TREATY OF WAITANGI. NEW ZEALAND. House of Lords,—July 10.

New Zealander, Volume 1, Issue 28, 13 December 1845, Page 4

TREATY OF WAITANGI. NEW ZEALAND. House of Lords, — July 10.

The Earl of Chichesler presented a petition from the Church Missionary Society. It stated that there were 38,000 attendants on religious worship, 15,000 scholars, and 300 native preachers. The petiitouers.stated that from the period of, the cession of the land by the native Princes, they did everything to promote hannouy .between the aboiigiues aud the colonists ; that they were deeply impressed with the necessity of having the land question speedily and finally settled. That the Queen by the treaty of Waitaiigi. guaranteed full anii undisputed possession of their lands to the natives, aud that in the opinion of the petitioners, -the report of the Committee of the House of Commons, affecting the rights of the native princes, was contrary to the principles of justice, and to*the express declaration of the treaty of YVaitangi. His Lordship continued., Their Lordships could'understand the alarm felt by the society, whose petition he, had read, as well as the alarm of all those who took an interest in their happiness and welfare. The ijpssionaries of the Society were alarmed at a course yf policy being suggested, the pursuance of which Would set aside the treaty of Waitaugi, which provided .that the natives should not have lands taken away from them by virtue of the sovereignty over the island, ceded by them to the British Crown. Nothing, he thought could be more clear, than the actual meaning of the treaty, and he believed that the New Zealanders were sufficiently enlightened and' educated perfectly to understand the interpretation which common sense would put upon it. To act in any way in contravention to the treaty, would be to pursue a course at once fraught disasters to the natives and settlers in New Zealand. He wished to take the opportunity of making a statement to the house upon the part of the Church Missionary Society, because among other charges made by the friends of the Company, was one, which accused the Missionaries of New ' Zealand of having acted in an improper manner; of having, in fact, ithpeded the progress of the colony, and of' having obtained— not by ihe most reputable means — a vefry large quantity of land, (hear, hear.) Now the land in question, was held under certain regulations made by the Missionary Society, which allowed a. certain sum of money to the Missionaries, for .every child above fifteen years of age ; that money bad been invested in the pin chase of land, obtained nut /or the private advantages of the Missionaries, but for the public good. The regulations had been strictly acted upon in these purchases, and he possessed authentic information of the exact quantity of laud so obtained. The Society had also purchased a certain portion of the land for the purposes of the mission, but the whole of this property had been placed at the disposal of the Crown. No missionary held more laud than he was strictly entitled to hold under the regulations of the Society, and there was no instance of a misslonary's claim having 'been disallowed by the government commissioner. In the eases in which a reduction had ' been made in the quantity of land possessed by missionaries, the reduction had been effected with the perfect Consent of the holders. He ■would. remind the house of the favourable testimony borne t,o the conduct oi the missionaries of the Church Society, bv all who had an opportunity of witnessing it. New Zealand had been visited by many travellers—some of them in an official capacity; it had been recently visited by two bishops, and the conduct of the missionaries had been watched by witnesses not likely to be partial to them,— he meant the emissaries or' A neighbouring, not a rival institution,— the Wesleyan mission; the missionaries of the Church Society had been watched, mid their conduct commented upon by all those witnesses to t, aud he had never heard it asserted that they had been led away ivoin their ministerial duties by any occupation connected with the possession of lind. On the contrary every report which he had seen on the state of New Zeal-md was most creditable to tbe Missionaries, and proved them to be most worthy and disinterested men. (dear, hear). One of the great objects he had in juakWig these remarks was, it.pu&uble, to draw trout

