The Treaty of Waitangi Part 28

2. That the acknowledgment by the local authorities of a right of property on the part of the natives of New Zealand in all wild lands in those Islands, after the sovereignty had been a.s.sumed by Her Majesty, was not essential to the true construction of the "Treaty of Waitangi," and was an error which has been productive of very injurious consequences.

3. That means ought forthwith to be adopted for establis.h.i.+ng the exclusive t.i.tle of the Crown to all land not actually occupied and enjoyed by natives or held under grants from the Crown, such lands to be considered as vested in the Crown for the purpose of being employed in the manner most conducive to the welfare of the inhabitants, whether natives or Europeans.

When the Committee was asked to determine which of these two rival reports it would adopt, it was found that opinion was evenly divided, but on a division being taken Lord Howick succeeded in defeating his opponents by the narrow majority of one vote, the voting being as follows upon the question proposed by Mr. Roebuck: "That the Committee now proceed to the consideration of the resolutions proposed by the chairman as the basis of the report."

Ayes--7.

Mr. Milnes.

Mr. Roebuck.

Mr. Hawes.

Mr. Aglionby.

Mr. Charteris.

Lord Francis Egerton.

Lord Ebrington.

Noes--6.

Mr. Hope.

Mr. R. Clive.

Mr. Cardwell.

Lord Jocelyn.

Sir Robert Inglis.

Mr. Wilson Patten.

In vain did Mr. Hope endeavour by moving amendments to induce the Committee to adopt a view of the Treaty of Waitangi more favourable to the natives, but through the divisions of several days the Company held its majority, and on July 23 the Committee agreed to the draft report proposed by Lord Howick, and which was based on the resolutions previously approved. When this report was laid before the House of Commons it was found that the Committee had traversed the policy adhered to by the Melbourne and the Peel Governments in its interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi, and that they had taken the responsibility of declaring that:

The evidence laid before your Committee has led them to the conclusion that the step thus taken (the promotion of the Treaty of Waitangi), though a natural consequence of previous errors of policy, was a wrong one. It would have been much better if no formal treaty whatever had been made, since it is clear that the natives were incapable of comprehending the real force and meaning of such a transaction, and it therefore amounted to little more than a legal fiction, though it has already in practice proved to be a very inconvenient one, and is likely to be still more so hereafter. The sovereignty over the Northern Island might have been at once a.s.sumed without this mere nominal treaty, on the ground of prior discovery, and on that of the absolute necessity of establis.h.i.+ng the authority of the British Crown for the protection of the natives themselves, when so large a number of British subjects had irregularly settled themselves in these Islands, as to make it indispensable to provide some means of maintaining good order amongst them. This was the course actually pursued with respect to the Middle and Southern Islands, to which the Treaty of Waitangi does not even nominally extend, and there is every reason to presume that, owing to the strong desire the natives are admitted to have entertained for the security to be derived from the protection of the British Government and for the advantages of a safe and well-regulated intercourse with a civilised people, there would have been no greater difficulty in obtaining their acquiescence in the a.s.sumption of sovereignty than in gaining their consent to the conclusion of the treaty, while the treaty has been attended with the double disadvantage: first, that its terms are ambiguous, and in the sense in which they have been understood highly inconvenient; and next, that it has created a doubt which could not otherwise have existed, which, though not in the opinion of your Committee well founded, has been felt and has practically been attended with very injurious results, whether those tribes which were not parties to it are even now subject to the authority of the Crown.

Your Committee have observed that the terms of the treaty are ambiguous, and in the sense in which they have been understood, have been highly inconvenient; in this we refer princ.i.p.ally to the stipulations it contains with respect to the right of property in land. The information that has been laid before us shows that these stipulations, and the subsequent proceedings of the Governor, founded upon them, have firmly established in the minds of the natives notions which they had but then very recently been taught to entertain, of their having a proprietary t.i.tle of great value to land not actually occupied, and there is every reason to believe that, if a decided course had at that time been adopted, it would not have then been difficult to have made the natives understand that, while they were to be secured in the undisturbed enjoyment of the land they actually occupied, and of whatever further quant.i.ty they might really want for their own use, all the unoccupied territory of the Islands was to vest in the Crown by virtue of the sovereignty that had been a.s.sumed.

