ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume 3, Issue 108, 17 July 1847, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the SoutJiern Cross. Tho eathoing signs of a long night of woe. KOGISB9. Sir, — The present state of this Colony in connection with the aborigines of the country, is likely to be seriously affected by the late Royal instructions and charter, accompanied as they are, by an attempt at explanation by Earl Grey, the Secretary of the Colonies, unless some measures are adopted by His Excellency the Governor in chief, to counter* act their evil tendency, and to set the noble Earl right in the relation which the British Government stand to the aborigines, but more particularly as to their numerical strength and courage in case of any out-break. I shall in this letter confine myself entirely to the land question, as being the most important, and more nearly touching the general prosperity of every individual in the colony ; indeed, as that upon which not only our existence, but the existence of the aborigines themselves depend, and here I cannot help remarking upon the arguments which have been used by each and every successive Secretary of the colonies, whether given as their own private opinion, or, relying, as most of them do, on quotations from Vattel, Dr. Arnold, &c, &c, vizt : That for the aborigines of any country to be entitled to the soil on which they were born, and on which their forefathers have lived for centuries, they must subdue the earth by culture ; but that as hunters or fishermen, they are not entitled to it. Now it must have been well known to all the Secretaries of State, from the reports of the different Governors, if none of them knew it by history, that the New Zealanders do now, and have for centuries past, subdued the earth by culture. In an edition of Tasman's voyage, 1642, (published by Smith and Walford in 1694 ;) it is stated that they saw •' little or no cultivated land," which implies that they saw some, and a very good reason can be given why they saw bo little, as a few lines further on it is stated, they determined to go somewhere else to water, with the remark that " they had indeed been upon Anthony Van Dieman's Land, but had met with nothing ; and upon New Zealand they had not so much as once been ashore /" The next notice we have of the New Zealanders, is to be met with in Dr. Hawksworth's edition of Cook's Voyages, where it is remarked :—": — " Mr. Banks saw some of their plantations, where the ground was as well broken and tilled as even in the gardens of the most curious people among us ; in these spots were sweet potatoes, coccos, or eddas, which are well known and much esteemed in the East and West Indies, and some gourds ; the sweet potatoes were planted in small bills, some ranged in rows, and others in quincunx, all laid by a line with the greatest regularity ; the coccos were planted upon flat land, but none of them yet appeared above ground, and the gourds were set in small hollows or ditches, much as in England. These plantations were of different extent, from one or two acres to ten ; taken together, there appeared to be from 150 to 200 acres in cultivation in* the whole bay, though we never saw a hundred people. — Lat. 33 ° 10." It is singular that this extent of cultivation Bhould be in Poverty Bay, so named from its being the least productive part of New Zealand that they had been at, and shows that the other parts were more largely cultivated. Before proceeding further on this subject, it may perhaps be not inappropriate to remark, that in the same volume as the above quotation is from, Captain Cook says :—": — " If the settling of this country should ever be thought an object worthy the attention of Great Britain, the best place for establishing a colony would be either on the banks of the Thames, or i/i the country bordering upon the Bay of Islands, in either place there would be the advantage of an excellent harbour, and by means of the river, settlements might be extended and a communication established with the inland parts of the country. Vessels might be built of the fine timber which abounds in these parts, at very little trouble and expense, fit for such a navigation aa would answer the purpose." Tlis two first quotations given,, will surely prove beyond a doubt that the New Zealanders previous to our knowledge of them, " subdued the earth by j culture," and it now remains to be seen whether they have been in their " decline and fall" since that period, or whether they are in their " rise and ' progress." At the present time then, they have so far improved their condition, that they cultivate more land than the European population, even reckoning man for man ; they have seveial mills among them for grinding wheat, whose motive power is water ; they rear and breed cattle, poultry, horses, goats, and large herds of pigs ; they own several coasting vessels, and have added commerce to their other pursuits ; they are continually bringing in cargoes of corn, pig 3, potatoes, and flax for sale ; and on these grounds alone, disprove all tb.9 flimsy arguments urged against them, with the one sole object always in view, viz. : to deprive them of their birthright. The noble Earl, the Secretary of State for the colonies, has given his opinion in the following words :— " What I hold to be the true principle with regard to property in land, is that which I find laid down in the following passage from the works

