Was not this a direct abandonment of all pretension whatever to govern the Natives—a nullification of the Treaty of Waitangi, by which the sovereignty over them was guaranteed to Great Britain ? But government by mediation was now confessed to be no government at all, as from the first it might have been seen to be. The Native Exemption Bill was the reward of Kawau's defeat of Government authority."

Results—Heki.

"The effects of all this concession and reward for outrage became more and more evident. Honi or Johnny Held, a chief noted for his turbulent propensities and previous injuries of the Whites, after one or twice taking possession of the house of a man named Lord, seizing a boat, and com- mitting other acts of depredation, on Friday night, July 5. 1844, entered the town of Russell at the Bay of Islands, with his tribe ; where they danced war-dances, made threatening speeches, and, during three days' possession of the town, broke into and plundered houses ; treated the women and female cVdren with the grossest obscenity-' and, finally, with the greatest order and deliberation, cut down and destroyed the Government flagstaff erected there. In the speeches referred to, the Wairao massacre was distinctly alluded to. The first speaker said- ' War, war, war with the White people.' The second— Cut them in

pieces and throw them into the sea.' The third—' That Te Rauperaha had killed White people, and why could not they ?' " Vacillations and Compromise.

" Captain Fitzroy, upon this deliberate insult and outrage, seemed at first determined to temporize no longer. He immediately sent thirty soldiers from Auckland, and on the 21st of August, having procured 160 more from Sydney, sailed with them for the Bay of Islands, accompanied by the Go- vernment brig and her Majesty's ship Hazard, with a detachment of the Twenty-sixth Regiment. Arriving five days after, they proceeded to the landing-place nearest to the residence of Heki. There a deputation from some of the Natives, consisting of Mr. Protector Clarke and some other mis- sionaries, met them to convey the anxious request of the Natives that the troops might not be landed. The request was complied with ; and the troops, apparently after some movements and counter-movements, were remanded to Russell. The Governor then held several meetings with other disaffected chiefs of the district, who gave as grounds of their discontent the restric- tion on the sale of land, but more especially the injury they had sustained from the decrease in the visits of ships to that port, owing to the establish- ment of a customhouse. The Governor thereupon called the inhabitants together, and declared Russell a free port. This step was followed shortly afterwards by the abolition of customs-duties throughout New Zealand.

" His Excellency then repaired to Wairnate, and held a conference with some more of these petty chiefs. Honi Heki, however, the most guilty as well as most powerful criminal, could not be persuaded to attend. He preferred writing a letter to the Governor, the careless and independent tone and the peculiar reasoning of which seem to render it anything but what the Governor considered it—an apology. It commenced thus,— ' Friend Governor—This is my speech to you. My disobedience and rude- ness is no new thing. I inherit it from my parents, from my ancestors. Do not imagine it is a new feature in my character. But I am thinking of leaving off my misconduct to the Europeans.' He then promises to re- place the flagstaff, which he declares had never been paid for, and re- quests that the soldiers might' be left beyond the sea, and at Auckland.' The Governor then addressed the chiefs at length, concluding with a de- mand for the delivery of ten muskets 'as atonement for the misconduct of Boni Heki.' As soon as the muskets were given up, the Governor, with another speech, returned them. The troops, notwithstanding this proof of the threatening and hostile spirit of the Natives, and their readiness to revolt, were immediately sent back to Sydney."

Further Vacillations of the Government.

"So the insult to Government, in the destruction of the flagstaff—the plunder of the inhabitants of Russell—the obscene insults to the women —were punished by a fine of ten muskets, imposed upon the least guilty of the offenders, and immediately returned. Had Heki been actually taken, and in the power of Government, this remission of a punishment so trifling could not have had much good effect ; but, being at large, and careless of their power, he must have laughed both at the vicarious punish- ment itself and its unmeaning remission. But other circumstances of the case aggravate the injudiciousness of this lenity. The objection of the Natives to the flagstaff, as is notorious in New Zealand, arose from their notion that it diminished the number of whalers resorting to the harbour, to whom they had indeed been accustomed to sell potatoes and pigs, but from whom they derived a more valuable income by letting out their female slaves as concubines. So it is literally and strictly true, that it was to conciliate the Natives, by virtually giving indulgence to this traffic in licentiousness, that Captain Fitzroy abolished the customs and ruined the revenue. The financial policy of the Government was changed in its most important particular, in deference to the whims, expressed by out- rage and violence, of a petty chief with a few hundred followers. Captain Fitzroy acknowledged, in the Legislative Council, that he made 'this change, unprecedented in the history of colonization,' to prevent the in- surrection of these tribes. But this is not all. Your petitioners have learned, from credible witnesses present at the time, and whose evidence can be procured if needed, that the trifling atonement of the surrender of the ten muskets was wholly-a collusion; and that the Protector had previously made the Natives fully understand that they would be immediately re- turned. Thus Government openly exposed not only its weakness but its trickery to the Natives, and entered into an understanding with them, which was to defeat and disgrace itself for the poor chance of keeping up appearances with the Europeans. This worse than useless demonstration is said to have cost no less than 2,0001."

" Having deprived the settlers of the protection of the troops from Syd- ney, the Governor, by his next proceeding, seemed to declare it to be his express object to leave them entirely at the mercy of the savages. Lord Stanley, in a despatch to Captain Fitzroy, dated March 11, 1844, expressly refers to the Marquis of Normanby and Lord John Russell's instruc- tions' (given years before) ' pointing out the necessity for the establish- ment of some local force,' and especially adverts to the latter noble Lord's suggestions as to the kind of force to be raised. He then directs Captain Fitzroy to introduce a bill into Council for the formation of a Militia. On the 24th of September 1844, accordingly, his Excellency laid a bill to that effect before the Council, with a hint of his disapproval of it. The members immediately opposed it ; the Attorney-General declaring ' he wished Dr. Martin had moved it to be read that day six months.' The Governor thereupon confessed that he was so decidedly convinced of the extreme impolicy and imprudence of the measure,' that, had it passed the Council, ' he most certainly should not have given his assent to it.' The settlers were, therefore, left in their defenceless condition, without arms or ammunition, altogether unorganized and undisciplined. It was mad- ness enough to neglect a defensive measure, so obviously dictated by the most ordinary prudence ; but what an aggravation of madness to bring it forward in this public manner only to reject and condemn it ! It was tan- tamount to an open declaration to the Natives that Government would not permit the settlers to protect themselves. "A few weeks after this, in November 1844, Captain Fitzroy publicly declared to a Wellington deputation, whom he courteously compared to the three tailors of Tooley Street,' that, if the Natives continued to ob. atruct the Hutt settlers, he :could not consent to the employment of force.' It was then, too, he adopted the expedient of the bribe of 400/. to Raupe- raha, the utter futility of which has been shown above."

Further Compromises.

"But, after the affair of the muskets, who could be astonished at any outrage whatever by the Natives ? Nevertheless, Government still pur- sued its strange and disastrous policy. In October 1844, occurred another flagrant instance of injudicious concession to intimidation. A Native woman at the Bay of Islands, in resisting the execution of a warrant on the person of her husband or paramour (an European), was accidently cut in the hand by the constable. The brother, a missionary or Christian chief, named George King, immediately demanded tau or payment for the dishonour done to his family by shedding the blood of a member of it. This being, after many threats from the Native of vengeance and relapse into heathen- ism, refused, he declared himself a devil' (as the unconverted Natives are styled), and proceeded forthwith with some of his tribe to break open the

stables of a Mr. John Wright, a person in no way concerned, whence he carried off eight horses, threatening to shoot the owner if he interfered. Mr. Clarke, the Protector, arriving with H.M.S. Hazard, induced the chief to give up seven of the horses, en condition of his being allowed to retain the other one, and receiving besides a present of a keg of tobacco. Here the recognition of a Native custom, refused at first, was conceded:at last to violence and outrage; the outrage having been committed on an uncom. cerned and innocent person, and not only not punished, but absolutely re- warded. Could any greater proof of weakness be given than this wavering inconsistency ? any better instance of the impossibility of governing the Natives by non-interference, or even moral mediation ?"

