MEMORIAL TO LORD STANLEY.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 119, 15 June 1844, Page 58

MEMORIAL TO LORD STANLEY.

My Lord, We, the undersigned inhabitants of the settlement of Nelson, in the colony of New Zealand, feel ourselves compelled, though with much reluctance, to call your lordship's earnest attention to 4he course pursued by his Excellency the Governor of this colony in disposing of the lamentable-massacre which occurred at Wairau in June last, under circumstances of which your lordship is, no doubt, by this time fully informed. It will be needless to trouble your lordship with any detail of the Governor's proceedings at Waikanai, as your lordship is doubtless in possession of his Excellency's official narrative thereof, as published in the colony for general information. We shall therefore confine ourselves simply to a statement of the grounds upon which we impugn his Excellency's decision, and now seek to bring it under your lordship's official cognizance and -censure. We beg respectfully to submit to your lordship that whether the Governor's decision was right or wrong, just or unjust, considered in the abstract, his Excellency exceeded the constitutional limits of his authority by .personally interfering to decide a case of grave criminal law, complicated with many delicate points of criminal jurisprudence, and relating to a sacrifice of human life so extensive and revolting. We conceive that no power, either absolute or discretionary, could have been intrusted to a Colonial Executive, much less to any single member thereof, how eminent soever for talents, virtue, or prudence, such as should warrant in a case of this kind an interruption of the ordinary course of justice, an assumption by one individual of the functions of the courts of law, and the decision by him, summarily, without due deliberation, and according to his own mere pleasure or caprice, of questions vitally important to the public welfare, and which before the legitimately constituted tribunals of justice must have involved the severest penalties of the law, and been adjudicated upon with the utmost circumspection and solemnity. If, however, in violation of the rights and liberties of the subject, any such authority, positive or discretional, could possibly be vested in the Governor of a British dependency, there must Btill be allowed to prevail an important limitation of such authority, well understood if not statiKtly denned — a remote though practical restriction on its exercise, in the shape of official responsibility and the character qf the circumstances under which it is incurred, whereby, when other resources fail, an oppressed community may hope in some degree to withstand the caprice of despotism and the utter extinction from amongst them of the forms and spirit of freedom. To that responsibility we would therefore now appeal, as well as to the inalienable privileges of the subject ; confident that, under all the circumstances of the case, your lordship will concur with us that the full accountability of a public servant could in no instance be more righteously exacted, nor the penalties of a licentious exercise of power, leading to fatal encroachments on popular liberty, be more properly enforced. For supposing that the Governor, as such, possessed certain discretional powers to dispense with the laws and their execution (a prerogative, however, as applied in the present case, manifestly incompatible with the enactments of the Bill of Bights and the constitutional liberties of Englishmen as settled by long centuries of contest), and that his Excellency was therefore competent to interpose and personally deciue, we would submit to your lordship, as considerations directly affecting any

determination as to how far the circumstances justified such a course of conduct and its result, that his Excellency entirely prejudged the quda>. tion he undertook to determine ; that the conference between his Excellency and the natives at Waikanai was a mere formality, in itself unnecessary as a means of information, and perhaps exceptionable on grounds both of policy and justice — certainly, without the slightest pretensions to the character of an investigation; and that his Excellency's decision was given, not on the merits of the case as between the \ accused natives and the law which they had I outraged, but independent of those merits, and apparently, though not avowedly, as an act of expedient clemency and favour towards the former — thereby, as we conceive, in effect, abasing the authority of British law and the character of British justice, inviting similar acts of aggression and of crime, compromising the dearest interests of society, and calumniating the character of the dead, though they fell in the service of Government and whilst asserting its authority. That the case was essentially prejudged by his Excellency seems manifest, because the fact upon which mainly depended the morality and justice of the proceedings against the aborigines (namely, the alleged purchase of the disputed land by the New Zealand Company), so far as those proceedings could be viewed otherwise than as an attempt on the part of Government to execute the law and maintain the peace, was not inquired into by his Excellency, nor has even yet been investigated by the Commissioner whose -province it is to adjudicate upon the claim ; because, before his Excellency visited this settlement or Waikanai, and before he could be in of the proper facts whereby to form a just decision, his Excellency had publicly declared his conviction that the case was from the -outset one of oppression and injustice towards the aborigines, and, on his arrival here, had dismissed from the commission of the peace several gentlemen belonging to this settlement, who had signed a warrant for the arrest of Rauparaha and Ranghiaiata, when publicly charged before them as principals in tie murder of thenfriends and fellow-magistrates; and because, when here, bis Excellency adopted no means of informing himself as to the circumstances connected with the conflict, or the proceedings .prior thereto, though information of much consequence could have been elicited, and was perfectly at his Excellency's command. That his Excellency's inquiries at Waikanai were a mere gratuitous state formality, and not an investigation, is evident, because the whole proceedings at the conference consisted merely in the reception of an exparte statement by the principal chief implicated in the murders, which, in several important particulars, contradicted the evidence previously taken on oath from various parties, both native and European, who were concerned in the conflict; and because his Excellency, notwithstanding the meaDS existed of inquiring on the spot, and probably determining the most material of those particulars, permitted Raupaxaha's statements to pass uninvestigated, and even, it would appear, uncorroborated by any native then present. For these reasons we conceive your lordship, and all unprejudiced persons, will be prepared to agree with us, to the effect as already expressed above, that his Excellency, in deciding, did not regard the real merits of the case, and that, although the rights of the subject have been invaded, the law virtually suppressed, the memory of the dead maligned, and the public interests prejudiced by needless precipitation, yet the objects which alone could have justified his Excellency in, or compensated the public for, such a course of proceeding, have, nevertheless, not been attained, inasmuch as justice has not been done, and the very clemency extended to the guilty has only operated to encourage them to contest the settlement of the Government's title to the land, and m all probability will continue to do so until another fatal collision occurs between the races, and the British arms effectually arrest further opposition. We beg, therefore, respectfully to prefer our request to your lordship that the course which his Excellency has seen proper to pursue may be visited by her Majesty's severest displeasure, and that her Majesty may be advised to adopt such measures for the maintenance of those rights and privileges of the subject which have been unjustly trampled on as to her Majesty may seem proper, and as may prevent a recurrence of events bucli as we are now reluctantly compelled to represent to your '^dehip. We have the honour to be, &c, &c. George Duppa Frederick T. Berry Constantine A. Dillon Henry Williams James S. Tytler William Stallard E. W. Stafford Chomas Duffey D. Munro, J.P. G. M. Tytler - Charles Empson John Poynter A. M'Donald George F. Bush John Saxton J. Greaves W. Budge A. Perry J. H. Cooper C. C. Torlesse A. Macshane Frank Moline Alfred Domett Alexander Hart W. O. Cautley * John Anderson Samuel Stephens Daniel Moore William Murray Joseph Hoare G. W. Lightband Thomas Dillon Edward Green Alfred Saunders E. D. Sweet Alexander M'Ksy ] Hugh Martin G. W. Shroder William Bishop C. Elliott William Wright Charles Palmer Robert B. Gee Richard Mill. George Taylor William Sharp , William Fox Charles Harley Francis Jollie Thomas Berry F. Dillon Bell W. W. Dale Thomas Marsden Peter Graham Aldons Arnold William Harknen S. Pwkinson William Culkn , T. Reawick