B.~N». JL
18 H.
1845.
in 185.3, the latter, as regards Native affairs, was not effected until 1863, and then it was only acepted at a time of rebellion after strong remonstrances by both Houses of Legislature; for, to use the significant words of His Grace the Duke of Newcastle when transferring the management of thu Natives from the Crown to the Colony, " the relinquishment does not require the assent of the colonists to make it effectual." 49. Between the two periods just above referred to, the real practical questions at issue arose — questions which are not confined to past liabilities, but which did and do entail future responsibility of the most serious kind. Dismissing, then, the theoretical part of the question, I will now proceeil to consider that which is the more practical. 50. For the purposes of this consideration, it is expedient that the review of the past should be divided into three periods:—The first period to embrace that which is anterior to the introduction of the Constitution Act in 1853; the second, that which intervenes between that period and the establishment of responsible, government in Native as well as in European affairs, that is from 1854 to 1863 ; and the third from that time onward. 1840 to 1853. 51. With respect to the form of the New Zealand Government during the greater part of this first period, it may be described in the words of Lord Stanley, when addressing Your Excellency in 1545, as consisting of " a Governor and six other members, three of whom sit there in virtue of their offk'e, the other three holding their seats as being the three senior Magistrates in the Commission of the Peace. As that commission is issued and renewed by the Governor at his pleasure, the three unofficial members of the Legislature are substantially and in fact the Governor's nominees." 52. In 1844 serious native disturbances loomed in the distance, to suppress which Governor Fitzroy requested reinforcements from Sir G. Gipps, Governor-in-Chief of New South Wales, in order to " take such effective measures as will restore respect to our flag aud ensure tranquillity in the Colony." It will not be irrelevant to ask whence this disaffection arose-; and the answer will be best given in the language of Her Majesty's Representative, who writes on the 4th September, 1844—" The whole of this disturbance has been caused by the false assertions of bad and designing men, and by the land question, and, above all, by Customs regulations, which have almost destroyed the teaffic of the Bay of Islands, without producing any very considerable amount of revenue." Immediately after this, a proclamation was issued intimating that '' the Governor will give or refuse his consent to waive the Crown's right of pre-emption as His Excellency may judge best for the public welfare." The Governor communicated his views on this subject to his then Executive Coumil, viz., the three official members, and obtained their consent, having prefaced his enquiry as to their opinion, by asserting that " the responsibility of carrying the measure into immediate effect rested with himself." The terms on which tho pre-emptive right was waived by the Proclamations of the 26th March and the 10th October, 1844, are essentially different: the former required a payment of ten shillings to the Crown in respect of every nine acres out of ten over which the right of pre-emption should be waived, while the latter reduced this demand from ten shillings to a penny. At this time a deep-rooted spirit of resistance was apparently rising in the native mind ; for Governor Fitzroy, when writing to Lord Stanley on the 24th February, 1845, states that certain documents, which he enclosed, "do not sufficiently show that many of the New Zealanders are becoming more and more disposed to question, or rather to defy, the Queen's sovereignty," and, as if to verify his apprehensions, on the 1 lth March, 1815, an attack was made by the natives, under the chief Held, and the result was the destruction of Russell (or K'u-ura-reka) in the Bay of Islands with the loss of many lives 53. But not only was there great discontent connected with the management of the land, but questions connected with the raising of revenue by Customs had also caused complications. With the hope of averting the calamities which wors threatening the Colony, Governor Fitzroy, in the latter part of 1844, had by Ordinance, with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council, repealed the Customs Ordinance, and had imposed a Property tax; but, on the 9th of April, 1845, these Ordinances were repealed on the ground that the "Property Rate Ordinance" had failed to effect i:s purpose, the revenue raised under it being quite insignificant aud unlikely to improve ;" and, with respect to the Customs Ordinance, the Governor writes, " All efforts to remove discontent from tho minds of the Natives on account of tho effects of the Customs establishment have failed. It is British authority they dislike : the effects of Customs are now very little considered." 54. At the close of this year Captain Fitzroy was relieved from the Government of the Colony, and Lord Stanley, in his Despatch of the 13th June, 1845, graphically represents the results of the administration, as viewed by the Imperial Cabinet, in the following words:—" Captain Fitzroy's course was not such as to impress on these tribes respect for our power or resolution, and that his policy on matter of the highest importance has since been guided by an avowed dread of the resentment and insurrection of the New Zealanders if he had persisted in a line of policy respecting lands and revenue unacceptable to them." Lord Stanley acknowledges that "the setilement of tha lands in New Zealand has D9en a fertile source of difficulty," and that " if the right of 2>ro-eniption conceded to the Crown by tho Treaty of Waitangi had not been waived on the terms on which it has been, the complexity of tho casi! would have boon far less than it actually is." But, while we find the Secretary of State for the Colonies thus attributing the evil consequences of past management to Her Majesty's Representative, we find tiie latter, in his Despatch of the 25th October, 1845, severely criticising the action of the House of Commons, and observing—"l cannot beliove that those most dangerous resolutions of the House .of Commons in 1844, respecting unoccupied land, can be adopted by Her Majesty's Government." 55. Thus then it appears that, from whatsoever quarter the difficulties which environed New Zealand arose, neither the Colony nor its representatives iiad any share in the management of affairs. The Crown made a treaty with the aboriginal inhabitants ; the Representative of Her Majesty, a jsistod by a Council nominated by himself, governed the country, and occasionally the House of Commons interposed to suggest, if not to impose, regulations which, in one case at least, could not be regarded as tending to increase the chances of success which it was hoped might attend the experiment of colonising New Zealand. «
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