" A Mr. Henderson bought about twelve square miles of land in the North for a schooner worth about 350/. Government thereupon informed him he had become indebted to it to the amount of 4,000/. for fees. Mr. Hen- derson, repentant, got back the vessel. The Maori seller indignantly complained. The Governor promised its reetitution. Henderson de- murred. The Maori insisted. His Excellency, after threatening to no purpose, persuaded Henderson to return it by promising him a recom- pense, which, however, as soon as the Maori obtained the vessel, is said to have been refused. So Captain Fitzroy resorted to his single remedy in this case as in all others, that of retreating from his position and abandon- ing his measures at the first sight of any difficulties attending the enforce- ment of them. The Government fees were given up, the penny proclama- tion issued ; all hopes of a land or emigration fund, or of systematin colonization, destroyed." " Insults and outrages now increased everywhere. In January 1845, a party of Natives plundered a house at Matakana, a place half way between Auckland and the Bay of Islands, and stripped and insulted two womez. they found there alone. Other outrages were committed in the neigh- bourhood of the latter place. On the 8th of January, the Governor issued. a proclamation, describing the former outrage as a flagrant robbery, accompanied by personal violence' ; declaring that the guilty tribes (of Wangarei and Kawakawa) should be excepted from the benefit of the waiving of the Queen's right of preemption ; and offering a reward of 50/. for the apprehension of the three chiefs concerned. The resumption of the Queen's right of preemption was calculated still more to add to. the confusion of future land-claims. The offered reward produced no effect ; but served Honi Held as an argument for exciting his followers- to further mischief.

" On the 5th of January, a party of Natives from the interior (the Taupo tribe) entered the settlement at Wanganui, with the professed in- tention of attacking another tribe in the neighbourhood. The Reverend Mr. Taylor endeavoured to persuade the principal chief among them, Te Hen Heu, to return quietly. The chief, in his reply, made the following remarks—' You and all the White people are slaves. I and Turoa are kings here, and Rauperaha is king of the sea-coast. You talk about your Queen ? Who is she ? Is she strong ? She is a woman—what can a woman do ? What did she do to Heki when he cut down her flag ? That was the symbol of your country's greatness ! She was quiet, and did nothing She is weak !' Another chief, Tuanui, asked, 'And what did she do to Rauperaha when he murdered her White men at Wairao ?" And you,' continued Heu Hen, 'you who come to talk to me are slaves !' "The Natives stayed seventeen days in the town. They broke into houses, committed many depredations, and insulted the inhabitants, male and female. Application being made to Major Richmond, he came with H.M.S. Hazard. At an interview with the chiefs, he and the Bishop, who had attempted to intercede, were rudely insulted, while the Queen 'a name was associated with the grossest ribaldry. Major Richmond retired, with the intention of landing a force and driving them out of the town, to the great joy of the inhabitants, delighted with this symptom of vigour. But a North-west gale springing up, drove the ship from the coast for some days. Meanwhile, the Bishop made the Natives a considerable pre- sent of blankets and other commodities (said to have been in fulfilment of an old promise), and they agreed to withdraw their men. They proceeded on their excursion ; but, finding their enemies strong and prepared to fight, retired to the interior. The ill-timed presents of the Bishop they considered merely as extorted by fear, and as yet another premium upon outrage. " Paramatta's aggressions at this time, upon some of the Nelson settlers, have been described. They were an immediate consequence of those last alluded to, and of the Governor's attempted purchase of Rauperaha's assistance to clear the Hutt.

"Thus the insubordination of Honi Heki at the Bay of Islands, and of Heu Heu at Wanganui, was confessed in the speeches of themselves and their followers to have been greatly stimulated by the impunity attending the massacre at Wairao."

Heki's Further Outbreaks.

"In January 1845, Honi Heki cut down the flagstaff a second time at the Bay of Islands. Thirty soldiers were thereupon despatched thither from Auckland, under the command of Ensign Campbell. In the mean- time, Heki had destroyed the third staff. The injudiciousness of placing Se small a force under an officer so young and inexperienced, in so critical a situation, need not be remarked upon. The troops were constantly exposed to the jeers and taunts of the savage followers whom Heki had, gradually collected about him. H.M.S. Hazard followed in the latter end. of February, and a blockhouse was erected to protect another new staff.

"A few days after the arrival of the Hazard, Kawiti, one of the rebel- lious chiefs, who had often plundered various settlers, attempting to steal some horses, was fired on by an armed boat from the Hazard. 'I he fire was. returned, and one of the crew wounded. This appears to have been the first act of open hostility between Government and the Natives. "A party of seamen and marines were stationed in the town, and on the 11th of March, about daylight, Heki, Pumuku, and Kawiti, with about 200 followers each, approached to the attack. The former directed his march to the blockhouse defending the flagstaff; the two latter threatened different sides of the town. Captain Robertson, of H.M.S. Hazard, with from thirty to forty seamen and marines, advanced along the Matavai road to meet Kawiti, and after a deadly fire kept up from twenty to thirty minutes, repulsed him with considerable lose. But a sergeant of matines was killed in this encounter ; and Captain Robertson, after displaying the greatest gallantry, was carried off the field pierced by four or five bullets,. and with his sword broken. Meantime, Heki had got possession of the blockhouse, while the officer in command was engaged in digging a trench 200 yards off. Pumuku attacked a second blockhouse, erected by the inhabitants, which was bravely defended by Mr. Hector and a party of soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Barclay and Ensign Campbell. After some few hours' firing, Pumuku having been killed, the Natives hoisted a flag of truce. About one P.n., the magazine within a stockade in the town blew up, and the ammunition being expended, it was resolved that the place should be evacuated. The women and children had pre- viously embarked. The rest of the inhabitants did so now ; and the Natives, having plundered the town of property to the amount of many thousand pounds, burnt it to the ground. "A small craft was sent to Wangari, between Auckland and Russell, to

bring off the settlers there to the number of forty, who thug teemed with the leas of their property. The Northern extremity of the islaad might now be considered uninhabitable by settlers. The Nati,es have com- mitted robberies close to the capital, which many of the inhabitants are said to he abandoning at every opportunity, while those who remain are harassed by frequent alarms of intended attacks by the Aborigines. "The state of affairs in the South, as has been shown, was only less threamning than in the Noah. Insolent contempt fur the Whites and theix Government, on the point of bursting into acts of open hostility itherever the two rages were in contact. Actual warfare already begun in one quarter. And yet SO little was Captain Fitzroyawake to the character and feelings of the Natives, that, in his address to the Council, on March 4th, 1845, exactly one week before the deform), ion of the town of Russell, azd the overthrow of the symbol of Goverment authority there, he declared 'that the majority of the Natives entertain the most kindly and confident feelings towards her Majesty, towards the Local Gov( raiment, and the settlers generally,' and that their forbearance, aelf-reatraint, and general tranquillity, are quite wonderful."

Inetractiest Military Measures.

." And now Captain Fitzroy's policy having at last necessitated the very Nmereive measures' whieh it was so vainly expected would have been pre- cluded by it, and which he had so often and so unnecessarily pledged himself not to adopt, how much wisdom or prudence, it may be asked, bas he displayed in the execution of these measures ? A force, con- sisting of her Majesty's ships North Star and Hazard, detachments of -the Fifty-eighth and Ninety-sixth regiments, and some volun- teersfrom Auckland, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Flulme, was collected at the Bay of Islands. Pomare, one of the hostile chiefs, who had a pith on the sea-coast, gave himself up without resistance, and his deserted pall was destroyed. On the 2yrd of May 1845, the troops, with the small-armed seamen and marines of the two ships, in all about 400 men, commenced their march into the interior in pursuit of Heki. Arto means of transport had been provided', a friendly chief, Nene for Thomas Walker), could not supply the number of Natives he had promised for this purpose ; the men were ' without a single tent, or a day's ration of liquor; and the spare ammunition had to be served out and carried in the men's haeresacks. Heavy rain falling during the night and two following days, two thirds of the ammunition was rendered unfit for use, and five days' biscuit each man unfit to be eaten.' At noon, on the 7th, the troops veached Heki's pah, which was found to be 'a strong fortification, trebly stockaded, with walls inside, traverses cut from side to side, a deep ditch, and each cute loopholed ; and, to add to its strength, New Zealand flax wee interwoven, which made it impregnable to musketry.' "Self the force, having been formed into three parties of assault, with theeremainder for a reserve, marched under a galling -fire to a height of 298 yards from the pah. Thence twelve rockets were bred, with a result not se favourable as was expected.' They produced only a momentary alarm' intim pah. Then a party of Natives, under Kawitt, another hostile chief, was discovered on the right of the kill lying in ambush, ready to attack the troops in rear in case of their assaulting the pats. They were immediately charged and repulsed with loss.

