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GIFT OF 
 
THE 
 
 SIX COLONIES 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM FOX. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. 
 
 MDCCCLI. 
 

 . 
 
 ,./ LONDON: 
 
 SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 ^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 SINCE the termination of the ten nights' debates 
 on New Zealand in the House of Commons in 
 1845, and the cessation of the native war which 
 ensued soon afterwards, the public mind in 
 England seems to have forgotten the colony 
 altogether. Any interest which is taken in it 
 seems limited to the movements of the Canter- 
 bury Association, or to the Parliamentary Grant, 
 which once a year is made in its behalf, when 
 financial reformers express their astonishment 
 that so flourishing a colony as it is represented 
 to be should require such large amounts of 
 British money for its support. On returning 
 home, after nearly nine years' residence in the 
 colony, I find the ignorance of the many, who 
 
 47613 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 know nothing about it, only exceeded by the 
 misapprehensions of the few, who know a little. 
 Under these circumstances, it seems a duty 
 incumbent on me not to keep back the results 
 of my experience. 
 
 I left England in 1842, intending to follow 
 the avocations of a private colonist, being a 
 barrister of the Inner Temple, and a graduate 
 of Oxford. In 1843, on the lamented death of 
 Captain Arthur Wakefield, the Eesident agent of 
 the New Zealand Company at Nelson, I suc- 
 ceeded him in that office. I held it till early 
 in 1848, when I received the appointment of 
 Attorney-General of the southern province, 
 which I accepted on the distinct assurance that 
 self-government was immediately to be bestowed 
 on the colony. Finding it was not, I resigned ; 
 and shortly afterwards, on the death of Colonel 
 Wakefield, the Principal agent of the New Zea- 
 land Company, his office devolved on me. It 
 placed me in charge of the Company's interests 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 in the whole of the southern settlements (in- 
 cluding New Plymouth), and afforded me the 
 opportunity of becoming acquainted officially 
 and personally with all their affairs. Imme- 
 diately before leaving the colony, I was appointed 
 Honorary Political Agent in England for the 
 settlement of Wellington. In addition to five 
 years' residence at Nelson, and three and a half 
 at Wellington, I visited Auckland for three 
 weeks, New Plymouth for ten days, Wanganui 
 twice, Otago twice, Canterbury thrice (exploring 
 a large part of the district), and many other 
 parts of the country, where no inhabitants, either 
 European or native, are to be found. 
 
 My opportunities for observation, and my 
 inducements to observe, have therefore been at 
 least equal to those of any person who ever 
 visited the colony; and this will, I hope, be 
 held to afford a sufficient excuse for the publi- 
 cation of the following pages. 
 
 For the valuable Map which is attached, I 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 am indebted to Mr. Arrowsmith, who obligingly 
 placed the plate at my disposal. It is the only 
 map of New Zealand that I have met with 
 which is at all complete or accurate ; and it 
 brings down the geographical corrections and 
 discoveries to the latest date, being founded on 
 the most authentic, recent, and original docu- 
 ments. 
 
 London, July 25, 1851. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 DESCRIPTIVE AND STATISTICAL. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SECT. 1. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLANDS. . . 1 
 
 2. THE SEPARATE COLONIES 22 
 
 1. WELLINGTON 22 
 
 2. NELSON 26 
 
 3. OTAGO 29 
 
 4. CANTERBURY 32 
 
 5. NEW PLYMOUTH 36 
 
 6. AUCKLAND 38 
 
 3. THE PENSIONER VILLAGES 43 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NATIVES. 
 
 SECT. 1. THEIR NUMBER 49 
 
 2. THEIR CIVILIZATION 59 
 
 3. OUR RELATIONS WITH 66 
 
 4. NATIVE CHARACTER 70 
 
 5. MISSIONARY INFLUENCE 76 
 
 6. NATIVE TITLE TO WASTE LANDS 89 
 
 7. THE WASTE LANDS 98 
 
VU1 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SECT. 1. THE EXISTING FORM 109 
 
 2. PRESENT GOVERNMENT EFFECTS OF . . . .118 
 
 3. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 126 
 
 4. CURRENCY, AND INTESTATE ESTATES . . . .130 
 
 5. COMMUNICATION BETWEEN DIFFERENT SETTLE- 
 
 MENTS , 137 
 
 6. SELF-GOVERNMENT 144 
 
 7. CONSTITUTIONS EXISTING AND PROPOSED . .153 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 ON THE TRANSFER OF LAND 163 
 
THE SIX COLONIES 
 
 OP 
 
 NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 DESCBIPTIVE AJTO STATISTICAL. 
 
 1. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLANDS. 
 
 I NEED scarcely commence an account of 
 New Zealand by saying, that it lies in the 
 Pacific Ocean; consists of three islands, the 
 Northern, Middle, and Southern ; and is not a 
 part of New South Wales. Nor is it necessary to 
 speak of its position relatively to Australia, Van 
 Diemen's Land, India, China, or the Polynesian 
 groups. All this any map will tell at a glance. 
 I shall at once proceed to give a brief general 
 description of the physical character of the 
 islands. 
 
 The geological formation of New Zealand is 
 volcanic. The most marked traces of igneous 
 action are to be seen in the neighbourhood of 
 Auckland, where, within sight of the town, are 
 twenty-nine or thirty extinct craters, of various 
 B 
 
2 ' GENERAL DESCRIPTION 
 
 
 
 elevations up to 300 or 400 feet : some of them, 
 as Mount Hobson and Mount Eden, in a state of 
 great perfection. Around them, on every side, 
 lie masses of scoria, varying in size from vast 
 rocks to mere marbles. Curious caves are inter- 
 spersed occasionally, as at the c Three Kings/ 
 which have been used as catacombs by the 
 natives, and are full of dead men's bones. As 
 you proceed towards the centre of the island, 
 evidences of more recent volcanic action exist in 
 the boiling springs of Eoturua, and the smoking 
 fissures and sulphurous deposits of White Island, 
 in the Bay of Plenty. At Wanganui, on the 
 northern shore of Cook's Strait, are quantities 
 of pumice-stone, floated down the river from the 
 interior ; and the rugged hills which surround 
 Port Nicholson, bear evidence of a decided, 
 though doubtless somewhat ancient, upheaving 
 of the surface of the earth. The middle island 
 exhibits fewer outward evidences of a volcanic 
 origin : there is a greater extent of level land, 
 and the farther south you go the more broken 
 down (or degraded, as, I believe, the geologists 
 term it,) is the appearance of the country. 
 There is, however, one rugged and craggy 
 chain of mountains, which runs completely 
 through the island, nearly north and south, 
 approaching the western coast to within a 
 
OF THE ISLANDS. 3 
 
 few miles of the sea, while it leaves a great 
 extent of level or undulating land on the 
 eastern side. 
 
 The southern, or Stewart's, island is moun- 
 tainous, but indented with fine harbours. 
 
 The harbours of the colony are one of its most 
 remarkable features. It possesses a great num- 
 ber, many of first-rate excellence. But one in- 
 convenience attends most of them : they are not 
 generally in immediate connexion with any consi- 
 derable quantity of level land. The Irish moralist, 
 who illustrated the goodness of Providence by the 
 fact of its having placed all the great rivers by 
 the side of the great towns, would have been at 
 a loss to reconcile his theory with the physical 
 character of New Zealand in this respect. Some 
 of the finest districts of the north, such as 
 Mokau, Kawhia, Taranaki, and the whole coast 
 from the latter down to Wellington, are without 
 any harbours accessible to vessels of more than 
 the lowest tonnage and draft. Two of the finest 
 in the colony, Akaroa and Port Hardy, have 
 scarcely an acre of available land about them, 
 while even Port Lyttelton and Otago are sepa- 
 rated from the open country by heavy ridges of 
 mountains or hills. None of the rivers are 
 navigable for any great distance ; and, with two 
 exceptions New River, in Foveaux Strait, and, I 
 
 B2 
 
4 GENERAL DESCRIPTION 
 
 believe, the Thames, in the north are only avail- 
 able for small craft. 
 
 The natural vegetation of the soil is of three 
 sorts forest, fern, and grass. The former is 
 interspersed all through the country, chiefly in 
 the more mountainous parts, though groves of 
 fine timber are to be found scattered over the 
 level portions. The kowrie, which is confined 
 to the north, the totara, and the red and the 
 white pines, grow to a great height, are of large 
 girth, and without a single lateral branch below 
 the top. They are all excellent timber, easily 
 worked, free from knots, and (except the white 
 pine) durable in the open air. The black birch 
 grows on poor and hilly land ; it is a fine, large 
 tree, considerably harder than the pines, and 
 proves a good timber for ship-building purposes. 
 
 The fern is chiefly found in the northern 
 island. When it grows strong (say to the height 
 of four or five feet) it is an indication of a 
 good soil ; but it appears to sour or exhaust the 
 land, and the complete eradication of its roots 
 and stems requires a good deal of labour; con- 
 sequently, though fern land is easily broken up, 
 the first, and probably the second, crop is seldom 
 a good one. 
 
 The whole of the eastern portion of the 
 middle island, and some extensive plains on the 
 
OF THE ISLANDS. 5 
 
 northern shore of Cook's Strait, extending as 
 far as Wanganui and Hawke's Bay, are clothed 
 with most excellent natural pasture. To the 
 north of this, scarcely any indigenous grass is 
 to be found. The grazing operations of the 
 colony will consequently be confined to that 
 portion of it which lies south of a line drawn 
 from Cape Egmont to Hawke's Bay in other 
 words, to the southern province. The portions 
 of the island north of that line, present no 
 facilities for grazing, and can never become a 
 field for pastoral enterprise. For though artifi- 
 cial grasses grow there to great perfection, it 
 would be a losing speculation in a new country 
 to lay down any quantity of land with grass for 
 mere grazing purposes. 
 
 It is extremely difficult to form any estimate 
 of the quantity of stock which the grazing dis- 
 tricts of New Zealand will carry. All that can 
 be said with certainty, is, that the natural pas- 
 ture is as good as any in the world, and that 
 there are millions of acres of it, comprising 
 various grasses, equally fitted for cattle and 
 sheep. The former will succeed best on the 
 level ground, where the herbage is heavier and 
 more rank ; the latter will chiefly occupy the 
 hills and undulating ground, than which no 
 finer ' runs' can probably be found anywhere. 
 
6 GRAZING DISTRICTS. 
 
 There are, perhaps, portions of the country 
 where a sheep could be kept to every acre, even 
 in its present condition, all the year round ; but, 
 generally speaking, two, or even three acres per 
 sheep, would be requisite to maintain a flock, 
 allowing sufficient space for its proper division 
 and management. An experienced grazier from 
 New South Wales, who had, however, only 
 seen a portion of the grazing country of New 
 Zealand, estimated that the middle island and 
 Cook's Strait would, in its present state, carry 
 six or seven millions of sheep. There is no 
 doubt that as the country is occupied with 
 flocks, the quality and quantity of the pasture 
 will both greatly improve, as they have always 
 done hitherto wherever tried. 
 
 The climate and country in the southern pro- 
 vince are both admirably adapted for sheep. 
 The average annual increase on a breeding 
 flock, supposing it to be in fair condition, and 
 on good keep, is not less than 90 per cent. ; 
 and a flock of merinos will clip four pounds of 
 wool all round, exclusive of young lambs. The 
 deaths, in a district free from native dogs, will 
 not exceed a half per cent., that is, one sheep in 
 two hundred ; though if among many natives 
 the mortality from this cause may amount to 
 10 per cent, or more. The average probably, 
 
SHEEP FARMING. 
 
 from all causes, will not exceed three or four per 
 cent.* Sheep farming will, probably, for many 
 years to come, be by far the most profitable 
 undertaking in which the colonist can engage. 
 If he can secure a run which will carry, say 
 ten thousand sheep, and will place one thousand 
 upon it on his arrival in the colony, seven or 
 eight years will see him in possession of the 
 former number. His annual clip of wool will 
 then be worth at least 1500L, while his lambs, 
 and the tallow of such surplus as he may sell 
 or boil down, will amount to nearly as much 
 more. The expenses will depend on the dis- 
 tance of his run from a port, the amount of his 
 personal superintendence and skill, the rate of 
 wages in the colony for the time being, and 
 other circumstances. 
 
 * The above figures are the result of the six or seven 
 years' personal experience of a joint owner of the largest 
 flock in New Zealand, containing nearly 20,000 sheep. It 
 was kept at two different stations, one in the midst of 
 native tribes the other remote from them. The only 
 dogs which give any trouble are either those belonging 
 to the natives, or a few which have escaped and run 
 wild. But their number is not great, and they are being 
 rapidly exterminated. There are no indigenous native 
 dogs, such as the Australian * dingo;' nor is it necessary 
 to protect the sheep from them at night by folding. 
 
8 DAIRY FARMING! HORSES. 
 
 Dairy fanning will also, probably, be found 
 to pay well. Independently of the local con- 
 sumption, there is always a great demand for 
 butter and cheese in New South Wales, and 
 that which has already been sent thither from 
 New Zealand has met with a ready sale at a 
 good price; and, for some years to come, young 
 stock will probably find a sale in the colony to 
 new comers. 
 
 New Zealand will be essentially a horse- 
 breeding country also. The vast plains and 
 open country invite the gallop, and a taste for 
 racing has already exhibited itself in all the 
 settlements. The pursuits of a colonist necessi- 
 tate his being much on horseback; a horse is 
 easily kept, and, in a few years, almost every- 
 body will own one. In New South Wales there 
 is one horse to about every two souls of the 
 population. 
 
 All kinds of live stock are imported from 
 New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, at 
 very moderate prices.* But though a good, 
 useful animal of every sort is imported by per- 
 
 * Horses from 10Z. to 40/.; cattle from 61. to 10Z. ; 
 sheep from 15s. to 20s. for maiden ewes. These had 
 been the average prices in Wellington and Nelson for 
 two or three years before I left the colony. In a new 
 settlement they may range ten per cent, higher. 
 
LIVE STOCK DISEASES. 9 
 
 sons who make it a trade, if the colonist wishes 
 to procure a really superior breed, he will be 
 wise in selecting them himself in those colonies. 
 First-rate animals can be obtained in either, but 
 are not generally exported on speculation. If 
 the colonist makes his purchases personally in 
 the Australian colonies, the risk of the voyage 
 will fall on himself, but if advantage be taken 
 of the summer season, and personal superinten- 
 dence exercised, there is not much danger. The 
 transport of stock should never be left to others, 
 if they are to be at the risk of the purchaser 
 during the voyage. 
 
 There are very few diseases among live stock 
 in New Zealand. From the most fatal one of 
 New South Wales, the catarrh, which sometimes 
 sweeps off tens of thousands of sheep in a few 
 days, it is entirely free; and as that disease 
 appears to be the result of drought, it will pro- 
 bably remain so. Scab, among sheep, is com- 
 mon and troublesome, but can be eradicated by 
 the usual remedies. The rot, I believe, does 
 not exist, nor the foot rot, unless in an isolated 
 case, where a sheep may have got into wet 
 ground. 
 
 Among cattle, there are few or no complaints. 
 But there is a shrub which is poisonous to them 
 (the tutu), when they are newly imported, or it 
 is eaten on an empty stomach. But they get 
 
10 LIVE STOCK DISEASES. 
 
 accustomed to it, and the loss from this cause 
 among cattle born in the country, or acclimated, 
 is quite inconsiderable. Great care should be 
 taken to prevent valuable newly imported cattle 
 from getting at it. Two out of four thorough- 
 bred cows, imported in the first Canterbury 
 ships, fell victims to it. 
 
 The capitalist can scarcely do wrong to invest 
 in live stock so long as there is an acre of graz- 
 ing ground to be had. But some will, perhaps, 
 prefer other pursuits, and engage in agriculture 
 or commerce. There are, no doubt, opportu- 
 nities for both. Professional men should not 
 be recommended to emigrate, unless they have 
 some means of livelihood collateral to their pro- 
 fession. 
 
 Labourers, if steady, invariably succeed. 
 Wages are seldom lower (for the most ordinary 
 kinds of labour) than from 2s. Gd. to 3s. Qd. a 
 day; while mechanics will get as much as six and 
 seven shillings for a day of eight hours, and pro- 
 visions cheaper than in England. A prudent and 
 sober man soon becomes independent, and at the 
 end of five or six years he is probably an em- 
 ployer of labour himself, and grumbles heartily 
 at the high rate of wages he is obliged to pay. 
 I have before me a copy of a return made in 
 1848, from which some idea of the prosperity of 
 this class may be formed. Forty- six labourers 
 
LABOURING CLASS SUCCESS OF. 11 
 
 at Wellington exhibited as the result of seven 
 or eight years colonization, the following amount 
 of property: 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Land cleared . . . 464 being 10 each. 
 Do. in crop ... 297 6J 
 Cattle 255 or 5 
 
 And this though, owing to political causes, three 
 years of this period had been a season of great 
 depression and absolute distress. 
 
 At Nelson, according to the same return, fifty 
 labourers, in the same period, and under similar 
 disadvantages, had 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Land in crop 402 or 8 each. 
 
 Cattle 589 11 
 
 Sheep 606 12 
 
 Goats 679 13 
 
 Pigs 392 7 
 
 Let the Wiltshire or Somersetshire labourer, 
 whose usual wages are from six to seven shillings 
 a week, and whose usual diet potatoes or skilli- 
 galee, be made aware that there is such a land of 
 milk and honey to be got at by a four months' 
 voyage, and I cannot help thinking that it would 
 be very difficult to keep him where he is. The 
 only impediment to his removal would be, how 
 to find the means of paying his passage, and 
 that might easily be done if government or the 
 pauper burdened parishes would assist. Let the 
 amount be advanced, and a promissory note for 
 
12 EMIGRATION. 
 
 its repayment be given by the emigrant. This 
 security would be transmitted with him to the 
 colony, and be recoverable before a justice of 
 the peace. Some department of the local go- 
 vernment should be charged with the duty of 
 enforcing payment; and I doubt not that very 
 few cases of evasion would occur. A proposi- 
 tion was made to the Colonial Office to this 
 effect in 1849, but rejected as impracticable, 
 apparently without consideration, or under mis- 
 apprehension. Private parties (as Mrs. Chisholm) 
 have not found such a system impracticable, and 
 there seems no reason why a government should. 
 The peculiar character of New Zealand, and the 
 limited extent of its population, afford facilities 
 for the experiment, and a prospect of its success, 
 which might not exist in colonies of larger 
 extent and population. It might fail in Canada 
 it scarcely could in Madeira, if the latter were 
 a British colony; between Madeira and Canada 
 it is only a question of degree, and New Zealand, 
 I think, comes within the limits in which the 
 proposal would be perfectly practicable. 
 
 The climate of New Zealand is, for the pur- 
 poses of health and production, probably about 
 the finest in the world. It is milder and more 
 sunshiny than England ; it is not so hot as 
 Italy or Australia. Whatever will grow in 
 England will grow there ; many things flourish 
 
CLIMATE. 13 
 
 there, for which England is too cold, or the 
 south of Europe too hot. Thus the grape ripens 
 to perfection in the open air, which it will not 
 in England ; and so does the gooseberry, which 
 will not in Spain. The only respect in which it 
 could be improved is the wind; not that it 
 blows harder than it blows in England, but it 
 blows hard oftener. This, however, is at most 
 only an annoyance, not an actual fault of 
 climate ; and even in the windiest places people 
 become so used to it, that I have heard an old 
 resident express his disgust at a calm day. The 
 windiness of the climate has been much exagge- 
 rated, owing to most of the early accounts from 
 the colony, and many of the later having 
 emanated from the town of Wellington, which, 
 being situated in a sort of funnel, is windy, par 
 excellence. The windiest season all through 
 the colony, is from November to January in- 
 clusive the early part of the New Zealand 
 summer. It is remarkable that the winter is 
 the calmest season, when there are often long 
 intervals of perfectly tranquil and fine weather. 
 
 Meteorological registers have been kept in 
 various parts of the colony, and a good idea of 
 the climate may be formed from them. In one 
 kept at Nelson, I find in the seven summer 
 months the following number of 'fine sunny 
 days :' September, 25 ; October, 20 ; Novem- 
 
14 CLIMATE. 
 
 ber, 19 ; December, 21 ; January, 16 ; Feb- 
 ruary, 19 ; March, 24 ; while the winter season 
 gives, April, 20 ; May, 15 ; June, 21 ; July, 
 20 ; and August, 15. In September and Feb- 
 ruary there was not one rainy day, and the 
 greatest number of rainy days in any month 
 was in May, when there were six, and five 
 cloudy, and five showery. It should be ob- 
 served, that in New Zealand a ' fine sunshiny 
 day' means a day of clear, unclouded sunshine, 
 from morning to night. In the register before 
 me, cloudy days are distinguished, as are 
 showery ones also. At New Plymouth, the 
 number of c fine sunshiny days' was, Sep- 
 tember, 21 ; October, 19 ; November, 18 ; De- 
 cember, 21 ; January, 25 ; February, 20 ; 
 March, 24; April, 16; May, 17; June, 14; 
 July, 18; and August, 16. In the three sum- 
 mer months of December, January, and Feb- 
 ruary last, according to a register kept at Wel- 
 lington, there were only two days of continued 
 rain, and seven showery, all the rest being bril- 
 liant sunshine, yet without any approach to 
 drought, or causing any shortness of keep for 
 the cattle. Let any one compare these, which 
 are fair average registers, with an English one, 
 and he will see at once how many more fine 
 sunshiny days there are in New Zealand. 
 
 The range of the thermometer shows perhaps 
 
CLIMATE. 15 
 
 the smallest variation of any in the world. In 
 a register kept at Wellington, the highest mean 
 in the shade, for the summer month of January, 
 was 67 Fahr. ; the lowesf mean, in July (mid- 
 winter), only 51. In England, the highest in 
 the corresponding months was 62, the lowest 
 36 ; the difference in New Zealand being 16, 
 in England 26.* In Cook's Strait, and to the 
 north, snow has only once in ten years been 
 seen on the level ground, and it did not then 
 lie two hours. At Otago, the southern portion 
 of the middle island, it has only been known 
 to lie for three days in the whole of the severest 
 winter yet experienced. The foliage, with the 
 exception of some half-dozen trees, is all ever- 
 green ; and the small green parroquet, a very 
 delicate bird, is found winter and summer in 
 Stuart's Island. 
 
 Nevertheless, with all these facts in its favour, 
 some persons may not think it an extraordinarily 
 pleasant climate. It wants the balminess of 
 the Italian air. Its summer evenings are infe- 
 
 * The highest degree to which I have known it 
 attain in Wellington, was 84 in the shade ; but in 
 some parts of the colony, as at Canterbury, it stands 
 higher occasionally. The lowest I have known was 
 only one or two degrees below freezing point, which 
 happens very seldom, and only for a few hours at a 
 time. 
 
16 POPULATION. 
 
 rior even to the English, when the English do 
 get a fine one. In some places there is more 
 wind at times than is altogether agreeable. 
 But any one who rejoices in sunshine who 
 likes a clear elastic air in which blue devils and 
 dyspepsia cannot exist or who wishes for a 
 climate in which all sorts of European produce 
 flourish, and all sorts of live stock thrive to an 
 amazing degree will certainly be satisfied 
 with it. 
 
 There are no diseases peculiar to it, while 
 many English ones either do not exist at all (as 
 small pox), or with less frequency and virulence, 
 as colds and consumption. No climate will 
 cure the latter when far advanced, but none 
 probably affords a better chance of recovery if 
 the patient be taken there in the earliest stages. 
 I could mention more than one instance of 
 recovery, in cases which would certainly have 
 ended fatally in England. 
 
 The European population (civilian) in the 
 colony at the beginning of 1850, was as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 Wellington 4747 
 
 Thence to Wanganui, inclusive .... 654 
 
 New Plymouth ,. 1200 
 
 Nelson 3372 
 
 Otago 1215 
 
 Canterbury, Akaroa, and Banks' Peninsula 734 
 Auckland and the north, about .... 7000 
 
 18,922 
 
COLONIZATION. 17 
 
 To which must now be added about 3000 
 emigrants to Canterbury, 300 or 400 soldiers 
 discharged from the two regiments, and an in- 
 crease by births at 4 per cent., which will 
 give a total of about 23,122. 
 
 The first colonization of New Zealand was 
 rude and irregular, effected by runaway sailors, 
 escaped convicts, and the hardy but rugged and 
 nondescript characters who carried on the shore- 
 whaling establishments. There were probably 
 not less than 1000 of them in the country when 
 regular colonization began. They have now, in 
 great degree, disappeared having either died 
 off, quitted the colony for haunts where they 
 are subjected to less control, or become merged 
 in the growing population. 
 
 The regular colonization of the country com- 
 menced at Wellington in 1839, and has been, 
 effected hitherto in much the same manner as 
 Asia Minor, Sicily, parts of Italy, and North 
 America were colonized by the location of 
 separate communities at various points of the 
 sea-coast, separated from each other by physical 
 barriers. Each settlement has had a distinct 
 origin and a separate aim, which, combined 
 with their local separation, makes them more 
 truly distinct colonies than Virginia and Mary- 
 land, or Delaware and New Jersey. One left 
 England as the pioneer of New Zealand colo- 
 c 
 
18 COLONIZATION. 
 
 nization, and still retains its old recollections of 
 native negotiations and the early hazards of the 
 enterprise ; another, of later date, is remarkable 
 as a Scotch settlement, and revives the recol- 
 lections of the old country by its kirk, its 
 manse and its minister, with its names of Dun- 
 Edin, Leith Water, and the Clutha ; another 
 consists all of Devonshire and Cornwall men ; 
 another carries out a segment of the Church of 
 England, with a bishop and his clergy, as a 
 nucleus round which its sentiment is to grow ; 
 while another claims to be cosmopolite, and 
 scorns all specialities and exclusivism. Nor do 
 the physical characters of each, and the pursuits 
 of their inhabitants, differ less than their moral 
 features. One is more commercial, another 
 more pastoral, a third more agricultural, while 
 a fourth depends on native trade and govern- 
 ment expenditure. Hence arises, in a peculiar 
 manner the necessity for a complete localization 
 of the institutions of government ; and nothing 
 has more tended to^ retard the progress of these 
 colonies than the attempt to govern them by 
 a system of centralization, the head-quarters of 
 which are removed 200 miles from the nearest, 
 and 800 from the most distant of them. But 
 this will more appropriately form the subject of 
 a subsequent section. 
 
