PETITION of the NEW ZEALAND COMPANY to the HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IV, 22 November 1845, Page 151

PETITION of the NEW ZEALAND COMPANY to the HOUSE OF COMMONS.

[1 resented by Johph Sombs, E«q,, M.P., April 16, 1845.] [Concluded from page 148.J , 19. Unfortunately, also, the same cause induced another step, which, at the very foundation of the colony, brought the Government into serious collision with our plans. Arriving si ibeequently to the establishment of our first settlement in Cook's Straits, Captain Hobson cl lose entirely to overlook its existence : and to establish the Government, not on the spot Where the great bulk of the actual colonists had p [anted themselves, but in that to which he determined that they ought rather to have gone. He fixed his capital near one extremity of a narrow country twelve hundred miles long; in a spot where at the time there was not a single European inhabitant; so distant from the great b<ilk of the colonist population, and having so hjttle natural intercourse with them, that all comirjunication had for some time to be carried on iijt vessels chartered for each particular occasion -j- where the Government was in fact practically rrtore remote from the people it was to govern tl)an either New South Wales or Van Dieman's 1 and. The mischievousness of this error was aggravated and perpetuated by the operation of sinistejr influences. Without funds, except such as were borrowed, the Local Executive could devise no better resource than to plunge into land-job-b og; and the greater part of its higher officers in mediately followed the example which it set. "V Mthin a very short space of time, the Colonial S 3cretary, the Colonial Treasurer, the AttorneyG eneral, the Crown Surveyor, the Commissioner el Land Claims, and other persons in office, were found to have engrossed the most eligible kites in the town. It became the interest of every one of these persons, who, from the state of Captain Hobson's health, in fact directed the Government, to raise as high as possible the value of the lands among which their own were fci tuated. Effectual measures were accordingly t^ken to foster a spirit of reckless speculation. C|o repetition was invited by a system of auctions, afal the result was achieved of selling for exorbitca t prices a portion of the town lands. In this profitless gambling the greater part of the capital which was required for the cultivation of the soil passed from the hands of the settlers into those of a few fortunate adventurers ; and, in a short time, when the delusion ceased, the population of Auckland found themselves exhausted of their original means, destitute of resources in trade or in the produce of the surl Grinding country, and dependent for subsistence on little beyond that public expenditure, for winch the Government derived its means either irom the taxation of other settlements or from drafts on the British Treasury. The stimulus first given proving thus insufficient, other measures were resorted to. Our spjents were not allowed to avail themselves oi t':,e permission given by Lord John Russell to f < our second settlement south of Cook's Straits, l>ui an attempt was made to force them to the rJrthward. Captain Hobson employed the ireans of Government to entice away the labourers who had been sent out at our cost. And we regret to add that the censure of this p -oceeding by Lord Stanley does not appear to hr.ye prevented similar endeavours at a more rc.rnt period. Governor Fitzßoy, after setting abtde the award of the Commissioner in oui favour at New Plymouth, offered to compensate the. claimants if they would take grants in the neighbourhood of Auckland. Even the Colouial Department in this country held out indwretnents to the intending colonists of New Edinburgh to desert the Company and establish themselves in the northern settlement. 2<>. Subservient to the Government plans, and rendered necessary by the contradictory expedients above alluded to, was the Court oi the Commissioner of Land Claims; than which it is difficult to conceive a machinery more effectually calculated to disturb the harmony and arDsbt the progress of the community. It proceeded to the investigation of a very- delicate question of policy and feeling with the cumdkJjus forms of legal procedure, alike unsuited to the circumstances of the case and the habits of those immediately concerned. It could not decide on a single case without recognizing murder and robbery as the basis of title; it could scarcely enter upon an investigation without offending prejudices or awakening feuds ; without exciting desires which it was impossible to gratify, and tampering with the rude sense of right and wrong which the natives before possessed. The tendency of its operation was to feet the two races in hostile array against each otbjer. One or other of the languages used was always unknown to one or more of the parties interested. The very thoughts of the several parties on the subject of property in land were sc different as to be respectively incomprehensible! The parties best informed on the subject in debate, the natives, whose law of real property was to be the guide of the court, never had any law of the sort, but only vague, diversified, conflicting customs. That the terrible disaster of Wairau was the result of our being referred to the Court of Land Claims, and of the undue desires and hostile feelings excited by the proceedings in that court, and by the continual disparagement of our settlerp, has never been doubted by any unprejudiced person. It embitters our regret to know that the sovereignty of the Middle Island having been proclaimed upon the right of discovery, even the ostensible ground of a reference to the Court of Claims had no place; that our second settlement was fixed at a spot which entailed this dispute, by Captain Hobson's refusal to allcnv us the choice sanctioned by Lord John Russell ; and that by specific contracts, relating especially to that second settlement, the Government was bound to put ub in possession of the