"At this moment lieki hoisted the British ensign and a small red flag called his 'fighting flag'—a preconcerted signal—and with about 150 followers rushed out towards the hill, while Kawiti returned to the charge. Heki was checked by the distant fire of the reserve, and Kawiti was again repulsed at the point of the bayonet with severe loss. '" The troops were then drawn off, but in retreating were attacked by Hewitt a third time. Ile was again beaten back by the skirmishers. In this affair the British lost thirteen killed and thirty-nine wounded. The want of proper accommodation and nourishment for the latter, the badness of the weather, and the deficiency of provisions' generally, compelled Colonel Hulme to reimbark the troops. Heki afterwards decamped to a still stronger pab further up the country. "And in this inefficient and imprudent manner did Captain Fitzroy eomtnence hostilities with the tribes of warlike savages, many thousands of whose fellow-countrymen he ought to have known would be determined asto their future conduct and feelings towards the British and their Go- vernment by the result of this first serious attempt of the latter to coerce them. But, as if to affect to be successful were the same as succeeding, the Governor, in a despatch to Lieutenant-Colonel Hulme, dated May 8, 1845, and published by Sir Maurice O'Connell, at Sydney, in General Orders, boldly congratulates the Colonel on 'the satisfactory results of his Vacations.' This was making ridiculous what was before only lamentable."

Further Military Mismanagement.

"But did Captain Fitzroy and his Government kern wisdom even by this failure ? Reinforcements having arrived, Colonel Despard assumed the chief command, and the troops, in number about 490, marched to Mehra second and stronger pah. But now, ' tht guns brought from Auck- land,' says Colonel Dexpard, 'were found quite ineffectual for broaching, from their very defective carriages, as they frequently upset from their awn firing.' So one of the heavy guns from the Hazard was brought up with great labour, and on the 30th of June a platform was erected half- way up a hill to the right of the British position. The hill-top was occu- pied by the friendly chief Nene and his tribe, and a six-pounder, protected by a sergeant's guard, was placed there. While every one was observing the effects of the shot from the Hazard's gun' a sudden attack was made on the party on the hill-top from a thick wood in the rear (exactly as in the former affair), and Nene's Natives were driven from their position ; but &party of the Fifty-eighth charged up hill, and recovered it. Having ex- pended the shots of the Hazard's gun (only tscenty.six in number), Colonel Despard resolved to storm the pah, expecting the stockades to be so loosetteu by the shots as to enable the men to cat and pull them down with axes mind ropes The storming party having attained a position under cover of ravine within 60 or 100 yards of the pah, rushed gallantly forward to the attack • but, on reaching the stockades, found that the hatchets and axes, nt well as the ropes for pulling them down, and the ladders, had all been thrown away or left behind by those appointed to carry them '—the volute. tbeeral it seems, trom Auckland. The assailants 'partially succeeded in opening the outer stockade, but the inner one resisted all their efforts; and.being lined with men firing through loopholes, on a level with the ground, and others from half-way up, the men were falling so fast, that, stetwithstanding the most daring acts of bravery, they were compelled to reline. They were 'generally successful' in bringing off the wounded; SsadOolonel Hulme covered the retreat under a very heavy fire. One- third of the mesa actually. engaged, fell in this disastrous affair' ; thirty-six baying been killed, and seventy-one wounderie of whom five afterwards died. Captain Grant, of the Fifty-eighth Regiment, was killed at the stockade, and Lieutenant Phillpotts, of H.M.S. Hazard, in the act of mounting it. Their bodies were mutilated, and a captured soldier is said to have been toasted alive by the savages. "Offensive operations were resumed nextday. But the pah was evacuated daring the following night. Held recited to a still stronger one in the Interior. Six months' provisions and an old woman were fuund in that Wu& had been abanuoned. The greater part of the troops, after this sanguinary repulse, were taken back to Auckland ; the remainder Mb . trenched themselves at Waintate.

" Thus both these attempts failed from the same cause; the utter in- adequacy of the means supplied to effect the object desired. Strong forth fictitious were attacked, one with twelve rockets, the other with twenty.ait shots. There was an utter deficiency of provisions, means of transport, and accommodation, anal even of proper ammunition; the very guns in the second attempt were useless, and upset in firing. Does it not look AS if Government had resolved to put the seal upon its imbecility, by running- from the extreme of caution into the extreme of rashness, from the weakest respect into the most unwarrantable contempt for the foe its own previous timidity had nursed into confidence, and, therefore, into formidable strength ?"

" The Governor is said to have wound up this miserable campaign by concluding a six months' truce with Held ; which must be considered by the savages as an acknowledgment of defeat, and was desired by them only that they might put in their potato crops and furnish themselves with provisions to carry on the war afresh. Thus the chief advantage gained by Government amid its signal failures, that of having straitened the rebels for provisions, is abandoned, and even the little that has been done must all be done over again. Tile contempt with which the adjoining ttibea regard the British is said to be unbounded ; and nothing but the profits the Waikato derive from the sale of the kauri gum is believed to have hitherto restrained that powerful tribe from attacking Auckland itself.

" Captain Fitzroy's measures for the defence of the settlers have been as unfortunate as his attempts to punish the Natives. On the 25th at March 1845, after one town and settlement had been destroyed by the Natives, he introduced a bill for the establishment of a Militia, though six months before, when it might have been effectually done, he had rejected it as • extremely imprudent and impolitic.' The Attorney-General, who se stiongly opposed the bill on that occasion, now deelared it ' essentially. necessary' ; and actually remarked, that if seventy or eighty of the settlers had been well trained, the result would have been very different at the Bay of Islands.' This from the very person who had, next to the Governor, been the principal means of preventing such trailing ! At Auckland, a memorial was got up, complaining of the:seismical of officera made by the Governor. At Wellington, 200 men were drilled for three months and then disbanded. At Nelson, 100 men (who voluntered) were disbanded after five weeks' drill; too short a time to render the force efficient ; so that the 330/ it cost was a mere waste of public money. The several pay ments were made in 51. debentures, which the men at last were utterly unable to get passed. But no change whatever in the circum- stances of the settlers or the Natives, or their relations to one another, to

justify the disbanding of the Militia, had occurred since their em- bodiment."

Disastr ous Results.

Thus rapidly, then, have the natural results of governing by moral mediation only, and of systematically rewarding outrage by concession, developed themselves in general confusion, disaffection, and contempt for the Government. Its policy has had the effect of drawing the Natives on, by a forbearance they could not understand, to the commission of ever- increasing enormities, necessitating the infliction of a punishment always more and more severe the longer it has been delayed. And have not all these disastrous events proved most clearly the wisdom of the protests against the policy that caused them, made so long ago in so many quarters, and in none so forcibly as in the Report of the Committee of your Honour- able House, in which occurs the following opinion, given a year ago ?-e ' It appears to us that there has been a want of vigour and decision in the general tone of the proceedings adopted towards the Natives; measurea have not been taken, as we think they ought, for making the original inhabitants understand that they are now to be considered British subjects, and must therefore abstain front all conduct inconsistent with that cha- racter. In dealing with them, firmness is no less necessary than kindness. But, from an over-sensitive fear of infringing upon Native rights, the authority which, had it been decidedly assumed, would, there is every reason to believe, have been willingly sublnitted to, has been lost. Your Committee are persuaded that an enlightened humanity and a regard for the real welfare of the Native tribes require that British power and authority should be resolutely exerted to put a stop to such a state of things.' Has not the event proved all this beyond all question ? Can the wisdom of these recommendations be denied by any one now ? Your petitioners, indeed, learned with the greatest satisfaction the declaration of the Committee of your Honourable House in favour of a wise, vigorous, and just policy in this Matter, as in so many others discussed in their profound and lucid report. And it was with corresponding grief and astonishment that your petitioners beheld such a Report, and emanating from each a quatter, whelly set aside by the Colonial Office ; and on grounds evidently so little tenable as those given in the despatch of the noble Lord at the head of that Department to Captain Fitzroy, dated August 13, 1844, and published by the latter in this country. For it certainly appears clear to your petitioners that the assumptions on which the despatch in question grounds the rejection of the Report are altogether unwarranted by the actual facts of the case."