 On the subject of society and the provi- 
 
SOCIAL CONDITION. 19 
 
 sion for the religious, educational, and physical 
 wants of the colonists, a few words will suffice. 
 An immigrant will probably judge of the society 
 by what he has been accustomed to at home 
 it may be too good for some, not good enough 
 for others. I will not pretend to pronounce 
 upon its merits or demerits ; but this I will say, 
 that let him go to which settlement he chooses, 
 he will, if he be worthy of it, be received with 
 genuine kindness and hospitality, and with a 
 cordial welcome to the country of his adoption. 
 The habits of all classes are at least as moral and 
 respectable as those of the same grade in the old 
 country, and in some respects perhaps more so. 
 
 As regards provision for religious wants, the 
 amount is pretty nearly equal to that at home. 
 Every leading church of the old country has its 
 representative there. At Wellington, for in- 
 stance, there are two clergymen of the Esta- 
 blished Church, with two churches in the town, 
 and two or three chapels in the country; a 
 Roman Catholic church, with a bishop and 
 several priests; a Wesleyan minister with a large 
 chapel in town, and smaller ones in the coun- 
 try; a Scotch kirk (established) in the town; 
 Independents, Primitive Methodists, and per- 
 haps one or two more. At Nelson there is a 
 similar provision, in proportion to the size of 
 the settlement, and so in each of them. 
 C2 
 
20 SOCIAL CONDITION. 
 
 Schools are also to be found in each settle- 
 ment, generally attached to each religious deno- 
 mination. Nelson has made itself remarkable 
 by an educational movement, which bids fair to 
 become an enthusiasm with the colonists there. 
 Numerous schools on the British and Foreign 
 system, educate an unusually large proportion 
 of the children, and work harmoniously with 
 those founded by religious sects. The credit 
 of their organization and success is due to 
 Mr. Matthew Campbell, whose exertions in their 
 behalf have been most zealous and unwearied. 
 It is unfortunate that, by an educational ordi- 
 nance passed at Auckland, they are the only 
 schools in the colony excluded from the right to 
 receive aid from the state, though, perhaps, of 
 all others the most deserving its support. Edu- 
 cation for the upper classes is on the whole 
 defective, but it is beginning to be supplied by 
 degrees. A very good high school appears to 
 have been founded at Auckland by the Wes- 
 leyans. Bishop Selwyn's college is also esta- 
 blished there, though, when I visited it, it 
 seemed not well adapted for general education, 
 and not very successful. A college, or school, is 
 in process of formation at Canterbury; and pri- 
 vate academies, ' classical and commercial/ are 
 to be found in the other settlements. 
 
 The physical wants of the colonists are amply 
 
SOCIAL CONDITION. 21 
 
 provided for. Flour usually ranges from 121. to 
 171. a ton, being about 2d. a pound for bread; 
 meat of excellent quality, 5d. to 6d. a pound ; 
 tea, coffee, (without chicory) and sugar, as 
 cheap, or cheaper, than in England ; butter, 
 from 9d. to Is. 3d!. ; cheese, about Is. a pound ; 
 bacon, 7d. ; potatoes 31. a ton ; vegetables every- 
 body grows for himself; poultry varies in 
 different settlements; turkeys, at Nelson, 2s. 6c?.; 
 Wellington, 7s.; fowls, at Nelson, Is. 6d. a 
 couple; at Wellington, 3s. In a new settle- 
 ment, such as Canterbury, most of these minor 
 articles will be dear, and some not to be had 
 till the colonists produce them for themselves ; 
 but, in a year or two, everything becomes plen- 
 tiful and reasonably cheap. New Plymouth and 
 Nelson are the best supplied and cheapest 
 markets. At Wellington and Auckland prices 
 are raised by the presence of the troops and 
 shipping; but a country settler produces most 
 things for himself, and does not much feel the 
 higher prices of the towns. 
 
 Land is to be purchased in all the settle- 
 ments ; in the older ones, where the sales and 
 other arrangements of the government and the 
 company have glutted the market, it can be 
 bought at prices varying from 6s. or 7s. an acre, 
 up to 6J. or 81., the former at a distance, the 
 latter close to the towns. The Canterbury and 
 
22 WELLINGTON. 
 
 Otago Associations still sell on the terms of the 
 respective schemes, providing a fund from the 
 proceeds for public purposes, such as founding 
 schools and churches, making roads and bridges, 
 and introducing immigrants. 
 
 Having now touched upon those points which 
 are generally applicable to the whole colony, I 
 shall briefly describe each settlement separately, 
 dwelling chiefly on the particulars in respect of 
 which they differ from each other. 
 
 2. THE SEPAEATE SETTLEMENTS. 
 
 The settlements, or colonies, now existing in 
 New Zealand, are six in number : Wellington, 
 Nelson, Otago, and Canterbury, in the southern 
 province; Auckland and New Plymouth* in the 
 northern. 
 
 1. WELLINGTON, founded in 1839, was the first 
 
 * JN"ew Plymouth has been bandied about from one 
 province to the other. It is, I believe, again restored, 
 or about to be, to the southern. The Bay of Islands, 
 though possessing a government staff, is a mere in- 
 significant dependency of Auckland. Wanganui is a 
 portion of the settlement of Wellington, and will ulti- 
 mately (even more decidedly than at present) become 
 identified with it. It has Wellington for its port of 
 deposit, and its inhabitants are chiefly from that settle- 
 ment. 
 
WELLINGTON. 23 
 
 regular settlement established in the colony. 
 It is the seat of government of the southern 
 province. Its most important feature is its fine 
 harbour, which consists of a salt-water lake or 
 inlet of the sea, about six miles in diameter, and 
 land-locked on every side. At one side of this is 
 the valley of the Hutt, containing about 15,000 
 acres of land of first-rate fertility, but heavily 
 timbered. The rest of the country, for twenty 
 or thirty miles on each side, consists of hills, 
 varying in height from 500 to 1500 feet, inter- 
 spersed with narrow valleys or portions of table- 
 land, of a good soil, but covered with dense 
 forests. From this description, it is evident 
 that the character of the country in the imme- 
 diate neighbourhood of Wellington is at present 
 neither pastoral nor agricultural, and can only 
 become the latter by the expenditure of great 
 labour in clearing off the timber. 
 
 But Wellington will be the port of deposit 
 for fine districts equally fitted for pasture and 
 agriculture, which commence at a distance of 
 thirty or forty miles on either side of it. On 
 the north-west the mountains begin to recede 
 from the coast, at a distance of about thirty 
 miles from Wellington, gradually leaving a 
 splendid tract, which extends, with few breaks, 
 all the way to New Plymouth. On the east 
 side, at the head of Palliser Bay, is the fine 
 
24 WELLINGTON. 
 
 valley of the Wiararapa, containing about 
 350,000 acres of level land, connected with 
 large level grassy plains, divided from each 
 other by low hills, which extend up to Hawkes 
 Bay on the one hand, and the head of the Ma- 
 nawatu river on the other. 
 
 Of these fertile districts, however, a small 
 portion only, amounting to about 300,000 acres, 
 has yet been purchased by the government, and 
 placed at the disposal of the colonists. Another 
 portion, under arrangements of a most objec- 
 tionable character, which will be further alluded 
 to in a subsequent page, is occupied by graziers, 
 holding as tenants under the natives. But the 
 greater part of the country referred to remains 
 unoccupied, millions of acres, capable of main- 
 taining millions of people, but which the natives, 
 though they make no use of them themselves, 
 will not sell to the Europeans, nor permit them 
 to occupy in any way. And their title to the 
 waste lands having, by an unfortunate policy, 
 been recognised as valid by the British govern- 
 ment (a point which will be touched upon here- 
 after), there is no course to be pursued except 
 to wait patiently till the natives either become 
 extinct, or can be persuaded to change their 
 minds. But, considering that it has been by a 
 mistaken policy of the British government that 
 the native ownership of the waste lands has 
 
WELLINGTON. 25 
 
 been recognised, it would seem incumbent on it 
 to make any reasonable sacrifice to obtain, by 
 purchase, districts which are of vital importance 
 to the prosperity of Wellington. It is probably, 
 after all, only a question of money ; and, under 
 the circumstances, even if it should cost 50,000, 
 it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that it 
 is the duty of government to obtain the Mana- 
 watu, Wiararapa, and Hawke's Bay districts 
 without delay. The outlay would soon be repaid 
 by the rapid prosperity of the country so pur- 
 chased, and of Wellington, which, without it, 
 cannot make any considerable progress. 
 
 The fact of its being the medium of supply 
 for the more recently-founded settlements in 
 Cook's Strait, and, latterly, a depot for troops, 
 and its having, together with Auckland, enjoyed 
 a monopoly of the government expenditure of 
 parliamentary grants and other large sums of 
 money, combined with the deficiency of open land 
 and the existence of a fine harbour, have given 
 Wellington a commercial character, to an extent 
 not perhaps altogether consistent with its actual 
 progress as a settlement. Too many of the 
 population have been engaged in commercial 
 pursuits and shopkeeping. There is, however, a 
 solid substratum of bond fide colonization, many 
 colonists of the upper class being settled on the 
 land, and owning large quantities of sheep and 
 
26 NELSON. 
 
 cattle in the Wiararapa or Rangetiki, and not 
 less than from 400 to 500 families of the 
 labouring class cultivating land on their own 
 account. 
 
 2. NELSON, founded in 1841, organized in 
 England under different leaders, and, in many 
 respects, different circumstances from Welling- 
 ton, is, perhaps, the most successful instance 
 of a self-supporting, self-relying settlement 
 which the history of British colonization has 
 exhibited since the American colonies were 
 founded. Port Philip or Adelaide may be cited 
 as instances of more rapid and greater prospe- 
 rity ; but their overland communication with 
 New South Wales deprives them of the cha- 
 racter of new colonies in any rational sense. 
 It was merely the grazier driving his flocks 
 from one field into the next. The subsequent 
 discovery of copper in South Australia has given 
 it a new ground for sudden prosperity, but one 
 not at all in unison with, or dependent in any 
 way on wholesome colonization. Nelson owes 
 its success entirely to itself ; it has never parti- 
 cipated in the immense sums of money expended 
 at Auckland and Wellington, but has patiently 
 dug its own maintenance out of the ground. It 
 presents, in consequence, a much healthier 
 aspect than either of them, is entirely inde- 
 
NELSON. 27 
 
 pendent of extraneous support, and not liable 
 to be injured or destroyed by the withdrawal of 
 troops, or cessation of parliamentary grants. 
 
 The settlement lies at the bottom of Blind 
 Bay. There are about 50,000 acres of level, or 
 nearly level land, in immediate connexion with 
 the port, but probably not more than half of 
 this is adapted for agricultural purposes. There 
 is, however, much more good land than the pre- 
 sent population can use or occupy. The whole 
 of it has been sold to purchasers under the 
 New Zealand Company, but more than three- 
 fourths of those are absentees, and no difficulty 
 will, I believe, be found in purchasing from 
 them, or their agents, at moderate prices, as 
 much land as any emigrant may want, within a 
 distance of from one to forty miles of the town. 
 
 Forming part of the Nelson settlement, but 
 separated by a ridge of mountains which necessi- 
 tates a journey round of sixty or seventy miles, 
 is the Wairau valley and plain, consisting of 
 about 250,000 acres of land, the lower portion of 
 first-rate quality, the upper only fit for grazing 
 purposes. It is surrounded by hills which afford 
 excellent sheep-runs, and which are occupied by 
 Nelson settlers, many of whom live in the Blind 
 Bay district, intrust their flocks in the Wairau 
 to a shepherd, and only occasionally visit them 
 in person. 
 
28 NELSON. 
 
 The country west and south of Nelson pre- 
 sents few facilities for colonization. It has 
 been explored as far down as Cascade point, 
 in lat. 44 S., by Mr. Brunner, who performed 
 three journeys through it, two of them of 
 great enterprise and difficulty, in the years 
 1846, 1847, and 1848. His last and most inter- 
 esting journal has been published (in a very 
 brief shape however) in the Parliamentary 
 Papers of 1850. 
 
 The country which lies east and south of 
 Nelson and the Wairau has been explored 
 within the last year by Captain Mitchell and 
 Mr. Dashwood. A connexion has been esta- 
 blished between the Nelson and Canter- 
 bury district, running behind the Kaikora 
 mountains, and consisting almost entirely of 
 fine grazing country, interspersed with plains, 
 adapted for agricultural purposes. Mr. Weld 
 subsequently explored, successfully, a route on 
 the seaward side of the mountains, which proved 
 perfectly available for sheep or cattle, and he 
 discovered an easier access than Messrs. Mitchell 
 and Dashwood had done to the country con- 
 necting, on the other side, with Canterbury.* 
 As uniting the two settlements, and opening up 
 
 * His journal is published in the Government Gazette, 
 Southern Province, February 21, 1851. 
 
OTAGO. 29 
 
 a fine tract of country previously unexplored, 
 these were among the most useful discoveries 
 yet made in the colony. 
 
 The principal charm of Nelson is its climate; 
 which, owing to the comparative absence of 
 wind, and the extreme clearness of the air, is 
 superior, probably, to any other in the colony. 
 I have known the sky without a cloud by day 
 or night for a month together, even in the 
 winter ; and in that season geraniums, cenotheras, 
 picotees, and other English summer flowers will 
 be found in full blossom. Yet the heat of sum- 
 mer is never oppressive, the thermometer seldom 
 higher than 80 or 82, owing, probably, to a 
 light sea-breeze setting in regularly every day 
 about ten A. M., and blowing till sunset, when it 
 changes to the exactly opposite quarter. 
 
 3. OTAGO, which is situated on the southern 
 portion of the east coast of the middle island, 
 was founded in 1847 by a body of colonists 
 organized in, and proceeding from, Scotland, in 
 connexion with the Free Church, for the endow- 
 ment of which, and of schools in connexion with 
 it, a portion of the fund arising from land sales 
 is appropriated. The principle is the same as 
 that adopted in the Canterbury settlement. It 
 is special, but not exclusive. The Scotch Free 
 Church in the one case, the English Established 
 
30 OT4GO. 
 
 Church in the other, is the only one which 
 receives any endowment from the funds of the 
 settlement w^hich are contributed by the land 
 purchasers. But all other sects are at liberty to 
 establish their own churches, and entitled to 
 equal political and social rights with the mem- 
 bers of the endowed one. It is only a ques- 
 tion of private endowment. The church so 
 endowed does not become a state or established 
 church. 
 
 Otago is a very good country for settlement. 
 There is probably none much better. It has a 
 tolerably good and extremely picturesque har- 
 bour, which a rough Scotch emigrant of the 
 labouring class told me reminded him of Scott's 
 description of the Trosachs. He was quite right 
 in the resemblance between the two places, 
 though he had never seen the Trosachs. There 
 is a considerable amount of available land around 
 the harbour, and within a mile or two of the 
 town of Dun-Edin. But the principal rural dis- 
 tricts commence about seven or eight miles off. 
 They consist of four plains, surrounded by grassy 
 hills, all of them of good land, but the Molyneux, 
 which is the largest, particularly so. There is 
 already water carriage through a great part of 
 the district, and ultimately it will all be con- 
 nected with the greatest ease by a canal, of which 
 three-fourths have been formed by nature. Its 
 
OTAGO. 31 
 
 grazing capabilities are also very great, as it is 
 almost entirely a grass country, and connected 
 through the Molyneux with a still more exten- 
 sive level grazing country, bordering on Foveaux 
 Strait. 
 
 This latter district was explored in 1850 by 
 Captain Stokes, E.N., and other officers of ELM. 
 steamer Acheron, and proved one of the greatest 
 value.* It possesses a very good harbour at the 
 c Bluff/ in which the Acheron lay for some weeks 
 a river called the New River, navigable for 
 large vessels; and a smaller one, known as 
 Jacob's River, adapted for coasters. There is a 
 good supply of timber scattered through the 
 district. 
 
 The climate of Otago seems to resemble that 
 of Wellington. There are more flying clouds 
 and more wind than in many other parts of the 
 colony, but the climate is good on the whole, 
 and extremely healthy certainly no Scotchman 
 nor Englishman either need complain of it. I 
 was there when a colonist arrived who had lost 
 his health by a long residence in India, and who 
 
 * Perhaps the greatest benefit conferred on New 
 Zealand by the home government has been the survey 
 of its coasts and harbours by an officer of such esta- 
 blished reputation, assisted by others of great experience 
 and ability. 
 
32 CANTERBURY. 
 
 had been unable to regain it on the continent 
 of Europe and the watering places of England. 
 He seemed completely shaken to pieces. I saw 
 him a year afterwards, when his health seemed 
 entirely restored he was full of activity, enjoy- 
 ing life, and engaged at that particular moment 
 in presiding over one of the pleasantest scenes I 
 witnessed in New Zealand a harvest home, 
 attended by some thirty or forty labourers, and 
 their wives and children, who were in his em- 
 ployment. 
 
 Otago has made comparatively but little pro- 
 gress. It seems to have been neglected in Scot- 
 land. It has been hinted that the ministers of 
 the Free Church are afraid of encouraging emi- 
 gration, lest it decrease the number of the 
 members of their church at home, which is in a 
 position of rivalry with the Established Church 
 in respect of numbers and funds. If they knew 
 how great a boon they were conferring on the 
 labourer by inviting him to emigrate, men of 
 their devotedness and high character would not 
 be induced by any motive of personal or ecclesi- 
 astical interest to discourage him from taking that 
 step. 
 
 4. CANTERBURY is yet in progress of forma- 
 tion; but it cannot fail to be one of the most 
 important settlements in New Zealand. Eighteen 
 
CANTERBURY. 33 
 
 ships, containing 3000 colonists, have sailed for 
 it within the last twelve months. It has for 
 its field of operations an immense level plain of 
 more than two million acres, on the east coast 
 of the middle island, and abreast of Banks' 
 Peninsula, one of the harbours of which (ex- 
 tremely easy of access and egress) affords it a 
 port. It contains many hundred thousand acres 
 of excellent agricultural land. It is almost 
 entirely a grass country, and borders on other 
 fine grazing districts, extending on the north 
 nearly as far as Nelson, and on the south to 
 Otago. It is, on the whole, as fine a tract as 
 has ever been colonized. The port of Lyttelton 
 will be the depot of the produce of a third part 
 of the east side of the middle island, there being 
 no other place from which it can be exported, 
 on a coast line of upwards of 150 miles in 
 length. 
 
 The only drawback in the district with which 
 I am acquainted is, that the timber is not con- 
 veniently scattered over it, but lies on Banks' 
 Peninsula on the one side, and on the hills 
 opposite the coast on the other, where, accord- 
 ing to the estimate of Captain Thomas, there 
 are at least 230,000 acres of forest. The dis- 
 tance at which the timber grows, say twenty 
 miles from the centre of the plain on either 
 side, will probably not much affect the value of 
 
 D 
 
34 CANTERBURY. 
 
 sawn timber; but it will make the supply of 
 rough timber, for fencing or firing, compara- 
 tively scarce and dear. Yet perhaps not so 
 much so as might be anticipated. In 1849, 
 firewood was the same price at Auckland (which 
 is worse off for wood than Canterbury) as it was 
 at Wellington, which is in the heart of a forest 
 of thirty miles in extent. In the former case 
 there was water carriage in the latter it was 
 brought chiefly by land. There are facilities for 
 getting it by water several miles into the Can- 
 terbury plains ; and when the settlement is fully 
 formed, and employment is properly organized, 
 there is little doubt the supply of wood from 
 Banks' Peninsula and the hills will form a regu- 
 lar trade, and the price become reasonably 
 moderate. Coal from New South Wales is now 
 imported at 21. per ton, a price not very exces- 
 sive, and which will no doubt be reduced, as it 
 is sold in Australia at 7s. 
 
 Some reports disparaging this district have 
 been circulated in England. The absence of 
 any complaints from the colonists themselves 
 who, after three months' examination of the 
 country, speak of it in the highest terms, ought 
 to be perfectly satisfactory to the most scep- 
 tical, independently of the reports of numerous 
 parties of high character and intelligence, who 
 have carefully examined the country, and re- 
 
CANTEKBURY. 35 
 
 ported most favourably of it ; among whom are 
 the Bishop of New Zealand; Captain J. Lort 
 Stokes, RN; Mr. Evans, sailing-master of 
 H.M.S. Acheron; Mr. Hamilton, of the same 
 ship; Captain Mitchell, of the Indian army; 
 Mr. Dash wood, late of the same; Mr. Mantell 
 (son of the geologist) ; Mr. Weld, of Chideock 
 House, Dorsetshire (now in England) ; Messrs. 
 Deans, who have resided there for seven years ; 
 and numerous others of equal credit. I have 
 myself walked over a great part of it, and 
 formed the highest opinion of it for the site of 
 a settlement. 
 
 Whether the Canterbury Association will 
 carry out to the full their scheme of special 
 organization on Church principles, is a question 
 on which colonial experience does not throw 
 much light. No doubt it will depend chiefly 
 on how far the movement is one of settled prin- 
 ciple or mere impulse. There seems nothing in 
 the circumstances of the colony to prevent a 
 strong organization on any given principle, if 
 those who carry it out are sufficiently imbued 
 with it, to hold by it till it takes an abiding 
 root in the feelings of the people at large. It is 
 probable that the " speciality" of the scheme 
 will not stand out so prominently in the colony 
 fifty years hence, when its founders have become 
 intermixed with other colonists, who may resort 
 D2 
 
36 NEW PLYMOUTH. 
 
 there with different views; but it will, in 
 likelihood, always retain something of its origi- 
 nal savour. The American States Pennsyl- 
 vania, New England, and Maryland are said 
 each to exhibit a special character of its own, < 
 tinctly traceable to the peculiar religious prin- 
 ciples on which it was originally founded. 
 
 5. NEW PLYMOUTH was founded in 1840, by 
 a company, formed in Devonshire and Corn- 
 wall, from which counties its inhabitants have 
 chiefly emigrated. It lies on the west coast of 
 the Northern Island, close to Mount Egmont 
 which forms at all times a magnificent feature 
 in the scenery. It rises up at once from the 
 level country to a height of 8300 feet, in the 
 most beautiful conical form, and capped with 
 snow for a great part of the year. It is the 
 most elegant, and certainly not the least im- 
 posing of mountains. Below lies a beautiful 
 undulating country, bounded by the sea on one 
 side, and on the other stretching away, one vast 
 forest, into the blue distance. The soil is of 
 the very first fertility, and the natural vegeta- 
 tion of every sort, except grass, most abundant. 
 The town or village is extremely picturesque, 
 scattered up and down the sloping sides of easy 
 hills, and more resembling an English village 
 than any other in the colony. Agriculture is 
 
NEW PLYMOUTH. 37 
 
 almost the sole employment of the settlers. 
 Their produce is all excellent; the finest poultry, 
 pigs, corn, honey, and everything else that 
 people of simple habits can desire. They have 
 three excellent flour mills, a brewery, a church, 
 a Wesleyan chapel, an independent minister, 
 and schools to match. They have not been 
 turned aside from the true pursuits of a colonist 
 by any government expenditure ; and like that 
 of the Nelson settlers, their small society pre- 
 sents an extremely satisfactory aspect. The 
 chief drawback at New Plymouth is the natives. 
 After five years' delay and litigation, the Com- 
 missioner of Land Claims decided, that the pur- 
 chase from the natives, made by the company 
 which founded it, was valid and good. But the 
 chief protector, Mr. Clarke, interfered, and 
 persuaded Governor Fitzroy to reverse the 
 decision. Instead of 60,000 acres which the 
 Commissioner had awarded, he reduced the set- 
 tlement to 3800, within the limits of which he 
 compelled the colonists to retreat. The rest he 
 abandoned to a turbulent body of natives, who 
 have ever since been a thorn in the side of the 
 colonists. Nearly 30,000 acres have since been 
 purchased, chiefly in other directions; but 
 instead of fine open available land, as the other 
 was, it is chiefly heavily timbered, and not 
 available for immediate use. Of course this has 
 
38 AUCKLAND. 
 
 been a most serious injury to the settlement, 
 and it speaks volumes for its intrinsic goodness 
 that it has survived so great a blow. 
 
 The want of a harbour is no doubt another 
 drawback; but the colonists contrive, notwith- 
 standing, to import and export whatever they 
 want. I saw a vessel loading with corn for 
 Sydney when I was there, and considerable 
 quantities of produce are sent away, from time 
 to time, to the other settlements in New Zea- 
 land and the Australian colonies. If a country 
 has the resources of wealth within it, and pro- 
 duces something which is exportable, shipowners 
 will always find the means of doing business 
 with it, though it be transacted in a somewhat 
 exposed roadstead, and at the risk of losing an 
 anchor. 
 
 6. AUCKLAND, the seat of the general (it can- 
 not, while placed there, be called the central) 
 government, is situated in the northern island, 
 on the narrow neck which separates Manakau 
 harbour, on the west, from Shouraki gulf, on 
 the east. The harbour of Auckland, which is an 
 arm of that gulf, is extremely good. Manakau 
 is difficult of access in the prevailing winds, a 
 tremendous sea breaking across at the heads. 
 One of the few large ships which have visited it 
 was lost in the attempt to enter about four years 
 
AUCKLAND. 39 
 
 ago. I sailed from it myself, in a schooner of 
 ninety tons, in 1849, but the impression it left 
 on my mind was not favourable, and I do not 
 think it will ever become a harbour of general 
 resort. For all practical purposes, Auckland 
 harbour will be the only one. 
 
 Auckland is well situated as a depot for native 
 trade, and as the head-quarters of the mis- 
 sionary establishments. But, with the exception 
 of small detached valleys of volcanic soil, the 
 country appears exceedingly poor, with scarcely 
 a blade of natural grass, and holding out no 
 great temptation to the agriculturist. In some 
 portions of the volcanic soil (I am not certain 
 whether it is universal, but I saw a district of 
 three or four miles extent where it was so) there 
 is not a drop of water to be found : none can 
 be got even by sinking wells. This description 
 of land is generally thickly covered with blocks 
 of scoria, which must be picked off before the 
 land can be cultivated. The settlers build stone 
 walls, houses, and other erections with it. It is 
 only fair to state, that my examination of the 
 district was limited to a distance of about fifteen 
 miles round the town of Auckland ; but I believe 
 the character is much the same till you reach 
 the Waikato country on one side, and the Thames 
 on the other, each about fifty miles off, and 
 both still in the hands of the natives. 
 