quantity of land which it had sold us, quite irrespective of any transaction between ourselves and the natives.

21. The committee of your honourable house has done justice to the memory of those who fell at Wairau, by recording its belief that they were actuated by a desire to uphold the law. The recent decision of the Commissioner, by virtually establishing our right to the disputed land, has shown that the natives were the wrongdoers. We make no complaint that their crimes had not been visited with the severe penalties of our law : but we do complain that nothing has been done to vindicate the authority of the Government, or to guard the colonists from similar outrages ; that the whole policy of the Government has been to soothe the perpetrators of the massacre, as if they were the injured party, and to treat the European community as dangerous and criminal; that the first official act was a demand from the protector of aborigines that the survivors, not the murderers, should be capitally punished ; that the inhabitants of Wellington, who, under the lawful sanction of the magistrates, had formed themselves as volunteers for repelling an expected attack, were denounced as guilty of illegal acts, and threatened with military violence ; and that, without a shadow of inquiry, or a statement of the grounds of his judgment, Captain Fitsßoy and his subordinates thought proper to throw the entire blame on those who had perished in the massacre, and to slander the memory of the dead with unmanly reproaches.

It is not our wish to insist on a severe retaliation for the excesses of uncivilized men. But for the sake of the natives themselves, who are thus tempted to a fatal indulgence in their ferocious passions, we deprecate a system which, demoralizing them by its immediate operation, ensures a sanguinary repression, and such an antipathy of races as no after policy of Government can prevent from ending in the extermination of the weaker and more numerous. It is not our duty to create in the minds of the New Zealanders vague notions of imagined proprietary rights ; to deny to our countrymen the use of a soil now unavailable to man ; or to corrupt the native races by stimulating their rapacity, and satisfying their craving for noxious enjoyments. But it is our duty to them to carry into effect plans for their ultimate improvement and incorporation with the settlers whom we introduce among them ; and, in furtherance of such plans, to use our superior power to enforce on them obedience to the laws which we know to be for their good.

22. We have sought in vain, however, in the acts of the Government for any plan for the improvement of the natives, or any evidence of a wise ca.e for their interests. Absorbed in the scheme of conferring upon them a proprietary right in land, and either blind to the fact, or careless as to the result that this proprietorship is the certain means of their destruction, the Government appears to have been incapable of receiving any higher or larger idea. It seems to have no conception that there are duties involving a graver responsibility, or evidencing a more enlarged intelligence.

The plan of native reserves has always heretofore been the object of disfavour. While eagerly using our stipulations as an argument against us, the Government has turned to no account the reserves which we placed in its hands. Those which it affected to make in Auckland, and of which the Colonial Office despatch of 13th August last would suggest a belief that they were in actual use, never had any existence.

Nothing has been done to familiarise the natives with habits of order, by means of military discipline. Instead of maintaining the relative position of the chiefs, as we proposed, elevating their character and attaching them to British rule, the measures of the Government have in every way tended to degrade them, and render them dL-contented and turbulent.