"Your petitioners need not remark upon those parts of the despatch

last mentioned which relate to the New Zealand Company, although they are directly, if not principally, interested in them; but, perhaps, they may be permitted to express once more their extreme surprise that a question eubmitted by any two parties whatever to a body of arbitrators of the highest authority in the empire, and by them so deliberately decided and awarded 'upon, should thus be reopened by one of them, and the award itself rejected; and this on no better grounds than the reassertion of facts and arguments, forming only a comparatively trifling part of the vast amount of both already taken into consideration and adjudicated upon by the arbitrators themselves.

Captain Fitzroy.

"But to return to Captain Fitzroy: From a consideration of the facts stated above, your petitioners are driven unavoidably to the conclusion that his Excellency, when he adopted this condemned policy and determined to tollow the same course his predecessors had been pursuing, had clearly existing before him the actual evil results of that course ; and that he adopted it because in accotdaine with a preconceived theory of governing the Natives long before avowed by him, and in itself extravagant and manifestly impracticable. Moreover, that he has °aided this pinky to an excess which it is difficult to account for except on the supposition of some extraordivary prepossession or infatuation, which, in whatever amiable feelings originating, seems to have wholly obscured his better judgment, and rendered him deaf to the palpable warnings of experience., blind to the moat decided manifestations of character and the most evident symptoms of the disposition of the Natives towards the settlers and his Government. And, perhaps, to some such extraordinary bids towards the Natives and misconception of their character must be attributed the remarkable pre- judice, even the animosity, against the settlers evinced from the very first by his Excellency. For this was, as has been shown, exhibited imme- diately on his arrival, and could not have been provoked by theruseins.

For the great body of them had, of course, never even heard of his name until the news of his appoiutment arrived ; and his appointment was men- tioned with approbation, however caused, by the New Zealand Company and others having influence with them. It was not likely, then, that any predisposition towards hostility could have existed on their side. Yet how many instances of this animosity have been or may be adduced ! The sweeping charges made against the Wellington settlers of being actuated by a spirit of hostility and aggression towards the Natives,' which the best evidence showed to exist in the Natives towards them ; the term I trespassers, applied to the Nelson settlers ; of leader of the devil's missionaries," enemy to religion,' to Mr. Wakefield ; the violent attack upou the Nelson deputation, consiating of groundless imputations of abstract political and religious opinions; the comparison of a Wellington

deputation to the three tailors of Toole), Street.' ; the epithet 'trespassers' again applied to the New Ply mouth settlers, and the taunting advice to their deputation to beware of provoking the Natives,' bestowed on them instead of redress for the injuries they were suffering from,—instead of even the sympathy they might at least have expected ; the treatment of another deputation at Auckland, in June 1844, which, having waited upon him on a day appointed for the reception of visiters on public business, without more formal notice, was roundly rebuked for this certai ly not very unpardonable mistake and breach of etiquette, and rated, until the Chairman, Mr. Graham, a respectable-merehant of that town. put on Ms hat and walked out of the room with his deputation, and then printed a letter in the next newspaper describing the address of the Governor as ' a tirade of abuse as uncalled for as insulting' ; the threat to send the editor of the Auckland Times on board H.M.S Hazard, and there ootifine him in irons; the epithet schoolboy trash,' which be conferred upon a remade of a member of the Legislative Council, one of his own nomiatees; the late arrogant reply to the presentment of the Nelson Grand Jury,—all these instances (and how many more might he cited !) of the violation of the ordinary courtesies of lire, and of a haughty and contemptuous disregard for the settlers, their feelings, and their wishes—more in keeping. it is to be hoped, with the habits or an Oriental despotism than of most British Governments—can only be sufficiently accounted for by the existeace of some such prepossession or prejudice as that stated above.

And this prejudice has no doubt been strengthened greatly by the undue influence over his Excellency's mind of the opinions, so adverse to the colonization and colonists of these Wands, so often and °pertly avowed by the various missionaries or their parent societies at bottle. Repeated instances of this influence have been already given, and the abandonment to them of many of the natural duties of Government has been shown to have been start of Captain Fitzroy's favourite theory, expounded long ago before the Committee of the House of Lords. But Captain Fitzroy has lately confessed it himself in the most public way. In the Legislative Council, on the 13th of March 1845, his Excellency declared that 'in hours of anxiety his only refuge was in the assistance of such trustworthy persons as the Chief Protector, and that his counsel and assistance were of-such value and importance that he would not attempt to carry on the business of the country without him.' And he declared on the same occasion that the services of that gentleman were of more value than those of any five of the officers of Government.' But a fair and impartial feeling towards both parties would certainly bare made Captain Fitzroy hesitate, in a state of things so complicated, ere he thus threw himself into the arms of the missionaries, between whom and so many of the settlers it was notorious that a feeling of distrust and dislike did actually exist, whichever party had been originally to blame. But Mr. Chat ke's aversion for the settlers must in particular have been known. For, besides the open avowal of this feeling by the society he was appointed by, his own despatches previous to Captain Fitzroy's arrival are full of sweeping charges against the settlers of ill-usage of the Natives, made without the Citation of a single instance of it, or any the slightest attempt at proof. Yet the settlers had often challenged the production of such instances, and may here, once for all, do it openly again. But to leave this question of partisouship for a moment, it may be remarked, that the judgment of Captain Fitzroy, in trusting so implicitly to Mr. Clarke's advice and guidance, is very questionable. For that person, in his despatch excul- patory of the Maories engaged in the massacre at Wairao, deliberately lays it down 'as a principle with the Natives, in all cases of extremity-be- tween themselves and the Europeans, to act only on the defensive. "We will not," say they, "fire a gun at an European until we see one of our own people first murdered."' And how is this opinion reconeileable with the unprovoked attack on Russell by the very Natives Mr. Clarke was best acquainted with ? If it be answered that the latter were Natives of bad character, so were Rauperaha and Rangihaiatti, of whom he was then writing; nay, of notoriously worse character. But Mr. Clarke's ad- ✓ ice to Captain Hobson with respect to Noble's case was proved by the sanguinary results to have been equally unsound. Yet this is the person, so little capable of forming correct opinions of the Native character, or so reckless in recording incorrect ones, on whom Captain Fitz' oy boasts of bestowing hi a entire confidence, and whose advice it is indeed too evident he has often followed with disastrous results to your petitioners and their fellow colonists. Nor do your petitioners think they can justly be accused of want of charity for holding that neither Mr. Clarke nor the great ma- jority of his brother missionaries, however meritorious they may be sup- posed to be, and useful in their proper sphere, areexactly the persons best fitted by birth, talents, station, or education, by the feelings and sym- pathies their previous life for so many years must so naturally have pro- duced in them, to be the virtual rulers of a colony of Englishmen, many of them of the higher and middle classes at home, and the mass of whom, on coming out, had relinquished none of the feelings and forfeited none of the rights or advantages which members of an English community under their own Government are commonly held to possess. Be that as it may, it is undeniable that the missionaries are the almost exclusive confidants of his Excellency. And though your petitioners most sincerely desire to avoid casting any reflections upon Captain Fizroy's private character, or med- dling in the least degree wi h the sacred rights of conscience possessed by every man, yet they cannot but think that the somewhat obtrusive and ab- sorbing observance of devotional duties, whim h, though springing from the aincerest motives, has contributed to give to Government House the air of a conventicle. and caused its almost entire desertion by all but the mis- sionaries, is hardly consistent with the satisfactory performance of other equally important duties of a colonial or any governor. For this also has undoubtedly tended to make his Excellency Captain Fitzroy an utter Stranger to the vast majority of the settlers with whom most colonial go- vernors would be in frequent communication, and from whom he could beet learn something of the feelings, wishes, and interests of those wi.om he is sent to govern."