government some Assurance that die alarm felt b) petitioners, from the cause to which he had alluded, was unfounded. He believed that the .maintenance of that interpretation, hitherto put upon the treaty of Waitan»i, was of the greatest importance to our own reputation for good faith, and to the cause of the civilization, and progress of New Zealand. So long 1 as the Missionaries had been unmolested by voluntary settlers, nothing' could have been more satisfactory than the way in which the natives had conducted themselves, and nothing' more rapid than the progress they had made in Christian knowledge. He hoped that the government would feel the great importance of promoting that object, and would recollect that it could only be attained by maintaining the strictest good faith towards the natives themselves, by .shewing that we were alive to their best interest*, and that we had taken New Zealand Under our protection, as much with a view to their benefit, as our own. (hear, hear). His Lordship concluded hy presenting the petition. Lord Stanley said,— Your Lordships will feel that it Would be very inconvenient were I at all to enter at this time upon the general question connected with New Zealand. I have no intention of troubling you with a single word upon that subject, but the noble Earl has indicated a desire to hear the' views of Her Majesty's government as to the treaty by which the sovereignly of New Zealand was ceded to the British Crovrn. (hear, hear). I have no hesitation in giving the noble Earl the assurance which he seems to desire. At the same time, however, I should have thought,— whatever may have been the suspicions, whatever may have been the blame cast upon the government in the matter, — that the course which they have pursued, would have prevented its being imagined for a moment, that they entertained an idea of avoiding, or in any way violating a treaty, by which they consider themselvec to be bound, (hear, hear.) Almost the whole of the difficulty with which the Government'has had to contend with in New Z alaiid has arisen out of the apparently conflicting engagements entered into towards the New Zealand Company on the one hand, and, under the treaty of VVaitaugi, towards the natives on the other. Had we felt ourselves at liberty to depart from the strictest fulfilment of the terms of the treaty, we should have met but little difficulty ; and in proof of the fact, our embarrassments have arisen mainly from our feeling, that however desirable and important it was to promote the colonization of New Zealand, yet that that object would be very dearly purchased, if it were to be attained by the slightest reflection on the good faith of this country, or by any liability to the imputation that we wished to shrink (rom au engagement, which I think the natives perfectly understand, the full importance of which I think they are as deeply impressed with, as we can be, and an engagement which we have alwa\s felt that the government of this country were bound to adhere to in its fullest integrity, (hear, hear.) I assure your lordships that we have strictly in every instruction we have issued, (and the papers on the table prove the fact), that we have insisted on the strictest fulfilment, of the spirit and the letter of the treaty of Waitangi. (hear, hear.) Our instructions upon that point have been uniform.' They were given to Capt. Fitzroy, and whatever instructions may have since been despatched ro his successor, they have in this respect remained unaltered. We have told him — our declarations to the effect have been reiterated, that while he should seek »y 4 every mode to promote the amicable settlement of the .affairs ol the New Zealand Company, that he should always consider it to be the paramount duty devolving upon him, specially, and scrupulously, and religiously to fulfil our solemn engagements with the natives of New Zealand, (hear, hear.) Lord Monteafcle thought that it would be very satisfactory were the noble loi'd to c tate more definitely what was the precise construction which the government put upon the treaty in question. He would wish to know whether he carried the principle so far as to assume that there was to remain to a sttni barbarous population such a risjht over the whole of the immense territory of New Zealand, as would preclude the possibility of our exercisinga right of government, except by the permission of the natives themselves, (hear, hear). With respect to the general question, he was far from adopting all the views of the New Zealand Committee 1 . He knew the difficulties which the Colonial Office had to contend with in the cases of colonies founded by unau thorised settler. 1 *. Most of the difficulties of New Zealand, had arisen from that cause, and from the character of many original settlers in New Zealand, comprehending, as they did, some of the worst portion of the population of Australia and of this country. He Trepeated that he did not by any means fully adopt the report of the New Zealand Committee j but still the opinion of that body was entitled to a very considerable weight, when it was recollected that it had been appointed with the approval and concurrence of the Colonial Office. Lord Stanley deprecated the discussion of the report of the New Zealand Committee in so incidental a way. Lord Monteagle continued :— He did not want to go beyond the fact that the report of the committee had beeu generally adverse to the system pursued by the Colonial Office in the administration of New Zealand, and the Members of the Committee so far had been amply supported by events which had occurred in the colony itself. But he entirely protested against the doctrine that the finding fault, even by inference, with the management of New Zealaud,,it was unlair to suggest that there had been any bad faith or double dealing on the part of the Colonial office. ' Any such charge was as much unsupported by proof, as it was contradicted by the character of the noble lord at the head of that branch of~ the -public service. Still, however, a more melancholy instance of mismanagement than that displayed in the local government of New Zealand, was never exhibited in the colonial administratiqn of any country (hear, hear) ; and he was convinced that until there should be a clear and distinct exposition upon the part of government, of the exact construction-- which it would be prepared to put upon the treaty of Waitangi, that the state of confusion which, now existed iv New Zealand would con inue. He wished to guard himself from being supposed to acquiescf. in' all the statements of the petitioners; but "he did believe that had the missionaries been left unmolested by the vicious population which had settled arouud them, that the results of their labours wo'uTd have been Such as had been anticipated by his noble friend, who had presented their petition. But from the evil influence exerted upon New Zealand by its first settler-,, a train of calamities arose. Insults had beeu offered to the British name, crimes had been committed, wars waged to an extent unlimited in the history of our colonial administration. He repeated the Colonial Office was not to be blamed for this. He had been for a short time in that office himself, and he could not forget not only the difficulties, but the perfect impossibilities which, as it seemed to him, existed m many of the duties of that office, as at present constituted, being satisfactorily performed, la 1834,. a change had taken place in the