The findings of the Committee were thus so radically opposed to the established views of Lord Stanley upon the construction to be placed upon the treaty, that the Minister refused to countenance them in any way, or to ask the House of Commons to become a party to a policy which, had it been enforced, would inevitably have led Britain into one of her little wars, as inglorious as it would have been unjust.[177]

In transmitting a copy of the Committee's report to Governor Fitzroy, the Chief Secretary stressed in his Despatch of August 13 (1844) the narrow margin of votes by which the report had been adopted, and emphasised the high moral principle that it was still the duty of both the Governor and himself to administer the affairs of the colony "with a due regard to a state of things which we find, but did not create, and to the expectations founded, not upon what might have been a right theory of colonisation, but upon declarations and concessions made in the name of the Sovereign of England." The power of Parliament was, therefore, not invoked to aid the Company in evading its just obligations to the natives. Their land claims were still to be the subject of searching enquiry by the Chief Commissioner, Mr. Spain, and for the moment the Treaty of Waitangi was vindicated by the steadfastness of the Colonial Minister. But the battle was not over, the scene of the conflict only was changed. On June 17, 1845, Mr. Charles Buller, then representing Liskeard, and whose long a.s.sociation with Lord Durham and Mr. Gibbon Wakefield had more than once brought him into prominence in New Zealand affairs, sought to induce the Commons again to discuss both the policy and administration of the colony on the floor of the House. Then ensued the historic debate, during which New Zealand achieved the distinction of claiming the exclusive attention of Parliament for three consecutive nights.

It would be superfluous to recapitulate here the speeches delivered during this memorable discussion, embodied as they are in the records of the nation; it is, however, worthy of pa.s.sing remark that for the sake of some party advantage several prominent members, notably Lord John Russell, chose to reverse all their previous professions on the subject of the Treaty of Waitangi, and threw the weight of their influence into the scale against the just recognition of the rights of the New Zealand natives. Well might Rusden exclaim: "On what plea could the Whigs abandon the construction put upon the treaty by their own leaders who made it?"

A division being taken, Mr. Buller's motion was defeated, and on receipt of this intelligence Governor Fitzroy[178] wrote with perfectly natural elation to Henry Williams: "Let me congratulate you on the result of the three nights' sharp debate in the House of Commons on New Zealand. The Company were beaten by fifty-one votes, the integrity of the Treaty of Waitangi being thus secured against all their infamous endeavours, for _that_ was the point at issue."

While the events thus far narrated in this chapter had been evolving from the lap of time, Governor Hobson had died,[179] and had been buried at Auckland. Lieutenant Shortland's brief term of administration had been darkened by the Wairau Ma.s.sacre, the first fruit of the contempt shown by the Wakefields for the landed rights of the natives. His successor, Governor Fitzroy, had long since been driven to distraction by the machinations of the Company and the failure of the Home authorities to give him needful support in either men or money. The crowning disaster of his administration was the attack upon the town of Kororareka at daylight on March 11, 1845, by Heke and Kawiti. The House of Commons had been ignorant of this happening when it had debated Mr. Buller's motion in the previous June, but when the ominous tidings reached England in July, that wary gentleman sprang once more alertly to the attack by moving: "That this House regards with regret and apprehension the state of affairs in New Zealand; and that those feelings are greatly aggravated by the want of any sufficient evidence of a change in the policy which has led to such disastrous results."