40 AUCKLAND. 
 
 The town of Auckland is the largest and most 
 compact in the colony. It has one or two very 
 good streets, but the lower parts are as filthy as 
 c Deptford and Wapping, navy-building towns/ 
 Very little except shopkeeping was going on at 
 Auckland when I was there. The amount of 
 cultivation was very small, and consisted almost 
 entirely of a few fields of grass, within four or 
 five miles of the town, where newly imported 
 stock were kept alive till the butcher was ready 
 to wait upon them for the benefit of the troops 
 and townsmen.* In short, the settlement was 
 a mere section of the town of Sydney trans- 
 planted to the shores of New Zealand, filled 
 with tradesmen who were reaping a rich harvest 
 from the expenditure of a regiment of soldiers, 
 a parliamentary grant, missionary funds, and 
 native trade. As an instance of colonization, it 
 was altogether rotten, delusive, and Algerine. 
 The population had no root in the soil, as was 
 proved by some hundreds of them packing up 
 their wooden houses and rushing away to Cali- 
 fornia, as soon as the news of that land of gold 
 arrived. In Cook's Straits not half a dozen 
 
 * I speak of Auckland as I saw it in 1849. I have 
 been told that the amount of cultivation has since con- 
 siderably increased. 
 

 AUCKLAND. 41 
 
 persons were moved by that bait. If the 
 government expenditure had ceased, and the 
 troops been -removed at that time, I believe 
 Auckland would have melted away like a dream. 
 The expenditure of British money by the 
 government has been enormous in this part of 
 the colony, and easily accounts for so large a 
 town having so suddenly sprung up. The troops 
 stationed there have not expended much, if 
 anything, less than 100,000?. a year. Two sets 
 of very costly barracks have been erected, with 
 a lofty stone wall round each, which cannot have 
 cost less than about 100,000?. more. The pen- 
 sioners' houses at least 50,000?. ; their pensions 
 about 12,000?. a-year ; besides a variety of con- 
 tingent expenses. From the parliamentary 
 grant, from 10,000?. to 20,000?. a-year ex- 
 pended on roads and otherwise. The revenue 
 of the northern province about 25,000?. a year. 
 The outlay of the three missions, which, I was 
 told on undoubted authority, amounted to the 
 same sum. Two men of war (not always, but 
 frequently) in harbour for long periods. In 
 short, in addition to the local revenue, not less 
 than certainly 200,000?. a year of British money 
 has, on an average, been expended annually for 
 the last four or five years ; and one or two lump 
 
42 AUCKLAND. 
 
 sums, amounting to not less than 150,000?. 
 in addition.* 
 
 Nearly the whole population of Auckland 
 has been imported from Sydney and Van Die- 
 men's land. With the exception of the pen- 
 sioners, I believe only one, or at most two 
 regular emigrant ships that is, vessels carrying 
 bodies of men of the labouring class, ever pro- 
 ceeded from this country to that settlement. 
 The returns of crime, compared with those of 
 the southern settlements, exhibit fearful traces 
 of the origin of its population, and display the 
 great importance of colonizing on a regular 
 system, which may ensure a pure origin for a 
 colony. In the year ending December, 1847, 
 there were no fewer than 1083 criminal cases 
 disposed of by the resident magistrate at Auck- 
 land, of which there were 994 in which Euro- 
 peans only were concerned ; 857 convictions, 
 and 529 for drunkenness ; that is to say, one in 
 six of the population was convicted of some crime 
 or other ; one in eight, of drunkenness. At Wel- 
 
 * Financial reformers should know that this is pro- 
 bably little more than half the amount expended in the 
 whole colony. So large a proportion being in mili- 
 tary departments, I have been unable to give precise 
 amounts ; but I believe that, on the whole, I have 
 under-estimated the expenditure of British money in 
 the colony. 
 
AUCKLAND. 43 
 
 lington, the proportion was one in 40; at 
 Nelson, one in 79.* 
 
 I have no returns of criminal cases tried in 
 the Supreme Court in the north, but those in the 
 southern provinces are very satisfactory, indi- 
 cating as high a moral condition as can be 
 found anywhere. At Wellington, in five years, 
 the total cases tried were 92, or about 18 in 
 the year, of which 59 were convictions. But of 
 these, only 18 trials and 10 convictions were of 
 English settlers all the rest being soldiers, 
 sailors, inhabitants of the Australian colonies or 
 natives. At Nelson, the average is only four 
 cases of all sorts in a year ; at Otago, not one. 
 
 3. THE PENSIONER VILLAGES. 
 
 In April, 1849, I visited all the Pensioner 
 villages in the neighbourhood of Auckland, then 
 four in number. They had been established 
 between one and two years. The conclusion I 
 arrived at was, that, whether viewed in a mili- 
 tary or a colonizing aspect, they are costly 
 failures, affording a most decided warning 
 against the continuance of the experiment, or 
 its renewal elsewhere. The same conclusion 
 
 * These figures are from returns made and published 
 by the local government. 
 
44 THE PENSIONER VILLAGES. 
 
 is arrived at by a careful examination of the 
 few documents relating to them in the ( Blue 
 Books/ 
 
 In a military point of view, they are altoge- 
 ther useless. Placed as a sort of cordon round 
 Auckland, to protect it from the large tribes to 
 the south and west, but being mere straggling 
 villages, without any sort of fortification, if the 
 natives should ever wish to attack the capital, 
 they would, any morning before daylight, walk 
 through the whole of them, massacre the inha- 
 bitants in their beds, and, having seized their 
 arms and ammunition, proceed on their way to 
 Auckland. The pensioners are, for the most 
 part, considerably beyond the middle period of 
 life, many of them with constitutions shattered 
 by climate and hard living, and a large propor- 
 tion of them of very intemperate habits. 
 
 Regarded in a colonizing point of view, the 
 pensioner system could prove no other than a 
 failure. With the single exception of convicts, 
 it would not be possible to select a worse class 
 for emigration than old broken-down soldiers, 
 stiffened into military habits, or only relaxed by 
 the vices of barracks and canteens. Nor are 
 their families likely to be much better than 
 themselves. Then the manner in which they 
 are located is equally objectionable. The first 
 essential to colonial success, particularly among 
 
THE PENSIONER VILLAGES. 45 
 
 the labouring class, is perfect freedom of action; 
 liberty to go here, or there, or everywhere ; to 
 follow the calling of previous years, or turn 
 the hand to any new employment which offers. 
 This military colonization is fatal to such liberty. 
 I found the largest of these villages (Howick) 
 located fifteen miles from Auckland, on a bare 
 and poor soil, without a stick of firewood within 
 many miles, remote from any employers of 
 labour, and separated from them and from 
 Auckland by an unfordable river. Reports of 
 actual starvation among the inhabitants of this 
 village, the winter after I saw it, were circulated 
 in the Auckland papers ; and, unless it was 
 staved off by eleemosynary means, I do not see 
 how it could have failed to result from the 
 circumstances in which the pensioners were 
 placed. 
 
 Governor Grey, however, on the 9th of Febru- 
 ary, 1850, forwarded to the home government a 
 return, which, he says, shows that the progress 
 of the men towards comfort and competence, 
 has been as great as could have been anticipated ; 
 that, in addition to their cottages and gardens, 
 &c., they have three horses and 171 head of cattle 
 among them \ from which he leaves it to be 
 inferred that these are the results of their own 
 exertions and industry. It appears, however, 
 upon looking carefully into the appended report,, 
 
46 THE PENSIONER VILLAGES. 
 
 that all, or nearly all the live stock mentioned, 
 has been purchased for them by the government, 
 which has made an advance of money for the 
 purpose, amounting to 857?. Their houses also 
 were erected for them by the government at the 
 enormous cost of 37 3 843L, or S71. per pensioner. 
 And, in reality, all that they have to show as 
 the result of their own exertions, after more 
 than two years' settlement, is rather more than 
 a quarter of an acre of garden-ground cultivated 
 by each man ! Now, when it is considered that 
 these men had everything found them excel- 
 lent houses, employment for twelve months, 
 medical attendance, an acre of land each for the 
 privates, and two for the non-commissioned 
 officers, that they had horses and stock to a 
 large amount found them also, that there were 
 officers to guide, counsel and assist them, it will 
 appear that, at all events, Governor Grey's anti- 
 cipations of their success, which he describes as 
 realized, cannot have been of a very sanguine 
 order. Any ordinary labourer in the Cook's 
 Straits settlements would have cultivated far 
 more land, and obtained far more stock in the 
 same time, by his own exertions in his leisure 
 hours, and the savings of his wages. 
 
 What the ultimate cost of the experiment 
 will be, it is not easy to predict. At present 
 scarcely any returns have been made on this 
 
THE PENSIONEK VILLAGES. 47 
 
 head, as Lord Grey complains in March, 
 1850. But the single item given above, of 
 37,843?. expended in building houses for 434 
 men, being at the rate of 871. per man, is a 
 sample of what it must have been. It is cer- 
 tain that 100?. will not cover the expense of 
 locating each pensioner. Then their pensions 
 also, are continued, and many perquisites, such as 
 the acre of land, medical attendance, and twelve 
 months employment by government must be 
 added. When we reflect that from 151. to 
 201. will locate a first-rate young agricultural 
 labourer in the colony, what shall be said of 
 such a system ? 
 
 The whole plan seems to have been launched 
 with the utmost inconsideration and haste. 
 When the first corps arrived in the colony, 
 nobody could ascertain who was to have the 
 command of the force. Governor Grey con- 
 tended that he was, while the senior officer of 
 the force maintained that it was his privilege. 
 It was twelve months before this point was 
 settled, and in the meantime, there being no 
 authority to control them, the officers quarrelled, 
 and a series of courts-martial ensued, which 
 ended in the dismissal of two of them from the 
 service. But a much more important matter 
 had been overlooked ; that is, who was to pay 
 the expense of the pensioner emigration. It 
 
48 THE PENSIONER VILLAGES. 
 
 seems from the Parliamentary Papers of August, 
 1850, that Lord Grey laboured under a delu- 
 sion that the home government would pay it, 
 and was only undeceived by the Lords of the 
 Treasury when the expenses had been all in- 
 curred. He then directed the Governor to make 
 it a charge on the colonial revenue, as a debt 
 due to the military chest. What the colonists 
 will say when they learn that they are charged 
 with a debt so incurred, remains to be seen. 
 The capability of the colonial revenue to bear 
 such burdens seems not to have been considered. 
 Already it is charged with a debt of about 
 60,000?., bearing 8 per cent, interest. It is pro- 
 posed to add the New Zealand Company's debt, 
 200,000?. more, at 3 (increasing to 5) per cent, 
 interest ; and the pensioner immigration charge 
 also. The annual interest on these three sums 
 will amount at the lowest to 13,000?., payable 
 out of a general revenue of less than 50,000?. 
 The incidence of the burdens also seems unfair; 
 the revenue of the whole colony being charged 
 with one item (the Company's debt) with which 
 the northern colonists have had nothing to do ; 
 and with another (the pensioner immigration) 
 in which the southern colonists have not par- 
 ticipated. 
 
CHAPTEK II. 
 THE NATIVES. 
 
 1. THEIR NUMBER. 
 
 BY far the greater portion of the natives reside 
 quite in the northern part of the colony. 
 They are comparatively few in every part of the 
 southern province, and in the middle island there 
 are scarcely any not above 2600, on nearly 
 50,000,000 acres of land, and those greatly 
 dispersed. In a late despatch (dated March 
 22, 1849), Governor Grey states the number of 
 natives in the northern province to be 80,000 
 in the southern 25,000.* There is reason to 
 
 * Mr. Hawes, in the House of Commons, on the 14th 
 July, stated their number as from 150,000 to 200,000; on 
 what authority he did not say, Times, July 15th.' There 
 is a very valuable article in the Edinburgh Review for 
 April 1850, on this subject, written by a gentleman who 
 has resided many years in the colony, and to whom I am 
 indebted for several of my facts in this section. The 
 careful returns made in the southern province had not, 
 however, appeared when he wrote, and I know that they 
 materially altered his views as to the existing numbers, 
 and that he concurred in those stated by me in the text. 
 I differ from him, however, in his estimate of the pre- 
 sent and probable future extent of amalgamation. 
 E 
 
50 THE NATIVES 
 
 believe that the estimate is erroneous, and that 
 half of the respective amounts would be nearer 
 the truth. 
 
 It is a very remarkable fact, that notwith- 
 standing the professions of interest in the welfare 
 of the natives made by the government and the 
 missionaries, neither of them have ever at- 
 tempted a general census. It is evident that 
 till such a step is taken, all measures adopted 
 with a view to benefit the race, or to maintain 
 even-handed justice between it and the European, 
 must be founded on data so uncertain and 
 inaccurate, that no satisfactory result can be 
 obtained. How, for instance, can it be ascer- 
 tained what proportion of the revenue is con- 
 tributed by each, and to what proportion of 
 expenditure on their special institutions each is 
 equitably entitled, if their numbers are not 
 known ? Similar questions occur at every turn. 
 A census is the only solution, and none exists. 
 
 However, a partial, and, as far as it goes, a very 
 accurate census has been made by the Lieutenant- 
 governor, Mr. Eyre, in the district around Wel- 
 lington, and another, under his instructions, at 
 Nelson ; while the native population of the 
 other portions of the southern province has 
 been visited, and its numbers ascertained 
 almost to a head, partly by officers in the em- 
 ployment of the local government, partly by 
 
THEIK NUMBER. 51 
 
 others in that of the New Zealand Company.* 
 The result is, that in this province for which 
 Governor Grey estimates 25,000 natives, less 
 than 11,000 are found actually existing. His 
 estimate, as regards the northern province, is 
 probably equally inaccurate, though the same 
 positive test of its accuracy does not exist. But 
 an approximation is to be arrived at from the 
 following authorities. 
 
 In 1840, the missionaries and other parties, 
 certainly not interested in understating the num- 
 bers, estimated them for the whole of the islands, 
 at from 120,000 (the highest) to 109,000 (the 
 lowest). In 1842, Dr. Deiffenbach, from infor- 
 mation furnished by the missionaries in various 
 parts of the islands, assumed 114,890 as the 
 total number. In 1846, one of the oldest and 
 
 * The Wellington district census is by Mr. Kemp, 
 government interpreter, and son of a missionary long 
 resident in the colony. Nelson, by the government 
 interpreter and officials. Wanganui, returns given in a 
 statistical work by Mr. Grimstone, chief clerk in colo- 
 nial secretary's office. Thence to New Plymouth, by a 
 surveyor in the Company's employment. The rest of the 
 Middle, and Stewart's Island, by Mr. Mantell, govern- 
 ment commissioner for purchase of native lands, Mr. 
 Hamilton, draughtsman on board H. M. S. Acheron, 
 and Mr. Brunner, the noted explorer ; all from per- 
 sonal inspection, and sanctioned by publication in 
 government documents. 
 
 E2 
 
52 THE NATIVES 
 
 most intelligent missionaries, holding high rank 
 in the colonial church, expressed (privately) an 
 opinion that the native population was c under 
 90,000, possibly very much under.' In the 
 same year, Captain Fitzroy, the ex-governor of 
 the colony, estimated them at 80,000, (see his 
 pamphlet.) In 1850, an intelligent and well- 
 informed Wesleyan missionary estimated them 
 at 70,000. Deducting from the last the ascer- 
 tained number in the southern province (11,000), 
 the number for the northern would be 59,000. 
 
 The above figures are probably near the truth. 
 Their disparity, inter se, is accounted for by the 
 different dates at which the estimates were 
 made, extending over a period of ten years. And 
 this raises another question, are the natives 
 increasing or decreasing in number ? The answer 
 which statistics compel us to give is, that they are 
 rapidly decreasing that their extermination is 
 to be looked for almost within our own life- 
 time that in forty or fifty years there will 
 scarcely be in existence an aboriginal New 
 Zealander.* The conclusion is arrived at by 
 the following process. 
 
 * By a strict arithmetical process, it might be shown 
 that there may be a single native alive 150 years hence ; 
 but according to the ascertained ratio, they will be 
 practically extinct that is, there will be barely a few 
 hundreds alive if indeed there are those at the period 
 mentioned above. 
 
THEIR NUMBER. 53 
 
 In 1847, very careful enumerations of the 
 inhabitants of many of the pahs near Welling- 
 ton were made under the direction of Colonel 
 M'Cleverty, the then commissioner of land 
 claims, for official purposes. The disproportion 
 of women and children to men was very con- 
 spicuous, there being only seventy-seven women 
 and fifty children to every 100 men. A more 
 recent and extensive return, including the 
 country district for 150 miles of coast-line, made 
 by Mr. Kemp, the native secretary of the local 
 government in 1850, gives fifty-two children to 
 every 100 men. In England and Ireland there 
 are more than 100 women, and 140 children to 
 every 100 men. In the United States of 
 America there are 161 children to every 1 00 men. 
 Now it is evident, that from fifty to fifty-two 
 children are altogether insufficient to sustain 
 and replace a population of 177 adults of both 
 sexes. It is obvious, moreover, that such a 
 proportion provides for a decrease of the race 
 equal fully to the amount of natural increase 
 existing in England, Ireland, or America. 
 
 A comparison of Mr. Kemp's returns for the 
 pahs in and about the town of Wellington for 
 1847 and 1850 also shows a decrease at the rate, 
 as nearly as possible, of four per cent, per annum, 
 the number of seven pahs being 633 in 1847, 
 and 558 in 1850. And taking the established 
 proportion of women and children all through 
 
54 THE NATIVES 
 
 the islands, the above ratio of decrease among 
 the natives may be assumed as general. 
 
 It is a strong confirmation of the correctness 
 of the above calculation, that, taking the highest 
 estimate of 1840, (viz., 120,000,) a decrease of 
 four per cent, per annum would reduce the 
 number in 1850 to 78,841, not very far from 
 the estimates of the missionaries and Captain 
 Fitzroy, before referred to. 
 
 Taking the more moderate calculation of 1840, 
 and reducing them by four per cent, per annum, 
 the result corresponds as nearly as possible with 
 those estimates. 
 
 Unless, therefore, some check be immediately 
 interposed to the process of dissolution, and the 
 native race can be forced back from the vortex 
 into which it is descending, the annihilation of 
 the New Zealanders, as a race, will occur in 
 about fifty years at longest. Nay, as it is pro- 
 bable that many of the causes in operation will 
 act upon the race more forcibly as its num- 
 bers decrease, a shorter period will probably 
 suffice. 
 
 Supposing, then, that statistics prove the fact 
 of the progressive extinction of the natives, what 
 are the causes by which it is effected ? are they 
 removeable ? Can their force be lessened, or is 
 it likely, on the contrary, to increase ? 
 
 The causes, though fatal, are few. They may 
 
THEIR EXTINCTION. 55 
 
 be divided into the physical and moral. The 
 pnysical causes are 1. Deep-seated scrofulous 
 disease, pervading the whole race, and develop- 
 ing itself not only in its primitive forms, but in 
 consumption, fearful abscesses, and disgusting 
 cutaneous diseases, of which last, if I remember 
 rightly, Cook says he saw no instance in his 
 time. These, I was told by the late very intel- 
 ligent superintendent of the Taranaki Hospital, 
 Dr. M'Shane, are more and more increasingly 
 prevalent in the rising generation than in the 
 adult. Thousands are swept off every year by 
 this cause. 2. Very early and very general 
 habits of depravity among the women. 3. 
 Drudgery imposed upon the women, who do all 
 or most of the hard work and destroy their con- 
 stitution by it, cultivating the land and carrying 
 loads that would not be thought light by a 
 ballast-heaver. I asked a native who had accu- 
 mulated a good deal of property, how he got it ; 
 he pointed to his three wives, and said he made 
 them work for it. 4. Polygamy is thus profitable, 
 and it forms, to some extent, another cause of 
 unfruitfulness. 5. Female infanticide did exist 
 formerly, and I cannot think that, in those parts 
 where the influence of civilization has not much 
 extended, there is reason for supposing that it 
 has yet entirely ceased. 
 
 The moral cause in operation is perhaps less 
 
56 THE NATIVES 
 
 obvious, but no less certainly at work, and pro- 
 bably little less effective. It consists in a de- 
 pression of spirits and energy which, in the 
 mind of the savage, ensues upon his contact with 
 civilized men. He soon sees his inferiority ; 
 his pride may struggle against an admission of 
 it for a time, he may still occasionally bedeck 
 himself with the ornaments of the warrior, and 
 endeavour to shame by his barbaric splendour, 
 the plainness of civilized industry; but the 
 great ships that throng his harbours, the (to 
 him) magnificent buildings that spring up on 
 every side, the display, if there be any, of 
 military force nay, what to the colonist are 
 the merest articles of every-day use his watch, 
 his plough, his axe, his pocket-knife all de- 
 clare in a language which he cannot misunder- 
 stand, that it is a superior race which has come to 
 share his country. From the day when he 
 makes this acknowledgment to himself, he feels 
 that his greatness is departed, that his nation 
 is henceforth a nation of Helots. He cannot 
 form in his mind the hope of rising to the 
 level of the superior race ; its existence, and 
 everything connected with it, are a mystery to 
 him ; what the North Americans call a c great 
 medicine/ the New Zealanders, a Typo, or 
 divinity. The gulf between him and the new 
 comer is too great; he cannot conceive the possi- 
 
THEIR EXTINCTION. 57 
 
 bility of bridging it, so he sits down and broods 
 in silence till his appointed time. 
 
 The most probable method by which the 
 operation of these feelings could have been 
 checked in New Zealand, would have been the 
 encouragement to the greatest extent com- 
 patible with the general government of the 
 colony, of the institution of chieftainship, which 
 we found existing among the natives. The 
 men of the most enlarged minds and of the 
 greatest influence were of that class ; and had 
 they been, as I think they might, maintained 
 in an elevated position, and their feudal autho- 
 rity supported at least for some years, it would 
 have given them a position round which the 
 rest of the race might have rallied, and whence 
 they might have taken their first step towards 
 one more elevated and advanced. But with 
 the exception of the early founders of the Wel- 
 lington settlement, it has been the policy of 
 those in whose hands were the destinies of the 
 natives, to discourage the institution of chief- 
 tainship, and to reduce to a general level all 
 classes of natives. An individual chief may 
 occasionally, and sometimes very indiscreetly, 
 have been petted and encouraged. But the 
 ' chieftainship/ and the various shades of nobi- 
 lity and gentry subordinate to it, have been 
 allowed to sink into ruin, and carry all along 
 
58 THE NATIVES 
 
 with them to a lower social level than before. 
 Nothing more touching and pathetic was ever 
 penned than the complaint of Tamati Nga- 
 pora, addressed to Governor Grey, in 1848.* 
 'Friend, the governor/ he says, 'this is my 
 speech to you; hearken to my word, oh, my 
 friend. Do not slight my thoughts, because 
 this is the thought of many of the chiefs of New 
 Zealand. This is the thing that causes confusion 
 in all their villages. Formerly, oh father the 
 governor, when we adhered to our native cus- 
 toms, we had light ; but now, new thoughts 
 have been imbibed, and darkness is the conse- 
 quence. The slaves of my village will not obey 
 me ; when I ask them to work, they will not 
 regard me. The result of this conduct is theft 
 and adultery. I cannot determine in these 
 matters. In your estimation perhaps they are 
 trifles, but to me they are great things, because 
 they affect the welfare of the chiefs. Formerly 
 our word had some weight, but now it is lost. 
 The slaves look upon themselves as equals with 
 their fathers the chiefs, which has caused us to 
 be very angry. Is it right for a servant to be 
 indolent, and disobey his master? It is my 
 wish to protect my slaves and to respect them, 
 and I wish them to respect me in return. If 
 
 ; Parliamentary Papers, 1849, p. 19. 
 
THEIR EXTINCTION. 59 
 
 my slaves do evil, their sin will affect myself; 
 when my people do well, my heart rejoices. I 
 am desirous that myself and my people may be 
 an example to the evil ones. Reflect, O father, 
 upon my words, that a law may be made for 
 the native chiefs, that their slaves may be in- 
 duced to obey them; and do you strengthen 
 our hands, so that the many slaves of this land 
 may be kept in awe, and the chiefs be enabled 
 to love and protect you/ 
 
 Bishop Selwyn also complains that the mis- 
 sionaries can obtain no hold on the minds of 
 the natives, owing to the loss of influence of the 
 chiefs. They are, says he, ( a rope of sand; the 
 young men escape from all control/ Mr. Clarke, 
 the chief native protector, wrote to the same 
 effect in 1845. 
 
 2. THE NATIVES CIVILIZATION. 
 
 BUT, it may be asked, is this theory of mental 
 depression consistent with actual fact ? Are not 
 the natives rapidly becoming civilized? Are 
 not their energies evoked by the paternal care 
 of the government ? What is this that we hear 
 about their owning numerous coasting vessels, 
 about one of them keeping a livery stable, and 
 another having an account at the bank ? How 
 are such facts consistent with your theory ? 
 
60 THE NATIVES 
 
 The answer is, that the facts alluded to relate 
 to a very few individual cases. The theory has 
 its operation on the great bulk of the people. 
 The superior advancement of a few more ener- 
 getic minds, individually isolated, will not rescue 
 the race. It might if you had time for it, but 
 you have not. Before the effect can be pro- 
 duced, scrofula and consumption, the drudgery 
 and degradation of the women, will have done 
 their work : the race will be gone. 
 
 And as regards the degree of civilization 
 attained even by the most advanced, it is very 
 superficial and limited. In rescuing savage 
 races from barbarism, there are three stages to 
 be passed. First, they are to be brought to 
 tolerate the presence of the civilizer. It was not 
 till after numerous massacres of casual visitors, 
 and the expulsion of the missionaries more 
 than once, that the New Zealander was got past 
 this stage. Secondly, there is the stage of 
 barter, when, impelled by the desire of procuring 
 the luxuries and comforts possessed by the 
 civilized race, they bring their food or raw pro- 
 duce to market in exchange. And lastly, there 
 is the constructive stage, in which they learn 
 the arts of civilized life how to make for them- 
 selves those things which they desire. 
 
