NATIVE AFFAIRS. DESPATCHES FROM THE GOVERNOR.

E—No 8

No. 1. «OPT OF A DESPATCH FROM GOVEKXOB GORE BBOWNE, C.8., TO HIS GRACB THE DVKT, OF NEWCASTLE. Government House, Auckland, New Zealand, 31st July, 1860. My Lord Duke, — I have the honor to inform Your Grace, that the Chiefs whom I invited to meet and confer with me have assembled in this neighbourhood, and are still considering various subjects ■which have been submitted to them. I will not trouble Your Grace with any Report on the subject until the meeting is closed ; but I may say that hitherto the success attending the experiment has exceeded my expectations. Many of the Chiefs —and particularly 'Her Majesty's most dutiful subject Tamati Waaka—have declared unequivocally against the Jving Movement, and have expressed the most loyal attachment to the Queen. I have, &c, T. Gore Browne. His Grace the Duke of Newcastle.

Native. "7N0T79.y

No. 2. .copy oj? a DESPATCH from governor gore browne, c.b., to his grace the duke of NEWCASTLE. Government House, Auckland, New Zealand, 3rd November, 1860. Mr Lokd Duke, —- I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Sir G. C. Lewis's Despatch, No. 48, of 26th July last. As he refers to a "policy requiring the presence of a large force," it is necessary that I should iCall Your Grace's attention to some of the difficulties which must attend the progress towards u.nion of two races .dwelling hi the same land yet differing so widely in their wants, wishes, and opinions. 2. I need not remind Your Grace that prior to 1839 New Zealand had attracted to its shores a swarm of reckless men, determined to settle upon it with or without the consent of Her Majesty's ■Government; that disorders of all sorts prevailed ; and it was found that "being out of our allegiance and protection" was no better security than the threat of it proved in Rhode Island against the commission of enormities which in New Zealand had not the excuse of religious bigotry. 3. Had Her Majesty's Government not interfered, there can be no doubt that war and disease would rapidly have consumed the Aborigines $ that sooner or later they would have been vanquished and destroyed ; that anarchy and violence, after reigning unchecked for a time, would have yielded and finally given way ; and that, in the course of time, an industrious European population—loving order and obedient to law—would have inherited the land which their predecessors had so ruthlessly acquired. 4. Her Majesty's Government was not, however, content to permit the disasters of the transition state to continue for an indefinite time ; and Lord Normanby, in his Despatch of 14th August, 1839, says that "the necessity" (for interference) "had become too evident to admit of further inaction," and that the object of Her Majesty's Government is "to mitigate, and if possible avert, the disasters" (enumerated), " and to rescue the emigrants themselves from the evils of a lawless state of society." 5. The emigrants were rescued from these evils —many desperate men left a country in which they could no longer carry on their lawless practices, and settlers of the best class poured into the Colony, bringing with them their own laws and that love of order which characterizes all Anglo* Saxon communities. These laws are specially applicable to such communities so long as they remain united, and in the early days af the Colony it would have been easy to regulate settlement and restrain individuals frem spreading broadcast over the country. In 1839, and for some time after, there would have been no difficulty in extinguishing Native Title over vast territories, and to have declared English districts within which alone the Queen's law should be paramount; extending those districts from time to time as opportunity offered ; and leaving the Maoris to follow their own customs in the remainder of the country, aiding them by Missionaries and other instructors to advance in civilization, and waiting until they desired to become fit to be one people with us. 6. This course was not adopted, but English law was by a fiction assumed to prevail over the whole Colony, and Lord Normanby (15th August, 1839,) speaks of the repression of cannibalism, human sacrifices, and warfare among the Native tribes * * * by actual force within any part of the Queen's dominions. The Governor had no means, however, of using force, and tacitly permitted these customs to continue, —indeed the last is not yet extinguished, —nor were any

Executive, (No. 109.)

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