In the lavish estimates of the colony, we find a protectorate of aborigines made a pretext for creating offices of Europeans ; but not onpthousandth part of the expenditure devoted to any service of real utility to the aborigines themselves. In an expenditure of £128,985 19s. 3d.. the total amount appropriated to religion and education during three years is, to the former, £388 Os. 5d., ; to the latter, £91 Bs. 6d.

In utter disregard of the moral contamination which has inevitably resulted, and which ought to have been foreseen, a number of boys from Parkhurst Penitentiary have been imported into the country ; and, in order to evade the pledge given by Lord Normanby, that " no convict should ever be sent thither to undergo his punishment," the individuals were pardoned on reaching their destination.

23. Perhaps there is nothing connected with New Zealand which more demands the attention of your honourable house than the mode in which revenue has been raised and expended. In spite of the constitutional principle that the people of this empire are only to be taxed by their own consent, the revenue of New Zealand is raised by a Council composed of four Government officers and three persons named by the Governor — removeable at his pleasure — and in fact visited or threatened with removal if their opposition becomes troublesome. By aid of such a Council, Governor Hobson was enabled to load the infant colony with debt and exhaust its resources by an improvident expenditure. During three years, of which alone the accounts have Been furnished, out of £128,000 aforesaid, it appears that less than a third was applied to objects wearing a character of utility or permanence. The excess of outlay over real income was £57,000 ; the annual cost of the Government, with respect to the European population, £9 7s. lid., £8 145., and £4 19s. 3d. a head.

The financial proceedings of Captain Hobson's temporary successor, Lieutenant Shortland, are shortly known by the difficulties in

which he was involved, the failure which attended his measures, and the disallowance of his bills by her Majesty's Treasury. Of Captain FitzKoy the course has been still more extraordinary. He imposed taxes which would almost appear to have been contrived for the very purpose of preventing the growth of a colony. He issued an inconvertible currency in notes for very small sums. To conciliate a turbulent tribe, he, without colour of law, exempted a particular port from the general customs duties, to which the rest of the island was subject. Then suddenly altering his entire financial policy to uphold this error, he has in an instant abolished the whole customs duties of the colony, and, after proposing the precarious resource of an income tax for raising a portion of the revenue which he flung away, has left the remainder of his expenses to be defrayed by the Imperial Treasury. 24. In old times, when our forefathers laid the foundation of the greatest colonies that the world has ever seen, the revenue and expenditure of every colony was from the first defrayed from its own resources, and modest establishments were dictated by the simple habits and restricted means of the early colonists. In the middle of the last century the internal government of the thirteen colonies of North America, with a population of three millions, cost only £100,000 a year. And with this small outlay for the business of government did these communities of Englishmen contrive to make and to administer salutary laws, to reclaim the forest, to establish a flourishing trade, to cultivate the arts of peace, and to lay the foundations of a great empire. Even in our present colonies of North America, representative institutions ensure a wholesome economy. Forty-seven thousand people in Prince Edward's Island are well governed for £19,G00 a- year. The taxation of the people of Nova Scotia is 10*. Qd., that of New Brunswick 10s. 6d., that of Canada Bs. 2d. a head. But New Zealand, though from the first an unmixed and untainted community of free and enterprising Englishmen, has been subjected to the same arbitrary government, lavish expenditure, and burdensome taxation, which have been imposed on our convict colonies.

Independently of the burden of taxation, this lavish expenditure is an uncompensated evil. It corrupts the colony by accustoming it to unnecessary establishments ; gives mischievous examples of private luxury; checks the noble disposition to serve the public for no reward but the good opinion of the public, which is found in all free communities ; maintains a host of insolent officials by the labour of others ; converts a vast proportion of those who should be working into idle recipients or greedy expectants of salary ; and subjects the colony to the rule of those whom no Government and no individual will trust or employ at home. But in New Zealand this evil end has been attained by taxing every individual nearly £3 a year; being three times as high as the amount disbursed in the United Kingdom for its effective expenditure. Here, as in other colonies, this system has broken down ; debts are contracted, applications are made to Parliament, and the colony becomes an object of cost and aversion to the mother country.