 The New Zealanders have got no further than 
 the second stage. They have, it is true, pur- 
 
CIVILIZATION. 61 
 
 chased a few coasting vessels, but they have 
 never yet attempted to build one, not even a 
 boat.* They have a few ploughs ; they have 
 never made one, and not many have ever held 
 one. A few of them carry their produce in 
 carts to the place of barter, but those carts are 
 made by English cartwrights. In short, unless 
 it be one or two about the mission stations in 
 the north, or the whaling stations in the south, 
 I do not know a single native who can do the 
 commonest carpenter's work, or has any ac- 
 quaintance with any mechanical trade. A few 
 (say 500 or 600) of them were employed at 
 navvies' work, for a year or two, on the roads 
 constructed by government, and in the Canter- 
 bury settlement. In the course of this, some 
 learned the art of stone-dressing, of which much 
 has been made in official reports. But if the 
 Europeans were to leave the colony to-morrow, 
 I see nothing in their present civilization which 
 would be likely to prevent the lapse of the 
 natives into absolute barbarism almost the next 
 day. The opportunity for barter would then have 
 ceased. They cannot construct (I believe I may 
 safely say) one single article of utility which 
 they could not before we knew them. Their 
 
 * They build, or rather scoop, canoes out of a tree. 
 All other boats owned by them are built by Europeans. 
 
62 THE NATIVES 
 
 skill as mechanics would be found limited, as it 
 then was, to the fabrication of the scanty cloth- 
 ing, the domestic utensils, and the warlike 
 weapons of savage life. 
 
 Why so few attempts have been made to 
 teach the natives mechanic arts (the most solid 
 foundation for civilization), is a question which 
 has yet to be answered by those who have 
 claimed credit for peculiar interest in them. 
 How rational and how feasible would it have 
 been for the government to have apprenticed 
 native youths to tradesmen and artificers in the 
 towns, or even, if necessary, at Sydney. The 
 money which has been lavished on useless and 
 even mischievous objects would have paid the 
 apprentice fee of many hundreds. The perni- 
 cious c Protectorship' must have cost at least 
 5000Z. or 6000Z. in one way or other. The 
 government brig, an entirely useless appendage, 
 has cost the colony 20,000. or more. Taking 
 an apprenticeship fee at 40Z., these two items of 
 misspent money alone would have converted 
 into useful mechanics between 600 and 700 
 natives, now savage and ignorant, carrying them 
 through the third stage of civilization, and 
 affording a basis for security and progress 
 wherever their personal influence might reach. 
 Instead of taking active practical steps of that 
 sort, the government has satisfied itself with 
 mere talk and despatch writing ; and if it can 
 
CIVILIZATION. 63 
 
 point to a complimentary letter written by a 
 native chief to the governor, or a native house 
 with glass windows and a verandah (of which, I 
 believe there are three in the country), it flat- 
 ters itself with the idea that it has discovered 
 the problem of civilizing the aborigines nay, 
 even reduced its theory to practice. 
 
 Is it then possible to remove, or even mate- 
 rially to modify, the force of the causes which 
 are sweeping away the New Zealanders from 
 the face of the earth ? If medical science could 
 provide a remedy for the fatal disease which is 
 so prevalent among them, how could you apply 
 it to a population of 60,000 or 70,000 people, 
 scattered over a space larger than England? 
 The whole revenue of the colony, expended on 
 hospitals, would hardly produce a perceptible 
 effect. Can the habits of the women be changed 
 in a day ? Will the men in a day consent to 
 restore them to their proper sphere, and relieve 
 hem from the drudgery they now subject them 
 to ? Can the spirit of the New Zealander be 
 re-invigorated in a generation, and he take his 
 place cheerfully in the race of progressive im- 
 provement? You might do something on all 
 these points if you had the time if you had 
 three or four, or half a dozen, prospective gene- 
 rations, and a probable space of one or two 
 hundred years to work upon but what prospect 
 is there of grappling successfully with such 
 
64? THE NATIVES 
 
 adversaries in the brief space to which (if you 
 succeed not) the existence of the New Zealander 
 is limited. It is too late. As in the case 
 of his relatives at Tahiti and the Sandwich 
 Islands, his days are surely numbered. In the 
 former, the inhabitants in Cook's time were 
 estimated at 70,000 ; they are now said to be 
 only 7000. In the latter, the ratio of extinction, 
 as proved by actual census,* is 8 per cent, per 
 annum, at which ratio, if it continue, there will 
 in a few years not be a Sandwich Islander 
 living. The same doom awaits the New Zea- 
 lander it may be fifty, it may be sixty, it may 
 be seventy years; but unless you can work 
 changes in his moral and physical condition, 
 which I see no chance of your working, it is 
 only a question of time. His ultimate fate is 
 certain ; it is summed up in the single word 
 extinction. 
 
 Three hospitals have been established in New 
 Zealand, chiefly with a view to the natives ; one 
 at Auckland ; one at New Plymouth ; and one 
 at Wellington. They are maintained by the 
 government, but on a defective system, and one 
 which renders them much less useful than they 
 might be. 
 
 In England, all hospitals which are supported 
 
 * Printed in the Morning Chronicle, May 1, 1850. 
 
HOSPITALS. 65 
 
 by public funds, are subjected to public control. 
 They are generally under the charge of a com- 
 mittee elected by those who contribute to their 
 maintenance, and the physicians and surgeons 
 attached to them are elected by vote of the sub- 
 scribers, while the institution is ordinarily thrown 
 open, to a great extent, to all the profession. 
 The New Zealand hospitals are each under the 
 absolute control of one surgeon, appointed by 
 the governor. The rest of the profession are 
 virtually excluded, and they are, in fact, to a 
 great degree, the perquisite of an individual of 
 whose fitness for the charge there is neither test 
 nor guarantee. 
 
 Hospitals for Europeans are not required in 
 N ew Zealand. All classes can afford to pay for 
 medical attendance. They might, however, be 
 very useful among the natives if established 
 on a proper system. They ought to be placed 
 in the districts most densely peopled with the 
 natives ; schools should be attached to them ; 
 and in charge of properly qualified men, they 
 might be of the greatest use as a sort of political 
 agency among the natives, and a medium of 
 their civilization. Those in existence, however, 
 have no such feature. They are all in European 
 towns, none of them in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of large bodies of natives ; one, at least, 
 is said to be very badly conducted, and their 
 F 
 
66 THE NATIVES 
 
 utility is comparatively very little. It is true, 
 that quarterly returns of patients treated at 
 them are made in the government gazette, and 
 not "without parade ; but if the hospital did not 
 exist there is no reason to suppose that medical 
 advice would be denied by the profession to any 
 native who might require it ; and, if even small 
 fees were charged, it would be better than the 
 pauperizing system of a charity hospital. Such 
 advice has always been, and is 'even now, exten- 
 sively given by private practitioners, but they do 
 not advertise their cures as is done by the govern- 
 ment hospitals. It is a fact, also, that many of 
 the natives have a great dislike to these institu- 
 tions, and will not resort to them. A chief, 
 resident within 100 yards of that at Wellington, 
 refused to let his dying daughter be taken there, 
 and it was stated, on very excellent authority, 
 that such instances are common. The general 
 opinion about them in the colony is, that they 
 are a delusion, productive of little good to any 
 one except the medical officer in charge. 
 
 3. THE NATIVES OUR RELATIONS WITH. 
 
 The practical question remains, What are our 
 present relations with the natives, and is there 
 any ground for supposing they will be disturbed ? 
 
OUR RELATIONS WITH. 67 
 
 It is certain that they are more inclined to peace- 
 ful councils than they were that there is less 
 chance of any disturbance. To what is this 
 owing ? To feelings of loyalty among them I 
 attribute nothing. Queen Victoria is a mere 
 abstraction, exercising no practical influence 
 over them. Governors they have seen removed 
 and renewed ; they fully appreciate how ' a 
 breath can make them, as a breath has made/ 
 Nor do I think that, as a body, they entertain 
 much fear of the military. They always speak 
 of them with contempt, though for the blue 
 jackets they entertain a profound respect, having, 
 whenever they encountered them, found them 
 much the most formidable enemies. The main- 
 tenance of a military force in the country, is 
 principally desirable to meet the emergency of 
 any sudden outbreak or riot. If the natives, as 
 a body, were inclined to go to war with us, the 
 military force at present in the country would 
 be most insufficient. But they are not, nor is it 
 likely that they will ever be. If the troops 
 were removed there might be risk of local dis- 
 turbances, which it might be difficult to quell. 
 It is, however, none of these causes which keep 
 the natives quiet as a body. 
 
 Still less is it anything which government has 
 done for them. The establishment of three 
 inconsiderable hospitals, the employment, for 
 F 2 
 
68 THE NATIVES 
 
 two years, of 500 or 600 of them on the roads, 
 the passing of an ordinance for the recovery of 
 small debts, and the administration of summary 
 justice inter se, these are causes altogether 
 incommensurate with any general result. No 
 institutions of a permanent character, or capable 
 of embracing any considerable number of natives, 
 have been attempted ; and it may be safely 
 stated that the influence exercised over them by 
 the government during the last five years has 
 been all but inappreciable. 
 
 The link which binds them to us is one of 
 self-interest. They get money from us, they 
 buy and sell among us, they discover the fact of 
 our mutual dependence. This is the great 
 security for the continuance of peace. And this 
 buying and selling brings collateral securities 
 with it ; the natives not only become averse to 
 quarrel, they forget how to fight ; the old men, 
 ' dexterous in battle/ are fast dying out ; the 
 rising generation, in a few years, will never have 
 seen a battle. 
 
 Of any other amalgamation between the Euro- 
 peans and natives than that which is carried on 
 over the counter, there is little prospect. A few 
 of the old whalers in the southern island, and a 
 few of the beach-combing population elsewhere, 
 have been lawfully married to native women, 
 but their number is inconsiderable. The bulk 
 of the English immigrants are themselves 
 

 OUR RELATIONS WITH. 69 
 
 married people, and even if they were other- 
 wise, the ignorance of the native women of 
 the arts which contribute to domestic comfort, 
 and the private habits of men who never sat on 
 a chair, would prevent even the humbler classes 
 of colonists from forming permanent alliances 
 among them. A sort of Rolfe and Pocohontas 
 alliance, though not grounded on the same 
 patriotic motive, may occasionally have occurred 
 between single young men of the upper class 
 and native girls, but, as a legal and permanent 
 bond, very seldom indeed. The habits, charac- 
 ter, and circumstances of the two races are so 
 different as to preclude all prospect of amalgama- 
 tion by marriage. With the exception of quite 
 an inconsiderable number, the natives continue 
 to reside in wretched hovels, go clothed in blan- 
 kets full of vermin, help themselves to food with 
 their fingers out of a common dish, indulge in 
 conversation such as no civilized person could 
 listen to, have no fixed laws or institutions, no 
 books but testaments and hymns, and, in short, 
 retain all the principal, and many of the most 
 disagreeable features of savage character.* 
 
 * How little removed they are from barbarism may 
 be judged from the fact, that the fence of the pah, at 
 "Waikanae (where a missionary and a resident magis- 
 trate have resided for several years), continues to this 
 day disfigured by a series of colossal statues, carved in 
 wood, of the most obscene and disgusting designs. 
 
70 NATIVE CHAKACTEE. 
 
 4. NATIVE CHARACTER. 
 
 In short, no writer of romance was ever 
 farther from the truth than those authors, who, 
 like Jean Jacques Rousseau, or Mr. Herman Mel- 
 ville, have described savage life as a state of 
 Arcadian simplicity, and savage character as a 
 field on which are displayed all the virtues 
 which adorned humanity before civilized arts 
 brought vice, confusion, and trouble into the 
 world. c The peaceful life and gentle disposi- 
 tion, the freedom from oppression, the exemp- 
 tion from selfishness and from evil passions, 
 and the simplicity of character of savages have 
 no existence but in the fictions of poets and the 
 fancies of vain speculators, nor can their mode 
 of life be called, with any propriety, the natural 
 state of man/ * I have not room, in the limited 
 space which I have allotted to myself, to illus- 
 trate this position by a description of the New 
 Zealander from the earliest period of our ac- 
 quaintance with him. I will only refer the 
 reader to a very admirable little volume, which 
 was published anonymouslyf a few years ago. 
 
 * Whately, Polit. Econ., Lect. v. See some sensible 
 remarks on savage character there ; and also in his 
 Ehetoric, pp. 50 and 71. 
 
 t By Knight, Ludgate Hill. It forms a volume of the 
 Family Library, and is entitled, ' The New Zealanders.' 
 
NATIVE CHARACTER. 71 
 
 It contains on the whole by far the best account 
 of the New Zealanders extant, as well as a most 
 philosophical and sensible disquisition, in one of 
 the latter chapters, upon savage character in 
 general. Individual character varies, no doubt, 
 to some extent among savages, but to a much 
 less extent than among civilized nations whose 
 habits are less uniform, and whose more nume- 
 rous employments necessarily generate a greater 
 variety of thought and of action. Among the 
 old New Zealanders as among most savages, 
 war was the ruling passion, the one great ex- 
 citement of life, and this fact narrowed to a 
 very limited space the development of indi- 
 vidual character. Indeed, I doubt if among 
 the chiefs more than two developments were to 
 be distinguished ; that of the impetuous, head- 
 long warrior, the 'impiger, iracundus, inexora- 
 bilis, acer/ of the Achilles breed, and that of 
 the subtle, ingenious, treacherous, and long- 
 headed schemer of the Ulysses sort. 
 
 A remarkable instance of each has been exhi- 
 bited in New Zealand, and become familiar by 
 name even to the English public, during the 
 period of our colonizing the islands. Raupe- 
 raha, the older, most influential and better 
 known, died a few months ago. Eanghiaeta, 
 his colleague and fighting general, survives him. 
 
 Rauperaha has been often described. His 
 
72 NATIVE CHARACTER. 
 
 cruel treatment of his enemies whom he seduced 
 on board a ship, hanging them by hooks through 
 their thumbs, cutting them to pieces, and boiling 
 them for food in the ship's coppers ; his treachery 
 to his relation Te Pehi, whom in the critical 
 moment of battle he deserted, securing thereby 
 his own elevation to the chieftainship of the 
 tribe ; and the part which he bore in the Wairau 
 massacre, are the leading events by which his 
 name has become familiar to the English reader. 
 After the latter event he placed himself under 
 missionary protection, and by pretending con- 
 version and likening himself to St. Paul, he 
 succeeded in hoodwinking his protectors, and 
 through them persuading the government of his 
 fidelity at the very time that he was supplying 
 Ranghiaeta the open rebel, with arms and am- 
 munition. Detected, seized, and imprisoned on 
 board the Calliope frigate, he was released at 
 the end of a twelvemonth, and handed over to 
 the chief of the Waikatos who became bail for 
 his good behaviour. Carried by him to the 
 north he was upbraided with his misfortunes 
 by Teraia the man eater, while the more gene- 
 rous Te Whero-whero endeavoured to soothe 
 his affliction. After a few months he was per- 
 mitted to return to Otaki, the place of his 
 tribe. There he resumed his pretensions to 
 sanctity. ( I saw/ says an intelligent, but newly 
 
NATIVE CHARACTER. 73 
 
 arrived clergyman, who visited him at this time, 
 ' amongst the other men of note, the old and 
 once powerful chief, Rauperaha, who notwith- 
 standing his great age of more than eighty years, 
 is seldom missed from his class, and who, after 
 a long life of perpetual turmoil spent in all the 
 savage excitement of cruel and bloody wars, is 
 now to be seen every morning in his accus- 
 tomed place, repeating those blessed truths 
 which teach him to love the Lord with all his 
 heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, and 
 his neighbour as himself/ Those who knew 
 Eauperaha better, may, perhaps, doubt whether 
 the ^Ethiop had so completely changed his skin 
 as to justify the belief in which an enlarged 
 charity, exercised by an amiable man, thus led 
 its possessor to indulge. A few days before 
 his death, when suffering under the malady 
 which carried him off, two settlers called to 
 see him. While there a neighbouring mis- 
 sionary came in and offered him the consola- 
 tions of religion. Rauperaha demeaned himself 
 in a manner highly becoming such an occasion, 
 but the moment the missionary was gone, he 
 turned to his other visitors and said, c What is 
 the use of all that nonsense? that will do my 
 belly no good/ He then turned the conversa- 
 tion on the Wanganui races, where one of his 
 guests had been running a horse. 
 
74 NATIVE CHARACTER. 
 
 Such were the last days of Rauperaha. His 
 death was an event favourable to the continu- 
 ance of peace and the amelioration of the 
 native character. His direct influence had ; by 
 his age and recent imprisonment, been nearly 
 annihilated ; but the mere shadow of his name 
 was something ; it was mixed up with the tra- 
 ditions of the bloody wars, which, under his 
 generalship, devastated for years the whole 
 coast south of Taranaki, and exterminated the 
 inhabitants of one side of Cook's Strait. It was 
 a tocsin, to the sound of which, in the case of 
 disturbances elsewhere, the natives might yet 
 have responded, and the certainty of which being 
 no more heard, is an event calculated to cor- 
 roborate the assurance of peace. 
 
 Ranghiaeta has never concealed his true cha- 
 racter beneath the veil of hypocrisy ; he still 
 continues to display its original features, as the 
 bold uncompromising savage still exercises 
 his influence, reduced though it is, to thwart 
 the progress of civilization, and dissuade his 
 fellows from selling their land. He tells the 
 missionaries, when they seek him out in his lair, 
 that c it is useless for them to give themselves the 
 trouble of preaching the gospel to the natives ; that 
 the Maories are by nature bad ; that they brought 
 the evil spirit with them from the far country 
 from which they originally came; that it is still 
 
NATIVE CHARACTER. 75 
 
 in them, and that therefore they cannot be 
 reformed/ His wife in the meantime makes 
 preparation for rude hospitality, screaming to 
 her attendants, and seeming to think that the 
 more noise she makes, the more honour she 
 does to her guests. ' She was a coarse, dirty, 
 ill-favoured woman ; round her neck she wore 
 an ornament of greenstone ; her body, like her 
 husband's, was smeared with red oxide of iron; 
 her coarse and matted hair had evidently never 
 known the use of a comb, and her only garment 
 was a sort of loose gown, which was so filthy 
 that its original colour could not be guessed. 
 The result of her preparations were some roasted 
 potatoes and a small wild bird, cooked in the 
 flames, together with some tea, served up in tin 
 mugs, with dark-brown, or rather, black sugar/* 
 But Kanghiaeta is the type of a class which 
 is fast disappearing. In the north, Heke and 
 Pomare are gone, and many a chief of similar 
 character but less note. The circumstances out 
 of which such characters grew, no longer exist ; 
 and though the same passions and temperaments 
 may be found in the next generation, their 
 development will necessarily be entirely different, 
 changed by the changing circumstances of the 
 time. 
 
 * Keverend Mr. Lloyd, in 1849. 
 
76 MISSIONARY INFLUENCE. 
 
 5. MISSIONARY INFLUENCE. 
 
 Whatever be the fate of the natives, it is un- 
 questionable that the missionaries have exercised 
 no small influence over it, and I am often asked 
 what the effect of their influence has been. My 
 answer is, up to a certain point beneficial 
 beyond that, injurious in a very high degree. 
 
 So far as they have confined themselves to 
 their legitimate province, instructing, civilizing, 
 and christianizing the natives, their influence 
 has been all for good. Whenever they have 
 stepped out of their proper sphere, interfering in 
 political matters, or dictating the forms of inter- 
 course between the natives and Europeans, 
 their influence has been without mitigation in- 
 jurious. 
 
 It was missionary influence which carried the 
 native through the first stage of civilization, 
 which made him willing to tolerate the pre- 
 sence of the stranger. Without that influence, 
 it is probable that we should never have occu- 
 pied New Zealand. But their idea was to erect 
 the New Zealanders into an independent state 
 a sort of Levitical republic, like that of the 
 Jesuits at Paragua, guided, and in fact ruled, by 
 the missionaries themselves. Colonization was 
 death to such a scheme, and the determination 
 
NATIVES MISSIONARY INFLUENCE. 77 
 
 of the missionary to ' thwart' its progress ' by 
 every means in his power/ is matter of history. 
 Defeated in the attempt to resist colonization, 
 he still clung to the hope of keeping the native 
 separate from the white man, whom he described 
 as ' an enemy pouring in like a flood \ and he still 
 aimed to establish his own power over the mind 
 of the native by means of the separation of 
 the races. His object in all this may have 
 been single-minded ; he may have contemplated 
 solely the benefit of the native, and believed 
 firmly that this was the way to secure it. I 
 do not question his motive ; I only deal with 
 the fact. 
 
 The founders of the colony, on the other 
 hand, believed that the surest method of civiliz- 
 ing the native, was to promote intercourse 
 between him and the colonist and schemes 
 were devised for bringing them into the closest 
 contact. It was the exact reverse of the mis- 
 sionary method. 
 
 Neither plan has been fully tried. Each has 
 c thwarted' the other, and with the exception of 
 a single instance, I know of no case in which 
 actual experiment has tested the merits of the 
 two schemes. But there is one instance in which 
 the two systems has been contrasted, and with 
 a result to most minds very conclusive. 
 
 At Otaki and Waikanae, on the northern 
 
78 NATIVES 
 
 shore of Cook's Strait, fifty miles from Welling- 
 ton, the nearest European settlement, there has 
 been established for many years the head- 
 quarters of the church mission in the south, 
 under the superintendence of an archdeacon of 
 the colonial church, and another missionary. 
 Here the attempt has been made to constitute 
 a model community of natives on the separate 
 system. They have been removed from their 
 former habitation nearer the sea; the street 
 lines of a small town have been surveyed ; 
 gardens allotted, and model-houses erected. The 
 government has also aided in the experiment, 
 appointing a salaried resident magistrate, and a 
 constabulary staff, to reside among them. The 
 bishop has repeatedly visited the village, and 
 expressed his gratification at its condition ; and 
 it is pointed to by the supporters of the system 
 as a most satisfactory specimen of native civili- 
 zation. 
 
 At the Motueka, in Blind Bay, on the other 
 side Cook's Strait, and nearly opposite to Otaki, 
 there is a small community of natives of the 
 same tribe as those at Otaki. They live in the 
 heart of the Nelson settlement. Neither govern- 
 ment nor missionary influence has ever been 
 brought to bear upon them to any appreciable 
 extent. But a community of European colonists, 
 chiefly of the humbler classes, was located among 
 
MISSIONARY INFLUENCE. 79 
 
 them eight or nine years ago. Their intercourse 
 has been close and harmonious ; and whatever 
 of civilization the natives there possess, they 
 owe to their intermixture with Europeans. From 
 them it has spread to other natives on each side 
 of them, similarly free from government and 
 missionary influence ; and the whole of that 
 side of the strait may be regarded as under the 
 operation of the same principle. These natives, 
 therefore, afford grounds for a fair comparison 
 with those at OtakL 
 
 What shall be the test ? Sir Fowell Buxton, 
 who had studied these subjects deeply, con- 
 sidered the plough the best test of the progress 
 of civilization among savages. We will apply it 
 here. 
 
 At Otaki, the specimen of the separate system, 
 with a population of 664 souls, the entire amount 
 of cultivation, according to the government cen- 
 sus in 1850, is five acres of wheat, and 138 of 
 other produce. 
 
 At Motueka, and the other shore of Cook's 
 Strait, where the opposite principle has been 
 worked, with a population of 1,400 souls, there 
 are 1,000 acres of wheat, and 600 of other pro- 
 duce. 
 
 That is to say, on the separate system, the 
 natives cultivate only one hundredth part of an 
 acre of wheat per head, and less than a quarter 
 
80 NATIVES 
 
 of an acre of any sort of produce. On the free 
 intercourse system, they cultivate three-quarters 
 of an acre of wheat per head, and about an acre 
 and a quarter of all sorts. 
 , Need more be said to establish the point ? I 
 would only add that, as far as a very limited 
 personal intercourse enables me to judge, the 
 character of the natives at the Motueka is in 
 other respects nearly as much in advance .of that 
 of the natives at Otaki, as it is in the particular 
 of industry, as exhibited by the amount of their 
 cultivation.* 
 
 I have said that, with the exception of the 
 Otaki instance, I am not acquainted with any 
 in which the experiment of the separate system 
 has received a fair and full trial, and is capable 
 of contrast with a neighbouring community 
 founded on the opposite principle. Generally 
 speaking, the colonists will not be debarred from 
 intercourse with the natives; and it is only 
 
 * At the Motueka I wanted a guide on one occasion. 
 A native of consequence volunteered, walked with me 
 four miles, carried me on his back over a river, and re- 
 fused any reward. At Otaki I arrived at a river which 
 was flooded and dangerous. I wanted to know the 
 direction of the ford. Three natives, from the model- 
 village, who sat on the bank, refused even to point out 
 the way till I paid them for it. See also the account of 
 the missionary natives, in Mr. E. J. Wakefield's book, 
 vol. i., p. 249, &c. 
 
MISSIONARY INFLUENCE. 81 
 
 where local or territorial circumstances inter- 
 pose obstacles to their intercourse that the sepa- 
 rate principle can be attempted : but the desire 
 to carry it out is still manifested by some of 
 the missionary body. When the colonists 
 commenced their occupation of the Wiara- 
 rapa valley, the missionary in that district 
 used every means to check the intercourse of 
 the races, even to the extent of prohibiting 
 natives from engaging as shepherds, because 
 they might be required to look after a flock 
 on Sunday. Instances occurred in which na- 
 tives refused employment on this ground, alleg- 
 ing Mr. Colenso's order as their reason. In 
 thus resorting to spiritual weapons to enforce 
 his theory of non-intercourse, he must either 
 have forgotten that works of necessity are sanc- 
 tioned on the Sabbath, or not considered sheep- 
 tending a work of necessity. 
 
 And this introduces another question: What 
 has been the effect of the religious teaching of 
 the missionaries on the native character ? I am 
 afraid that it is little more than skin-deep. No 
 doubt there are instances in which individuals 
 have been brought actually under the influence 
 of religious principle, but I speak of the bulk of 
 the natives who profess Christianity. With 
 most of them it is a mere name, entirely inope- 
 rative in practice. They will exhibit an atten- 
 
 G 
 
82 NATIVES 
 
 tion to forms which would, and often does, mis- 
 lead a stranger ; but the next hour they will 
 exhibit all the habits of an unconverted savage. 
 Thus, when travelling, about four years ago, in the 
 Wiararapa,Icame upon a native encampment one 
 Sunday evening. It rained, and we required some 
 assistance towards building a hut, and wished to 
 purchase some potatoes. Not a ringer would 
 the natives move because it was the sacred day. 
 The next morning the same individuals at- 
 tempted most deliberately to cheat us ; and one 
 of them, who had undertaken to guide us, for 
 hire, to a river about ten miles off, attempted to 
 trick us by declaring one we came to, at half 
 the distance, to be that we sought ; and he en- 
 deavoured to force us to pay and dismiss him, 
 by seizing a gun which one of us had carelessly 
 laid down. They will also exhibit smatterings 
 of Scripture, which would lead one to believe 
 them better informed than they are, though 
 their applications of it are often sufficiently 
 ludicrous. One of them, whom the governor 
 was upbraiding with having sold his land three 
 or four times over to different parties, justified 
 himself by quoting the passage, 'After thou 
 hadst sold it, was it not thine own f Another, 
 a very intelligent native too, to whom I was 
 pointing out the impropriety of his having three 
 wives, replied, ' Oh, never mind ; all the same 
 
MISSIONARY INFLUENCE. 83 
 
 as Solomon.' A much more serious misapplica- 
 tion of the Scriptures occurred during the late 
 war, when many of them tore up their Bibles to 
 make wadding for their guns. 
 