Captain Fitzroy continued. "But whether to be excused by this preoccupation and peetdiar influence or not, or to be attributed possibly to some natural irritability, or to the effect which the habitual exercise of the arbitrary power given by the pro- fhastion Captain Fitzroy belongs to has upon some minds, your petitioners Would willingly have passed over in silence these smaller defects and die- eoortesies, atthough they could not without sorrow have beheld conduct so

derogatory to the dignity of a representative of her Most'', and tending so uselessly to alienate the affectious of' her subjects. But these seeming trifles have helped to produce very bad effects. For such exhibitions of contempt for the settlers are and always have been made known to the watchful and inquisitive Natives, and so have greatly contributed to pro- duce that frequently expressed opinion of theirs, ' that the settlers are slavers' and held by Government of no account- Of this there can be no doubt. And another evil consequence, very evident in New Zealand, of this arbitrary and contemptuous haughtiness. is the dislike and refusal (with some honourable exceptions) of almost all men of ordinary indepen- dence to enter the service of Government Government, consequently, in many instances, has been driven to put in places of trust or influence men of the most accommodating principles, and occasionally men the least re- speoted and influential in the whole community. This, where the Execu- tive in all its branches is necessarily nu.merieally week, is a greatevil. And such men, sacrificing everything to ingratiate themselves with Govern- ment, exert themselves naturally to supply it with grounds for continuing the policy they know to be most agreeable to a Government with a bias so notorious. Thus all its errors are confirmed and perpetuated, and every avenue is stopped up through which it might be reached by real truth or independent opinion. "Reviewing, then, the whole policy-and proceedings of Captain Fitzroy since his assumption of the Government: remembering the evident prepos- session of his mind by one fixed and erroneous idea of the charaoter of the Natives, and one theory of governing them; the utter ignorance of human nature betrayed by his adoption of this theory and his mode of carrying it out ; the want of judgment, infirmity of purpose, and inability to profit by the experience of his predecessors or his own,—displayed particularly in his unfortunate lenity towards Honi Heki, after the many proofs that had been given of its effects upon other Natives; in his allowing that disturber to escape unpunished after so much display of force and of intention to use it ; in the miserable collusion about the surrender of the muskets ; in the repetition at the second attack upon Heki's pah of the errors which caused the first to fail; and in his ultimate conclusion of a truce with the rebels: considering further his many impolitic, rash, inconsistent, and unnecessary declarations ; such as his pledging himself to resign rather than use force in any case; or as his solemn recommendation of Mr. Spain and his court at Widkanai and pledge to enforce his ciecisions, one of the mo‘t important of which he presently and so unceremoniously overthrew at Taranaki, and at last sweepingly condemned the court itself, (after having, in spite of the agreements at home and its ill effects out here, so long persisted in upholding it,) in the words ' the plan was wrong from the first on which these claims have been settled': recollecting, moreover, his continual dis- regard of the letter or spirit of his instructions. as in the cases of the first Detenture Bills and of those on the Company's stoppage; of the establish- ment of a militia force ; and of the waiving of the right of prgemption looking at the fundamental errors, and the extent and suddenness of the frequent changes of his financial policy ; at his unvarying acrimony against the settlers; at his unfortunate selection of officers and confidential ad- visers; at his entire subjection to missionary influence ; and at all the ruinous results of his whole administration of affairs, however occasioned reflecting upon all these things, and upon the very critical circumstances of the colony at present, your petitioners feel it Impossible to avoid ex- pressing in the most distinct terms their utter want of confidence in the ability of Captain Fitzroy or his Government successfudy to encounter the difficulties before them. And such declaration of want of confidence is not merely a conventional expression of dissatisfaction, without results Or importance except thatgiven by the accordance with it of those to whom it is made. For your petitioners submit to your honourable House that, without such confidence in the head of the Government just now, there can be no feeling of security among the settlers for property or life. That very little exists at present is notorious, and is proved by the daily abandonment of the colony by numbers of the settlers, of the seat of Government especially. Anti if this confidence in the Government be not speedily renewed, it is certain that the most valuable settlers will abandon it. It is a fact that very many of them are only now waiting in the faint hope of seeing it renewed. Meanwhile all enterprise is put a stop to ; colonization from England is from the same cause suspended; the progress of agriculture is retarded, trade languishes and is going to decay. Yet the settlements thus diminished in population, thus im- poverished and depressed, will still involve Governtneat in a greater ex- pense than ever, though unable to contribute towards it to anything like the extent they formeily did. But with all Captain Fitzroy's proceed- ings hitherto before your petitioners, it is impossible for them 1.0 100k for A speedy or successful issue to the struggle his policy has at length brought about; to expect that his coercive measures will be carried on with the prudence, determination, and consistency of purpose, and the cordiality between his Excellency and those to whom the execution of those measures must be entrusted, without which they must certainly Fail. Are not greater judgment, caution, vigour, and experience required for the management of matters at present titan ever they were ? But, if his Excellency failed when these qualities were leas requisite, what must be expected now ?"

Prayer of the Petitioners.

" Your Petitioners therefore earnestly implore your Honourable Roan' to interfere, and literally save them from destruction. And they ras.lte. this appeal with confidence, because they know that their complain are just; and because appeal to your Honourable House is the only con- stitutional mode left them of seeking relief from any injuries the pohey of the Local Government and Colonial Office may inflict upon them. For it is undeniable that the form of government they are placed under is a perfect despotism; that they have no vote, or voice, or influence whatever, direct or indirect, in the framing of any laws or ordinances they are bound to obey, even those which most materially affect them; that they are ruled by the will and judgment of one man, and three individuals completely subservient to him. They are unconscious, indeed, by what process they have been deprived of all those reasonable privileges which by the British constitution are considered as the birthright of every Englishman ; by what species of argumentation they can be shown to have forfeited even those rights (such as the disposal of their own pro- perty) which great and unquestioned authorities have long ago pronounced to be 'rights in nature,' and 'founded on principles of natural and civil liberty.' But of this they are not now complaining. They have often been shocked by the assignment of power over them to persons who, hr more instances than would readily be believed, hate put the infamy of their characters beyond doubt, and justified the aversion of the e01111111L- nity they dwelt among by acts of public or private delinquency, necessi- tating at last their reluctant removal. They have been grieved at the iusults continually offered by savages to a British Government; at the sad spectacle of a British Governor floundering on from disastrous and dis- graceful concession to imbecile attempts at coercion, driven by the prac- tice of an utterly irrational policy into the unwilling adoption of a wiser one he was utterly unequal to the execution of ; in one case as well an the other, only exposing himself to the contempt and derision of the savages he wee unable either to conciliate or congeer. They have been treated in a thousand nameless ways as aliens, outcasts, almost as ene- mies; solely, as it seems, because they have been guilty of the crime of colonization—guilty of the imprudence of securing for the Crown of Great Britain, at the risk in some instances of their lives, by the sacrifice in numberless cases of much of their property, the possession of a country destined in all probability to become the mistress of the Southern hemi- sphere; of rescuing it by anticipation from another European power most eager to obtain it. For loyalty, they have been rewarded with neglect or oppression ; for forbearance, with incessant calumnies ; for the advocacy of common justice and common sense, with false imputations of sentiments and actions which are utterly abhorrent alike from their principles, their education, and their habits. But this, too, they could pass over in silence, and look with confidence to time, to the enduring vitality of truth, to its over accelerating and always irrepressible diffusion, for justification, retri- bution, and redress. Of political privileges unreasonably withheld—of their own characters unjustly attacked—of the honour of their country outraged with impunity—of any evils which by any possibility might be deemed factitious, imaginary, or theoretical, they do not now complain. They complain of practical evils of misgovernment, alike undeniable and unendurable. They complain of the ruin of the public finances, and of taxation required thereby, which they are wholly unable to endure. They complain of their capital wasted, of all useful exertions restricted or para- lyzed, the fruits of industry destroyed, and the toil of years rendered nugatory, by the forcible occupation by others of lands which, by all rules of justice, they themselves should be put and maintained in possession of. And they complain of the utter insecurity of life, and of such property as has hitherto escaped the rapacity of treacherous, avaricious, and cruel savages, whose passions a mistaken policy has called into activity, excited, and given the most unbridled license to. They would be wanting to themselves, they would be accessory to their own destruction, if they did not protest against this monstrous policy ; if they were not with the utmost earnestness to implore your Honourable House, while there is yet time, if time there really be, to avert its still impending ill consequences, by intrusting the management of affairs in this unfortunate colony to hands capable of extricating them from their present confusion, and arresting them in their progress to else inevitable ruin. Is not their request rea- sonable ?—is it not just ? And if your petitioners presume to implore your Honourable House to cause the adoption of a specific policy, it is because your Honourable House has already by your Committee admitted the evils they complain of, declared the causes of them, directed their abandonment, and pointed out the remedies. Those remedies they pray may now be applied. And being on the spot, and with many facilities for indging denied to others, being besides of all men most deeply interested in the subject, they do hereby most deliberately declare their conviction that the policy recommended in the Report of the Committee of your Honourable House is a practical and practicable policy, and that those remedies are the only efficient ones for the actually existing evils they labour under. They do implore your Honourable House to rescue from utter failure an attempt to colonize a country of resources so promising and so generally admitted, on principles acknowledged to be the best and wisest hitherto discovered, and originally made under circumstances ap- parently more favourable and auspicious than ever attended any similar enterprise. They ask thus much for their own sakes ; they ask it for the sake even of those Aborigines, whom nothing but the ruinous kindness of mistaken friends and the curse of unbounded license has turned, for the present, into instruments of destruction, but who, by wise and vigorous government, might yet be preserved and civilized, made valuable auxilia- ries in the development of the resources of the country, made to add to the wealth and the strength of the empire, and be raised into a peaceable, orderly, and contented community. Your petitioners rest of nothing more assured than that the same policy so necessary for their own welfare is equally requisite for the ultimate preservation of the Natives. Finally, they entreat your Honourable House to consider, that possibly the very existence of the settlements of New Zealand, certainly their immediate or even early prosperity, depends upon the favourable reception of the prayer of your petitioners. And your petitioners will ever pray, &c., &c"