25. The value of the two systems of colonisation which have been pursued by the Government and by ourselves, may be best tested by a short comparison of their respective principles and results.

We conducted our operations on a scale of considerable magnitude, obtaining tracts of country of such extent as permitted us to proceed with consistency and uniformity. We attached to our lands a price nominally high, but by making it the same for town as for country lands, and by disposing of both in equal proportions, section for section, we rendered it really low. And out of its gross amount we appropriated from two-thirds to five-sixths to the purposes of emigration, public works, education, and religion ; the aborigines being provided lor by setting apart, for their exclusive benefit, poitions of the land itself.

The Government, on the contrary, made its bargains in minute portions, and with some few exceptions bought its land a strip here and a patch there. While it attempted to resell these, it rendered sales comparatively impracticable by its profuse bestowal of free grants ; and while it lavished country lands, the sole source of production, upon persons opposed to colonisation, it stimulated competition, among such colonists as there were, for the unproductive sites of townrebidences, fitted only to become the occasions of further expense. By these means, the price, though nominally lower than ours, was in practice rendered at once both higher and less productive for public objects. Of the gross amount obtained, instead of one-half as prescribed by act of Parliament, less than one-fourth appears to have been considered applicable to emigration ; instead of one-seventh, as indicated by Lord Stanley's despatch of 15th September, 1842, less than one twenty-fifth to the aborigines.

The consequence has been, that at the end of the first quarter of 1843, the Government had, for the sum of £39.655 sold 5,168 acres of land, yielding a general average of £7 13s. sd. an acre. At the same date, we had disposed of 224,720 acres for £280,840, or at a general average of £1 ss. an acre.

During the brief period extending from the commencement of our operations m 1839 to to their suspension in 1843, we bad introduced into the colony nearly 9,000 persons. The Government, exclusive of the convict boys, under 800.

We bad established three separate settlements. Our emigration had been carried on under the immediate ihspectidti of the officers of the Government, and conducted in such a way as to call forth their unqualified praise. A large amount bad been expended by us in public

works ; in constructing roads and bridges ; in providing facilities of access to the ports ; and in extensive surveys, as well as in expeditions for the purpime of exploring the interior. We had made a provision for religious establishments a portion of the original scheme of our settlements. In each successive scheme, we had devoted to this provision a larger and larger proportion ; proceeding always upon the principle of supplying funds, without distinction of denominations, in amounts equal to the sums raised by the parties themselves. Upon this principle, the majority of our settlers being members of the Church of England, the creation of a New Zealand bishopric had been mainly effected by our efforts : and in the hope that our settlements would receive the advantage of the personal residence and example of the bishop, our contributions, given upon the same principle, had formed a large portion of its earliest endowment. Other of our projects for the benefit of the colony had been frustrated by a refusal of the co-operation of the Government. But we are justified in baying that, until the disasters occasioned by the policy of the Government, our efforts had been so far successful, that the transference of a large body of emigrants had been effected with comparatively little of the hardships usually supposed to be incident to their lot ; that our settlements had attracted a large number of persons, of such property and station as are rarely induced to resort to distant colonies ; and that they presented the aspect of a steady progress in material prosperity. With the natives our settlers were living in a state of perfect tranquillity and friendship; and it is worthy of remark that the behaviour towards them, of even the ruder classes, had from the beginning been characterised by an habitual consideration and kindness altogether new in the intercourse of superior and inferior races. This they learned from the example set by the higher class of colonists, who, before leaving England, were imbued with the sentiments of the founders of the enterprise, and went out impressed both with the importance of seriously maintaining a good understanding with the aborigines, and with the efficacy of justice, kindess, and identification of interests, as means of their real civilization.

26. On the other hand, the effects of the policy which has been pursued by the Government are seen in the disasters that have visited all connected with the colony.