of all bis predecessors — Mvit his arguments are only I theoretical, and that, if "nevertheless the attempt must be made," the whole country will be plunged in warfare, and it will only be justice to the Euro- j j^ean population to give them the option of coming j into the towns, from whence they can get away their j families, or othzrwise there will be few to remove, j for it is utterly impossible lhat two regiments of soldiers and 500 pensioners (when we get them) can protect more than one quarter of the scattered population. Had the aborigines been promised a confirmatory Cro«n Title, by which they would be enabled to dispose of their lands in accoi dance with the spirit of the Treaty of Wuitangi, by simple registration, they would readily adopt the plan, but as to submitting to an inquiry into the Validity of their titles, the thing is really preposterous. The Crown may as well claim all the land "unsubdued by culture" that is in England. It hu» been observed on a similar principle, that— "aa well might a company of Indians sell some of their countrymen a slice of tenitory on the coast of Kent, and just as good a title would the Indians have to the land, if they couM. in spi'e of our Kentish yeomen, establish themselves on the spot." The Treaty of Wai-tim-n pretends to impart to the aborigines all the rights and privileges of Brit'sh su'ject*— one of wlrch rights is the right of property, w! ether real or personal ; and another question might be submit ted to our local courts in trying it. On the policy displayed in the latitude Riven by the noble h-arl to the Governor-in-Chief, in carrying out these instructions, depends the future salvation of the colony. If on the one band his Excellency should think proper to carry out the measure in its fullest interpretation, there can be no doubt that the native population will rise to a man; and although this may not be immediately the case, as it takes some time, for tribes who have never been united, to coalesce, in order to assert their common rights— yet sooner or later it will be so, and the germ of a war of extermination will be fairly sown when the first attempt is made to deprive them of their lands. Look to the blood that has been lately shed between two tribes in the Waikato district about a piece of land acknowledged by each party to be worthless, but which nevertheless each claimed, and which either tribe would have sold for Twenty Pounds '.—and let warning be taken in time, before j the passions of the savages are roused in a cause | in which they would meet not only with the I sympathy of all enlightened colonists, but of the civilised world. If, on the o.her hand, his Excel, lency views the matter in the same light as most of the colonists do, and informs the noble Earl, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that it is impossible to carry out his measures, and pomt 9 cut to him the injustice of the whole scheme in trying to wrest fro m one portion of her Majesty's subjects, just emerging from barbarism, those possessions which hive been solemnly guaranteed to them by treaty, as well as by Lord Normamby, Lord John Russell, Lord Stanley, and by their subordinates, the successive gove.nors of the colony to the present time, he will, although only doing his duty and asBerting the truth, still be entitled to the thanks of Ihe community and the gratitude of the aboriginal population,— • lee them not have to exclaim to the British nation in the pathetic strain which the Cherokeelndians of the State of Georgia have done to the United States :— " We implore that our people may not be denounced as savages, unfit for the good neielibouihood guaranteed to them by treaty.**** The schools where our children learn to read the Word of God ; the churches where our people now sing to his praise, and where they are tanght •that of one blood be created all the nations of the earth •' th; fields they have cleared, and the orchards they have planted; the houses they have built— are dear to the Cherokees ; and there they expect to live and to die, on the lands inherited from their fathers, as the firm friends of the people of these "United States." M. Auckland, July 2, 1547.

