B.—No. sa.

16

PAPERS RELATIVE TO THE IMPERIAL CLAIM

1864,

85. It is not necessary that I should narrate any further tlip history of this and the succeeding campaigns, the more especially as I shall have to allude to them again. It is sufficient to state thut, whatever may be the opinion of the policy which was then followed, there can be no doubt that tliu resumption of active operations undertaken at Waikato was ;he natural sequence of those which had been prosecuted at the Waitara, and that the past and present state of the Native districts are connected with those operations as an efftct is connected with its cause, while the whole has unmistakeably arisen from the necessity of vindicating Her Majesty's supremacy, and the rights of British Native subjects guaranteed by treaty with the Crown. 86. It soon became evident that the insurrection had at length assumed a form and vitality which required the utmost exertions of both the Imperial and Colonial authorities to arrest its progress, and with this view Ministers, on the 30th July, 1863, proposed a scheme for protecting the frontier by the location of SCOO men, holding fifty acre farms of land on military tenure, both in the Waikato and Taranaki districts. The land required for this purpose it was intended ultimately to take from the territories of the tribes then in arms against the Government. Your Excellency, in forwarding the memorandum on the 29th of August, 1863, acquiesced in the proposal to the extent of 2000 men, until the Assembly should meet, which was summoned for the 19th of October, and you conveyed your approval of the scheme in the following expressive language to the Secretary of State :—" I can devise no other plan by which both of these ends can be obtained than, firstly, by providing for the permanent peace of the country by locating large bodies of European settlers, strong enough to defend themselves, in those natural positions in the Province which will give us the entire command of it, and will convince the badly disposed Natives that it is hopeless to attempt either to drive the Europeans from the country, or to place them throughout a great part of its extent under the rule and laws of a King of the Native race, elected by the Maori population, who would soon turn his arms against his brother chiefs, and render the Northern Island from end to end one large scene of murderous warfare ; and, secondly, by taking the land on which the European population is to be settled from those tribes who have been guilty of tho outrages detailed in my various despatches to your Grace. A punishment of this nature will deter other tribes from committing similar acts, when they find that it is not a question of mere fighting, which they are to be allowed to do as long as they like, and then, when they please, to return to their former homes as if nothing had taken place ; but that such misconduct is followed by the forfeiture of large tracts of territory which they value highly, whilst their own countrymen will generally admit that the punishment is a fair and just one." 87. The policy thus inaugurated and supported was in due course approved by His Grace the Duke of Newcastle. Shortly.after the meeting of the General Assembly on the 19th of October, 1863, the Ministry of Mr. Domett resigned, and Mr. Whittaker as Attorney-General, and Mr. Fox as Colonial Secretary, united to form a Cabinet. This Ministry introduced to the Legislature the three Acts known as "The Suppression of Rebellion Act," "The New Zealand Settlement Act," and "The New Zealand Loan Act." The first of these was directed to the suppression of the existing rebellion ; the second was intended to establish a permanent security against future rebellions by the confiscation of rebel lands ; and the third, to provide a loan of £3,000,000, which, with the exception of £200,000 for Lighthouses and Telegraphs, would be required to assist in suppressing the rebellion, and in introducing a system of self-supporting settlements, which, it was believed would be the means of securing permanent peace. In the meantime, however, Mr. Cardwell had succeeded the Duke of Newcastle, and, by the instructions of the former, conveyed in his Despatch of the 26th April* 1863, which was printed in the New Zealand Government Gazette of the 30th June, the intended confiscation of land on which the whole scheme was based, and which alone induced the Legislature to adopt it, was changed, and instead of confiscation a pardon was to be offered to those persons implicated in the rebellion who might come in on or before the 22nd of October, 1864, take the oath of allegiance, and make the cession of such territory as might in each instance be fixed by the Governor and Lieut.-General. On the 30th of September, owing to a difference of opinion on this subject, the Ministry plaeed their resignation in Your Excellency's hands. On the 26th October, as intimated in your letter to Mr. Cardwell of the following day, Your Excellency issued a proclamation to the effect above stated, extending the time to the 10th of December, having in the first jilace obtained the concurrence of Sir D. Cameron and Commodore Sir W. Wiseman, as high Imperial officers, the former of whom you had been instructed to consult on tho subject. 1864 to 18G7. 88. In the November of 1864, Mr. Weld's Ministry entered upon their duties as advisers to Your Excellency, and finding that the joint responsibility of Governor and Ministers had resulted in divided counsels, producing great evils, and entailing heavy and unnecessary expenditure; and admitting the right of the Home Government to insist upon such a system so long as the Colony was receiving- tho aid of British troops in the suppression of internal disturbances, they urged the withdrawal of these troops at the earliest possible period consistently with the maintenance of Imperial interests, and the safety of the Colony, with a view to the complete introduction of Responsible Government. Tho Houses of Parliament being then in session adopted this policy. One of the earliest efforts of Mr. Weld's Ministry was to locate the Military Settlers and Immigrants, who were rapidly arriving from abroad, upon their lands in the Waikato, from which the rebel natives had been expelled by the Imperial troops; taking care that the boundaries of the land confiscated should not extend beyond the territory which had been lately conquered by, and was in the possession of these troops. Military operations were subsequently commenced on the West Coast, between Wanganui and Taranaki, in accordance with the arrangements decided on in 18C3 ; and, as many of the tribes in this neighborhood had been among the earliest and most persistent of the rebels, had committed murders, and had destroyed the property of English settlers, a considerable portion of the land belonging to them was also confiscated as a punishment for their rebellion. The, act of confiscation in this, as in other cases, was, however, accompanied by intimations, since most faithfully and liberally carried out, that the land of loyal Natives would be returned to them, while large reserves would be made for those rebels who were willing to live in peace and quietness.