Parliamentary Papers. MILITARY SETTLEMENTS IN THE NORTHERN ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 7, Issue 433, 31 October 1863, Page 3

Parliamentary Papers. MILITARY SETTLEMENTS IN THE NORTHERN ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND.

.COPY OF A DESPATCH FEOM GOVEBNOB SIB GEOBGE.GBEY, K. C. B. TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OP NEWCASTLE, K.G. Auckland, Ne;w Zealand, August 29th,' 1863. "My Lord Duke;— l have the honor to transmit •to Your Grace, the Copy of a Memorandum I have ' received from my Besponsible Advisers, the details of a plan they. have framed for the introduction into, this country of five thousand men, who are to hold fifty-acre farms, ; of tend on military tenure; having first performed'

military duties in this country for such period as the Government may require their services. The enclosed copy of the conditions under which these men are to be enrolled will explain the details of the proposed plan, which is based upon that which I adopted in British Kaffraria, such differences, however, existing between the, two plans as the totally different nature of the populations, physical aspect, soil, and climate of the two countries rendered necessary. 2. The land upon which it is proposed to locate these military settlers it is intended ultimately to take from the territories of those tribes now in arms against the gove-nment. My Responsible Advisers are of opinion that', the General Assembly will, under the present critical circumstances of this colony, pass without hesitation the laws necessary to give legal validity to the proposed measure, and I have summoned the Assembly for the 19th day of October next, partly with the view of submitting this measure to that body. 3. From my reply to the memorandum of my Responsible Advisers, a copy of which is herewith transmitted, your Grace will find that I have acquiesced, until the General Assembly can meet, in«. the proposed arrangerneut, to the extent of raising 2000 men for active service in this province on the conditions named. 4. I feel curtain that the chiefs of Waikato having in so unprovoked a manner caused Europeans to be murdered, and having planned a wholesale destruction of some of the European settlements, it will be necessary now to take efficient steps for the permanent security of the country, and to inflict upon those chief s a punishment of sucli a natnre as will deter other tribes from hereafter forming and attempting to carry out designs of a similar nature, which must in their results be so disastrous to the native race as well as to Her Majesty's European subjects. 5. I can devise no other pan by which b>th of those 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 this Province which will gh-o us the entire command of it. and will convince the badly disposed Natives ihat it is hopele&i. to attempt, either to bribe the Europeans from' the country ' or to place them throughout a great part of i!s 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 tlrs European population is to be settled from these tr'bes who havobeen guilty of the 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 ques-ion of mere fighting which they are to be allowed to do as long as thoy like, and then when they please to return to their forrmr 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 admit that the punishment is a fair and just one, which the Waikato chiefs have well deserved. I have, &c, G. Grey. His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, K.G.