MR. DANDESON COATES' PAMPHLET.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 48, 6 September 1845, Page 3

MR. DANDESON COATES' PAMPHLET.

From a Correspondent of the New Zealand Journal. A pamphlet addressed to Lord Stanley by Mr. Dandeson Coates, Secretary to the Church Missionary Society, and severely censuring the report of the Parliamentary Committee ap- ■ pointed to consider the affairs of New Zea- \ land, has recently appeared, and it is necessary to make a few remarks upon it, Mr. Coates^ by various quotations, a diffused style, and by extraneous matter quite beside the question, having managed greatly to obscure the point at issue. } Considering the position of Mr. Coates as an officer of the Cbujs|£~ Missionary Society, and the obvious interest he has in the line of argument he supports, I am surprised that delicacy did not keep him silent. I should have thought that after his declaration that he would " thwart the New Zealand Company to the utmost of his power" he would not have condescended to write under a false pretence, and ! would not, as on this occasion, have made th.c j j rights of the natives the stalking horse of the j ! wrongs of the Missionaries. Why not come j L forward the • c **craft" being -ia danger, audTO-**! play his colours like a man, instead of making a sneaking attack like a bush ranger ? Doubtless he has skilfully intermixed cuffs and flattery in his address to Lord Stanley, affecting to treat him as the sole protector of the Aborigines, and so forth ; but that nobleman is j probably well aware of the character with whom he has to deal, and will despise the one as much as he ridicules the other. Lord Stanley mvs f he well aware that the Missionaries of New Zeaand have not been wholly unmindful of their own temporal interests ; that in their ordinary care for the natives, they have not omitted taking extraordinary care of themj selves ; and he will see how likely it is that they sho'ild be jealous of and opposed to any colonization but their own. For with all respect to the Church Missionary Society, to which I have subscribed for many years, I say that it is a scandalous thing that her agents in New Zealand should have been so mixed up in land-jobbing. Out of 35 Missionaries in 1838, for 21 to be land claimants — 18 to the tune of 118,000 acres, and one to the tune of 40,000! ! It is most discreditable and improper, and must i grieve every friend to Missionary exertions. These grants all being in the northern part of of New Zealand, we are at once supplied with a key to the opposition of their owners to colonization in the southern part. But is it not drawing the feather rather too openly for these men and their friends to assert their objection on principle to all southern colonization ? And is it not positively disgusting for Mr. Dandeson Coates, the very highly-paid member of their body, and the avowed foe of the New Zealand Company, to come forward with his half-coax-ing half-bullying appeal to Lord Stanley, and all forsooth on principle? I have to use a mercantile phrase, that it is but a poor security, and is rather made up of inierest than principle. For let no one fancy that the Missionaries have well founded religious grounds on which to oppose the systematic colonization now going on. The composition of the New Zealand Company, and their liberal grants in aid of religious instruction, both of the natives and their own countrymen, and their administration of the native reserves, shows clearly that they acknowledge the duty incumbent on them, and are desirous to fulfil it. The opposition of the Missionaries in New Zealand to me appears simply of the earth, earthly. The whole pamphlet, when stripped of its unnecessary verbiage, resolves itself into one point, and upon that point I will undertake to show that Mr. Coates is completely in error, and that his whole argument is based upon an