This debate was not less acrimonious than its predecessor, for not only was Lord Stanley attacked, but Mr. Stephen, the permanent head of the Colonial Department, was a.s.sailed with equal virulence. Stanley had ere this removed to the House of Lords, and Stephen was precluded by virtue of his position from defending himself. But for these two men, as well as for the honour of the nation, Sir Robert Peel stood in stalwart defence. He told the House that he was not enamoured of the policy which had resulted in the consummation of the Treaty of Waitangi. For his part he candidly admitted that in his opinion it was a mistake, but since the treaty was an indisputable political fact, its obligations must not be violated. Lord Melbourne's Government, he said, had with a full sense of their responsibility, entered into the compact and England was unquestionably bound by it.[180]

In vindication of Lord Stanley he declared that the real purpose behind Mr. Buller's motion was an insidious desire to unjustly censure his Minister for avowing his determination to carry honourably into effect the treaty made by his predecessor. Then reverting to the land question he continued: "After all the volumes of controversy which have appeared, the question really resolves itself into this: Shall the Government undertake to guarantee in this country, within certain limits in New Zealand, a certain amount of land without reference to the rights to that land vesting in the natives? This I tell you distinctly we will not do, and if the House entertains a different opinion, it is but right that it should give expression to it. We will not undertake, in the absence of surveys and local information as to the claims of the natives, to a.s.sign to you a million, or any other number of acres, and dispossess the natives by the sword."

In concluding he again entered upon a vigorous defence of his Colonial Minister, declaring his continued confidence in Lord Stanley in the following resolute words: "I will not do that which the New Zealand Company seem to think I might do--undertake to supersede a Minister who I believe has discharged his official duties with almost unexampled ability, and with a sincere desire to promote the interests of every colony over which he now presides."

Influenced by the Premier's strenuous advocacy, the House again rejected Mr. Buller's motion on July 23, but the friends of the Company derived some comfort from the knowledge that a despatch had been sent recalling Governor Fitzroy, who, in his anxiety to restore the bankrupt finances of the country, had disregarded the Royal instructions, and inst.i.tuted a local currency as well as having taken the more serious responsibility of varying the inflexible policy of the Government by waiving the pre-emptive right of the Crown[181] to purchase land from the natives, in the hope of removing the growing discontent and of enhancing the revenue from increasing sales.

Defeated in Parliament, the Company's next proceeding was almost humorous in its hysteria. They procured an opinion from Mr. William Burge, in which that gentleman averred, on his reputation as a lawyer, that the British occupation of New Zealand was from the beginning unlawful, and based upon no sound const.i.tutional foundation. This remarkable doc.u.ment they transmitted to Lord Stanley on July 7, in the hope that he would be so awed by it as to cause him to considerably modify the instructions which they were convinced he would, in his normal frame of mind, most certainly tender to Captain Grey, whom he had selected to succeed Governor Fitzroy. Lord Stanley was made of different stuff. He suffered no particular trepidation from Mr.

Burge's startling discovery, but merely sent his opinion on to Fitzroy Kelly, Attorney-General, Sir Frederick Thesiger, Solicitor-General, and to Sir Thomas Wilde, who had been the Attorney-General in Lord Melbourne's Cabinet when Captain Hobson was sent out to negotiate the Treaty of Waitangi. These gentlemen averred with equal confidence that neither the reasons advanced by Mr. Burge, nor any other considerations which had occurred to them, furnished them with any well-founded doubt upon the question of Britain's sovereignty in New Zealand.

Reinforced by the opinion of this eminent trio, Lord Stanley sent a copy to the new Governor, telling him to be guided by it in his conduct, at the same time instructing him that if the Company attempted to make capital in the colony out of Mr. Burge's p.r.o.nouncement, he was to counter the move by giving equal publicity to the joint opinion of the three legal advisers of the Crown.

When Captain Grey reached New Zealand on November 14, he found the country seething with discontent. The European population now numbered approximately 12,000, scattered over widely separated settlements, the natives probably numbered not less than 110,000, many of whom were in open revolt under Heke and Kawiti; many more were holding their allegiance in the balance.