No, 11.

Lord Lyttelton to the Secretary of the Company.

Downing Street, 14th May 1846.

SIR—I am directed by Mr. Secretary Gladstone to acknowledge your letter of the 7th instant, in which, on the part of the Directors of the New Zealand Company, you apprise him that they cannot be- come parties to such a postponement as would preclude Parliament from taking advantage of the present session to apply an efficient re- medy to the evils under which New Zealand is suffering, and that they propose accordingly to bring the present state of that colony under the notice of Parliament with the least possible delay.

I am to return to you Mr. Secretary Gladstone's thanks for this intimation, and for the courteous assurances by which it is accom- panied.

He has been anxious, before replying to your letter, to learn from the Votes of the House of Commons what specific proposals it may be the intention of the New Zealand Company to submit to Parlia- ment, in pursuance of the general notice which appears to have been given by one of its Members. But not having as yet acquired this information, he thinks it conve- nient that your letter should be answered without further deldy. He is as far from entertaining the desire as from possessing the power, to interfere with the exercise of the discretion of the Direc. tors of the New Zealand Company upon a subject of great interest and great complexity, and one with regard to which he is very sen- sible of the inability of the Executive Government to carry into im- mediate and full effect all that is requisite to be done in the way of remedy for the past, and of prevention, as well as of positive advan- tage, for the future. But I am to point out to the Directors that he has never stated that her Majesty's Government have arrived at any conclusion which should necessarily, or with any probability ap- proaching to necessity, preclude application to Parliament, during the present session, for legal provisions, with a view to the improve- ment of the state of New Zealand.

It is the intention of her Majesty's Government to postpone any decision upon that subject for a limited time, in the hope that they may receive intelligence, during that short interval, of such a nature as may materially assist theirjudgment; and in the belief, on the other hand, that such a delay will create no serious obstacle in the way Of executing any resolution which they may find it requisite to take. The Directors may possibly have observed that in any last letter Mr. Gladstone expressed his willingness to receive propositions other than that which, on the part of the Government, he then declined as a whole ; and to examine them with a view to some one of several alternatives, among which immediate adoption was included.

I am also to acknowledge the receipt of your further letter of the 7th instant, inclosing a copy of a petition to Parliament from the Inhabitants of the Southern Settlements of New Zealand, and to assure you that the detailed Statement contained in that petition hats not failed to attract Mr. Gladstone's attention.

I am, &c.,

LYTTELTON.

T. C. Harington, Esq.

--

No. 12.

The Secretary of the Company to Mr. Gladstone.

New Zealand House, 19th May 1846.

SIR—By desire of the Directors of the New Zealand Company, I have the honour to acknowledge Lord Lyttelton's letter of the 14th instant.

The Directors are happy to learn from that letter that her Majesty's Government have not arrived at any conclusions that will preclude their applying to Parliament during the present session for a bill with reference to New Zealand ; and that their decision is in fact only postponed for a period so limited as to place no obstacle in the way of their carrying into effect any resolutions which they may adopt. The Directors are desirous to do no act which may even appear inconsistent with their confidence in the intentions of her Majesty's Government. They are fully sensible of the inconveniences which might under present circumstances result from a discussion, though conducted on their part in no hostile spirit. The object which has mainly induced them to regard a discussion at the present moment as indispensable would be attained, if they could receive from her Majesty's Government some public assurance, that it is their inten- tion not to allow the present session to elapse without introducing a bill to regulate the government of New Zealand. The shareholders of the Company and the public in general would be satisfied with knowing that the remedial measures, which they regard as of urgent necessity, will not be delayed for one year. And the Directors trust you will not deem them unreasonable in asking you to take such means for removing anxiety from the minds of the settlers in New Zealand, and of those at home who are interested in their welfare. Mr. Buller has, therefore, in accordance with the wish of the Direc- tors, determined on withdrawing the motion of which he has given notice for Thursday—trusting that, on doing so, he may receive in the House of Commons some assurance to the above effect from her Majesty's Government. The withdrawal of that notice, in the opinion of the Directors, renders it incumbent upon them to lose no time in bringing before her Majesty's Government the disastrous state of affairs in the colony, as described in the petition from the settlers forwarded to you on the 7th instant, and the ruinous position of the Company itself. A me- morial to Sir Robert Peel is now in preparation, for the purpose of explaining to him, as the Head of her Majesty's Government, that if another year should elapse without giving effect to the hopes excited by his promises of last year, the destruction of the colony and the insolvency of the Company must be completed. Of that memorial I shall have the honour to transmit to you a copy without delay ; and I am directed to apprise you that the yearly public meeting of the Court of Proprietors of this Company must necessarily be held on the 29th instant, on which occasion the Directors are persuaded that, unless it shall be in their power to assure their constituents that no. further delay will take place in the settlement of the affairs of the colony and Company, they will be required to cease from prosecuting an enterprise which cannot, under present circumstances, be conducted without further loss and misery to all concerned.

I have the honour to be, &c., T. C. HARINGTON,

The Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone, 8r.e., &a.

No. 13.

The Court of Directors to Sir Robert Peel.

The Memorial of the Court of Directors of the New Zealand Company to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, First Lord of the Treasury.

The Court of Directors of the New Zealand Company are anxious to bring under your notice, as the Head of her Majesty's Government, the present condition of the Company, and of the numerous settlers whom it has been the means of planting in New Zealand. We feel under no necessity of apologizing to you for asking your serious con- sideration of the circumstances which we shall detail. The affairs of the colony and the Company were during the last session the sub- ject of repeated discussions in Parliament. The policy of the Go- vernment was then explained by you ; and it was our confidence in their intentions, as then stated by you, that induced us to continue the task, which previous occurrences had rendered almost hopeless.

The explanation of that policy was most satisfactory to us and to the public on the points of paramount importance. The main evils of the colony appeared to have resulted from the absence of all con- trol on the part of the colonists over the Government under which they lived,—from the erroneous policy pursued with respect to the Public Lands, and the Company's claims to those which it had ac- quired,—and from the mistaken system on which the relations between the Local Government and the Aborigines had been con- ducted. The assurances which you were then so good as to give led us to believe that a firmer policy would have the effect of pacifying and restraining the Natives ; that the questions relating to our own lands would be settled on an equitable basis without delay ; that the con- sequences of a long series of errors with respect to the disposal of the Crown Lands would be permanently and thoroughly rectified ; and that a scheme of Municipal Institutions would be framed whereby the British inhabitants of New Zealand would be admitted to the privi- leges of self-government. Little less than a year has elapsed since these assurances were made. We regret ..o be compelled to state that no effect has as yet been given to them ; that our recent accounts from the colony repre- sent the state of affairs as being far more disastrous than at the period of the discussions of last year ; and that the prospect of relief seems now to be not a bit nearer. The task of repairing the disorders of

New Zealand was left to the Governor who was appointed to replace Captain Fitzroy. We find that since Governor Grey's arrival in the colony his attention has been entirely absorbed by the immediate difficulties of his position, and the conduct of hostilities and negotia- tions with the rebellious tribes. It has been impossible for him to visit the great bulk of the settlers, or to turn his mind to any of the subjects of greatest importance to them. Nor does there appear to be the slightest likelihood of any speedy cessation of those urgent occu- pations, which now entirely preclude the Governor from giving any attention to the questions of more permanent importance on which his advice was asked. The war to which the prospects of the settlers are thus sacrificed is one which they had no share in causing, and which they have no interest in maintaining ; which merely places the colony in jeopardy, and retards the measures most necessary for its relief, for the promotion of objects entirely foreign to that of British colonization in New Zealand.

