100 YEARS AGO

Southland Times, Issue 23540, 21 June 1938, Page 5

100 YEARS AGO

N.Z. ASSOCIATION’S BILL

FOUNDING OF NATION On June 20, 1838, the second reading was given in the House of Commons to a Bill “for the provisional government of British settlements in the islands of New Zealand.” The Bill was rejected, but its consideration may, in some measure, be called the beginning of a nation.

Although its connection with the future is seen most clearly, it had its link, also, with the two generations of English life which separated its introduction in the House of Commons from the American revolution. For r in the years after 1783—the year in which the independence of the American colonies was recognized—there had grown from a momentary antipathy an increasing apathy towards colonial development, and upon the well-intentioned but short-lived attempts at reform in colonial administration by Shelburne in 1782 and 1783, there had succeeded a period of increasing disregard for manifestly needed changes. The outbreak of war with France in 1793, and the peculiar

system whereby war and colonies were linked together under the charge of. a single Minister and a single department, only made the neglect of colonial administration more complete. Governors of colonies, colonial judges, and civil officials were appointed, it is true, but many of them, appointing often worthless deputies, never left the shores of Great Britain; regulations were passed by the Committee for Trade and Plantations, by the Treasury, and by the Board of Customs, but often they remained unproclaimed or unobeyed. THE SLAVERY FIGHT Upon this scene there rose the conflict over the existence of the slave trade, and ultimately of slavery itself. An unsettled sugar market and a system of finance through advances from English merchants—not unlike the activities of our own stock and station agencies—rocked the planters between

riches and ruin. What measure of solvency there was in the West Indies was maintained by over-working and ill-treating the slaves; and so there arose in the House of Commons a fierce conflict between the powerful sugar interests and the humanitarians. It was to end in the triumph of Wilberforce and his followers and the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. Twenty-six years later an enfeebled plantation aristocracy' received another blow with the abolition of the institution of slavery itself. Fed not -only by the revelation of obnoxious and unhumane practices inthe colonies, but also by the loose morality of the regency, period, and by the suffering and misery in the economic depression of the years which followed Waterloo, there had' grown in Britain a large and complex group, in which the humanitarian rationalist was joined with the humanitarian evangelical animated by a fervent desire to improve the lot of their fellowmen. In 1832 the Great Reform Bill was passed, and there followed an unexampled amount of social legislation. At home the flame of social reform was often

discoloured by interests with which it conflicted; but turned to, colonial problems it burnt more purely, and interests being less there grew more strongly a determination that coloured races should not suffer in future as had the negroes in the past. But from the same broad movement there had sprung in the years between 1830 and 1838 another group of thinkers —small in number, but powerful in influence and intellect—who desired to plant in new lands societies which should reproduce what they thought the best features of European life. By following the Wakefield system they hoped to divest colonization of most of

its discomforts without appreciably lessening the poor man’s hopes of eventually becoming a landowner. In the face of a populace whose attention was largely absorbed by the new inventions of the age, and by the fashions and foibles of the recently-crowned Victoria, and of a Parliament more interested in reforms at home, these were the forces which watched the introduc'tion of the New Zealand Bill with pleasure or dismay and which guided in large degree the votes of uninstructed members of the House of Commons. TERMS OF THE BILL The Bill, itself, provided for the appointment by Parliament of a Board of Commissioners consisting of 16 of the most prominent advocates of the New Zealand scheme. They were to have power to enter into negotiations with the Maoris for the ceding of land to Britain. They were to be the supreme governing body within the limits < f the lands acquired for settlement, and in order to prevent white men from escaping from the hands of the law, they were to obtain by agreement the right of exercising criminal jurisdiction over the whole of the country. These powers were to be held for a period to be determined by Parliament. Further, the commissioners were to have the power to appoint a Council of Government in New Zealand.

Other provisions in the Bill dealt with finance and the treatment of the Maori people. In accordance with Wakefield’s teaching land was not to be sold for less than a fixed minimum price (of 12/- an acre), .which price was to be uniformly applied; a quarter of the land revenue was to be used for the benefit of the Maoris and for schemes of local improvement; the remainder was to be applied to the purchase of further land for settlement and to the conveyance of emigrants to New Zealand. Preliminary expeditions for the purchase of land and the negotiations of treaties were authorized, but until £lOO,OOO had been raised as payment for land, or by borrowing, nothing could be spent on the conveyance of emigrants to New Zealand. The commissioners were to be empowered to purchase the assets of the first organization to attempt the colonization of New Zealand—the Company of 1825. The transportation of convicts to New Zealand was to be prohibited,, and a bishopric was to be established. There were provisions, too—though incomplete and sadly lacking in definition—for the establishment of native reserves, and for the general protection of the Maori race. DISCUSSION ON BILL Earlier in the year the Government had, itself, been led into making tentative suggestions that some scheme should be found for the settlement of New Zealand, but the reception of the association’s Bill was very mixed. The mover of the Second Reading, the Hon. Francis Baring, argued that emigration to New Zealand could not be prevented. The question was, therefore, would the Government support the Bill?—would they spend money themselves on the establishment of a colony?—or would they continue, by their inaction, to countenance anarchy? But according to the young William Ewart Gladstone (the son of a former slave owner) there could be no exception to the melancholy story of colonization. Whenever civilized man and primitive man came into contact with one another both suffered, and both dishonoured their traditions. The existing relationship between Maori and white man was sorry enough. It must be improved. But this Bill would not improve it—improvement could only be brought about by prolonged examination and inquiry. But even Howick, the friend of colonizers, opposed the measure because, he said, it neither made adequate provision for the welfare of the Maoris, nor prevented unsound methods of finance being resorted to. Each clause, he said, was more monstrous than the other. There had also been some opposition to the ecclesiastical provisions of the Bill, and when the House divided it was defeated by 92 votes to 32. In the following days the epitaph of the Bill, and so of the association, was inscribed upon the pages of the London newspapers. “A combination of ministerialists, tories, saints, and blockheads of all parties threw out the New Zealand Bill on Wednesday,” wrote The Spectator. “In the minority we observe almost every member valuable for anything but his vote.” But The Times, the enemy of the scheme and of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, personally, congratulated “the House of Commons, as a body of independent gentlemen, for defeating this attempt -at establishing a monopoly conceived in the most sordid spirit, and only maintainable by the most peremptory despotism.” Neither judgment seems even an approximation to the truth, but they are at least interesting as a revelation of contemporary opinion. AFTERMATH OF BILL The Bill was defeated, but it had increased the prospects of an early settlement in New Zealand. Interest had at

last spread beyond the small group of self-styled colonial experts. The Government, itself, felt compelled to take some steps to deal with the matter. In December 1838, Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and Colonies, suggested that a British consul should be sent to New Zealand, and Lord Palmerston, as Foreign Secretary, expressed his agreement with the proposal. On his resignation from office two months later, Lord Glenelg reiterated his belief in the desirability of the proposal, and, in spite of his close connection with the evangelical opponents of colonization, added that the Consul should be charged with the duty of acquiring for Britain the sovereign rights to land on which British people were already settled. But the members of the association had not been inactive meanwhile; and two months after the defeat of the New Zealand Bill in the Commons a meeting was held to form a proprietary company for the purpose of opening New Zealand to settlement.' It was a course which they had avoided hitherto; but the Government which had opposed the association by alleging that its motives were mercenary had now refused to grant a charter to any organization not formed on commercial lines; and a proprietary company seemed the only possibility. In March 1839, the new company asked the Government for a charter, and an interview took place; but on May, 12, before a decision had been reached, Colonel William Wakefield left Plymouth in command of an expedition, on behalf of the company, to purchase land and prepare for settlement in New Zealand. It was a vital act, and the obtaining of the Government’s consent became merely a matter of time. New Zealand stood on the threshold of a conquest more complete even than that of the Maoris five centuries before, and though the association of 1838 and its parliamentary Bill had failed alike in their immediate purpose, they had, by arousing interest in New Zealand, brought the beginning of the European era appreciably closer.