Colonial Office, which it would have been well t< have adhered to. Our colonies had increased ii numbers and importance, to such an extent that hi: noble friend with all his energy and ability, or, indeed, that two equal to his noble. friend, would be incapable of carrying 1 on the manifold duties of the Colonial Secretary, in such a manner as to be generally satisfactory and successful, and as it had been comparatively easy to manage them fifty years ago, he expressed his regret that the improvements introduced into the constitution of the Colouial office in 1834, had not been adhered to. (hear, hear). The Edrl of Chichester never considered that the government could be fairly charged with any breach of faith, in their administration of the affairs of New Zealand. The Church Missionary Society however had reasonable grounds for the fears expressed in their petition. He, was satisfied with the iistinciutimation of his nobie friend at the head of the colouial department, and he was sure that that intimation would be equally satisfactory to the petit I tiouers. Lord Stanley:— l beg to say one word. I should have wished that my noble friend had either abstained touching on the topics to which he has alluded, or that he had brought the snbject forward in a more distinct form, and at a period of the evening, and in a state of the house, (there was not a dozen of peers present), when I could have entered into a full explanation of the different points alluded to. Under present circumstances, then, I will abstain from doing anything but answering the demand made upon me by my noble fiiend, as to the construction which government is prepared to place upon the treaty of Waitangi. (hear, hear ) The whole question of that treaty I will not argue now. If my noble friend will give me au opportunity of arguing it; 'l will undertake to prove to demonstration, that not only by the present, but by all former 'governments,— that not only by the noble lord who preceded me, but also by the noble marquis who preceded him,— that not only by the present, but by former parliaments, has the same construction beeu put upon the treaty of Waitangi, that construction which never was disputed by any authority, by any party, until the period of the year 1842, (hear, hear). 1 am prepared also to show, and whenever 1 am called on I shall show, in this house, that whatever may be the apparent discrepancy, between the conditions of arrangement entered into by Lord John Russell, with the New Zealand Company, and those concluded under the treaty of Waitangi, that the discrepancy is not real but apparent, and that it arose from Lord John Russell acting on the misrepresentation of facts made to him by the New Zealand Company. He conceded to that company, on the part of the Crown, a certain number of acres, provided that number of acres should he taken within a certain district— the foundation of the whole arrangement being the assertion and declaration of the New Zealand Company, that they had purchased the whole of that district, comprising a space of about twenty millions of acres, from the natives themselves. In that way, and in that way alone, can the arrangements of the noble lord be consistent. In that way they are consistent, and in that way the declaration and agreement made by Lord John Russell, confirming, instead of contradicting the treaty of Waitangi— namely > that on the part of the Crown, he confirmed the claim of the Company to a certain tract of land, on the assumption that they had bought it from the natives. In that way I contend the arrangements of the noble lord are perfectly consistent. His assumptton, proved by his agreemetit, leads to the inference, that in his opinion, the, natives had a right to sell to the company that tract of land which they did not inhabit ; and I can shuw by repeated acts of Parliament that that right tt^rtWitHke^phit of the natives,— not the laud ivhich they occupied and" enjoyed, but the waste land which they did not occupy or enjoy, was uniformly recognised during' the' period from 1836' to 1842. I am not prepared to tay that there may not be some* districts wholly waste and uncultivated— there are such in the northern island — but they are few in number; but I know that a large portion of the district in question is distributed among various tribes, all of whom have as perfect a knowledge of the boundaries and limits of their possessions — boundaries and limits in seme places natural, in others arttfeij}ai#d»J as satisfactory aud well defined, as were, one houdred years ago, the bounds and marches of districts occupied, by great proprietors and their clans, in the Highlands of Scotlands. (hear, hear.) With respect to the greater portions of New Zealand, J assert that the limits and rights of tribes are known and decided upon by native laws. lam not prepared to say what nun ber of acres in New Zealand are so possessed ; but that portion wh/ich is not so claimed and possessed by the natives, is, by the act of sovereignty, vested in the crown. But that is a question on which native law and cv tom have to be consulted. That law and that custom are well understood among the natives of the islands. By them we have agreed to be bouud, aud by them we must abide. These laws, these customs, and the right arising from them, on the part of the Crown,— we have guaranteed when we accepted the sovereignty of the islands; and be the amount at stake, smaller or larger, so far as native title is proved,— be the land waste or occupied, barren or enjoyed, — those rights and titles the Crown of England is bound in honour to maintain, and the interpretation of the treaty of Waitangi, with regard to these rights is, that except in the case of the intelligent consent of the natives, the Crown has no right to take possession of land, and having uo right to take possession of land itself, it has no right — and no long ,a.s lam a minister of the Crown, I shall not advise it to exercise the power— of making . over to another party that which, ii does not possess itself, (cheers.) , The subject then dropped.