assumption which is fallacious. I will meet him upon his own ground, and taking his own statements, I will prove their incorrectness. Mr. Coates rejects all previous matters and confines himself to the treaty of Waitangi : " Here," says he, " is a treaty made by the "representative of the British Government, and the native chiefs, and I take my stand upon it : I care not for a priori arguments or facts ; I stand upon this solemn treaty ; and I say that until you destroy this, the resolutions of the late Parliamentary Committee are dishonest and bad. Talk not to me of the inexpediency or absurdity of the treaty ; it has been formally made and ratified, and it cannot be avoided." Now admitting all Mr. Coates's assumptions, I say that the Parliamentary resolutions are wholly consistent with the treaty of Waitangi, and perfectly honest and good ; and I further say that the very terms and spirit of that treaty itself furnish us with a full justification of the Parliamentary Committee's report. By the second article of that treaty, as quoted, by Mr. Coates, page 14, her -Majesty -'i^jtrarantees to the chiefs and tribes of New Zealand, and to the respective families and individuals thereof, the full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their lands aud estates, forests, fisheries, and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess, so Jong as it is their wish to retain the same in theii possession." But the privilege of pre-emption is yielded to her Majesty over such land, as the proprietor thereof may be disposed to alienate. This is the celebrated treaty of Waitangi. And pray how, attentively considered, does this in any way conflict with the report of the Parliamentary Committee ? Mr. Coates may ■^trut or wheedle as he pleases, but he will neifer convince any person of a sound miijd. 1 that the two have* ?p£ than a pefectly consistejjfc and common meamtog. The argument arises upon the wo#d possess. The treaty guarantees to the natives all the lands, &c. which they possess. So far so good. But then the Parliamentary Comiuittee does the same : (vide report, passim.) The report throughout admits and enforces possession and occupation to be the means of acquiring the title to land in New Zealand, and therefore advocates the very terms of the treaty ; by impliedly confirming the natives in whatever lands they may possess. Any persoQ who reads the report, and who is in the le^t degree conversant with the subject, will at once see this, and that the claim iWr^W-Se'fffers'frxieTicis' only to suchlimif'as^ may be unoccupied, or unpossessed by tlie natives. The treaty and the report regard such unpossessed land as part of nature's waste, and open to the first occupier. This doctrine has been held by the wise writers of all ages, c. g., Grotius, Blackstone, Locke, Puffendorff, and Paley. It is an admitted fact that the New Zealander is of a domestic and not of a wandering nature — that he is no hunter — and that he does not occupy or possess a 100 th part of the country for his own support or use, (see Parliamentary Papers,) and yet Mr. Coates and his Missionary friends would keep the remaining 999 parts to themselves, and proscribe other Europeans from acquiring it. But then they have purchased it ? An equitable purchase truly it has been ; Even admitting some purchase for the sake of argument. A blanket lor 1,000 acres, a gun or cloak for 5000 acres, and so on ? Why, is it not cleat to any one, that the natives in their own minds know they are selling what they have no right to, or they would not accept such moonshine equivalents as these ? It is like Sheridan getting a shot at a flock of geese for sixpence, and when he had shot three, and was chuckling at his bargain, being advised by the bumpkin who had received the sixpence to make himself scarce as the real oivner was coming into the field. The sly fellow was glad to accept the smallest sum, because what he gave in exchange for it did not belong to him. The point in dispute therefore only relates to the lands previously unpossisserf or unoccupied by any one. The treaty of Waitangi most properly confirms the natives in the lands they possess, but leaves open the remaining lands to lawful settlement ; and the Parliamentary report holds the same doctrine ; and I defy any impartial reader, be he lay or clerical, to come to any other conclusion than this. So that both by the treaty and the report possession is made the ground of property, equally by one as the other. I ask whether this is fair dealing on Mr. Coates's part — First, to conceal the true spirit of the report, and then to argue in the most dogmatical manner on such false foundations ? — Ex uno disce omnes. It is as palpable a piece of Jesuitry as ever I met with. Of course looking both at the treaty and the report, the true meaning of possession is always carefully to be regarded. It must be settled with a due respect to circumstances, and the habits of the people. It would be as absurd to construe a mere n alking over the land once in a lifetime into an act of possession, as to require a legal possession by deed, signed,

sealed; and delivered. The animus is the true criterion of the act, whether the individual intended to take possession, and followed up tins intention by a corresponding act ; but in such a possession as this the Ne*v Zealander would be disturbed neither by the treaty nor the Parliamentary report. lam content to refer la the documents, and let them speak for themselves ; and, as I have before said, I unhesitatingly ooatradict Mr. Coates on the point in question, a-ttd I assert that there is no ground t uhatever for his arguments. I, therfore, leave the dispute as one of fact, to be settled by looking at the two sources of it ; but Ido trust that Lord Stanley will not, now the way has been opened, refuse to enter upon it from any false feeling towards*the Aborigines. Their rights, like those of Europeans, rest upon one foundation both by nature and treaty, viz., possession or occupation. Let these rights be openly recognizied, and so let an end be put to that sad state of doubt and dread which at present exists. I would no more countenauce usurpation than J[w^ralit ejwouragemaudlinsentimeinaHty;butlefTignb, whether of the red or the white man, be settled and enforced. A young colony cannot stand still; it must go on or fall back; and the uncertainty which yet prevails in NewZealand is enough to stifle it in its infancy. The vigour remaining in this ill-used colony after all its checks and hardships astonishes me beyond measure, and proves what its progress would have been if properly governed, if, indeed, only left alone. But, as Carlyle says, it is a sad time when the governed pray to be let alone. Lord Stanley may continue to neglct New Zealand ; but rely on it the effect will be most prejudicial to himself and his character with posterity. True, that the business of the Colonial Office requires more attention than any one man can bestow ; yet Lord Stanley could do a little, and that little in the right direction, instead of allowing himself to be puVforwaJfLas the tool of the Missionaries, and -mixed jip with all their transactions."" If he goes on, as it is whispered he intends to do, in spite of thetecommendations of the Parliamentary Committee, his term of office will be but brief; for public opinion is against him in and out of Parliament ; and I for one, though an old steady Conservative, shall in that case rejoice in his fall. But let him carry out the Parliamentary report, and of the treaty of Waitangi ; for the two are in principle identical, notwithstanding all which | Mr. Dandeson Coates may assert ; and his course and that ofjtfew ZjaJand^wiU bje jtot^ and lasting. ThaVprinciple Ts, tfiat possession or occupation alone give an original title to land, and that claims to compensation not founded on this principle are to be disre- \ garded as unsound in theory and unjust in j practice.