The mischievous resolutions pa.s.sed by the Select Committee of the House of Commons in the previous year had ere this percolated to the colony, and fired the doubts of the natives as to the sincerity of the Crown. Governor Fitzroy had used his best endeavours to rea.s.sure them, and in offering terms of peace to Heke he made it the first stipulation that the covenants of the Treaty of Waitangi should be binding upon both parties. To these advances Heke had sullenly refused to reply.

With the rebels unyielding, obviously Grey's first duty was to ascertain where he stood with the friendlies and the neutrals. For this purpose he summoned a meeting at the Bay of Islands, and amidst the ruins of the wrecked town of Kororareka he delivered to the a.s.sembled chiefs one of his characteristic addresses, in which, after warning the people against treacherously a.s.sisting the rebels, he said:

In the meantime, I a.s.sure the whole of the chiefs that it is the intention of the Government, most punctually and scrupulously to fulfil the terms and provisions of the treaty which was signed at Waitangi on the arrival of Governor Hobson. I have heard that some persons, evil disposed both towards the Queen of England and the Chiefs of this country, have told you that by your signing that paper you lost your lands. This I deny. By that treaty the protection of the Queen and your possessions are made sure to you. Your lands shall certainly not be taken from you without your consent. You can sell your lands to the Crown, or not sell them, just as you think proper, but, remember, that when once you do sell them, they must be promptly and justly given up.

The professions of the Government's good-will to the natives were renewed, they were told of the Queen's solicitation for their material, moral, and religious welfare, and once more a.s.surances were given that equal justice would be meted out to both Maori and European, to which Tamati Waaka Nene replied: "It is just."

As the result of this conference Grey felt that he could rely upon the loyalty of the friendly natives, and that this adhesion to the Crown grew out of the fact that they were, as the Governor expressed it in his Despatch, "Unanimous in desiring protection and support from the Government; that they were quite aware of the advantages conferred upon them by the annexation of New Zealand to the British Empire, and that the large ma.s.s of the inhabitants sincerely desired to see peace and tranquillity restored, so that the Government might be invested with that weight and authority which is essentially necessary to enable it properly to perform its functions."[182]

With the position of parties both in England and in the colony thus firmly determined, it appeared that the Treaty of Waitangi would now be accepted as the basis of a settlement of the colony's affairs; but these sanguine expectations were speedily doomed to disappointment. By one of those inexplicable revolutions which not infrequently occur in the wheel of political fortune, Sir Robert Peel's Ministry was ousted from office in the latter part of June. Lord John Russell came back to power, and Lord Howick, who in the meantime had succeeded his father as Earl Grey, became Chief Secretary for the Colonies in the new administration.

As Lord John Russell had so recently modified his views upon the subject of the Treaty of Waitangi as to admit of his saying that Maori rights in land narrowed down to territory "in actual occupation by them," the way had been cleared by which his Secretary for the Colonies might put into operation his pet theories for the nullification of the Treaty of Waitangi.[183] This opportunity came to him when it fell to his lot to prepare a new Const.i.tution for the youngest of Britain's possessions.

New Zealand had now been a colony independent of New South Wales for the better part of five years, during which time, under the advantages of a more or less settled government, she had made phenomenal progress. So rapid had been her development, so steadily had her population increased, that in the opinion of many of her most influential Colonists the time had arrived when they should be invested with all the privileges of responsible government. With this democratic movement the Governor was in entire sympathy and aided the aspirations of the people by the weight of his influence. The implicit confidence which the Home authorities at this period placed in Grey's discretion doubtless led them to more readily acquiesce in the liberalisation of the Charter granted in 1840, and in conveying to the Governor the determination of Parliament, the Colonial Secretary explained that the necessity of a fundamental change from the position created when Captain Hobson was appointed had been insisted on by all parties to the discussion, there being an almost equally unanimous concurrence among them that the change should be in the direction of calling the settlers to partic.i.p.ate much more largely in the business of legislation and local self-government. He accordingly enclosed on December 23 (1846) the Imperial Act, and the Royal Instructions which were to give effect to this determination.

