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from Europeans. We recommend that you should on every occasion treat them with the most entire frankness, thoroughly explaining to them that you wish to purchase the land for the.purpose of establishing a settlement of Englishmen there ; and you will abstain from completing any negotiation for a purchase of land until this, its probable result, shall be thoroughly understood by the Native proprietors and by the tribe at large. Above all, you will be especially careful that all the owners of any tract of land which you may purchase shall be approving parties to the bargain, and that each of them receives his due share of the purchase-money. You will fully explain that the Company intends to dispose of the property to individual settlers expected from England, and that you purchase, if at all, on the same terms as have formed the conditions of private bargains for land in other parts of the Islands. " But in one respect you will not fail to establish a very important difference between the purchases of the Company and those which have hitherto been made by every class of buyers. Wilderness land, it is true, is worth nothing to its Native owners, or worth nothing more than the trifle they can obtain for it. We are not, therefore, to make much account of the inadequacy of the purchase-money according to English notions of the value of land. The land is really of 110 value, and can become valuable only by means of a great outlay of capital 011 immigration and settlement. But at the same time it may be doubtful whether the Native owners have ever been entirely aware of the consequences that would result from such cessions as have already been made to a great extent of the whole of the lands of a tribe. Justice demands not merely that these consequences should be as far as possible explained to them, but that the superior intelligence of the buyers should also be exerted to guard them against the evils which, after all, they may not be capable of anticipating. The danger to which they are exposed, and which they cannot well foresee, is that of finding themselves entirely without landed property, and therefore without consideration, in the midst of a society where, through immigration and settlement, land has become a valuable property. Absolutely they would suffer little or nothing from having parted with land which they do not use and cannot exchange ; but relatively they would suffer a great deal, inasmuch as their social position would be very inferior to that of the race who had settled amongst them and given value to their now worthless territory. If the advantage of the Natives alone were consulted, it would be better perhaps that they should remain for ever the savages which they are. This consideration appears never to have occurred to any of those who have hitherto purchased lands from the Natives of New Zealand. It was first suggested by the New Zealand Association of 1837 ; and it has great weight with the present Company. In accordance with a plan which the Association of 1837 was desirous that a legislative enactment should extend to every purchase of land from the Natives, as well past as future, you will take care to mention in every booka-booka [pukapuka], or contract for land, that a proportion of the territory ceded, equal to one-tenth of the whole, will be reserved by the Company and held in trust by them for the future benefit of the chief families of the tribe. With the assistance of Nayti [Ngati], who is perfectly aware of the value of land in England, and of such of the more intelligent Natives as have visited the neighbouring colonies, you will readily explain that after English immigration and settlement a tenth of the land will be far more valuable than the whole was before. And you must endeavour to point out, as is the fact, that the intention of the Company is not to make reserves for the Native owners in large blocks, as has been the common practice as to Indian reserves in North America, whereby settlement is impeded, and the savages are encouraged to continue savage, living apart from the civilized community, but in the same way, in the same allotments, and to the same effect as if the reserved lands had been purchased from the Company on behalf of the Natives. Whenever a settlement is forfned, therefore, the chief families of the tribe will have every motive for embracing a civilized mode of life. Instead of a barren possession with which they have parted, they will have property in land intermingled with the property of civilized and industrious settlers, and made really valuable by that circumstance. And they will thus possess the means, and an essential means, of preserving in the midst of a civilized community the same degree of relative consideration and superiority as they now enjoy in their own tribe. " The intended reserves of land are regarded as far more important to the Natives than anything which you will have to pay in the shape of purchase-money. At the same time, we are desirous that the purchase-money should be not less adequate, according to English notions of the value of land, than has been generally the case in the purchases of territory from the New-Zealanders. Some of the finest tracts of land, we are assured, have been obtained by missionary catechists and others who really possessed nothing, or next to nothing. 111 case land should be offered to you for such mere trifles as a few blankets or hatchets, which have hitherto been given for considerable tracts, you will not accept the offer without adding to the goods required such a quantity as may be of real service to all the owners of the land. It is not intended that you should set an example of heedless profusion in this respect; but the Company are desirous that in all their transactions with the Natives the latter should derive some immediate and obvious benefit by the intercourse.'^ 1 ) The directions given to the Company's Principal Agent have been characterized as " models of wisdom," and show that the directors were sincere in their desire to deal justly with the Natives. They give practical effect to the ideals of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, and grapple with the difficulty

(*) Correspondence with the Secretary of State relative to New Zealand, 1840.