 As to the interference of the missionaries in 
 political affairs, it has been solely and exten- 
 sively mischievous. It is a fact too well esta- 
 blished to admit of the least dispute, that the 
 government of the country for the first six years 
 was carried on (in all that related to or bore upon 
 the natives) under the advice of leading mem- 
 bers of the missionary body. Governor Hobson 
 placed himself unreservedly in its hands. Go- 
 vernor Fitzroy went the length of stating to 
 his legislative council that he relied more upon 
 Mr. Clarke (the present secretary of the mission 
 in the colony, and formerly one of its catechists) 
 6 than upon any five of the other officers of go- 
 vernment/ Under these circumstances, a large 
 share of responsibility for all the acts of govern- 
 ment relating to the natives rests and must for 
 ever rest on the missionaries. What the prin- 
 ciple was on which they acted may be explained 
 . a few words. 
 It was termed government by moral force; 
 
 3ut government by immoral laxity would have 
 een a much more appropriate designation. For 
 it consisted in yielding on every occasion to the 
 
 caprices and violence of the natives, whether 
 G2 
 
84 NATIVES 
 
 exercised among themselves or directed against 
 the colonists. Its natural and inevitable result 
 was to destroy all prestige of the moral and 
 intellectual superiority of the Europeans, to 
 bring the government into the utmost contempt, 
 and to terminate in rebellion only to be quelled 
 at a great cost of life and property, besides 
 retarding for years the progress and prosperity 
 of the country. 
 
 To afford some idea of the follies which were 
 enacted under this system take the case of 
 Hekfs earliest act of aggression, the cutting 
 down the flag-staff at the Bay of Islands. He 
 did it as a deliberate and declared act of rebel- 
 lion against the British power. Governor Fitz- 
 roy, having procured troops from Sydney, 
 paraded them on the shore at the bay, when, at 
 the instigation of Mr. Clarke, Heki, who refused 
 personally to appear, sent in ten muskets as an 
 emblem of submission. The Governor returned 
 them with a conciliatory message, and removed 
 the troops. Within a few weeks afterwards, 
 Heki sacked and destroyed the settlement, and 
 drove its inhabitants out of the country. 
 
 I wish that I could report that such weak- 
 nesses were no longer exhibited in New Zea- 
 land. Little more than a year ago Governor 
 Grey visited in person the settlement of New 
 Plymouth, in the hope of terminating the long 
 
MISSIONARY INFLUENCE. 85 
 
 vexed land question there. He was riding into the 
 country, when a small party of natives hostile to 
 his object met him, flourished a tomahawk over 
 his head, and ordered him back to the town. 
 He proceeded to the residence of a powerful 
 and friendly chief, and, on complaining of the 
 indignity, the tomahawk (but not the individual 
 who used it) was brought in and laid at his feet. 
 Sir George accepted the apology. It is not to 
 be wondered at that before many days were 
 over the hostile natives openly plundered some 
 of the friendly ones of valuable presents which 
 Sir George had given, and that the representa- 
 tive of British power shortly left the settlement 
 without achieving his object. 
 
 In common with other colonists, I have often 
 been hurt and annoyed by meeting with respect- 
 able and intelligent persons newly arrived from 
 home, whose minds had been impressed with 
 the belief that the wars in New Zealand arose 
 from the oppression of the natives by the colo- 
 nists, and that they all involved disputes about 
 land. Such an impression is the very reverse of 
 truth. The ultimate cause of the wars has been 
 none other than that government by moral 
 force before alluded to ; but even with the 
 immediate causes the colonists have had nothing 
 whatever to do. On three occasions it has been 
 found necessary to have recourse to military 
 
86 NATIVES 
 
 force. The first was in 1845, when Heki sacked 
 Kororarika. No difference about land or any- 
 thing else existed there between the colonists 
 and natives ; but the imposition of custom and 
 harbour dues had driven away the whaling 
 ships with which Heki had carried on a pro- 
 fitable and iniquitous trade in female slaves, and 
 which he hoped to restore if he could get rid of 
 the British power. The second occasion was on 
 the Eiver Hutt, near Wellington, when the 
 government undertook to expel certain natives 
 from land of which they had repeatedly ad- 
 mitted they were not the owners, and with the 
 true owners of which the government had itself 
 negotiated a valid purchase and paid an ample 
 price for it. In the usurped occupation of the 
 district by the natives, there was no single* 
 extenuating circumstance, nor any hardship in 
 requiring them to return to their own posses- 
 sions. Their refusal to do so was accompanied 
 by several cruel murders of inoffensive settlers, 
 and other acts of violence and outrage. The 
 third occasion was at Wanganui, where the 
 necessity of employing the military arose from 
 the barbarous murder of the Gilfillan family, as an 
 act of retaliation for an accidental and not very- 
 severe wound inflicted on a chief by a midship- 
 man of H. M. S. Calliope amusing himself with 
 a pistol some time previously, and being in no 
 
MISSIONARY INFLUENCE. 87 
 
 way connected with the family on which the 
 revenge was taken. The murderers, five in 
 number, were hanged by a military officer in 
 command of the district, on which the tribe rose 
 and a war of many months' duration ensued. 
 
 Upon the merits of these wars, in a military 
 point of view, I am not prepared to enter. 
 None but a military man could do so with 
 effect ; and though I know the opinions of 
 many of that class who were engaged in them, 
 I cannot without breach of confidence make 
 use of the information I have received from 
 them. But I may venture to state the opinion 
 of the colonists on the subject, which was, that 
 the operations were by no means creditable to 
 those who conducted them, not at all calculated 
 to add to the well-earned laurels of the British 
 army, or to impress the natives with an idea of 
 any great superiority on our side. And a 
 careful perusal of the despatches relating to 
 them leads necessarily to the same conclusion. 
 When we read of a force being brought up to 
 scale lofty palisades without ladders, of at- 
 tempts to capture a fort of extraordinary 
 strength with no better weapon than small 
 arms, of the disastrous retreat of a body of 
 regulars before a party of natives, which was 
 immediately afterwards encountered and driven 
 away by a dozen militia men, of omissions to 
 
88 NATIVES 
 
 hem in a rebel chief and all his force in the 
 only defile by which he could escape, or to cut 
 off a fleet of canoes when they could have been 
 surprised without difficulty; of an immense 
 military parade, accompanied by the governor 
 in person, being suddenly ordered back into 
 barracks at the moment when the soldiers were 
 levelling their bayonets to rush into conflict 
 with an enemy not superior in numbers ; when 
 we read of such events as these, even civilians 
 cannot help suspecting misconduct somewhere, 
 and believing that, if rightly managed, the wars 
 of New Zealand might have been brought to 
 a much speedier, more honourable, and less 
 costly conclusion. With whom the blame of 
 these events rests, it is not for me to decide 
 in some instances, circumstances point to the 
 military officers in command ; but it is only fair 
 to the soldiers to state, that they almost to a 
 man complain of the interference of the civil 
 power with their movements, and that on some 
 of the occasions when failure was most evident, 
 they were under the immediate personal direc- 
 tion of civil authority. If any one should have 
 curiosity enough to examine the official records 
 of the New Zealand wars, he must carefully 
 look at the facts and disregard the high-flown 
 phraseology, or he will infallibly be led to mis- 
 take a skirmish in which seven or eight men 
 
MISSIONARY INFLUENCE. 89 
 
 fell on each side, for a victory greater than that 
 of the Sutledj, when 15,000 of the enemy were 
 swept into the river in a morning. Mrs. Hut- 
 chinson, in her Life of the Colonel, tells us of 
 a certain Sir John Gell who with no appetite 
 for fighting, was ambitious of the fame of a 
 fire-eater ; and, to obtain it kept in his pay the 
 editor of a country paper. On one occasion, 
 having nothing better to blow his trumpet 
 about, he announced that Sir John GelTs troop 
 had ' captured a dragoon in a plush doublet/ 
 The reader will find among the official accounts 
 of the New Zealand war many ' plush doublet' 
 despatches. 
 
 6. NATIVE TITLE TO WASTE LANDS. 
 
 Any account of the present state of New 
 Zealand would be incomplete without some 
 remarks on the question of the native title to the 
 waste lands. 
 
 Two theories have been propounded. Accord- 
 ing to one, the savage inhabitants of an 
 unreclaimed country have an absolute right of 
 proprietorship in its soil, based upon the mere 
 fact of their residing on some portion of it. 
 Thus, because they live in New Zealand, New 
 Zealand belongs to them. According to the 
 other theory (which I give in the words of 
 
90 NATIVE TITLE TO WASTE LANDS. 
 
 Vattel,)* it is contended that, in an unreclaimed 
 country, ' in which there are none but erratic 
 natives, incapable of occupying the whole, they 
 cannot be allowed exclusively to appropriate to 
 themselves more land than they have occasion 
 for, or more than they are able to settle and 
 cultivate. It is urged that their unsettled habi- 
 tation in those immense regions cannot be 
 accounted a true and legal possession, and that 
 the people of Europe, too closely pent up at 
 home, are lawfully entitled to take possession 
 of the waste and settle it with colonies/ 
 
 The advocates of systematic colonization hold 
 to the latter theory. The Bishop of New Zea- 
 land, the missionaries, and the landsharking 
 interest at Sydney and elsewhere, protest against 
 it and adhere to the former. 
 
 I have never seen anything worthy of the 
 name of an argument in favour of native right. 
 The fallacy used is usually an appeal to the 
 sense of justice on the cruelty of robbing the 
 natives of what is theirs, f It is an evident 
 petitio principii, involving the question whe- 
 ther what is called theirs, is theirs or not. 
 
 The argument on the other side resolves itself 
 
 * Law of Nations, Ed. 1834, by Chitty, p. 100. 
 f See the Bishop's letter to Lord Grey. Parliamen- 
 tary Papers, July, 1849, p. 37, &c. 
 
NATIVE TITLE TO WASTE LANDS. 91 
 
 into two branches first, the legal, and second, 
 the expedient. 
 
 1. As regards the legal, we find, from the 
 earliest days of British colonization, the crown 
 lawyers treating the crown as entitled to an 
 absolute fee simple in the waste lands of coun- 
 tries only occupied by savages, or as they called 
 them, ' infidels/ In the letters patent given to 
 John Cabot, the charter of Lord Carlisle for 
 the West Indies, that of Sir Humphrey Gilbert 
 for Virginia, and every other document of the 
 same sort, from the reign of Henry VII. down- 
 wards, we find the crown conferring absolute 
 rights in words which even the high preroga- 
 tive notions of Bacon or Noy would not have 
 led them to use, if they had not considered the 
 right of the crown absolute and indefeasible. 
 They are not such words as they would have 
 used if they had considered the crown only 
 entitled to a right of pre-emption over lands of 
 which the c infidels' were the true ' owners/ 
 
 It is true that the colonists in those times 
 found it necessary, as a matter of fact, to treat 
 with the overwhelming numbers of natives 
 about them, for liberty to settle in the countries 
 they resorted to. But they did not admit, as a 
 matter of theory, any c right ' in the natives, as 
 appears from an extract from the instructions 
 to Governor Endicot (quoted by Bancroft) where 
 
92 NATIVE TITLE TO WASTE LANDS. 
 
 he is told, that if the natives c pretend any 
 right of inheritance/ he is to treat with them 
 accordingly. So far from admitting any such 
 right, we are told by Chancellor Kent,* that 
 c the early colonists came to America with no 
 slight confidence in the solidity of their rights 
 to subdue and cultivate the wilderness, as being 
 by the law of nature and the gift of Providence, 
 open and common to the first occupants in the 
 character of cultivators of the earth. The great 
 patent of New England and the opinion of 
 grave and learned men tended to confirm that 
 confidence/ It is true the American courts 
 have laid down a different rule for their own 
 guidance, but neither their decisions nor the 
 acts of private colonists or colonizing patentees 
 could affect the common law rights of the 
 British Crown. Nothing but legislation could 
 do that, and there has been none on the subject. 
 And in accordance with the same principle, the 
 crown itself, on colonizing New Holland and 
 Van Diemen's Land, barely fifty years ago, 
 entirely disregarded the alleged native right. 
 If it have any foundation, the sites of Sydney 
 and Hobart Town have yet to be purchased 
 from some wanderer in the Australian wilds. 
 2. On the ground of expediency still less can 
 
 * Commentaries, vol. iii. p. 387. 
 
NATIVE TITLE TO WASTE LANDS. 93 
 
 be said in support of the native right. Colo- 
 nization being once permitted (and it cannot be 
 prevented in some sort, either systematic or 
 irregular,) the most beneficial thing that can be 
 done for the natives is to promote the immigra- 
 tion of civilized people into their country. The 
 admission of their absolute right to the land 
 raises innumerable obstacles to beneficial colo- 
 nization. It involves the colonizing govern- 
 ment in endless disputes with landsharks about 
 lands which they affect to have purchased from 
 the natives. It causes a body of wretched specu- 
 lators to throng to the colony for the express 
 purpose of raising and establishing such claims; 
 men who have neither the capital nor the 
 energy to use an acre of the vast districts they 
 acquire, but who hope to make a fortune by its 
 re-sale, as it gains value by the exertions of 
 others and the increase of population.* It 
 creates in the breast of the natives an insatiable 
 cupidity, which condemns them to listless inac- 
 tivity and a continuance in barbarous habits so 
 
 * It may be urged that the assertion of the right of 
 pre-emption on the part of the crown will prevent this. 
 Has it prevented it in New Zealand, where the land- 
 sharks have actually got some half-million acres, which, 
 after ten years' fighting with the crown, have been 
 confirmed to them by crown grants and ordinances of 
 council? 
 
94 NATIVE TITLE TO WASTE LANDS. 
 
 long as they have an acre of land remaining 
 by the sale of which they can hope to live in 
 indolence. The money they receive for it does 
 them no good, but is wasted, or at least spent, 
 almost as soon as received, and often in ways 
 very injurious to them. 
 
 But though, on grounds both of justice, law 
 and expediency, it might, at the commencement 
 of New Zealand colonization, have been desirable 
 to negative the claim put forth on behalf of the 
 natives, it is now too late to think of it. They 
 have been taught a contrary c doctrine/ by men 
 of sacred character, high in office ; and though, 
 I believe, without such teaching they might at 
 one time have been easily persuaded to surren- 
 der the waste land to the crown, yet now it is 
 too late. The only method by which it can now 
 be got possession of, is by gradual and some- 
 times very tedious negotiation and purchase. 
 
 And supposing the native race not to become 
 extinct, or not so rapidly as I believe they will, 
 a practice has sprung up which will disincline 
 them to sell the waste lands ; which has, in fact, 
 already prevented their selling one district the 
 Wiararapa valley the acquisition of which is of 
 almost vital importance to the settlement of 
 Wellington. The practice I allude to, is that of 
 colonists leasing the waste lands from the natives, 
 the history of which forms an instructive chapter 
 
NATIVE TITLE TO WASTE LANDS. 95 
 
 on the feebleness of the colonial government in 
 reference to the aborigines. 
 
 At the very commencement of the practice, in 
 March, 1844, the late Colonel Wakefield, the 
 principal agent of the New Zealand Company, 
 foreseeing its certain consequences, called the 
 attention of the local government to it ; on 
 which an official notice was issued by the latter, 
 warning all persons against entering into any 
 negotiations with the natives for purchase, lease, 
 or otherwise. Long experience of the feeble- 
 ness of the local government had rendered its 
 proclamations waste paper; and numerous par- 
 ties, from the highest to the lowest, openly and 
 without any attempt at concealment, proceeded 
 to enter into arrangements with the natives in the 
 Wiararapa in direct contravention of the notice, 
 which described the practice as one c which 
 retarded the adjustment of very important 
 questions, on which the prosperity of the set- 
 tlements depended/ No attempt was made to 
 prevent them; but in November, 1846, two years 
 afterwards, an ordinance of council was passed, 
 declaring the practice illegal, and imposing very 
 heavy penalties on such as might follow it. This 
 ordinance, like the previous notice, remained a 
 dead letter; till about a year afterwards, in 
 December, 1847, the local government, being 
 again called upon by the Company's agent, 
 
96 NATIVE TITLE TO WASTE LANDS. 
 
 issued another notice, referring to the ordinance, 
 and threatening its enforcement. Nothing how- 
 ever was done till another year had elapsed, 
 when, as if the occasion for these threats had 
 become intermittent, another notice was issued 
 similar to the former ones, while a party was 
 gazetted as public informer, who was himself 
 notoriously an offender against it. No prosecu- 
 tions ensued ; but, in October of the same year, 
 (the Company's agent having determined on a 
 final attempt to purchase the valley) one more 
 proclamation was issued, being thus the fifth 
 document published by the Government, threat- 
 ening all sorts of pains and penalties on such as 
 should disobey its edicts; and the Lieutenant- 
 governor, Mr. Eyre, in his executive council, 
 pledged himself to enforce the law. 
 
 The negotiation for purchase failed for the 
 time, and the proclamation was heard of no 
 more till about nine months afterwards, when 
 fresh transactions being brought to his notice, 
 the Company's agent again appealed to the 
 government, and reminded the Lieutenant- 
 governor of his pledge. A long correspondence 
 ensued, in which that officer manifested every 
 anxiety to fulfil his promise, and maintain the 
 dignity of the law ; but it ended in his being 
 prohibited from proceeding by Governor Grey, 
 who informed him that if the Company's agent 
 
NATIVE TITLE TO WASTE LANDS. 97 
 
 wished the practice to be stopped, he might do 
 it himself, which, as the Company had no execu- 
 tive political functions of any sort and no officers 
 to employ in such a matter, was equivalent to 
 saying it should not be done. 
 
 In the meantime, while these paper threats 
 against occupation were being issued, the district 
 was being occupied. The whole valley is now 
 parcelled out amongst a body of colonists hold- 
 ing by lease under the natives, and paying them 
 a rent of no less than 600?. a-year. The Govern- 
 ment has admitted that the occupants have, by 
 its neglect to enforce the law, acquired a vested 
 interest, for which they must be compensated 
 whenever the district is bought from the 
 natives, 
 
 If this practice is continued, the renewal of 
 disturbances with the natives may be looked for 
 as a matter of certainty wherever it is allowed. 
 Their covetousness has already led them to re- 
 pudiate their bargains, and many sources of 
 difference are growing up between them and 
 their tenants. Both are transgressors of the 
 law, and living practically beyond its pale. 
 The only means of settling any serious dispute 
 which may arise will be the tomahawk. Eeta- 
 liation will ensue, and the responsibility will 
 rest on those who ought to have prevented the 
 origin or continuance of the practice. 
 
 H 
 
98 THE WASTE LANDS. 
 
 7. THE WASTE LANDS. 
 
 The right of the natives to the waste lands, 
 though so contrary to principle, and attended 
 with so many bad consequences to themselves 
 and to colonization, is now in practice, and ex 
 necessitate, admitted, while the right of the 
 crown is reduced to a mere right of pre-emption ; 
 that is to say, it retains the privilege of being 
 the only purchaser from the natives, and pro- 
 hibits its subjects from doing so. Hence, it is 
 through the instrumentality of the crown alone 
 (or, in other words, of the Colonial- office and 
 the local government) that every acre which is 
 to be reclaimed from the waste and subjected to 
 colonizing operations, must be obtained. And 
 it follows that every private title must (to be 
 valid) be traced back to a grant from the crown. 
 
 This privilege which the crown claims is not a 
 mere feudal or prerogative one, but is founded 
 on a wise and constitutional principle, by virtue 
 of which it assumes the office of regulating the 
 future settlement and occupation of the country. 
 In the absence of such an exclusive power there 
 would result a general scramble, and colonization 
 would be an impossibility. 
 
 But in the exercise of this right, the crown is 
 but a trustee for the public, and for the colonial 
 public as distinct from the general mass of Bri- 
 

 THE WASTE LANDS. 99 
 
 tish interests ; a position recognised by the 
 Royal Instructions of 1846, (now in force,) by the 
 Australian Waste Land Sales Act, and various 
 other legislative and official documents which 
 provide for the application of the funds arising 
 from the land sales. The waste lands of a colony 
 are the inheritance of the crown, but only for 
 the purposes of regulation and administration ; 
 not to use at pleasure not to be granted away 
 for favour or to be disposed of for the benefit 
 of strangers. In any other point of view a right 
 so large and so oppressive to a colonial commu- 
 nity would be intolerable. 
 
 In what manner the trusteeship of the crown 
 has hitherto been exercised in New Zealand, it 
 will not be uninteresting to inquire. 
 
 In 1840 New Zealand was made an inde- 
 pendent colony, and under the act of 3 & 4 Vic., 
 c. 62, the crown granted it a formal constitution 
 and a separate legislature. The act enabling 
 the crown to erect such constitution, contained 
 no provisions applicable to crown lands, which 
 remained as before, subject to crown regulation, 
 and it would seem, not liable to be affected by 
 acts of the local legislature. By the charter 
 (granted in 1840 under the great seal), power 
 was given to the Governor, but subject to any 
 royal instructions to be thereafter given, to make 
 grants under the public seal of the colony, to 
 H2 
 
100 THE WASTE LANDS. 
 
 private persons for their own use, or to bodies 
 politic for public purposes. By the instructions 
 under the sign manual of the same date, it is 
 directed that all the waste lands shall be sold at 
 an uniform price per acre (to be fixed by the 
 Secretary of State) the purchaser having the 
 privilege of recommending, for a free passage, 
 a number of emigrants proportioned to the 
 amount of his passage-money. Ss. 44 and 
 55. By the Australian Land Sales Act, 5 & 6 
 Vic., c. 36, all waste lands are to be sold by 
 auction at an upset price of not less than \l. an 
 acre, the whole proceeds to be applied to public 
 purposes, and one-half of the gross proceeds to 
 emigration.* By a subsequent act, New Zealand 
 was exempted from the operation of the Aus- 
 tralian Land Sales Act, and the crown's 
 power over the waste lands restored. By the 
 charter of 1846 (under the great seal) the crown 
 gave the governor power to grant waste lands 
 to private parties or public bodies, in accordance 
 with royal instructions to be issued from time to 
 time (the same as in the charter of 1840.) By 
 instructions under the sign manual of the same 
 
 * The net proceeds would seem from the context to 
 be intended the clause is not clear. In a correspond- 
 ing provision in the royal instructions of 1846, ' net 
 proceeds' are specified. 
 
THE WASTE LAN.TO. 101 
 
 date, the governor was directed to " ascertain 
 and register the native titles, and to consider 
 all lands not covered by such titles as demesne 
 of the crown. This has not been attempted, 
 the opposite doctrine having, as already stated, 
 been allowed to prevail in practice, and the 
 demesne of the crown having been limited 
 to so much as it has actually purchased from 
 the natives, whether occupied by them or 
 not. The demesne so ascertained was to be sold 
 by auction at an upset price of not less than II. 
 per acre, the net proceeds to be held in trust 
 for emigration and other public services. These 
 instructions were suspended by the act 10 & 11 
 Vic., c. 112, till the 5th July, 1850, but are now 
 again in operation. 
 
 From the general system exhibited above, 
 there have been exceptional variations. 
 
 1. By stat. 10 & 11 Vic. c. 112, the lands of 
 the southern province and their administration 
 were vested in the New Zealand Company for 
 three years, which expired, and all rights Ac- 
 were surrendered by it, on the 5th April, 1850. 
 But the land fund stands charged for ever with 
 a debt of about 260,000?. and interest due from 
 the Home Government to the company under 
 an arrangement of the Colonial Office in 1846. 
 2. About 2,000,000 acres in the middle 
 island have been vested in the same manner 
 
103 THfi, WASTE LANDS, 
 
 in the Canterbury Association, with powers of 
 administration, for a term of ten years, con- 
 tingent on certain events, and renewable by the 
 crown. 3. Several local ordinances have been 
 pursued, more or less affecting the waste lands ; 
 such as four or five different land claims ordi- 
 nances, by which a tribunal was established for 
 the purpose of adjudicating on purchases by 
 individuals from the natives before the colony 
 was formed ; an ordinance prohibiting pur- 
 chases from the natives; an ordinance for 
 quieting the titles of certain parties who had 
 obtained grants in the north supposed to be 
 invalid, but which the crown had been de- 
 feated in a first attempt to reverse and which 
 threatened to be productive of much litigation ; 
 an ordinance to regulate the pastoral occupa- 
 tion of the waste lands in the northern dis- 
 trict, under which licences are granted,* and 
 some others. 
 
 But a new light has been thrown on the 
 whole aspect of the subject by certain decisions 
 of the supreme court of the colony, involving 
 consequences of such magnitude and importance 
 as must excuse a brief notice of them. 
 
 * No regulations are in force in the southern province 
 where all the grazing land is, except at Canterbury ; 
 those introduced by the company having expired, and 
 none having yet been substituted by government. 
 
THE WASTE LANDS. 103 
 
 A great number of grants of land were issued 
 by Governor Fitzroy, in an irregular manner, to 
 private parties claiming under purchases direct 
 from the natives some previous and some sub- 
 sequent to the establishment of British authority. 
 In some instances these grants were in contra* 
 vention of the provisions of local ordinances ; in 
 others, in opposition to the recommendation of 
 the commissioners ; and in all they were opposed 
 to the charter and the royal instructions. 
 
 Under instructions from home, Governor Grey 
 took steps to settle the question of their validity 
 by proceedings in the supreme court at Auck- 
 land. Similar proceedings were taken at Wel- 
 lington by the New Zealand Company, whose title 
 was in some instances affected by such grants, 
 claiming to over-ride it.* In all the cases tried, 
 the court decided that the grants were valid and 
 irreversible. It was thus established, by re- 
 peated decisions of the highest tribunal in the 
 colony, that a grant of land made by the 
 Governor and under the colonial seal, though in 
 
 * Regina v. Clarke ; Regina v. Taylor, and M'Intosh 
 v. Symons, were tried at Auckland. The two latter 
 are reported respectively in the New Zealand Journal, 
 6th November, 1847, and Parliamentary Papers, 
 jST. Z. August, 1850, p. 3. Scott v. Grace, and Scott v. 
 M'Donald, were tried at Wellington, and are reported 
 in the local papers between 1846 and 1848. 
 