The events which have occurred, since your declarations of last year and the transmission of instructions to Governor Grey, have totally changed the aspect of our relations with the Natives, and ren- dered indispensable, with a view of saving them as well as the colo- nists from destruction, the adoption of some policy by which the vain at- tempt to establish British authority over all the Aboriginal tribes shall be abandoned. The hostilities with the Natives have become more extensive and embittered. Repeated defeats have been sustained by her Majesty's troops, and the force now under Governor Grey's orders may not perhaps be adequate even to subdue the two insignificant chiefs with whom they are now in contest, far less to hold in sub- jection the numerous and formidable tribes whose dispositions are creating alarm, and whose vicinity to Auckland places the seat of Government at their mercy. The Government has resorted to the fatal policy of meeting its present difficulties by setting tribe against tribe. The melancholy inference from all the news recently arrived in this country is, that a war of extermination can hardly be averted. And while these events are passing in one part of the island, the great body of the settlers are left at a distance with 150 soldiers to defend them, and so completely cut off from all communication with the seat of Government, that they frequently learn from New South Wales the events of the warfare that is going on in the North of their own island.

Nothing has been done to give effect to any one of the important arrangements made by Lord Stanley with respect to our Land-Titles. One of Captain Fitzroy's last acts was to offer a grant that in truth conveyed nothing to us, and which our Agent was compelled to reject as utterly worthless. At the same time he granted two or three speculators from Sydney the very best positions in the town which we had founded, and put them in possession of ground which the settlers who had purchased from us had cleared and rendered valuable by the expensive buildings which they had erected on it. The effect of these proceedings has not been merely that we have as yet derived no benefit from the arrangements which we made with Lord Stanley after the debates of last year, but that fresh and almost insurmount- able obstacles appear to have been interposed in the way of executing that or any other equitable settlement of our claims.

But we will not trouble you with any details of the various subjects of complaint which have arisen in the colony since the discussions of last year. You will find them forcibly stated by the sufferers them- selves in a petition signed by almost the whole body of the settlers in Cook's Strait, a copy of which we have the honour of transmitting to you, and to which we entreat your most serious attention. It will impress on you not merely the grievous state of affairs in the colony, but the feelings of despair which crush the energies of the settlers, and are inducing many of those whose capital and industry were most valuable to the colony to abandon the enterprise in which they had embarked their hopes. Of this, the most unequivocal proof of the ruin of the colony, we have every day sad instances in the return of the most valuable settlers, who have thought it better to sacrifice all that they had invested in the colony, than continue any longer the hopeless struggle with the constantly increasing difficulties of their position.

While every day's experience thus exhibits the consequences of that mismanagement which flows from the perfect irresponsibility of the Local Government, no step has been taken to establish a better order of things in the spirit of the views explained by you in the House of Commons. We call it no step to the attainment of such an object to have sent out instructions to a Governor whom the circum- stances under which he succeeded to his Government necessarily rendered unable to pay the slightest attention to them. The best instructions have hitherto produced so little practical result in New

Zealand, that in a matter of this moment it would be almost culpable to trust to the efficiency of such a mode of legislation. The establish-

ment of new institutions of government in the colony was a matter solely within the cognizance of the Imperial authority. There was no principle on which such institutions could be framed that could be determined better in New Zealand than in England : no point con- nected with the subject on which a new Governor possessing no peculiar knowledge of the locality could be supposed competent to form a judgment, in any way comparable to that which could be formed in this country by persons conversant with the general politics of the Empire, habituated to questions of constitutional policy, and familiarized with the state and exigencies of New Zealand by the continued inquiries and dise.ussions of years. The task of laying the foundations of free institutions in New Zealand can only be com- menced with effect here ; and when the principles of a better system have been determined by the Government at home, the completion of the details of the work can only be executed satisfactorily if intrusted to one who shall be selected for that duty, and sent out to the colony fully impressed with the views and feelings of those with whom the plan has originated. The result of this description of the state of the colony is, that the evils of which the existence was proved and admitted in the debates of last year are not only suffered to exist, but have attained greater magnitude during the interval. The remedies promised at that period have not been applied. Everything in the colony is worse and more

hopeless than it was. The same causes have exercised a similar effect at home. The public confidence, revived for a moment by the promises of last year, ceased to exist when it became apparent that those promises were not to be followed by acts of proportionate efficiency. The unfavourable opinion of the prospects of the colony, produced by a series of disasters and controversies, has continued to thicken around it. Emigrants and capitalists have shunned New Zealand as a colony which was not to be allowed to prosper. The powers confided to this Company by its charter, and the pecuniary aid extended to it by her Majesty's Government last year, have been alike unemployed for any beneficial purpose. We are in truth doing nothing but frittering away the amount of the loan advanced to us by her Majesty's Government, without a hope of recovering the means of repayment out of the ruins of our property, or of contri- buting by a sacrifice of our own interests to reestablish the fortunes of those whom we induced to embark in the adventure of colonizing New Zealand. Whether as regards the colony or the Company, the position of affairs is equally afflicting and discouraging—the present equally ruinous—the future equally hopeless. We have given these matters our most serious consideration. In looking back on the past, it is a subject of consolation to us to feel that the disasters which we deplore have resulted from no fault of ours. The calamities which preceded the discussions of last year are attributable to the continued errors of successive Administrations: those which we have detailed as now afflicting the colony might have been stayed by the prompt interposition of the Imperial Go- vernment, when those errors had been acknowledged and the remedy promised. Hitherto this Company has struggled against a constant succession of the most appalling difficulties, and been sustained in that struggle by a deep conviction of the soundness of its principles, a sanguine reliance on the ultimate triumph of j ustice and reason. We persevered, in spite of defeat and discouragement, until we had secured a general recognition of the rectitude of our course, until the claims which we had urged in behalf of the colonists and of ourselves had been ad- mitted by general opinion and the highest authority. But beyond this no hope or courage can endure. If, when the cause of past evil and the nature of the right remedy have been admitted, the evil is still allowed to subsist and the remedy is still withheld, we must despair of the efficacy of argument or discussion. Our only duty will then be to relieve ourselves from all share of responsibility for mischiefs which we can do no more to avert. We must at once lay before the world the real state of affairs, dispel hopes which it would be criminal to encourage, and retire from functions winch it would be fraudulent to affect to exercise for any public end. Such will be the painful course imposed on us, if we are obliged to abandon the hope of an immediate realization of the intentions an- nounced to us on the part of her Majesty's Government in the course of last year's debates. We do not attribute to her Majesty's Govern- ment any intention of failing in the performance of the promise thus publicly made. But as nearly a year has elapsed since it was made, and it still remains unfulfilled, while the difficulties in which we were involved are aggravated and multiplied, we see before us no prospect but that of an indefinite adjournment of the hopes which it excited. The session is now far passed ; and, as yet, we not only see no measure proposed by her Majesty's Government, but we are informed that some time must elapse before they can decide on the course to be adopted. If it be the intention of her Majesty's Government to prevent the continuance of the present calamitous state of things, it is, in our humble judgment, of essential importance that an assurance stmuld at once be given that they will not permit the session to close without passing a bill to regulate the government of New Zealand. Such an assurance would justify the continuance of hope and exertion on our part ; and its fulfilment would restore the public confidence, and secure the existence of the colony.

