A.—3

12

price of each lot shall depend on the class in which it is placed, the three classes being town allotments, suburban allotments, and rural allotments, the last class being again subdivided into lands which are, and into lands which are not, believed to contain valuable minerals; that lands once offered for sale by auction, without finding a purchaser, may afterwards be purchased, without auction, at the upset price; that the first application of the laud revenue must be towards defraying the expenses incident to the administration of the Crown Laud Department in all its branches ; and that the surplus, or net land revenue, should be applied towards the introduction of manual labourers from this country, unless when the exigencies of the public service may render the application of it to other local purposes indispensable. Such being my general views regarding the settlement of the public lands in New Zealand, I return to the kindred topic of the state of the aborigines there. On the general principles by which our relations to them should be governed 1 have nothing to add to Lord John Bussell's instructions to Captain Hobsoii, of the 9th December, 1840, No. 1. But I have to call your attention to the 10th clause of the 9th and 10th Victoria, c. 103, in which Parliament has adopted and given its sanction to the principles laid down by his Lordship in that despatch, that the laws and customs of the native New Zealanders, even though repugnant to our own laws, ought, if not at variance with general principles of humanity, to be for the present maintained for their government in all their relations to, and dealings with, each other; and that particular districts should be set apart within which such customs should be so observed. It will be your own duty to give effect to the general principle which would separate, by well-defined lines of demarcation, those parts of New Zealand in which the Native customs are to be maintained from those in which they are to be superseded. Eor the sake of distinctness, the one may be called the aboriginal and the other the provincial districts. The last, or provincial, districts will be entirely divided into the various municipalities already mentioned. With an increasing British population, and with the advance of the Natives in the arts of civilized life, the provincial districts will progressively extend into the aboriginal, until, at length, the distinction shall have entirely disappeared. In the mean time the provincial districts, and they alone, will bo the seats of Courts and magistracies, and of other institutions requisite for the government of civilized men. The aboriginal districts will be governed by such methods as are in use among the native New Zealanders. The chiefs or others, according to their usages, should be allowed to interpret and to administer their own laws. Even beyond those precincts the same practice should be followed in all cases, whether criminal or civil, in which the Natives alone have any direct and immediate interest. Difficulties will of course arise in the execution of such rules, but not, I think, any which may not be easily surmounted ; for the administration of different laws to different races of men, inhabiting the same country under one common Sovereign, is a practice which has prevailed so extensively that scarcely any civilized nation can be mentioned in which some examples of it have not occurred. "With the increase of Christian knowledge, of civilization, of the use of the English tongue, and of mutual confidence between the two races, these distinctions of law and of legal customs will, I trust, become unnecessary and obsolete. In the meantime we must await that consummation with every reasonable indulgence for the innocent habits and for the venial prejudices of aboriginal races with which we have thus been brought into contact. I pass over in this despatch, as in the accompanying instruments Her Majesty has passed over in silence, many topics of the greatest importance to the future good government of New Zealand. Such are the administration of justice, the management of the revenue, the education of vouth, and the provision to be made for public Christian worship. On these and similar questions I think it better to await, than to anticipate, the deliberations of the Legislative bodies about to be convened in New Zealand. They will properly form the subject of a separate and future correspondence. The Act of Parliament which I now transmit to you, and the instruments which have been issued in pursuance of it, are framed in the spirit of an unreserved confidence both in the capacity and in the willingness of the British settlers in New Zealand to regulate their own internal affairs in such a manner as may best conduce to the welfare of the colony and of the empire of which it forms a part. To men to whom so high a trust has been committed, it is fitting that the Minister of the Crown charged with the communication to them of Her Majesty's gracious intentions should address himself in the language of frankness and of candour. I therefore do not scruple to observe that the experience of our widely-extended empire has ascertained that the otherwise inestimable advantages of colonial self-government are attended with at least one serious danger. It is the danger that the powers conferred by this great franchise on the representatives of the people may be perverted into an instrument for the oppression of the less civilized and less powerful races of men inhabiting the same colony. This abuse has arisen in our colonies, not because the wealthier and better-educated classes of society there are in any respect inferior in character to the corresponding classes of society elsewhere, but because they are exposed to a temptation from which the greater number of imperial and independent Legislatures are exempt. They live in a vicinity to which nothing parallel exists in the ancient States of Europe. Such a vicinity exists, and consequently such a temptation will arise, in New Zealand. I therefore acquit myself of a duty, involving no failure of respect to the future Assemblies of that colony, in thus unreservedly pointing out to you, and through you commending to their attention, the sacred duty which will be incumbent on them of watching over the interests, protecting the persons, and, as far as may be, cultivating the minds, of the aboriginal race among whom they and their constituents have settled. They can render no service more acceptable to the Queen, to Parliament, and to the people of this country at large. Although Her Majesty has confided to your discretion the time from which the new Charter is to be promulgated and to take effect, and although in the exercise of that discretion you wall of course weigh every material circumstance, including many which it would be impossible for me to foresee or to estimate aright, yet you will understand it to be Her Majesty's pleasure that no delay should intervene which those circumstances may not justify and require. I have, &c, Grey.