The functions of a governor in a Crown Colony are many and various, and Grey's receipt of this Despatch was perhaps as picturesque as any event in his romantic life. There was insurrection at Whanganui--a reflex of Heke's rebellion in the north--whither Grey had gone to aid in its quelling, and he was watching from a hill-side a skirmish between the troops and the insurgents when the Chief Secretary's communication was handed to him. He sat down upon the gra.s.sy bank, and with the crack of rifles and the hiss of bullets ringing in his ears he calmly read the fateful doc.u.ment. What the Governor's feelings were when he perused the Charter we need not stay to enquire. Fortunately he had been given a discretionary power as to when it should take effect, and he did not wait long before he determined that its indefinite suspension was inevitable. Grey's brief experience in New Zealand, as well as his innate love of justice, had taught him to regard the Treaty of Waitangi as the sheet-anchor of the colony's settlement, upon the faithful observance of which it was alone possible to maintain peace with the Maori.

In two vital particulars the new Charter fatally traversed the treaty, and one can only marvel, in the face of the obvious meaning which attaches to the plain words of the compact, how any British Minister could satisfy himself with the sophistry indulged in by the Colonial Secretary. A cardinal omission was detected by the Governor in the fact that no provision was made for the representation of the Maori race in the contemplated Parliament, to which, as British subjects, they were ent.i.tled; but worse than all, Earl Grey had again promulgated his strangely perverted opinions upon the subject of native owners.h.i.+p of lands. The Charter was covered by a lengthy Despatch in which the Chief Secretary elaborated his views, and in order that those views may not suffer by condensation they are here quoted at length. After adverting to the manner in which the various heads of his instructions had been cla.s.sified, he proceeds:

Believing that the instructions, as thus prepared,[184] will be found to convey their meaning perspicuously and completely, I abstain from any attempt to recapitulate or explain their provisions. I turn to other topics on which it seems indispensable that on the present occasion I should convey to you explanations, for which, of course, no appropriate place could be found in the legal instruments already mentioned. I advert especially to what relates to the aborigines of New Zealand and the settlement of the public lands in those Islands.

I cannot approach this topic without remarking that the protracted correspondence to which it has given rise, the public debates and resolutions which have sprung from it, and the enactments and measures of your predecessors in the Government, have all contributed to throw into almost inextricable confusion the respective rights and claims of various cla.s.ses of individuals amongst the inhabitants of New Zealand, to render very embarra.s.sing the enquiry in which you must doubtless be engaged respecting the line of conduct which Her Majesty's Government expect you to pursue, and at the same time to make it almost impossible for us to determine with any confidence what that conduct ought to be, and how far, in a state of affairs so complicated, it is possible now to act upon the principles to which, in the absence of these difficulties, I should have prescribed your adherence. I will not attempt any retrospect of those doc.u.ments and proceedings; I should be but adding to the perplexity which I acknowledge and regret. It will be my attempt rather to explain, as briefly as the nature of the subject admits, what is the policy which, if we were unembarra.s.sed by past transactions, it would be right to follow, and which (so far as any freedom of choice remains to us) ought still to be adopted, regarding the right of property in land which should be acknowledged or created, more especially as affecting the aborigines of New Zealand.

I enter upon this topic by observing that the accompanying statute, 9th & 10th Vict., ch. 104, sec. 11, repeals the Australian Land Sales Act, as far as relates to the lands situate in New Zealand. Thus there is a complete absence of statutory regulation on the subject.

The Queen, as ent.i.tled in right of her Crown to any waste lands in the colony, is free to make whatever rules Her Majesty may see fit on the subject. The accompanying Charter accordingly authorises the Governor to alienate such lands. The accompanying instructions direct how that power is to be used. I proceed to explain the motives by which those instructions have been dictated.