These views it will be necessary for us to lay before the general meeting of the shareholders of the Company, who, not being yet aware of the exertions which we have been for many months engaged in making for the purpose of effecting a satisfactory settlement of the affairs of the colony, entertain even in a greater degree than our- selves the apprehensions and despondency which we have expressed. On the occasion of our meeting our constituents on the 29th of this month, the balance-sheet of their financial position, which we must at the same time lay before them, will exhibit liabilities to the amount of 349,0001., and assets to the amount of 53,0001. In addi- tion to this, we shall have to state the expenditure in colonization of no less than 300,000/., which we have received from the colonists as the price of lands, for which we have not a title-deed to an acre to show. In the absence of any definite assurance of such measures as can alone restore the welfare of our settlements, we could not advise the shareholders any longer to continue their operations by the expenditure of the remainder of the loan which has been pro- mised to us by her Majesty's Government. We should impress on them that honour and expediency alike forbid their continuing their

enterprise on terms which no man would deem creditable in private life ; and that their first duty would be to decline any further use,of an advance which they would see no prospect of repaying, or of using with any hope of beneficial results.

We trust that you will appreciate our motives in laying before you this statement of the position in which we find ourselves placed. If you shall not deem it consistent with your views of public duty to assure us that her Majesty's Government are prepared to propose measures which shall avert the postponement till another session of

any legislative remedy for the present state of New Zealand, we implore that you will not hesitate to communicate your decision to us, and to consider the arrangements which would be requisite to enable her Majesty's Government to take the affairs of the Company into their own hands, and afford the shareholders and land-purchasers a reasonable compensation for the losses which they have suffered. Sealed, by order of the Court of Directors, this 20th day of May 1846. THOMAS CUDBEHT HARINGTON, Secretary.

No. 14.

Lord Lytteiton to the Secretary of the Company.

Downing Street, 20th May 1846.

Sin—I am directed by Mr. Secretary Gladstone to acknowledge Oa

ineeipt of your letter of yesterday, on the subject of the notice which . has recently been given in the House of Commons with regard to the . *take of New Zealand, and of the withdrawal of that notice. I am • ta acquaint you, that he fully appreciates the disposition of the • Directors to place confidence in the intentions of her Majesty's • Government.

With regard to the desire which you have expressed on the part of the Directors, for assurances with respect to the future plans of the Government relating to the Colony of New Zealand, I am to state to you that the Government is desirous and resolved to fulfil to the Utmost of its power all assurances which it has given upon the affairs of that colony. The Directors have been apprised that the delay which has hitherto taken place has not been a gratuitous delay, but has had reference to the absence of information which might be most material in arriving at just conclusions, and to the probability of the early arrival of such information.

It it shah prove that the intervention of Parliament is necessary, in order to secure full effect to the assurances which have been given by the Government, resort will be had to such interference at the earliest moment when the public interest will permit.

And, at all events, her Majesty's Government will not fail to notify their definitive intentions in respect to the time and mode of fulfilling the assurances which they have heretofore given, at a period suf- ficiently early to enable any Member of Parliament, on the part of . the New Zealand Company, to bring about the effectual discussion of Ike subject.

The memorial to which you refer will not fail to attract the attention of her Majesty's Government.

I have the honour to be, &c., LYTTELTON.

T. C. garharton, F.aq. No. 15.

House of Commons, 21st May 1846.

Mr. C. Buller said, in the present state of public business he could not think of bringing forward his motion on the subject of New Zealand. He therefore withdrew his notice, reserving to himself the liberty of renewing it when he might deem it necessary. At the same time, perhaps, the right honourable gentleman would give an assurance which would be most satis- factory to the settlers, that it was not the intention of Government to allow the session to pass without introducing some measure in reference to this colony. Such an assurance would allay great anxiety.

Sir R. Peel : "I am afraid the only assurance consistent with my duty which I can give is, that such an intimation shall be conveyed to the honourable and learned gentleman as to the intentions of Government as shall enable him to bring forward any motion which he may think fit at a period of the session which will insure full inquiry. The House, no doubt, bears in mind all that passed during the last session as to this colony. To the opinions I then expressed, and to the principles of the policy on which the government of New Zealand should be conducted, I still adhere ; and go-efforts have been spared by the Government, so far as circumstances would admit, to give effect to that expression of opinion on my part and on that of the Government. We are in this predicament. Captain Fitz- roy having been recalled, a gentleman eminently distinguished for his success in another Government was appointed to the Government of New Zealand. At the period at which the last accounts came he had been but a few weeks in office ; and I must add that, from the general tenor of the reports received from him, the favourable opinion entertained by the Go- vernment with regard to his ability, firmness, and resolution has been entirely justified. (" Hear, hear!" from both sides.) In his last report he stated that be was about to leave the seat of Government for the purpose of directing an attack against a chief who had been connected with Heki in the Bay of Islands. He was to have at his command all the available military force of the colony, and was also to be assisted by a naval force. Under these circumstances, the next accounts may bring a report of a most important bearing on the state of the colony, and the result may be that the Bay of Islands will be reduced to complete subjection. I cannot, then, sive any other assurance than that I have before intimated.

Mr. Hume hoped Government would promise some general plan as to the government of the colony, as this would give great confidence to those about to settle there. • No. 16.

Sir .Rokert Peel to the Secretary of the Company.

Whitehall, May 26th 1816.

Btu— I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the memorial of the Directors of the New Zealand Company, bearing date the 20th of May.

I must beg leave to refer the Directors of the New Zealand Com- pany to the Secretary of State for the Colonial Department on all those points adverted to in that memorial, on which it is necessary that any signification of the views and intentions of her Majesty's Government should be made.

The Secretary of State is the official authority for the conduct of Correspondence between the Government and the New Zealand Com- pany on all matters of public policy concerning New Zealand or the New Zealand Company, and there is manifest inconvenience in murying an communication with the Company on the part of the Government through any other official channel.

With respect to all those parts of the memorial of the Company Which refer to declarations made by me in the House of Commons, and the alleged non-fulfilment of assurances given on the part of the Government, I beg leave to observe that I have never at any time made declarations or given assurances which have not been acted upon to the full extent to which it was possible to act upon them. As the memorial does not specify the instances in which declara- tions made by me were not acted upon by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and as the subject generally was brought under con- eideratiom in the debate which took place in the House of Commons on the 23d of July 1845, and is adverted to in the correspondence which has been presented to Parliament, I do not feel it to be necere- sary to enter into detailed observations upon it.

If there should have been some delay on the part of the Governor linkiew Zealand, after his arrival in the colony, in directing his atten- ten to all the points to which it was called in the despatches ad- dressed to him by Lord Stanley, the circumstances adverted to in the memorial—the entire absorption of his attention by the immediate difficulties of his position, and the conduct of hostilities and negotia- tions with rebellious tribes—must surely constitute a sufficient justification for that delay. As I have already expressed a wish that all communications be- tween the Government and the New Zealand Company should be conducted through the Secretary of State. I shall abstain from further comment upon their memorial ; but I cannot conclude without entering my protest against those observations of the memorial which assume that, because Captain Grey has felt it to he his duty to assert the authority of the Crown by a resort to force, he is engaged in "a war to which the prospects of the settlers are sacrificed," "which merely places the colony in jeopardy, and retards the measures most necessary for its relief, for the promotion of objects entirely foreign to that of British colonization in New Zealand."

I am, &c., PEEL, Thomas Cudbert Harington, Esq., Secretary to the New Zealand Company.

No. 17.

The Secretary of the Company to Sir R. Peel. New Zealand House, 28th May1846.

SIR—I have the honour on the part of the Court of Directors of the New Zealand Company to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 26th instant.

After the intimation of your opinion that the Directors ought to confine their communications with her Majesty's Government to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, they think it right to abstain from pursuing the discussion of the subject of their memorial ; but they are desirous of excusing themselves for having addressed you, by stating that they were led to take this step by considering that the one question which they submitted to you related to a pro- ceeding in the House of Commons, where no organ of the Colonial Office has now a seat, and to decimations made by yourself in Par- liament when the present Secretary of State was not a member of the Government.

These considerations led the Directors to imagine that they might without impropriety communicate directly with yourself on this par- ticular occasion, which involves the existence of the Company : but they will not fail henceforth to address their communications to Mr.

Secretary Gladstone. I have, &c., The Right lion. Fir Robert Peel, First Lord

of the Treasury, &c., &c., Re.

T. C. HARINGTON: