A.—3

6

I had, as long as it appeared reasonable, indulged the hope that on your arrival in the colony you might have found disturbance at an end, and might have been permitted accordingly at once to apply your mind to the civil and social questions which appertain to your present charge, including the means of relieving the Southern or Company's settlers from their embarrassments with respect to title and with respect to the disadvantage at which they may be placed from the present political organization of the country. But the intelligence which I now possess from your own despatches, as well as from the recent incidental notice of a later date, has dissipated the hope to which I was thus disposed to cling; has brought out more distinctly the apprehension that much time might elapse before vou could forward propositions so comprehensive as to provide for meeting the whole of the various difficulties of the colony ; has suggested the question whether you have not ample occupation provided for you in the North ; and whether it may not be possible to take some early and direct manner from hence which may have the effect at once of alleviating your task, and of extricating a portion of New Zealand at least from those complicated embarrassments in which the whole of it is at present involved. At the present moment the intentions of Her Majesty's Government, which must necessarily vary more or less with the information they receive, are as follows : — Thev will await the result of the military operation in which, at the date of the last advices, the Queen's forces were enaged. They expect that this intelligence may probably be brought by the next arrival, and that it may communicate an issue of the greatest importance, either involving the general submission of the revolters, or the menacing a prolongation and an extension of hostilties. Upon receiving this intelligence they will consider and decide whether it may be right for them to make any application to Parliament for an Act relating to New Zealand during the present session; and likewise whether, if they should make such application, it should bo in order to effect certain purposes by direct enactment, or in order simply to enable Her Majesty to effect these purposes at the time which she may deem suitable. These purposes have been already indicated in my former despatches as fit subjects for your consideration: the division of the colony, the creation of representative institutions, and the extinction of disputes with respect to land claims. Of these, the fundamental idea is the division of the colony, not, however, considered as an end but as a means: as a means to be employed in order to facilitate the immediate application of those measures which may be regarded as the best guarantees of confidence here and of prosperity in the colony. Such measures I conceive to be a provision for the speedy and effectual termination of the prolonged uncertainty respecting titles to land, and the establishment of representative institutions. I must shortly indicate to you the considerations which have dispo?ed Her Majesty's Government to believe that the division of the colony is likely to prove the best preparation for a solution of the existing difficulties. Some of these have reference to temporary circumstances ; others, causes of a more permanent order. Under the former head I may remark, first, that the hostilities which have now prevailed for some time in the North, even supposing them to have already ceased, as I trust may prove to be the case, may, notwithstanding, leave behind them a sense of insecurity and a fear of their recurrence, at least in the public opinion of this country, as connected with the region in which they have happened, that may, perhaps, not be removed until after the lapse of a considerable time. Secondly, it appears to Her Majesty's Government that the more close neighbourhood and intermixture of Natives and settlers in the North may render the introduction of representative institutions in that quarter a work of difficulty, needing time and much care, and may require the retention of checks which would under other circumstances not be necessary or desirable. Thirdly, I cannot but continue to apprehend that you may experience difficulties of a serious kind in re-establishing throughout the whole of the northern parts of New Zealand the exclusive right of the Crown to pre-emption of the Native lands. lam not surprised at your strong disapproval of the surrender of that right, indeed, I have every disposition to concur in it; but I must not expect that you will be able at once to undo the complex difficulties which the transactions under Captain Eitzroy's Proclamations may be found to have occasioned. On the other hand, in the South there may be the means of at once escaping the disadvantages which the idea of insecurity attaches to the colonization of New Zealand. In the South it may be practicable at once to introduce popular institutions; it may probably be not unsafe nor unwise to re-establish somewhat peremptorily the pre-emptive right of the Crown. All this points to a separation of the southern from the northern parts of New Zealand. Other and more permanent causes, tending to operate in the same direction, are these which follow: The immense range of distance between the Bay of Islands, near an extremity of New Zealand, and Otago, and the whaling settlements approaching towards the other, appears to suggest objections to the combination of them all under a single Government. The differences of feeling which have become so highly inflamed, and the sense of injustice so keenly expressed by the settlers on the Straits, must of themselves be regarded as social evils of no trivial character, and must prove for a considerable time real obstacles to harmonious co-operation. The infrequency of communication between Auckland and the Straits impedes the working of the machine of government, which it has hitherto been endeavoured to apply to both in common ; and, while I am entirely unprepared to acquiesce, as at present advised, in the abandonment of Auckland, I am impressed with the idea that it must be very difficult to combine it with the settlements on the Straits under a single Government without stimulating in the one quarter or the other a spirit of discontent. Again, the very unequal distribution of the Native inhabitants over the long and narrow tract of these Islands appears to point towards different modifications of British law and usage as applicable respectively to those parts where the feebler race are likewise a numerical minority, and to those where they are and must long continue to be the larger number, and where much more scope cannot be given to the consideration of their customs and institutions in determining the particular laws that are to govern the colonists. Again, the connection of so many southern settlements with a charter association at Home, and the absence of such connection in the North, present another feature of striking difference. And all these circumstances, some of more temporary, some of more permanent, account, appear to converge upon the conclusion that the most natural solution or