The opinion a.s.sumed, rather than advocated, by a large cla.s.s of writers on this and kindred subjects is, that the aboriginal inhabitants of any country are the proprietors of every part of its soil of which they have been accustomed to make any use, or to which they have been accustomed to a.s.sert any t.i.tle. This claim is represented as sacred, however ignorant such natives may be of the arts or of the habits of civilised life, however small the number of their tribes, however unsettled their abodes, and however imperfect or occasional the uses they make of the land. Whether they are nomadic tribes depasturing cattle, or hunters living by the chase, or fishermen frequenting the sea-coasts or the banks of rivers, the proprietary t.i.tle in question is alike ascribed to them all.

From this doctrine, whether it be maintained on the grounds of religion or morality, or of expediency, I entirely dissent. What I hold to be the true principle with regard to property in land is that which I find laid down in the following pa.s.sage from the works of Dr.

Arnold, which I think may safely be accepted as of authority on this subject, not only on account of his high character, but also because it was written, not with reference to pa.s.sing events, or to any controversy which was at that time going on, but as stating a principle which he conceived to be of general application:

"Men were to subdue the earth: that is, to make it by their labour what it would not have been by itself; and with the labour so bestowed upon it came the right of property in it. Thus every land which is inhabited at all belongs to somebody; that is, there is either some one person, or family, or tribe, or nation who have a greater right to it than any one else has; it does not and cannot belong to anybody. But so much does the right of property go along with labour that civilised nations have never scrupled to take possession of countries inhabited by tribes of savages--countries which have been hunted over, but never subdued or cultivated. It is true, they have often gone further, and settled themselves in countries which were cultivated, and then it becomes a robbery; but when our fathers went to America, and took possession of the mere hunting grounds of the Indians--of lands on which man had hitherto bestowed no labour--they only exercised a right which G.o.d has inseparably united with industry and knowledge."

The justness of this reasoning must, I think, be generally admitted, and if so, it can hardly be denied that it is applicable to the case of New Zealand, and is fatal to the right which has been claimed for the aboriginal inhabitants of those islands to the exclusive possession of the vast extent of fertile but unoccupied lands which they contain. It is true the New Zealanders, when European settlement commenced amongst them, were not a people of hunters: they lived, in a great measure at least, upon the produce of the soil (chiefly perhaps its spontaneous produce) and practised to a certain extent a rude sort of agriculture. But the extent of land so occupied by them was absolutely insignificant when compared with that of the country they inhabited; the most trustworthy accounts agree in representing the cultivated grounds as forming far less than one-hundredth part of the available land, and in stating that millions of acres were to be found where the naturally fertile soil was covered by primeval forests or wastes of fern, in the midst of which a few patches planted with potatoes were the only signs of human habitation or industry. The islands of New Zealand are not much less extensive than the British Isles, and capable probably of supporting as large a population, while that which they actually supported has been variously estimated, but never, I believe, as high as 200,000 souls.

To contend that under such circ.u.mstances civilised men had no right to step in and take possession of the vacant territory, but were bound to respect the proprietary t.i.tle of the savage tribes who dwell in but were utterly unable to occupy the land, is to mistake the grounds upon which the right of property in land is founded. To that portion of the soil, whatever it might be, which they really occupied, the aboriginal inhabitants, barbarous as they were, had a clear and undoubted claim; to have attempted to deprive them of their patches of potato-ground, even so to have occupied the territory as not to leave them ample s.p.a.ce for s.h.i.+fting, as was their habit, their cultivation from one spot to another, would have been in the highest degree unjust; but so long as this injustice was avoided, I must regard it as a vain and unfounded scruple which would have acknowledged their rights of property in land which they did not occupy; it is obvious that they could not convey to others what they did not themselves possess, and that claims to vast tracts of waste land, founded on pretended sales from them, are altogether untenable.