104 THE WASTE LANDS. 
 
 opposition to royal instructions, to the charter, 
 and to local ordinances, is valid and binding on 
 the crown, conferring a good title on the grantee 
 and his assigns. Hence a Governor, though 
 acting contrary to instructions, might grant 
 away at his pleasure the whole of the waste 
 lands, his power being absolute and uncontrol- 
 lable even by the crown itself. 
 
 It might have been expected that a decision 
 involving such consequences would have been 
 carried before the Privy Council, on appeal. 
 But Governor Grey, apparently foreseeing the 
 agitation which such a course would have created 
 among the European population immediately 
 around the seat of Government, yielded, and 
 passed an ordinance quieting the disputed titles, 
 and rendering valid 'all grants under the 
 colonial seal made previously to the passing 
 thereof/* 
 
 * A report Las reached me that the decision of the 
 Colonial Court in one of the above cases, was actually 
 brought before the Privy Council, when (without hear- 
 ing the respondent) it was reversed. Nothing has been 
 published on the subject ; but if it be so, it seems extra- 
 ordinary that the crown should be advised to abandon 
 its rights, or rather those of the public, by confirming 
 the ordinance referred to above, which was passed only 
 in the belief that the decision of the local courts was 
 irreversible, and, as Lord Grey himself states, without 
 any meritorious ground existing in the case of those 
 benefited by it. 
 
THE WASTE LANDS. 105 
 
 The governor, however, wrote to the Colonial 
 Office, pointing out the consequences of these 
 decisions, transmitting a copy of his ordinance, 
 and requesting that the c whole subject might be 
 brought under the review of the home Govern- 
 ment, in order that the authority of the Gover- 
 nor may be clearly defined, and such difficulties 
 avoided in New Zealand or other colonies for 
 the future/ The despatch containing this request 
 was written on the 24th of July, 1849, and 
 received at the Colonial Office on the 3rd De- 
 cember in the same year. It was not till the 
 13th of August, 1850, when a whole session of 
 parliament had elapsed and all opportunity of 
 doing anything had passed, that Lord Grey 
 answered the governor's despatch, when he 
 merely acknowledged its receipt, expressed his 
 appreciation of the motives which led the gover- 
 nor to pursue the course he had, and intimated 
 her Majesty's approbation of the ordinance. As 
 far as appears by the Blue Book, no other notice 
 has ever been taken of this most important 
 matter ; another session has since elapsed, and 
 it still remains in statu quo. 
 
 It will be seen from the above brief statement, 
 that many questions of the utmost importance 
 arise out of the present unsettled state of the 
 law on this subject questions too abstruse and 
 difficult to be disposed of or even discussed 
 
106 THE WASTE LANDS. 
 
 within my present limits. They are such as 
 these : 
 
 1. What is the nature of the crown's power 
 over the waste lands ? In what form ought it 
 to be exercised ? Is the Governor by his com- 
 mission absolute territorial lord of the colony, 
 capable of alienating at pleasure the entire 
 territory to the exclusion of future colonists, 
 and the complete extinction of all attempts at 
 systematic colonization ? 
 
 2. In what way can the sale of waste lands 
 be carried on most advantageously, effectually, 
 and economically for the service of the colony ? 
 This involves the still larger question, of how 
 can emigration be best promoted ? 
 
 3. Is the local legislature at present com- 
 petent to make regulations relative to the waste 
 lands, and, above all, to ' quiet disputed titles/ 
 which virtually means to grant away the lands 
 of the crown ? If not, ought not steps to be 
 taken to repeal, or rather declare null, the ordi- 
 nance passed at Auckland, and to restore the 
 crown to its rights ? Can this question be settled 
 except by the imperial parliament ? 
 
 4. What ought to be the application of the 
 funds arising from land sales ? ought they to 
 be charged with debts incurred for special 
 purposes, such as the pensioner immigration, or 
 
THE WASTE LANDS. 107 
 
 the New Zealand Company's debt and could 
 any authority, except the imperial parliament, 
 with propriety have made, or hereafter make, 
 such charges ? This involves the larger question 
 of the right of the colonists to administer their 
 own affairs, and particularly their own lands. 
 
 If indeed it could be shown that this large 
 and important branch of colonial administration 
 had been hitherto wise economical and effective, 
 the answer would be simple to leave matters as 
 they are. But there is a deep-seated feeling in 
 the colony and elsewhere, that its interests are 
 neglected and mismanaged; and that whe- 
 ther wilfully or through inability, the Colonial 
 Office and its dependent board the Land and 
 Emigration Commission, have failed in the 
 object for which governments are established 
 the promotion of the prosperity and welfare of 
 the governed. In that portion of the colony in 
 which the crown has retained the administration 
 of the waste lands (the northern province), 
 scarcely any lands except a small portion in the 
 town of Auckland have been sold ; while I 
 believe not less than from 300,000 to 400,000 
 acres have been granted away by it without con- 
 sideration, and in respect of which no immigra- 
 tion has been effected. The only emigration 
 which has been effected by means of the land 
 
108 THE WASTE LANDS. 
 
 fund in New Zealand, is that which has occurred 
 in the southern province, where the government 
 had put the administration of the waste lands 
 out of its own hands. 
 
 I shall now conclude my subject by an 
 inquiry into the nature and condition of the 
 local government of the colony. 
 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 GOVEKJSTMENT. 
 
 1. THE EXISTING FORM. 
 
 THE form of government established in New 
 Zealand, as in all the crown colonies, 
 presents an outward resemblance to a mixed 
 monarchy, in which the absolute will of the 
 ruler is tempered and controlled by constitu- 
 tional checks. But when these checks are 
 examined they prove to be entirely inoperative, 
 and the government practically exists as a pure 
 unmixed despotism. 
 
 The two powers which at first sight appear to 
 control the absolutism of the governor, and to 
 share if not to over-ride his authority, are the 
 legislative councils and the colonial office ; but, 
 for reasons which I will proceed to state, neither 
 of them have in reality the smallest practical 
 influence on his acts. 
 
 The legislative councils fail, and must neces- 
 sarily do so, on account of the fundamental 
 principle on which they are constituted. They 
 consist solely of certain paid officers of govern- 
 
110 GOVERNMENT: 
 
 ment, holding ex-officio seats, as the attorney- 
 general, colonial secretary, &c., and of nominees 
 appointed by the governor and removable at 
 pleasure.* Formerly, the number of nominee 
 members was less than that of ex-officio 
 ones, but since 1848 (the establishment of the 
 provincial councils) this has been altered, and 
 there is now a majority of nominated members. 
 The result however is the same in either case 
 the Governor passes whatever estimates, and 
 carries whatever measures he pleases. Under 
 the former system the nominee members used 
 commonly to make a display (possibly an honest 
 one) of opposing the Government ; but their 
 opposition was always overruled by the votes of 
 the ex-officio majority. The same end is now 
 attained in a different way. Care is taken in 
 selecting nominees to secure only such as will 
 give the Government unflinching support,-)- and 
 
 * They are nominally only removable by the 
 Colonial Office, but a word from the Governor will 
 always ensure their removal, and in the interval, if 
 necessary, the council is prorogued. 
 
 f In 1849, Governor Grey made a show of offering 
 seats to the leaders of public opinion, on the liberal side ; 
 but the offers were accompanied by others to safe men 
 on the Government side, so that if the former had 
 accepted, the Government would (with its officials) have 
 always had a majority. All the leading politicians 
 
THE EXISTING FORM. Ill 
 
 thus, though often in a majority even on ques- 
 tions in reference to which they speak against 
 Government, their vote is always with it. In 
 the session of 1849, at Wellington, with the 
 exception of a single vote of 800?. on the educa- 
 tional question, the nominees supported the 
 government in every particular of the slightest 
 interest to it, and passed the estimates (which 
 the colonists at large would have cut down by 
 at least one half) almost in the very shape in 
 which they were laid before them. One of the 
 nominees (Dr. Greenwood) expressly stated in 
 council, that their presence there amounted to 
 a pledge 'not to oppose the Government/ 
 Another of the members (Dr. Monro) finding 
 on one occasion that owing to the absence of 
 some of the official members a motion of oppo- 
 sition on the part of the nominees must neces- 
 sarily be carried, chivalrously proposed an ad- 
 journment that the Government might bring 
 up its forces ; but the Lieutenant-governor good- 
 humouredly declined the offer, and the nominees, 
 though in an undeniable majority, allowed him 
 to carry his measures without any resistance 
 
 declined, and he was driven at last to nominate retail 
 dealers, commission-agents from Sydney, keepers of 
 small preparatory schools, and others of no position in 
 the colony. 
 
112 GOVERNMENT: 
 
 except in words. This was the course of pro- 
 ceeding all through the session, and, except as 
 far as it relieved the executive government from 
 responsibility, the council might as well never 
 have met. 
 
 And indeed Governor Grey seems to have 
 arrived at the conclusion that it is not worth 
 while to go through the form of calling it 
 together. At the date of the latest news from 
 the colony (the middle of March last) the legis- 
 lative council of the southern province had not 
 sat for twenty months, and that of the northern 
 for nearly the same period. The revenue had 
 consequently for eight months of that time been 
 expended without any legislative appropriation, 
 on the mere warrant and at the pleasure of the 
 Governor; an event which occurred also pre- 
 viously to 1848. 
 
 The legislative councils therefore appear to 
 have been called into existence only to satisfy 
 the provisions of the charter which prescribes 
 their creation ; but the government is carried 
 on, either without their being summoned, or if 
 occasionally they are, without their exercising 
 the smallest influence over it. 
 
 The other apparent check, the Colonial Office, 
 (which is supposed to represent the British 
 Government,) is equally ineffectual to control 
 the governor, except in extreme cases, when 
 
THE EXISTING FORM. 113 
 
 action is forced upon it by Parliament, as it was 
 in New Zealand in 1845. It is perhaps natural 
 that the office should, as a general rule, support 
 a Governor of its own appointment. The pre- 
 sumption in the mind of Downing-street would 
 be that a Governor is in the right, though it 
 must be admitted that experience might have 
 taught it a different conclusion. Consequently, 
 so long as his acts do not get the office into 
 difficulties, it seldom if ever interferes with his 
 proceedings. But this is not the only cause of 
 its inefficacy as a check. There are innumerable 
 cases in which complaints of the Governor and 
 of his acts are made to the Colonial Office by the 
 colonists, and that in a sufficiently imposing 
 form as regards numbers, facts and arguments, 
 to throw upon the office the responsibility of 
 deciding between the Governor and colonists. 
 And here occurs the weak point, the means by 
 which the Colonial Office is brought always to 
 decide in the Governor's favour. Every com- 
 plaint, petition, or memorial, relating to him or 
 his government, must be forwarded through 
 him, and goes home accompanied by his own 
 comments and explanations, which are never 
 seen by the colonists or open to any reply from 
 them, till perhaps they appear in a Blue Book 
 twelve or eighteen months after the question 
 involved has been decided against them. Of 
 I 
 
GOVERNMENT : 
 
 course under these circumstances, he always 
 makes the best defence he can, whether it be of 
 himself personally or of his measures. And the 
 Colonial Office invariably adopts his explana- 
 tion, and decides in his favour. At least that 
 has been the experience of the colonists of New 
 Zealand, and more particularly during the last 
 five years. 
 
 Nor is it any easy matter to bring public 
 or parliamentary opinion to bear upon the Colo- 
 nial Office when it decides wrong. So much of 
 the questions in dispute as is permitted to see 
 the light, is to be found in the Parliamentary 
 Blue Books. But the contents of these are only 
 selections, and selections made by the Colonial 
 Office. They contain a portion of the truth, 
 but seldom the whole truth ; and what there is 
 of truth is often mixed with what is untrue, or 
 plausibly exhibited in a false light. We will 
 suppose a memorial to have been addressed by 
 a body of highly respectable colonists to the 
 home government, complaining of a long series 
 of acts of misgovernment, and dissecting previous 
 despatches of the Governor. It will appear in 
 the Blue Book, in small type, preceded by his 
 defence in large, to which is certain to be 
 appended a reply from the Colonial Minister, 
 assuring him that the complaints of the colonists 
 have in no way lessened her Majesty's confidence 
 
THE EXISTING FORM. 115 
 
 in him. The defence probably consists of a few 
 holes picked in some subordinate part of the 
 charge, and then a request that the writer may 
 not be called upon to reply to statements of 
 which these are a sample.* Or an attack will 
 be made on the character of the chairman of the 
 meeting from which the complaint emanated, 
 and the charges ignored, because they proceeded 
 from such a source.f Or, if there is an opening 
 for neither course, a bold front will be assumed, 
 and surprise expressed that charges should be 
 preferred, of the falsehood of which every re- 
 spectable person in the colony has been long 
 convinced.J Or, finally, if the rottenness of the 
 case is so apparent on the face of the documents 
 that it cannot be otherwise concealed, they will 
 be distributed in inextricable confusion and 
 small type, up and down the book, while the 
 Governor's denial and the Colonial Minister's 
 adoption of it, will be printed prominently, and 
 in good large type. 
 
 
 * Mr. Brown's case, Parl. Further Papers, 1850, in 
 continuation of 31st July, 1849, pp. 119 and 120 ; and 
 Parliamentary Further Papers of August, 1850, p. 31 
 to 52. 
 
 t Ibid. August 1850, p. 96. 
 
 J Ibid. 1850, in continuation of July 31, 1849, p. 206. 
 
 See a correspondence in Parliamentary Papers 
 (N. Z., 1850, in continuation of 31st July, 1849), com- 
 mencing at p. 70, and interspersed through the book 
 12 
 
116 GOVERNMENT : 
 
 And in addition to thus forming a weapon of 
 defence to the Governor, they provide him with 
 one of attack against his adversaries, with which 
 he is constantly able to deal heavy blows without 
 their being aware of it. Thus charges will be 
 made against an individual, who, though in the 
 colony and at the seat of government, is not 
 there put on his defence, and only becomes 
 acquainted with the charge from seeing it in 
 the Blue Book a year after it was made.* 
 
 And thus the Colonial Office, so far from con- 
 stituting any check on the Governor, in reality 
 serves him as a shield and protection against 
 
 to p. 166. If the letter printed at p. 94 had been placed 
 by the side of those in pages 73 and 166, the true state 
 of the case would have been apparent to any eye. Dis- 
 tributed as they are, the confusion prevents detection. 
 * See Parliamentary Papers, JN". Z., July, 1849, p. 
 52, &c., from which it appears that a most serious charge 
 made against the chief justice of the colony, was only 
 communicated to him a month after it had been sent 
 home, the result being that Lord Grey decided the 
 matter without hearing his defence. The case of Mr. 
 Forsaith was worse. He saw his character destroyed 
 in a Blue Book was able to deny every fact alleged 
 against him, and Governor Grey had to withdraw every 
 one of his charges ; but not till they had been in 
 print for a year. Archdeacon Williams was treated in 
 a similar manner, and several other instances could be 
 pointed out. No man who has ever taken a part in 
 colonial politics is secure against such treatment. 
 
THE EXISTING FORM. 117 
 
 public opinion in the colony. Colonial govern- 
 ments would have to yield to that opinion much 
 oftener than they do, if they had not the opinion 
 of the Colonial Office to exhibit in opposition to 
 it. That department serves, ostensibly, as a sort 
 of tribunal of reference between the colonists 
 and the Governor ; but stands virtually pledged, 
 as well as interested, always to decide in favour 
 of the latter. 
 
 The only instance in which a decision has 
 been given against Governor Grey, was in refer- 
 ence to the abolition of the county courts, a 
 matter of little importance, but which was 
 clearly an illegal act. On no single question of 
 policy have the suggestions or complaints of the 
 colonists been listened to. For the last three 
 years numerous and repeated complaints on 
 matters of vital importance, supported by care- 
 ful analyses of his published despatches, and 
 emanating from large bodies of the most re- 
 spectable and influential colonists, have been 
 sent home from all the principal settlements. 
 A bare acknowledgment of their receipt, and an 
 assurance to the Governor of the continuance of 
 her Majesty's confidence, are all the reply they 
 have ever elicited from the home government. 
 
 Nothing can be worse than the effect of this 
 on the minds of the colonists. Possessing an 
 overwhelming majority in the colony, they are 
 
118 PRESENT GOVERNMENT: 
 
 continually defeated by a minority of one, who 
 is enabled to stand his ground against them by 
 the support of a distant ally who has never seen 
 the colony, and in whose capacity for judging of 
 the matter the colonists have no confidence. 
 The certainty with which all differences are 
 decided against them, impresses them with a 
 feeling that it is entirely useless to address their 
 complaints to the Colonial Office ; and they 
 only continue to make them from a feeling of 
 self-respect which prevents their submitting in 
 silence, and in a sort of vague hope that in the 
 pages of a Blue Book they may meet the eye of 
 some colonial reformer, and elicit sympathy, if 
 not redress. 
 
 2. PRESENT GOVERNMENT DEFECTS OF. 
 
 The form of government which I have de- 
 scribed in the last section is that to which the 
 colonial reformers, who took part in the great 
 New Zealand debate in 1845, attributed all the 
 evils under which the colony then suffered ; and 
 there is no doubt that to that cause they were 
 chiefly traceable. They were brought promi- 
 nently forward at that period by the personal 
 indiscretion of the Governor. Governor Grey is 
 a person of more tact and diplomacy than his 
 predecessor, and he avoids placing himself in 
 
DEFECTS OF. 119 
 
 positions where the flagrancy of some single act 
 might attract public attention to the general 
 inefficiency of the system of government of 
 which he is himself the development, the head 
 and front. Yet for all practical purposes, the 
 evils of the system which evoked its emphatic 
 condemnation from Lord John Russell, Lord 
 Grey, Sir Robert Peel, Sir James Graham, and 
 other statesmen, in 1845, exist in their full force 
 and vigour at the present hour. If their results 
 are less manifest, it is owing to the personal tact 
 of the Governor; to the enormous expenditure of 
 British money in the colony, which creates a 
 fictitious and temporary prosperity ; and to the 
 presence of a large military force, which ensures 
 tranquillity among the natives. 
 
 But the government, as a government, is as 
 inefficient as it was in 1845 : it exhibits the 
 same normal and inherent characteristics, and it 
 bears, to a great extent, the same fruits. 
 
 The defects of a despotic form of government, 
 particularly when its head resides at a distance 
 of from 500 to 800 miles from the principal 
 communities to be governed, exhibit themselves 
 in two aspects, apparently contradictory to each 
 other. On the one hand, there is far too little 
 government ; on the other, there is a great deal 
 too much. I will endeavour to explain the 
 paradox. 
 
120 PRESENT GOVERNMENT: 
 
 The deficiency of government arises from the 
 fact, that everything depends on the will of one 
 man. ' Be his abilities and his industry what 
 they may/ the impossibility of his presence in 
 many places at once, the amount of details 
 which have to be disposed of, and, in New Zea- 
 land, the imperfect perception which he neces- 
 sarily has of circumstances at a distance, render 
 his efforts, however well intended, feeble and 
 ineffective. To add to the difficulty, a very 
 large amount of time and of energy is consumed, 
 not in any part of the practical business of 
 government, but in reporting to the Colonial 
 Office his acts or intentions, and in defending 
 himself from the attacks and complaints which 
 are constantly being preferred against him from 
 some quarter or other. Hence, instead of being 
 decided on at once, and executed with prompti- 
 tude, matters of the utmost but often of purely 
 local consequence, are delayed for months by 
 the necessity of reference to head-quarters ; and 
 when determined on, are carried into execution 
 feebly and inefficiently by reason of the distance 
 of the agent from the power which puts him in 
 motion. In one case, where the purchase of a 
 large district of land near Wellington was the 
 object, it took seven months before the sanction 
 of the governor could be obtained and a com- 
 missioner be got to enter on the negotiation. 
 
DEFECTS OF. 121 
 
 On the other hand, there is too much govern- 
 ment. The official establishments are altogether 
 disproportioned to the communities whose 
 affairs they administer. In the southern pro- 
 vince of New Zealand there are not less than 
 100 paid officials (besides about forty police- 
 men) to govern a population (at the time the 
 estimate was made) of not 10,000 Euro- 
 peans. This is attributable to two causes ; 
 1st. The necessity which the weakness of the 
 government creates for the employment of a 
 great many hands to help it; making up in 
 quantity what it wants in quality : and, 2nd, 
 The tendency which all despotic governments 
 have to buy support by patronage. In the 
 southern province, in the year 1850, with an 
 ordinary revenue of 19,000?., no less than 
 14,000?. (minus a small sum for contingencies 
 used in the offices) appears to have gone into 
 the pockets of the officials as salary ; while 
 nearly the whole of the remainder was expended 
 on police, printing, or other matters involving 
 patronage, and attaching the recipients to the 
 interest of government. In 1846, Governor 
 Grey proposed the appointment of a lieutenant- 
 governor for the southern province, and pledged 
 himself if one was appointed, ' judiciously to 
 curtail' the existing cost of government. But 
 he has found it impossible, and will so long as 
 
122 PRESENT GOVERNMENT: 
 
 the present system exists. At the date of that 
 pledge, the entire annual cost of government at 
 Wellington was 4409?. A lieutenant-governor 
 was appointed in 1848, and the cost of govern- 
 ment, so far from having been ' judiciously cur- 
 tailed/ has swelled to 16,000?., while the ordi- 
 nary revenue, in the same period, has increased 
 less than 5000?. 
 
 The colonists complain, and apparently not 
 without reason, of the manner in which patron- 
 age is exercised. The more formidable poli- 
 ticians are bought up in the most open manner 
 offices being even invented for their accom- 
 modation.* If a young gentleman arrives in 
 the colony who writes ' honourable' before his 
 name who has a cousin in the House of Lords, 
 or relatives of influence at the Colonial Office 
 he never waits long for an appointment.! If it is 
 desirable to secure a partisan of a humbler class, 
 1 the first vacancy in the customs is promised ;' 
 and, probably, it is owing to the run on this 
 department that the collection and keeping of 
 the revenue of Wellington alone costs the enor- 
 mous amount of seventeen per cent, on the gross 
 sum collected ; the whole of which is expended 
 
 * Nelson, in 1847-48. 
 f Auckland, 1849. Wellington, 1850. 
 
DEFECTS OF. 123 
 
 on custom-house officers, treasurers, auditors, and 
 their clerks. 
 
 But the instances of patronage which create 
 the greatest dissatisfaction are those which 
 emanate from the Colonial Office. Take the 
 Otago judge for example. Mr. Stephen, a 
 barrister of Van Diemen's Land (a cousin of the 
 gentleman who for a quarter of a century held 
 the Colonial Office in fee) was unjustly disbarred 
 by the judges of that colony. After a seven 
 years' appeal, their judgment was reversed by 
 the Privy Council. The Colonial Office felt that 
 it was implicated, and that compensation was 
 due to the injured. But it spared to take of its 
 own flock. The infant settlement of Otago 
 rejoiced in a surplus revenue of 800. a year, 
 and was only perplexed on what work of utility 
 to expend it, when the difficulty was solved by 
 the arrival of a judge of the supreme court (in 
 the person of Mr. Stephen), with a salary of pre- 
 cisely that annual amount. The necessity for 
 his appointment may be estimated from the 
 fact that only one criminal and not one civil 
 case for the supreme court, had arisen at Otago 
 in three years, and that there were already two 
 j udges of the Supreme court in the colony, whose 
 offices were almost sinecures. 
 
 Major Richmond's was a similar case. When 
 it was determined to convert the Wellington 
 
124 PRESENT GOVERNMENT: 
 
 Superintendency into a Lieutenant-governorship, 
 and to confer it on Mr. Eyre, orders were sent 
 out to the Governor to provide for the Super- 
 intendent an office of not less value than that 
 taken from him. The Governor had no such 
 office in his gift, but the office of Eesident 
 magistrate at Nelson was converted into a 
 Superintendency, the salary increased from 250L 
 to 500L a-year, (the duties remaining precisely 
 the same as before), and Major Richmond was 
 installed in the office. 
 
 Patronage being so exercised, it is not sur- 
 prising to hear the colonists complaining of the 
 inefficiency and incompetency of the officials. 
 An instance or two may be given. In January 
 last a deputation of settlers waited on the 
 Governor on business of importance. The 
 Attorney-general and Colonial secretary were 
 present officially. To the surprise of the depu- 
 tation, the Governor and both the above-named 
 officials were entirely ignorant that the lands 
 within the settlements which had formerly 
 vested in the New Zealand Company, had for 
 six months past been re-vested in the crown. 
 The point arose on an act of Parliament, which 
 had been constantly before them for three years 
 and a half, and for some months past ought to 
 have been their daily study ; and it involved 
 the rights of the crown and local government 
 
DEFECTS OF. 125 
 
 over all the settled lands in the southern pro- 
 vince. It was not till a correspondence had 
 taken place with the colonial secretary the fol- 
 lowing day, that the governor could be con- 
 vinced of the oversight. A few months before 
 this, in consequence of a dispute between a 
 party and the registrar of deeds, a case was 
 referred to the supreme court for decision ; 
 when it turned out, that the system of registra- 
 tion in force was directly contrary to the pro- 
 visions of the ordinance establishing it that 
 the government had in fact for ten years been 
 working the wheels of its own machine the 
 wrong way, and all it had done was invalid in 
 consequence.* A complaint was made against 
 a resident magistrate. The colonial secretary 
 of the southern province wrote to the complain- 
 ants admitting its justice ; and by the same 
 post he wrote to the magistrate thanking him 
 for the able manner in which he had always 
 performed his duties. The magistrate got a 
 copy of the other letter, put both into an 
 envelope, and sent them back again. The 
 colonial secretary of the other province refused 
 in council to receive a protest, c because it con- 
 tained no reasons in favour of the measure 
 
 * See Judge Chapman's decision in the Wellington 
 Independent, August 24, 1850. 
 
126 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 
 
 protested against \ and the same gentleman 
 moved to strike out of an appropriation Bill the 
 words, f not exceeding/ I might fill pages with 
 instances of this sort, many of which came 
 under my own observation ; but it is not neces- 
 sary to pursue the topic. Some further in- 
 stances will occur incidentally in subsequent 
 pages. 
 