The violation of our two agreements with the Government has rendered it impossible to effect further sales of our land. Our income, which is derivable from that source alone, after a gradual diminution, which began nearly three years ago, has for some time past entirely ceased. For a considerable portion of that period, our expenditure was not only of necessity continued, but its ordinary amount greatly augmented by that insecurity of title which cut off our resources, and threw many of the emigrant labourers upon us for support. Having lost the property which we confided to the honour of the Government, we have been compelled to suspend our operations ; and our inability to fulfil the engagements into which, in reliance on that honour, we had entered, subjects us to reproaches which would be unbearable, if the bad faith shown to ourselves were not the sole cause of our failing in our obligations to others. An end is put to the only effectual colonisation of New Zealand that has hitherto existed.

The titles of those who have purchased from us have been rendered unavailable ; possession of the land has been rendered precarious, or altogether prohibited ; its cultivation of course relinquished. Many of the settlers, whose position and conduct entitle them to the peculiar sympathies of their countrymen, are, we fear, ruined ; others are abandoning a colony of which the original prospects have been cruelly destroyed, and in which their property has been hopelessly sunk.

The natural rapacity of the natives has been excited. Encouragement has been given to the most extravagant demands, under pleas either of the invalidity of the title of the original vendors, or of themselves having been deceived as to the price or the nature of the bargain. Feelings of ill-will between them and their European neighbours have been called forth; and we cannot but fear there is great danger of their being involved in further and more fatal collisions.

Nor are the disasters here enumerated confined to those connected with our undertaking, or this dissatisfaction to the neighbourood of Cook's Strait. In Auckland, also, the greater number of the inhabitants are represented as being in a state bordering upon ruin. In the Bay of Islands, the very centre of missionary influence, the natives have been encouraged to an insolent bearing by the unworthy concessions of the Government, until, from denying the validity of land-sales, they have advanced to impugning the treaty, and, from aggressions upon our settlers, to a deliberate insult of < her Majesty's flag. In the mean while, of the seventy-eight millions of acres contained in the islands, it is declared by the Legislative Council at Auckland, that all but 1,700,000 must be considered as the private property of native tribes. The right of pre-emption, which the treaty secured to the Crown, is waived by the Governor, although in so doing he sets aside a fundamental act of Par* liament, and revives the evils of land-specula*-tions between Europeans and natives. And the Government is reduced to a state in which it is wholly unable to carry out its own intentions ; its means exhausted, and its revenue dependent upon desperate experiments ; " having," as Captain Fitzßoy avows, " neither money nor ci edit " wherewith to acquire more land ; undersold by its own grantees in that which it already, possesses; the object of reproach by the .injured

Europeans; and, as Mr. Busby, the late resident, asserts, viewed with " distrust and disaffection" by the natives, who "consider them' selves overreached and betrayed" by its proceedings. 27. This, then, is the case which we desire to lay before your honourable house. We have obtained awards for above seven hundred thousand acres of land ; have claims for several hundred thousand acres more ; and have come under obligations to alienate above two hundred thousand ; but we cannot obtain our title-deeds for a single acre. We have entered into four successive agreements with her Majesty's Government; on the faith of these agreements we have expended nearly six hundred thousand pounds on public objectß; we have scrupulously fulfilled every condition on our part ; but as yet, not one condition has been fulfilled on the part of the Government.

The enterprise out of which these agreements have arisen was commenced before the assumption of British sovereignty in New Zealand. We bad a right to acquire land, and the colonists to establish themselves, in a country treated as sovereign and independent by our own Government.

We have conducted ourselves with good faith and loyalty in all our transactions ; and, had the Government not interfered, the colonists would have trusted to their own prudence for securing success among the natives.

All the wrong of which we complain is the direct consequence of the Government's interference.

Under these circumstances, it has become necessary to turn for redress to your honourable house. We beseech you, in your care for the people of the United Kingdom and of the colonies, as well of the aboriginal as of the British race, wisely to devise, and firmly to apply, sufficient remedies to the various evils which have been detailed.

It is obviously impossible to allow New Zealand to remain in its present condition.