of Dr. Arnold, &c." The passage alluded to says, " Men were to subdue the earth ; that is, to make it by their labour whit it would not have been by itself; and with the labour so bestowed upon it, came the right of property in it." I take Mr. Banks and Captain Cook to be higher authority than Dr. Arnold, because the former assert a plain truth, palpable to their sight, while the other maintains a theory which I have assumed to be true, for the purpose of showing that even by Eirl Grey's high. authority (Dr. Arnold) the New Zealanders are entitled to the soil of their country, and the British government are not entitled to one single acre without their " free and intelligent consent." Even Vattel (who maintains the same doctrine as Dr. Arnold) sayo :—": — " We cannot help praising the moderation of the English Puritans who first settled in New England, who, notwithstanding their being furnished with a charter from their sovereign, jmrcJiased from the Indians the lands they resolved to cultivate." Viittel must either have had some doubts of the doctrine hs was inculcating, that the Indians had no right to the soil — or he must have thought the English Puritans rank fools for buying from persons who had no power of sale. A powerful writer, (Howitt,) in replying to similar doctrines as those held by the noble Earl, remarks :— "Every nation that is more densely populated than another may on this principle say to that less densely peopled state, you are not as thickly planted as God intended you to be, you amount only to 150 persona to the square mile — we are 200 to the same spacetherefore please to walk out, and give place to us, who are your superiors, and who more justly fulfil God's intentions by the law of density. The Chinese may fairly lay claim to Europe on that ground, and our own swarming poor to every large park and thinly peopled district that they happened to see." After a great deal of argument on the part of the noble Earl, tending of course to show that his view of the question is right, and the Nevr Zealanders ought to be deprived of all lands which they do not cultivate, and that respect only should be shown to claims as individuals ; he goes on to say, that "It has been indeed asserted that the natives of New Zealand will never consent unless compelled by force of arms, to the adoption of a system by which land bought from them at a nominal price, or at all events at a low pi ice, by the servants of the Crown, to be re«sold at a much higher rate to actual settlers ; I fear it may be more difficul than it would have been formerly to reconcile them to this practice ; nevertheless the attempt must BE MADE." " And Jezebel, his wife, said unto him, dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel ? Arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry ; I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite." This is of course the robber's doctrine, " That ha should take who has the power, and he should keep who can;" and is the true meaning of tha present I despatch, and for this purpose (in addition to the two regiments ordered here,) are the six companies i of pensioners ; but the noble Earl has probably yet ■ to learn that it is not by two regiments of the line, and six companies of pensioners, that the New Zealanders will be .subdued, although the attempt may be made. Naboth is not yet killed, and the vineyard will not be gained without a great expense of treasure, and waste of human life ; if even the colony and the settlers in it can be protected by the present force, is a question. To take an offensive part, at least ten thousand men would be required ; the expense of sending that number of troops to New Zealand with the annual cost, would be equal to a million of money; an aboriginal population of 100,000 souls is to be exterminated, the settlers murdered, our troops slain, our name tarnished; with not even the flimsy veil of honor and glory to j reward us when the '• vineyard" is gained. It is I useless arguing on the justice or injustice of such proceedings, for the former word has been discarded from British diplomacy, and the latter reigns triumphant ; let us then appeal to the pockets of tha British nation, and shew them how they can save £900,000 in hard money — our settlers made happy — our troops alive — our name sounded through ' the length and breadth of the land, as all that is just and honorable ; and above all, an aborigial population of 100,000 souls, taught to appreciate their intercourse with us ; and be themselves saved from extermination. The plan is simply to assert the truth, that there are no crown lands in New Zealand but what are acquired by purchase, and send out £100,000 ro his Excellency the Governor in chief> for the purchase of land ; if judiciously made, it will go tar to purchase the whole of the j three islands, and at all events would put the quest ion at rest for the next half century. The only clause which appears in the noble Earl's despatch to have any appearance of equity, is the following :— » " These remarks apply to lands held by the abo« riginal inhabitants as tribes, and by a title not resting upon actual occupation and improvement ; aa individuals, they should be as free as any of the other inhabitants of New Zealand to acquire and to dispose of properly in land." This has only an appearance of equity, and whether it is so or no, cannot be well ascertained until it is seea how his Excellency the Governor in chief intends to carry out these instructions. The clause may mean that the aboriginal inhabitants are free to acquire land, i.e., to purchase it as we do ; but it does not assert that they are free to dispose of what they have already acquired. Assuming however, that individual lights are to be respected ; on what scale of, extent will cultivated grounds be confirmed to the native owners ? and will Crown grants be issued to them ? A man may have five acres under culture in two or three different places, but may have several hundred acres in the whole, which has descended to him ; will all be given him, or will it extend to the old maximum grant of 2560 acres ? will any principle be laid down by which a native title to land shall be tested ? will conquered territory be acknowledged ? or must the title be by descent ? will lands be granted sufficiently in extant for the increase of their live stock ? These are only a few of the questions that rise uppermost on reading this clause. But there is one stumbling-block which I am afraid connot be got over — and that is the Registration.^ A New Zcalander will laugh at the idea of his title being enquired into, and if you attempt to dispossess him, it can only be by physical force, or you will have a tomahawk in you* head — and the Land Claims Court will have to be held in the Barrack Yard, and all the passes doubly guarded with fixed bayonets. On a careful review of the whole portion of Earl Grey's despatch relative to the native question, it is evident that he has imbibed different view^ from those