 3. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 
 
 The liberty of the subject rests on nothing so 
 much as the independence of the judges, and 
 all historians concur in praising those monarchs 
 who have contributed to place it on a secure 
 basis. In England they hold their office during 
 good behaviour, and can only be removed on 
 an address from both Houses of Parliament. 
 In New Zealand (as I believe in most colonies) 
 they hold office at the pleasure of the crown, 
 that is virtually, of the governor; and the only 
 security for the impartial administration of jus- 
 tice in cases where the crown may be interested, 
 is to be found in the personal character of the 
 individuals on the bench in respect of which, 
 though New Zealand is fortunate, yet it is a 
 mere accident and affords no constitutional 
 security for the future. It is not creditable that 
 such a system should exist in any part of the 
 
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 127 
 
 British dominions, and it ought to be abolished 
 without delay. 
 
 The provision for the administration of sum- 
 mary justice is also unsatisfactory, and a system 
 objectionable in itself has been made worse by 
 the manner in which it has been applied. 
 
 There is in every settlement a salaried Resi- 
 dent magistrate, who has in most cases the 
 power of two justices of peace, and who also 
 possesses a civil jurisdiction to the amount of 
 20Z. between Europeans, and to any amount 
 between natives, being assisted in the latter case 
 by two native assessors. 
 
 It is intelligible why in the metropolis and 
 other large towns in England, the system of 
 employing salaried magistrates has been resorted 
 to. It is necessary in such cases to have the 
 law administered by persons professionally ac- 
 quainted with it, and of course their services 
 can only be obtained by paying for them. 
 
 But in New Zealand, though the Resident 
 magistrates are paid (and very well paid too), 
 not one of the whole number is a lawyer, or 
 possesses any law-administering quality which 
 would be considered marketable in this country. 
 Seven out of eleven are military or naval 
 officers ; some of them on duty with their regi- 
 ments ; one a nautical surveyor ; one an archi- 
 tect and land agent ; the remaining two being 
 
128 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.. 
 
 gentlemen who were never brought up to any 
 profession.* Their salaries vary from 100. to 
 5001. a year, and some have salaried clerks to 
 assist them, and forage for a horse in addition. 
 
 But it may be supposed that a number of in- 
 dependent unpaid magistrates, serve to counter- 
 balance these salaried officers of government. 
 It is not so. Take the Wellington bench for 
 example. There are upon it the Resident magis- 
 trate and eight paid government officers, such 
 as the colonial secretary, attorney-general, &c., 
 while there are only seven who are not in 
 government pay; and of these seven one lives 
 at a distance from Wellington which precludes 
 his ever sitting on the bench, and another is 
 often absent from the colony. There are also 
 in the commission six military officers (on duty 
 with their regiments,) who however seldom 
 act. For all practical purposes there is at all 
 times a working majority of paid government 
 officials on the bench. 
 
 * Major Brydges, at Bay of Islands; Major Beckham, 
 at Auckland; Captain King, R.N., at New Plymouth; 
 Captain Smith, at Manakau; Captain Kenny, at Otah- 
 ahau; Major Durie, at Waikanae; Major Richmond, 
 at Nelson; Mr. St. Hill, at Wellington; Mr. Hamilton, 
 at Wanganui; Mr. Strode, at Otago, and Mr. Watson, 
 at Akaroa. A strong inclination to employ military 
 men in civil affairs to the exclusion of colonists has 
 been shown in New Zealand. 
 
 
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 129 
 
 Nor has the government hesitated to inter- 
 fere directly with their deliberations. On a 
 recent occasion, a resolution had been passed 
 by the bench at Wellington, (in a perfectly 
 respectful tone) which was contrary to the wishes 
 of the local government. The Kesident magis- 
 trate and inspector of police concurred in it. 
 They received a severe reprimand from the 
 colonial secretary, and were distinctly informed 
 (in a letter which I read) that whenever any 
 question affecting the government should be 
 before the bench, all salaried officials who might 
 be sitting as magistrates, were expected to 
 refrain from voting against it. 
 
 One such instance is sufficient to destroy all 
 confidence in the bench ; and it has done so, as 
 is proved by the fact that when any case came 
 before it, in which government was concerned, 
 (such as a dispute with custom-house officers, &c.) 
 it was a very usual practice for the other party 
 to canvass the independent magistrates, and 
 request their attendance to see fair play. This 
 happened to myself twice within the last six 
 months that I was in the colony, and the reason 
 was on each occasion distinctly stated. 
 
 Complaints are common among the colonists 
 of the personal unfitness of many of the resident 
 magistrates, and the following anecdotes would 
 show that they are not without foundation. 
 
 K 
 
130 ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. 
 
 One of them sent a party 300 miles, to be tried 
 by the supreme court on a charge of felony, 
 whose offence consisted in being found asleep in 
 a cellar where he had no business to be. There 
 was a long file of witnesses whose expenses, I 
 suppose, had to be paid by the colonial treasury. 
 Another assured a party charged before him 
 that it was the policy of the law of England 
 always to consider a man guilty till he proved 
 himself innocent; while a third exhibited his 
 legal ability by contending against an unpaid 
 brother justice, that the laws of England had 
 no operation in a colony. 
 
 There seems no reason why summary justice 
 should not be administered in the colony by 
 unpaid justices : they would have as much pro- 
 fessional knowledge as the paid ones, and might 
 be assisted by a paid professional clerk. Inde- 
 pendently of the bench being relieved from the 
 suspicion of a government leaning, to which the 
 present system necessarily subjects it, it is of no 
 little importance to accustom the colonists to 
 administer justice themselves, and to familiarize 
 them with the laws. 
 
 4. CURRENCY, AND INTESTATE ESTATES. 
 
 The currency of New Zealand has, till recently, 
 consisted of specie and the notes of the Union 
 
CURRENCY. 131 
 
 Bank of Australia. The issue of paper money 
 by private banks or individuals has, however, 
 been recently prohibited, though the existing 
 circulation of notes of the Union Bank is per- 
 mitted to continue for a time. 
 
 It has been a favourite theory among a sec- 
 tion of writers on the currency to put the 
 issue of paper money on the same footing as 
 that of the metallic currency to make its 
 issue the exclusive privilege of the Crown. 
 In 1847, Governor Grey was directed by the 
 Colonial Office to pass an ordinance creating a 
 government bank, and which was to embody the 
 following leading points : 1. The business of 
 the bank was to be limited to receiving specie 
 and issuing paper in return. 2. The notes to be 
 payable in cash on demand at the bank of 
 issue. 3. To be legal tender for sums above 2. 
 4. Specie equal to one-third of the issue always 
 to be retained in hand. 5. The balance of specie 
 received to be invested on certain specified 
 government securities. 6. All other banks and 
 private parties to be prohibited from issuing 
 paper money. 
 
 The ordinance passed* however, differed most 
 materially from Lord Grey's instructions and, 
 on one point of vital importance. The whole 
 
 * Sess. viii., No. 16 ; confirmed 12th April, 1850. 
 K2 
 
132 CURRENCY. 
 
 foundation on which the plan rests is, that the 
 specie received shall be invested only on the best 
 securities, and always be forthcoming when 
 wanted. Lord Grey had taken some, though 
 perhaps insufficient, precautions on this head, 
 but his instructions were disregarded, and power 
 retained for the Governor to invest or use the 
 bank funds as he might please. The invest- 
 ments of surplus specie are, by the ordinance, to 
 be in the governor's sole discretion. There is 
 nothing to prevent his lending it to any depart- 
 ment of the local government he may invest 
 it in debentures of his own issue nay, by a 
 little ingenuity, he could even discount private 
 paper, though not at the banking house, the ulti- 
 mate payment of the bank-notes being charged 
 on the general revenue. 
 
 This did not escape the eye of the Lords of 
 the Treasury, when the ordinance was referred 
 home for confirmation. They pointed it out, 
 and Lord Grey (while confirming the ordinance 
 in other respects) directed its amendment in 
 two or three particulars; among others, providing 
 for the investment of the specie in the British 
 funds. Banks, however, were opened at Auck- 
 land and Wellington, which had been in opera- 
 tion for nearly twelve months at the latest dates 
 from the colony, and the requisite alterations had 
 not then been made. 
 
 But this is not the only apparent illegality 
 
CURRENCY. 1 33 
 
 connected with the bank. Its very constitution 
 is, as far as can be ascertained, fundamentally 
 invalid and illegal. The charter of the colony 
 expressly prohibits the Governor and his legisla- 
 tive council from establishing a paper currency 
 of this description without special permission 
 from the crown first given. No such permission 
 seems to have been issued, as far as can be 
 judged from the Blue Books and other parlia- 
 mentary papers. 
 
 The legality of the transaction appears there- 
 fore at least open to doubt ; but the considera- 
 tions suggested by it are of far graver moment 
 even than the validity of the bank paper. It 
 exemplifies in a striking manner some of the 
 most prominent features of colonial misgovern- 
 ment a Governor disobeying his instructions 
 without rebuke a nominal legislature regis- 
 tering at his bidding an act doubtful at least in 
 point of law, and contrary to all sound policy, 
 in defiance of public opinion, expressed in the 
 most unequivocal manner. And as to the mea- 
 sure itself, think what would be said in England 
 if an act were passed to place the funds of the 
 Bank of England at the disposal of the Govern- 
 ment to make Bank of England paper legal 
 tender, and to charge all possible losses on the 
 consolidated fund. 
 
 That the paper currency of the colony should 
 be confined to that of a bank established under 
 
134 CURRENCY. 
 
 such circumstances is scarcely satisfactory. But 
 even if royal instructions should have been issued, 
 and Lord Grey's amendment requiring the 
 investment of the surplus specie in the British 
 funds were carried out, the measure is one which 
 appears to give the Colonial Office an unconsti- 
 tutional control of the most objectionable de- 
 scription over the finances of the colonists. 
 Suppose that, in the course of a few years, a 
 large sum should be invested in the British 
 funds in the names of commissioners or other- 
 wise, and that any dispute should arise between 
 the colonists and the Colonial Office respecting 
 pecuniary matters, such as the right of the latter 
 to charge the cost of the pensioner emigration, 
 or similar large sums, on the colonial revenue ; 
 what is to prevent the Office from settling the 
 dispute by appropriating the bank investment ? 
 Something of the sort was done in reference to 
 the New South Wales land fund in 1840, when 
 the colonists learned with surprise that a sum of 
 about 300,000?., which had been placed in the 
 hands of commissioners in England had been 
 appropriated to the payment of what was called 
 a back debt due from the colony to the home 
 government for military and other expenditure, 
 about the incurring of which the colonists had 
 never been consulted. 
 
 But independently of the unpleasant relation 
 towards the home government, in which the pro- 
 
INTESTATE ESTATES. 135 
 
 posed investment might place the colonists, they 
 naturally feel jealous of intrusting to the hands 
 of the local authorities, over which they have 
 no control, powers so liable to abuse as those 
 the ordinance confers. Without imputing any 
 intentional dishonesty, it is well known that in 
 the absence of representative government, great 
 liberties are not unfrequently taken with public 
 money; and an incident which happened in 
 the colony just when the bank was being esta- 
 blished, was not calculated to increase the con- 
 fidence of the colonists in the local government 
 as a trustee of public funds of any sort. The 
 particulars were these : 
 
 According to the original practice established 
 in New Zealand all intestate estates vested in 
 the Eegistrar of the Supreme court, who was 
 obliged to give a general security for their safe 
 keeping ; and if he had an unusually large 
 amount in hand he was required by the Judges 
 to find extra and special security. The funds 
 were thus in the safe custody of the court and 
 under the control of the Judges, who were in 
 the habit of exercising great vigilance in the 
 matter. 
 
 About three years ago Governor Grey took 
 these funds out of the hands of the registrar of 
 the Supreme court, and directed them for the 
 future to be deposited with the local treasurers 
 and sub-treasurers of the provincial govern- 
 
136 INTESTATE ESTATES. 
 
 ment, in common with the general proceeds of 
 the colonial revenue. This was done against 
 the protest of one at least of the two Judges- 
 
 The consequence was not long in exhibiting 
 itself. An intestate estate of considerable amount 
 (that of Mr. Perry, who was drowned in Cook's 
 Strait, in 1846 or 1847,) had in consequence of 
 there being English creditors, been a long time in 
 course of winding up. Part of it had been distri- 
 buted, but a considerable sum remained, (or 
 rather ought to have remained) in the hands of 
 the Nelson sub-treasurer. The judge of the 
 supreme court at Wellington, in April, 1850, 
 issued an order for the distribution to creditors 
 of about 300?. of this sum. A solicitor was 
 sent over express, and the order duly presented 
 to the sub-treasurer at Nelson, That officer 
 candidly admitted that the proceeds of the 
 estate, or some part of them at least, had been 
 spent by the government, and he dishonoured 
 the order, which was carried back to Wellington. 
 An attempt was made to persuade Judge Chap- 
 man to take it back, but he refused ; and finding 
 that the local government was inclined to treat 
 the matter with levity, he intimated that the 
 court would be compelled to enforce its order. 
 This put the government in motion, and, I be- 
 lieve, after six or eight weeks' delay, the money 
 was found somewhere and the amount paid. 
 
COMMUNICATION BETWEEN SETTLEMENTS. 137 
 
 As far as the public has been made aware, 
 this breach of trust has not been visited with 
 any censure by the higher departments of 
 government ; yet the principle involved is the 
 same as if the accountant-general of the Court 
 of Chancery, or the receiver -general of the 
 British taxes, was to prove a defaulter to the 
 amount of three or four hundred thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 5. COMMUNICATION BETWEEN DIFFERENT 
 SETTLEMENTS. 
 
 Situated as the several settlements of New 
 Zealand are connected by a saltwater highway, 
 and no other the means of communication be- 
 tween them is a matter of no little consequence. 
 Between the southern settlements a pretty brisk 
 local commerce carried on in coasting vessels, 
 and the monthly or bi-monthly transit of an 
 English emigrant ship affords some facilities ; 
 but they are not sufficiently regular or speedy 
 in their movements to answer every purpose 
 which is required. Steam is much needed, and 
 in 1848 and 1849, when Governor Grey was 
 canvassing for nominees to serve in his legisla- 
 tive council, he promised the southern settlers 
 to lose no time in introducing it, proposing to 
 effect it by an annual vote from the colonial 
 
138 COMMUNICATION BETWEEN 
 
 revenue, as a bonus to induce ship-owners to 
 undertake it. Nothing, however, has hitherto 
 been done towards it, except his writing a 
 despatch to the Colonial Office on the subject, 
 asking for a grant of money ; to which a ' more 
 convenient season' sort of answer is given, and 
 nothing either done or promised. 
 
 The means of communication with Auckland, 
 (the seat of government,) are very defective. 
 There is an overland mail, carried by a native, 
 which is three weeks on the road, and affords 
 the prospect of an answer in seven or eight 
 weeks from the date of writing. There is also 
 a government brig, which occasionally, but with 
 no sort of regularity, visits the different settle- 
 ments. In fact, for months together, no com- 
 munication by sea between Auckland and the 
 Southern settlements takes place. On one occa- 
 sion the Lieutenant-governor sent despatches to 
 the former place by way of Sydney, and I have 
 myself been upwards of five months in receiving 
 a reply to a letter of pressing importance. 
 
 The government vessel might have been of 
 considerable use in lessening the inconveniences 
 arising from the distance of the capital, had 
 she been used as a regular packet between 
 the settlements. The colonists, however, com- 
 plain of her mismanagement, and state that, 
 though her maintenance has, since the colony 
 
THE SETTLEMENTS. 139 
 
 was founded, cost nearly 20,000?.,* she has not 
 really done work to the value of as many shil- 
 lings. She has generally been in an unsea- 
 worthy condition, and the accommodation for 
 passengers so extremely bad, that nobody who 
 had once been on board of her would sail in her 
 again if he could make the voyage in any other 
 way. 
 
 In May, 1850, I returned in this brig from 
 Nelson to Wellington, in company with Mr. 
 Justice Chapman, who had been at the former 
 place on duty, and three other passengers, one 
 of them a lady, It was blowing rather fresh as 
 we left the harbour, and the first thing that 
 happened to us was the carrying away of our 
 jib, which there was not another on board to 
 replace. We ought to have made the' .passage 
 in six-and-thirty hours, but the breeze falling 
 light and there not being a single stun-sail on 
 board, we were caught by a foul wind just be- 
 
 * 2000. a-year of the parliamentary grant is voted 
 for the purpose. In 1846, Mr. Hawes being asked in 
 the House of Commons what the item was for, replied, 
 ' that it was for a steamer in which the governor paid 
 his periodical visits to the settlements ! ' There is no 
 steamer, and the governor never sails in the brig, but 
 always in one of the men-of-war on the station; 
 the expense of himself and suite being a further tax on 
 the public purse. 
 
140 COMMUNICATION BETWEEN 
 
 fore we made our port. The sails were so rotten, 
 that they had all to be clewed up, the helm was 
 lashed, and we drifted back again, stern fore- 
 most through the Straits. This happened to 
 us twice before we arrived at our destination, 
 which we were six days in reaching. In the 
 meantime we were nearly starved. The whole 
 of the fresh provisions put on board at Nelson for 
 six passengers, the captain and chief mate, were 
 one very small sheep three pigeons a cabbage 
 four mouldy loaves and a kit of potatoes. We 
 were reduced at last to rancid salt pork and 
 hard mahogany-coloured beef, such as the 
 sailors call salt horse. Though the nights were 
 long, there was not a candle on board, not a 
 lamp, nor a drop of oil ; and the only substitute 
 we had, consisted in an invention of my groom's, 
 who filled a black bottle with what he called 
 ' cook's slush/ and stuck a cotton rag into it by 
 way of a wick. To add to the other annoy- 
 ances I had a valuable thorough-bred horse on 
 board, which was seriously injured and very 
 nearly killed in the gale, which the want of 
 stun-sails compelled us to encounter.* 
 
 * The refusal of the judge and other passengers to 
 pay for their passage led to some improvement in the 
 management of the brig, but she was still without 
 stunsails in January last. 
 
THE SETTLEMENTS. 141 
 
 Till the establishment of steam, the best 
 method of communication between the capital 
 and the southern settlements would be a couple 
 of smart cutters or smacks running the circuit 
 every month, which I have been assured by 
 sea-faring men could be effected by contract for 
 considerably less than half the present cost of 
 the brig. 
 
 Overland communication between the settle- 
 ments, by made roads, is entirely wanting. But 
 large sums of money (wholly, I believe, from 
 the parliamentary grants) have been expended 
 on road-making, within the settlements of Wel- 
 lington and Auckland, with the view of render- 
 ing the adjacent districts accessible from the 
 towns. The amount expended on this head, as 
 nearly as it can be estimated from the state- 
 ments published by the local government, has 
 been between 60,OOOZ. and 80,000?. It does not 
 seem to have been judiciously expended, and 
 there is not much to show for it. The best piece 
 of work is the road from Wellington to the 
 coast, about thirty miles in length, on about 
 eight of which, however, (in the centre,) little 
 labour has been expended, though the whole 
 line can be travelled. It connects Wellington 
 with a fine sea-beach, which forms a natural 
 highway to Wanganui, and the districts between. 
 The Wiararapa road is a failure. The original 
 
142 COMMUNICATION BETWEEN 
 
 estimate for its cost was 14,000. More than 
 20,000. have been expended upon it, and it 
 will probably cost 20,000?. in addition before it 
 can be used. For the last two years nothing 
 has been done to it, and the greater part of what 
 has been commenced is useless. It has been a 
 subject of much complaint among the colonists, 
 that so large a sum of money should have been 
 so expended ; and it is considered by many that 
 the whole line could have been completed at 
 half the cost, if (as the legislative council advised) 
 the work had been performed by contract, in- 
 stead of being entrusted entirely to the uncon- 
 trolled management of the Government en- 
 gineer, a very young and inexperienced person. 
 
 The want of proper ferries across the rivers is 
 also a serious impediment to travelling, and one 
 which has cost many lives. The natives, who 
 earn a few shillings by putting travellers across, 
 will not allow the government to establish 
 regular ferries in charge of European ferrymen, 
 while their own performance of the duty is 
 entirely insufficient. It often happens that for 
 hours, and even days, neither ferryman nor his 
 canoe can be found ; and when found, the latter 
 is so frail a bark, that danger always, and loss 
 of life frequently, ensues. There can be no 
 doubt that the right of establishing and main- 
 taining ferries is a branch of the sovereign power, 
 
THE SETTLEMENTS. 143 
 
 and that, under the treaty of Waitangi, (if not 
 otherwise,) it vests in the crown in New Zea- 
 land. But hitherto the Government has de- 
 clined to insist on the natives surrendering the 
 privilege into its hands, though instances of 
 such ferries over wide and dangerous waters 
 occur within a day's ride of the town of Wel- 
 lington (one within ten miles), and though the 
 native secretary has supported the colonists in 
 urging the propriety and feasibility of its doing 
 so. The censure which a coroner's jury passed 
 upon the Government, and a correspondence 
 which ensued, led to much discussion on the 
 subject at Wellington a few months ago, when 
 two valuable colonists lost their lives in that 
 settlement by the upsetting of a native ferry- 
 boat, but no step to remedy the inconvenience 
 has yet been taken.* 
 
 * In his valuable report on the Wellington natives in 
 1850, Mr. Kemp (native secretary) writes : ' The want 
 of a safe flat-bottomed boat has long been felt at the 
 mouth of the lake, where only a small canoe is now 
 kept; and as the attendance of the natives is very 
 irregular, and as they are moreover incapable of mana- 
 ging a boat in a strong tide rip, I think they should be 
 required to give up the ferry into the hands of a trust- 
 worthy European.' The warning was not attended to, 
 and within six months afterwards the two colonists, 
 abovementioned, and a native woman and child, were 
 drowned at the very spot referred to by the secretary. 
 
1 44 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 6. SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The three preceding sections have exhibited 
 in detail a few of the departments of the local 
 government ; and, taken as samples of the 
 whole, they will I think elucidate what I 
 meant by saying that there was at the same 
 time too much government and too little. A 
 great amount of machinery is worked, but its 
 operations are attended either with a bad result 
 or no result at all. The only remedy seems to 
 be to change the entire system, and adopt some 
 other which may be more effective. 
 
 In the great debate in the House of Com- 
 mons in 1845,* upon the affairs of New Zealand, 
 all parties agreed that the only remedy for the 
 evils, which all admitted to exist, was self- 
 government. Not to quote the late Sir Kobert 
 Peel or Sir James Graham, the present Prime 
 Minister expressed his decided conviction that 
 ' the voice of the settlers themselves, speaking 
 through their own representatives, could alone 
 extricate the colony from the difficulties in 
 which it was plunged/ Lord Grey (then Lord 
 Howick) hoped ' they would revert to the 
 ancient and wise policy of their ancestors, and 
 
 * See the Eeport, published by Murray. 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT. 145 
 
 allow the colonists to govern themselves/ Con- 
 trasting what our ancestors had done in America 
 two centuries ago, he ' must say that experience 
 was decidedly in favour of allowing a colony to 
 govern itself. We had before us a melancholy 
 proof of the height to which misgovernment 
 might be carried by Downing-street ; and he 
 was persuaded that it was utterly impossible for 
 any man, be his talents and industry what they 
 might, adequately to administer the affairs of 
 the British colonies, scattered as they were all 
 over the world. It would have been well for 
 the natives of New Zealand if the colony had 
 been self-governed/ And Mr. Hawes, alluding 
 to the great powers placed in the hands of Go- 
 vernor Grey, said that ' he would not object to 
 it in the present state of the colony. He would 
 at least be free from the ' laborious trifling' of 
 the Colonial Office. Do what they would, they 
 must emancipate the colony from the Colonial 
 Office ; they must lay the foundations of local 
 government, and the colony, when left as free as 
 possible, would soon display the original energy 
 of the parent stock. The remedy he proposed 
 was simply this, that the colonies should have 
 local self-government/ 
 
 Not long after the above remarks were made, 
 the colonists heard, with feelings which may be 
 easily appreciated, that Lord John Russell, Lord 
 L 
 
1 46 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Grey, and Mr. Hawes, had come into office, the 
 two latter, respectively, as Secretary and Under- 
 secretary of State for the Colonies. There would, 
 of course now be no delay in reverting c to the 
 wise policy of their ancestors, and allowing them 
 to govern themselves/ No fear of their being 
 any more troubled with the c laborious trifling' 
 of the Colonial Office. The very men who but 
 a few weeks before had declared self-government 
 the remedy for all existing evils, had now the 
 power of bestowing it. Doubtless they would 
 soon be left ' as free as possible' to administer 
 their own affairs. 
 
 The most judicious course to have pursued 
 would have been to ascertain by actual refer- 
 ence to the colonists, what sort of a constitution 
 of self-government would meet their views, and 
 be considered by them as a fulfilment of the 
 hopes which had been so lately excited. This 
 prudent course however was not adopted ; but, 
 without even the slightest hint of the views of 
 the colonists, a constitution was framed in the 
 recess, and, without having been laid before 
 Parliament, was sent out to the colony. It 
 presented some points which at first sight seemed 
 very liberal, such as a suffrage practically uni- 
 versal; but these were counterbalanced by 
 others such as the double election which 
 reduced its liberality to a mere shade; while 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT. 1 47 
 
 the whole measure was so involved, so little like 
 any constitution which had ever been seen 
 before, and so entirely deficient in that first 
 essential, simplicity of design, that the colonists 
 were not less puzzled to understand it than they 
 were disappointed at its insufficiency when they 
 did so. Nevertheless, believing that it contained 
 within itself the elements of amendment in their 
 hands, they were content to accept it as an in- 
 stalment, and were every day expecting its in- 
 troduction, when they learned that it had been 
 suspended by act of parliament for five years, and 
 no substitute provided by the act for the interval. 
 The Governor, however, was authorised by 
 the act and by the Colonial Office to introduce 
 any sort of constitution he might please in the 
 interval; and on his framing one on ultra- 
 despotic principles, he found full support from 
 the Colonial Office, notwithstanding the loud 
 and reiterated complaints of the colonists, which 
 were barely acknowledged. 
 