It is equally impossible to abandon it, or to relinquish the colonisation already begun. It will scarcely be thought that great expense and heavy responsibilities should be incurred for the promotion of merely missionary objects, or the exclusive care of the aborigines.

The only remaining course is to administer the colony, on a comprehensive system of foresight and justice, for the joint benefit of the natives, the colonists, and the parent state. 28. We conceive the foundations of such a system would be laid in the adoption of the leading principles of the report of the committee of last session . That national faith to which we appeal on our own behalf, should undoubtedly be held inviolate with all; and if undue -expectations have been excited in the minds of the native population by the ignorance in which treaties have been made or administered, such expectations must not be overlooked. But they should be met with a due regard to the justice of the case. We have higher obligations to the uncivilized tribes of whose territories we have acquired possession, than any founded on mere compact, and we cannot be justified by any treaty in pursuing a policy opposed -to their real interests. It is -especially their interest that the Crown should administer the unoccupied lands of New Zealand, and maintain the wise law which prohibits all private purchases of land from the native tribes. It is their interest that they should be rescued from the machinations of the land-shark, and denied the means of purchasing their own destruction. It is their interest, too, that they should be disabused of fantastic expectations of immediate gain, and checked in attempts at extortion; that their obedience to law should be temperately but firmly enforced; and that they should be kept out of collision with that more civilized population on whose good-will their future welfare must depend. It is by such a policy, we are persuaded, and by such alone, that the now imminent chances of fatal conflict may be diminished, and the existence of the aboriginal population prolonged; that while security and peace are ensured to the settlers, the well-disposed natives may obtain satisfaction of their just expectations, and be inspired with respect for their rulers ; that efficacy can be given to plans for their progressive amelioration; and that, by accustoming the savage to the habits and occupations of civilized men, we may ultimately effect his amalgamation with the race which must eventually be master in New Zealand.

29. With regard to ourselves, we feel that we are urging a claim of simple equity, when we ask that due effect shall be given to the adjudication of your committee in our favour, and that such further measures shall be taken as may appear best adapted for repairing the serious injury caused by what we are now entitled to call a withholding of our rights. But if an alteration in the general policy be not considered expedient upon general grounds, we have no desire that it should be adopted or attempted on our account. If it be not esssential to the welfare of the aborigines and to the interests of the people of this Kingdom, that the ancient laws should be observed, and the rights of the Crown upheld, we have no wish that these should be evoked for the mere purpose of enabling the Government to fulfil its engagements with us. We are content in that case to abide the alternative which we are satisfied your honourable house will award to persons who have united together for no selfish end ; who have devoted themselves to what they believed to be an honourable and beneficial purpose ; who have been baffled by measures which they could not control, which they had no right to anticipate, and which appeared to them to be directed not less •gainst the public good than against their personal success; and who, whatever their misUku or their failurtr *=rye at least succeeded

in securing for their country an extensive and valuable territory, when it was all but sacrificed by the servants of the Crown. 30. But we would entreat your honourable house to remember that the inhabitants of colonies not enjoying representative institutions live under a despotism more complete than any absolute Government of Europe. In the case of New Zealand, the distance from Great Britain relieves the local authority practically from | any check. The rule over the colonists there is such as every member of your honourable house would deem intolerable, if by any calamity it were inflicted on those subjects of her Majesty who do not emigrate. The selection of Governors and other officers possessing ability and judgment is, therefore, of peculiar moment.

Finally, we would entreat you so to cast your protecting arm over the colonists, whom we have been the instruments of planting in New Zealand, as to prevent, if possible, their being compelled to suffer on our account ; to uphold a body of British subjects who are entitled to admiration and sympathy for their moderation and fortitude in circumstances of severe trial ; and who, notwithstanding the oppressions of the Colonial Government, have never forgotten their duties, or forsaken their love for the institutions, and loyalty to the sovereign of their native country.

By order of the Court of Directors, the tenth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and forty-five. Thomas Cudbert Harrington, Secretary.