From the moment that British dominion was proclaimed in New Zealand, all lands not actually occupied in the sense in which alone occupation can give the right of possession, ought to have been considered as the property of the Crown in its capacity of trustee for the whole community, and it should thenceforward have been regarded as the right, and at the same time the duty of those duly authorised by the Crown, to determine in what manner and according to what rules the land hitherto waste should be a.s.signed and appropriated to particular individuals. There is another consideration which leads to the same conclusion. It has never been pretended that the wide extent of unoccupied land, to which an exclusive right of property has been a.s.serted on behalf of the native inhabitants of New Zealand, belonged to them as individuals, it was only as tribes that they were supposed to possess it, and granting their t.i.tle as such to have been good and valid, it was obviously a right which the tribes enjoyed as independent communities--an attribute of sovereignty, which, with the sovereignty, naturally and necessarily was transferred to the British Crown. Had the New Zealanders been a civilised people this would have been the case--if these islands, being inhabited by a civilised people, had been added either by conquest or by voluntary cession to the dominions of the Queen, it is clear, that according to the well-known principles of public law, while the property of individuals would have been respected, all public property, all rights of every description which have appertained to the previous sovereigns, would have devolved, as a matter of course, to the new sovereign who succeeded them. It can hardly be contended that these tribes, as such, possessed rights which civilised communities could not have claimed.

Such are the principles upon which, if the colonisation of New Zealand were only now about to begin, it would be my duty to instruct you to act; and though I am well aware that in point of fact you are not in a position to do so, and that from past transactions a state of things has arisen in which a strict application of these principles is impracticable, I have thought it right that they should be thus explicitly stated in this Despatch (as they are in the Royal instructions to which it refers), in order that you may clearly understand that, although you may in many respects be compelled to depart from them, still you are to look to them as the foundation of the policy which, so far as it is in your power, you are to pursue.

The imperfect information which alone at this distance I can hope to obtain as to the actual state of affairs in New Zealand, renders it impossible for me to venture to prescribe to you how far you are to go in attempting practically to act upon the principles I have laid down. I should infer from your own Despatches, as well as from those of your predecessors, that the right of the Crown could not now be a.s.serted to large tracts of waste land which particular tribes have been taught to regard as their own. It appears that you have found it expedient to admit these pretentions to a considerable extent; and having done so, no apparent advantage could be suffered to weigh against the evil of acting in a manner either really or even apparently inconsistent with good faith. While, however, you scrupulously fulfil whatever engagements you have contracted, and maintain those rights on the part of the native tribes to land which you have already recognised, you will avoid as much as possible any further surrender of the property of the Crown. I trust also that the evil which would otherwise arise from the concessions already made, may to a great degree be neutralised by your strictly maintaining the exclusive right of the Crown to purchase land from the native tribes to which it has been a.s.sumed that it belongs. This right, resting as it does not only upon what has been called the "Treaty of Waitangi,"

but also upon the general and long-recognised principles of national law, is one so important that it ought almost at all hazards to be strictly enforced. To suffer it to be set aside would be to acquiesce in the ruin of the colony, since it would be fatal to the progressive and systematic settlement of the country. It is by the sale of land at more than a nominal price that its appropriation to individuals in allotments in proportion to their power of making use of it can alone be secured. It is the mode by which, with least inconvenience and difficulty, funds can be raised for emigration and for executing those public works which are necessary for the profitable occupation of the soil; in short, it is the very foundation on which systematic colonisation must be based. But if the native tribes are permitted to sell large tracts of land to individuals for a mere nominal consideration, it is obvious that so much land will be thrown upon the market as entirely to defeat the attempt to sell such lands as the Crown may still retain, at a price sufficient to answer the objects of the policy I have described.

The first and most important step which you will have to take with the view of introducing a regular system with respect to the disposal of land, will be to ascertain distinctly the owners.h.i.+p of all the land in the colony. The extent and limits of all which is to be considered as the property either of individuals, of bodies politic or corporate, or of the native tribes, must in the first instance be determined, and the whole of the remainder of the territory will then be declared to be the Royal demesne. The results of this enquiry must be carefully registered, and a regular record henceforth preserved, showing to whom all lands in New Zealand belong. This measure has been repeatedly and earnestly inculcated on your predecessors, and I cannot too strongly repeat the same injunction.