 However, on the 13th of May, 1850, Lord 
 John Russell announced, in the House of Com- 
 mons that in consequence of advices from Go- 
 vernor Grey, the Government was prepared to 
 bestow self-government on New Zealand imme- 
 diately, but as there was not time then to legis- 
 late on the subject (it was only the 13th May), 
 it would be postponed till the ensuing session, 
 L2 
 
1 48 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 when he would introduce a measure on the sub- 
 ject.* The c ensuing session' has now passed 
 over, and neither Lord John Russell nor any- 
 body else has, in either house of parliament, so 
 much as alluded to the New Zealand constitu- 
 tion ; and it seems certain that the colonists will 
 remain another year, if not many more years, 
 in what has been well styled, ' the sad condition 
 of being subject to the will of an unlimited 
 man/ 
 
 And now let us inquire into the acts of 
 Governor Grey in the colony, in reference to 
 this question. 
 
 His first movement was during the short 
 secretaryship of Mr. Gladstone, in 1846. Pos- 
 sibly he had heard of the very liberal views 
 entertained on the subject of colonial govern- 
 ment by that statesman. At all events he wrote 
 to him, recommending the introduction of self- 
 government into the colony, and he took occa- 
 sion particularly to describe the fitness for it 
 of the colonists in the southern settlements. 
 ' With a considerable acquaintance/ he says, 
 ' with British settlements, I can have no hesita- 
 tion in recording my opinion, that there never 
 was a body of settlers to whom the power of 
 local self-government could be more wisely and 
 
 Hansard, 1850. 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT. 149 
 
 judiciously entrusted, than the inhabitants of 
 the settlements to which I am alluding/ Before 
 this recommendation reached home, Lord Grey's 
 constitution was on its way out. On its recep- 
 tion, the Governor wrote to Lord Grey, objecting 
 to its details, observing, 'that it introduced 
 changes greater than he thought prudent/ and 
 suggesting a constitution pretty much on the 
 established Colonial Office model, consisting 
 partly of nominees and partly of representa- 
 tives. The home government having on this 
 rushed from one extreme to another, and Lord 
 Grey's new constitution having been suspended 
 for five years, the Governor was authorised to 
 add, if he thought proper, to the existing constitu- 
 tion of the colony, a Provincial Government, 
 formed either on an entirely representative, a 
 partly representative, or an absolutely despotic 
 principle.* 
 
 He chose the latter, and to justify his doing 
 so, he who had but lately described the colonists 
 as so remarkably fitted for self-government, 
 now turned round, and after enumerating i the 
 disappointed applicants for office, the land- 
 
 * See section 4 of the Suspending Act ; Lord Grey's 
 despatch of 18th March, 1848; and the replies of Messrs. 
 Labouchere, Buller, and the Attorney-general to Lord 
 Lincoln in the House of Commons, February 9, 1848. 
 
150 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 sharks, the aliens, the various persons arriving 
 from the Pacific, the Americans, and other per- 
 sons disaffected towards the British, or, indeed, 
 towards any government/ * with whom he finds 
 the colony is teeming, he asks, what advantage 
 is to be gained by introducing self-government 
 among so small a number of Europeans, who, 
 were demanding the power of expending a 
 revenue arising from the British treasury, and 
 who would probably quarrel with the natives, 
 and involve the colony in the worst conse- 
 quences, if free institutions were bestowed upon 
 them ? This was in March, 1849. 
 
 The step aroused the colonists. Associations 
 Were formed in the different settlements, nume- 
 rous petitions and memorials, complaining of 
 Sir George's conduct, and dissecting his pub- 
 lished statements, were sent home. There they 
 proved altogether ineffectual; but the general 
 excitement in the colony, which instead of sub- 
 siding continued to increase, appears to have 
 alarmed the Governor, and within eight months 
 after his describing the extreme unfitriess of the 
 colony, as above, he writes home announcing its 
 complete fitness, (forgetting, no doubt, 'the 
 aliens, the land-sharks, the Americans, and other 
 
 * Parliamentary Further Papers. New Zealand, 
 1850, p. 59. 
 
SELF-GOVERNMENT. 151 
 
 disaffected persons/) and recommends the im- 
 mediate introduction of self-government.* And 
 then, without waiting to receive a reply from 
 the home government, he produced in the 
 colony a portion of a constitution such as he 
 stated he had recommended, and proposed to 
 introduce it at once ; which, as it related solely 
 to the provincial department, he had the power 
 to do under the instructions given him in 1846. 
 He laid his measure before the colonists, and it 
 proved, as many expected it would, a mere 
 delusion a simple transcript, in all its leading 
 features, of the old Colonial Office model, which, 
 while it gives the outward semblance of self- 
 government to the colonists, retains all the 
 reality of power in the hands of the governor. 
 Large public meetings were held at Wellington, 
 Nelson, and Auckland ; the subject underwent 
 a complete discussion during an agitation which 
 lasted for upwards of three months, and it 
 ended in the unanimous condemnation of Sir 
 George's measure, and a suggestion of a form of 
 constitution very different from it, which the 
 colonists consider adapted to their circumstances. 
 I will in the next section briefly notice the 
 leading features of the measures proposed by 
 Lord Grey, Sir George Grey, and the colonists. 
 
 Parliamentary Further Papers, August, 1850, p. 104. 
 
152 SELF-GOVERNMENT. 
 
 It is not surprising if treatment such as the 
 colonists have thus received from both the home 
 and local government should create feelings of 
 the greatest bitterness among them. There are 
 few of them who do not think and feel strongly 
 on such matters. Self-government has long been 
 regarded by them as the cardinal point of colo- 
 nial politics ; and the voluntary excitement of 
 their dearest hopes, ending in a series of disap- 
 pointments extending over a period of six 
 years, is felt to be most cruel, and unworthy of 
 the parent State. And when it is remembered 
 that the colonists are men of energy, resolution 
 -and enterprise, who have staked their all in the 
 colony ; that many of them are persons of high 
 intelligence and the best education, fellows and 
 members of i the English, Scotch, or Foreign 
 universities, respectable merchants, or sturdy 
 yeomen and farmers, accustomed to exercise the 
 franchise in the home country, or familiarized, 
 by foreign travel with the institutions of other 
 nations ; when it is considered that their 
 earnest desire for self-government, and their con- 
 viction of the fitness of the colony for it, have been 
 thwarted by the opinion of one man of certainly 
 no greater intelligence or position in the home 
 country than many of them, and whose experience 
 has been limited almost entirely to the narrow 
 institutions of New Holland, and the still nar- 
 
CONSTITUTIONS. 153 
 
 rower interests of one of its settlements, when 
 these factsare called to mind, we cannot help won- 
 dering at the infatuation which perseveres in a 
 course so certain to alienate the affections of 
 what was at one time one of the most loyal and 
 attached of the British colonies. A generous 
 loyalty is the offspring of a free spirit, drawn by 
 natural impulse towards the institutions under 
 which it has sprung up and flourished ; it will 
 never long exist in the breasts of Englishmen 
 towards those whom they feel to be their oppres- 
 sors. For a time they may distinguish between 
 the Colonial Office and the Crown, but the gene- 
 ral apathy of the home public, and even of some 
 who call themselves colonial reformers, and the 
 total inattention with which their urgent com- 
 plaints are received, cannot fail in the long 
 run to break the hearts of the colonists or sour 
 their tempers towards the Old Country. Once 
 implant such a feeling, and the experience of 
 America teaches that a century will not eradi- 
 cate it. 
 
 7. CONSTITUTIONS, EXISTING AND PKOPOSED. 
 
 I shall now give a brief outline of the four 
 different constitutions which have been proposed 
 for New Zealand : 
 
 1. LOKD GREY'S. The colony is to be divided 
 
154 CONSTITUTIONS. 
 
 into provinces, of which, in the first instance, 
 there are to be two. These provinces are to be 
 subdivided into boroughs or municipalities. 
 Each province and each borough will have its 
 own legislative and executive government, while 
 a general or federal government will comprise 
 the whole. The working of the machinery com- 
 mences from below ; the municipal institutions 
 are first to be organized. These consist of a 
 mayor, aldermen, and common councillors, 
 elected on a franchise which is practically 
 universal, viz., the occupation of any tenement 
 within the borough for six months, by a male 
 adult. Then follow the provincial institutions. 
 These consist of an upper house and a lower ; 
 the former nominated by, and holding office at 
 the pleasure of the crown ; the latter elected by 
 the mayor, aldermen, and common councillors 
 of the several boroughs. Lastly, the general or 
 federal institutions, consisting likewise of two 
 chambers, the upper selected by the governor 
 from the upper provincial houses ; the lower, 
 elected from themselves by the members of the 
 lower provincial houses. 
 
 Such a constitution could scarcely be expected 
 to work. It contains the elements of discord, 
 and is based on principles altogether at variance 
 with each other. The foundation of the whole 
 is universal suffrage ; but the moment the first 
 
CONSTITUTIONS. 155 
 
 step has been taken on this principle, it is re- 
 traced, and the power which was apparently 
 vested in the people is found to be handed over 
 to the mayors and aldermen. This system of 
 electoral chambers, or double election, is not 
 new it has been tried in Spain, and else- 
 where, and always failed. Then the creation 
 of a nominated upper house (very different from 
 an hereditary upper house), and an elective lower 
 one, is certain to lead to a conflict between the 
 two, and a dead lock of the wheels of the govern- 
 ment machine. 
 
 Lord Grey also provides for the reservation of 
 a civil list, the amount and application of which 
 are to be in the discretion of the lords of the 
 treasury in England. This is, of course, fatal to 
 all pretences of its being a system of responsible 
 government in the hands of the colonists. 
 
 And lastly, the entire executive department 
 of government, federal and provincial, is placed 
 in the hands of the governor. 
 
 2. GOVERNOR GREY'S constitution of 1848, 
 now in force in the colony, adopts the provincial 
 division of Lord Grey provides a single legisla- 
 tive chamber in each province consisting solely 
 of ex officio members of the government, and 
 nominees appointed by the governor, and re- 
 movable at the pleasure of the Colonial Office. 
 
 A federal legislative chamber, consisting of 
 
156 CONSTITUTIONS. 
 
 one house, composed of the same elements as 
 the provincial. A civil list is reserved in each 
 province ; the amount and appropriation at the 
 discretion of the lords of the British treasury, 
 who, for the present, have fixed it at 60001. 
 a-year, but which Governor Grey has recom- 
 mended to be increased to 10,OOOZ. a sum which 
 would absorb nearly one-half of the existing 
 revenue, and in case of a subdivision of the 
 provinces, and creation of smaller new ones, 
 would for some years absorb the whole. The 
 entire executive power, without check or control, 
 is vested in the Governor. 
 
 3. GOVERNOR GREY'S constitution, No. 2, stated 
 by him to have been recommended to the home 
 government in November, 1849.* The pro- 
 vincial division as before. A single legislative 
 chamber consisting of one-third nominees of 
 
 * This is the date of Governor Grey's recantation 
 of his despatch of the previous 22nd March. But his 
 despatch of November, 1849, does not contain any re- 
 commendation of a specific form of government such as 
 he proposed in the colony, and said he had recommended 
 at home ; nor can I find it elsewhere in the Parliamen- 
 tary papers. It appears by the latest news from the 
 colony, that he has been since promising the daily 
 arrival of a double chamber constitution. Thus are the 
 colonists doomed to further disappointments, for none 
 such has been framed or gone out from home. 
 
CONSTITUTIONS. 157 
 
 the Governor, and two-thirds elected members ; 
 the franchise for their election being, to be 
 an adult male possessed of a freehold estate 
 of the value of 501. ; a leasehold of the value 
 of 101. a-year, or to be a householder in a 
 town of the value of 10Z. a-year, in the country, 
 of 51. a-year. The form of federal govern- 
 ment is understood to have been recommended 
 by the Governor on a similar basis, but with a 
 qualification for membership. The civil list 
 remains as before. 
 
 The laws passed under the above constitutions 
 (both Lord Grey's and the Governor's) are all 
 subject to disallowance by the Governor, and by 
 the Colonial office also, an absolute veto being 
 reserved to both. 
 
 And the waste lands of the colony are still to 
 be administered by the crown, the colonists 
 having no voice whatever in the matter. 
 
 It is evident that the reservation of a civil list, 
 making the executive government of the colony 
 independent of the colonists, and the power of the 
 Governor to appoint a third part of the legislative 
 council, togetherwith the vetos reserved to the Go- 
 vernor and Crown, deprive Governor Grey's pro- 
 posed constitution of all the reality of self-govern- 
 ment. It is true that, like Lord Grey's, it presents 
 an external appearance of liberality by the crea- 
 tion of an elective franchise almost universal. But 
 
158 CONSTITUTIONS. 
 
 what can the elected members do when they take 
 their seats in the legislature ? They have only 
 a small portion of the revenue subjected to their 
 control, while they are liable to be thwarted by 
 the nominated members; and if they succeed in 
 spite of them in passing a law, it may be imme- 
 diately disallowed by the Governor ; or, if he 
 thinks proper to shift the responsibility off his 
 own shoulders, it may be treated in the same 
 manner by the Colonial Office. 
 
 4. In short, none of these proposed constitu- 
 tions provide a particle of self-government. The 
 colonists seem to understand in what it consists. 
 They demand the absolute control of their own 
 revenue, and of the Executive Government. They 
 insist on the exclusion of Government nominees 
 from the legislature, and they will admit of no 
 veto on their local legislation, except that of the 
 governor exercised on his independent responsi- 
 bility, and without the control of the Colonial 
 Office. They have proposed a constitution, of 
 which the following are the leading features : 
 A legislature consisting of two chambers, both 
 entirely elective. A franchise universal, except 
 as far as limited by twelve months' residence. 
 No qualification for membership in the lower 
 house. Greater age and longer residence the 
 qualification for membership in the upper. No 
 civil list to be reserved. The judges to hold 
 
CONSTITUTIONS. 159 
 
 office, as in England, during good behaviour ; 
 and not, as now, at the pleasure of the crown. 
 The lower house to be elected for three years, 
 the upper for five. No veto to be exercised by 
 the Colonial Office, nor any interference by it 
 permitted in any matter purely local, and not 
 involving imperial interests. These are the 
 principles they lay down. All questions of 
 detail they propose to leave to the legislative 
 councils when formed. Whether the form 
 in which they propose to embody their prin- 
 ciples is the best will of course admit of dis- 
 cussion ; but it is certain that no form will 
 satisfy them which does not provide for the 
 development of the principle of self-government 
 in all local matters whatsoever. They do not 
 want to interfere in the affairs of the Imperial 
 Government, but neither do they wish the impe- 
 rial government to interfere with their local 
 affairs. They conceive themselves quite as able 
 to judge of the expediency of any law relating 
 to local interests as the gentlemen in Downing- 
 street who have never seen the colony, or their 
 deputy the governor, who has no stake in it, 
 can be. They imagine themselves as competent 
 to judge of the merits of public officers, of the 
 necessity of employing them, and the amount of 
 remuneration to be paid for their services. 
 They think that they will be likely to decide 
 
160 CONSTITUTIONS. 
 
 quite as well on all which concerns themselves, 
 their prosperity and advancement, which they 
 know and feel to have been most seriously 
 affected and retarded by the acts of the Colonial 
 Office. They contend, with honest indignation, 
 as Lord Grey contended in 1845, that the 
 natives are as safe in their hands as in those of 
 Downing- street, to whose mismanagement they 
 attribute, as Lord Grey attributed, all the mis- 
 chiefs which have occurred in reference to 
 them, as well as in great degree the probability 
 of their extinction. Their principle in short is 
 simply, Local government for local matters ; Im- 
 perial for imperial only. 
 
 Their suggestions are now before the home 
 Government, and will doubtless be noticed 
 whenever a measure is brought before parlia- 
 ment on the subject. If the Colonial Secretary 
 and Under Secretary were ever sincere in their 
 talk about self government, they will bestow 
 institutions at least substantially in accordance 
 with the wishes of the colonists. If they adhere 
 to the old Colonial office form, with its nominees, 
 civil lists, dependent judges, vetos and so 
 forth, they will merely by their legislation lay 
 the foundation of years of agitation and dis- 
 content. 
 
 The leading feature to be secured is the com- 
 plete localization of the institutions of govern- 
 
CONSTITUTIONS. 161 
 
 ment. I have pointed out in niy first chapter 
 the separate and distinct character of the six 
 several colonies of New Zealand. Physically 
 and socially they have no more connexion than 
 the early American colonies had. To ensure 
 effective government, they should be politically 
 as independent of each other. I do not mean 
 by this that a duplicate of the Colonial Office 
 establishments now existing at Auckland and 
 Wellington should be bestowed upon each of 
 the others, at a cost of some 10,000?. a-year in 
 each, and with its share of local and home 
 patronage. Such blisters would absorb every 
 particle of moisture in the social body. But 
 give each colony the frame-work of a simple 
 elective legislative and executive power in all 
 matters locally peculiar to itself; bind them 
 together by a federal government in a few 
 essential particulars, involving federal interests, 
 (such as the regulation of customs, &c.) and 
 leave them to work out the rest them- 
 selves. This was evidently what the late Sir 
 Robert Peel had in his mind when he con- 
 cluded the great debate of 1845, and it is 
 the only practical and permanent remedy for 
 the chronic distempers of New Zealand. 
 
 Delay will make the task more difficult every- 
 day. Deprived of all legitimate political action, 
 the colonists will become unfit for it. They are 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 CONSTITUTIONS. 
 
 not now so capable of self-government as they 
 were eight or ten years ago. They have for- 
 gotten much that they knew, much that they 
 had seen in the parent country; they have been 
 brought in some instances under influences 
 fatal to independence of character ; and some 
 are even to be found who, casting aside all poli- 
 tical thought, are willing to sit down con- 
 tented with things as they are. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 TRANSFER OF LAND. 
 
 IN a newly-settled country, the transactions relating 
 to land are, proportionally, much more numerous 
 than in an old one. Every day somebody is buying, 
 selling, leasing, or otherwise dealing with that species 
 of property. It is the savings' bank of the labouring 
 man, in which he invests not only his earnings, but his 
 whole heart and energies, as has been so well described 
 by Mr. Mill and M. Michelet. Consequently many of 
 the transactions relate to very small allotments, often 
 not exceeding five acres, to which another five will be 
 added when more wages have been saved. And hence 
 (though in fact it is not less important to the class 
 which owns large estates,) there results in a more evi- 
 dent manner the importance of a cheap and expeditious 
 method of transferring that species of property which, 
 by a feudal form of expression, is still called 'real 
 estate/ 
 
 In New Zealand, the law relating to the ownership 
 and transfer of land, is substantially the same as in 
 England, though modified in some particulars (not very 
 artistically) by ordinances of the local legislature, 
 passed in 1842. . In the simple state of facts which 
 titles exhibit in their earlier stages of existence, the in- 
 conveniences of the 'prolix and intricate system' of 
 English conveyancing, are comparatively little felt ; but 
 when titles become more complex, and are derived from 
 a more remote origin, there is no reason to expect that 
 the evils which attend it in England will not be equally 
 felt in New Zealand. It would be a most desirable 
 
164 APPENDIX. 
 
 thing if a system could be introduced at once which 
 should obviate the possibility of such an event. 
 
 A method of transfer by registration has been pro- 
 posed by some law reformers in England, which, 
 whether it be applicable or not in the old country, 
 could, I think, be introduced without difficulty into the 
 colony; which would ultimately save to the community 
 nearly the whole of the immense cost incurred under 
 the present English system ; and would place titles to 
 land on a secure and transparent basis. I allude to 
 the proposal to assimilate the transfer of landed pro- 
 perty to that of Bank Stock. 
 
 In any country in which this system is to be intro- 
 duced, there must be prepared a set of maps or plans 
 of such districts as it may be found convenient to divide 
 the country into. On each of these must be delineated 
 with accuracy, the general boundaries of every estate 
 held as a separate tenement. Such plans would in an 
 old country be costly, but in New Zealand they either 
 exist already, or are in process of preparation wherever 
 the country is being settled. 
 
 The plans being prepared, the local registrar must 
 open a set of books headed in accordance with them, 
 in which a separate page must be appropriated to 
 every estate numbered on the plan. Thus, to take 
 Canterbury for an instance, there would be a volume for 
 the Sumner district, another for the Wilberforce, a third 
 for the Whately, or a more minute subdivision if neces- 
 sary ; and under each of these heads a separate page 
 would be allotted to section 1, another to section 2, 
 and so on. When the registration commenced, every 
 landowner would produce to the local registrar his 
 land order, or other evidence of title, on inspection of 
 which an entry would be made in the page appro- 
 priated to his estate, in the register, and at the same 
 time a certificate corresponding exactly with such 
 
TRANSFER OF LAND. 165 
 
 entry be issued to him. It would be simply to this 
 effect : 
 
 ' CANTERBURY, District of Sumner. 
 
 ' I hereby certify that A. B. is the registered owner 
 of Section 1, Sumner District, containing fifty acres, or 
 thereabouts. 
 
 'Lyttelton, Jan. 1, 1852.' 
 
 This registration being effected and the certificate 
 issued, the owner of the estate in question would have 
 as valid a title, and a far more easily transferable 
 one, than if it rested on the united labours and 
 ingenuity of all Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 Suppose that he should wish to mortgage the land 
 so registered, he would have nothing to do but to hand 
 over his certificate to the party lending him the money, 
 accompanied by a memorandum to this effect : 
 
 * Memorandum. That I have borrowed of E. F., 
 this day, 2001. t at 10 per cent., upon deposit of the 
 annexed certificate. If not paid in full this day six 
 months, E. F. may sell at discretion. 
 
 1st May, 1852. (Signed) A. B. 
 
 'Witness, G. H.' 
 
 E. F. would take these documents to the registrar, 
 who would make an entry of the transaction, under 
 the proper head, and issue a certificate in conformity 
 with it, destroying or filing the original certificate of 
 ownership granted to A. B. When the mortgage is 
 paid off, a discharge would be endorsed on the mort- 
 gage certificate by the mortgagee; the mortgagor 
 would present it to the registrar, who would cancel the 
 mortgage entry in his books, and issue a new certifi- 
 cate of simple ownership, or re-issue the original one, 
 if filed. 
 
 Similar entries and certificates would attend every 
 
166 APPENDIX. 
 
 lease, judgment, or other simple transaction, and sub- 
 ordinate entries (in a separate book with references) 
 might be made in case of sub-leases, or assignments of 
 judgments and mortgages. As far as all the simple 
 and ordinary transfers of property are concerned, this 
 system could scarcely fail to work. No expense, ex- 
 cept the registrar's fees, need be incurred ; no lawyer 
 consulted ; no delay arising out of the preparation of 
 abstracts and investigation of title need occur. The 
 vendor or mortgagor would walk to the registrar's 
 office, accompanied by the vendee or mortgagee, pay a 
 few shillings to the registrar, and the largest estate in 
 the colony might change hands in ten minutes, without 
 trouble or risk. 
 
 In the case of subdivisions of estates, they would 
 have to be marked on the plan, and a subordinate" 
 account opened under such heads as ' Sumner, section 
 1, A,' * Sumner, section 1, B,' and so forth. 
 
 With transactions of a more complicated nature, as 
 marriage settlements, deeds of trust for creditors, &c., 
 it has been questioned how far their nature should be 
 noticed in the registry. The Bank of England in its 
 transfer books declines to enter into such matters. 
 It recognises the registered owner (the trustee) and 
 him only. To him it pays the dividends, to his order 
 transfers the stock. And no inconvenience seems to 
 result. The responsibility of the trustee is secured by 
 the Court of Chancery. There seems no reason, how- 
 ever, why the registrar should not, if required, record 
 fiduciary transactions so far as to give notice to parties 
 dealing with trustees of their being such; but of course 
 for purposes of transfer, treating them as absolute 
 owners. 
 
 Objections are made to this system on a superficial 
 examination of it, on the ground of the inherent differ- 
 ence between land and money as subjects of transfer. 
 
TRANSFER OF LAND. 167 
 
 Land, we are told, ' has no ear mark.' But, in fact, 
 neither the land nor the money (in case of Bank Stock) 
 are the subject of transfer, but only the title or evi- 
 dence of ownership in each. Different as acres and 
 sovereigns undoubtedly are, the title to them may be 
 identical, the same will, settlement, or deed of gift. 
 What operates as a valid transfer of that title, when 
 stock is the subject matter, may equally operate when 
 it is land. Give land its ' ear-mark' by means of a 
 plan, and the title to it may be as easily transferred as 
 that to Bank Stock. 
 
 Other objections are, the risk of fire and forgery. 
 They exist equally in respect of Bank Stock, and may 
 be provided against to great extent by a metropolitan 
 duplicate registry, and by several symbols, such as the 
 issuers of scrip, &c., are familiar with. Insurance 
 could be effected against either risk. 
 
 The only remaining objections I have ever heard 
 raised, are either such as exist equally to the present 
 system of conveyancing, or such as are removable by 
 legislation and administrative ingenuity. 
 
 The system must not be confounded with any of the 
 existing systems of registration. They only record 
 transfers previously effected by deeds involving all the 
 cost and uncertainty of which so many complaints are 
 made. The method now proposed is to effect the trans- 
 fer by means of the registry itself, not merely to make 
 the registry a record of a previous transfer. It gets 
 rid of all investigation of title ; the title being always 
 'written up' to the present time on the face of the 
 register, and it also obviates the necessity for the 
 seventy or eighty skins or any other number of 
 skins of parchment which, under the existing system, 
 are necessary to pass the title from one person to 
 another. 
 
 The plan was proposed by me to the New Zealand 
 
168 APPENDIX. 
 
 Company in 1849, and by it laid before the Colonial 
 Office, which printed it in the Slue Book for 1850, and 
 sent it out to Governor Grey, declining to prescribe the 
 enactment of measures of ' a strictly local character ;' 
 though it does not appear more so than the Government 
 bank and some others which have been prescribed 
 from home. Nothing has been done about it in the 
 colony. 
 
 The reader who wishes to examine the subject more 
 closely than I can do in these pages, is referred to a 
 ' Letter to the Earl of Yarborough, by Henry Sewell, 
 Esq.,' published by Butterworth, Fleet-street ; in which 
 it is very fully and ably discussed ; and to an article in 
 the Westminster Review for March, 1846. The prin- 
 ciple is evidently approved by the writer of the leading 
 articles in the Times of 28th June and 19th July last, 
 though, in the present state of the public mind, he is 
 contented to take as an instalment the imperfect mea- 
 sure now before Parliament. 
 
 It is surprising to me that some attempt should not 
 have been made to secure the introduction of such 
 system by the founders of the Canterbury Settlement. 
 It is not too late now to commence it there. At pre- 
 sent every acre of land in that settlement must be 
 dealt with in conformity with Coke upon Lyttleton, 
 only if at all modified by ordinances passed at Auck- 
 land, where an entirely different system of colonization 
 exists. 
 
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