LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. [From the New Zealander, August 11.] Saturday, 7th August, 1847.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 229, 9 October 1847, Page 2

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. [From the New Zealander, August 11.] Saturday, 7th August, 1847.

Present — The Governor, and four Members ; absent Mr. Domett. The minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. The Governor requested that the honourable members who had given notice of motions for that day, would consent to have them postponed to Tuesday, in order that he might have the opportunity of laying . on the table several Very important documents relative to the Land Claims. - , ' • The various Bills which stood in order for Saturday's consideration, were, on the motion of the several Members who 1 had charge of them, postponed to Tuesday. The Governor then laid on the table the following 'documents, which were read to the. Council. ' •

Extracts from Dispatch No. 41. Dated Downing-street,- 10th February, 1847. " The series of your despatches, which 1 enumerate in the margin, exhibit so clearly the injurious tendency of those measures, and' the necessity of resorting to some prompt *t>d*effectual remedy, that 1 think it needless to ~ enlarge on those topics, My immediate purpose is rather to satisfy to the utmost of my power, the demand which you make for the support and assistance of her Majesty's Government, in arresting the progress of the danger which you anticipate from Governor Fitzroy's decision on this subject. „ The steps taken by yourself with this view, appear to me to have .been judicious. I approve of your determination to allow all claimants under the proclamations of the 26th March, and of the 10th October, 1844, or under the notice of the 7th December in the same year, to send in the jr ; claims' within a prescribed period, on pain of the exclusion of them. 1 approve ot your projected appointment of a commission to report on evety ; purf" chase, and your decision not to issue, except' under very special .circumstances, any 'grantto any such purchaser until you • shall have, received the further instructions of her Majesty's Government." „,, " These measures, , however judicious in themselves, are, as you have pointed out, quite inadequate to-' encounter ah evil-of such magnitude. The effectual remedy, must be of a different character, and must be taken urn der the immediate authority of her' Majesty's Government. , - , On referring to the official correspondence, I find that Governor Fitzroy's first Proclamation, waiving the Crown's right of preemption, was dated o.n the 26th March, 1844.' It formed one of a 'great body of enclosures in bis despatch of 15th April in the same year. The effect of that Proclamation was to requite the payment to the Grown of Ten Shillingrin respect of every nine acres. out Often, of which the pre-emption should be so waived. Six months latet, that is, op the 10th October, 1844, Governor Fitzroy issued a second proclamation, reducing the payments to the Crown in, those cases,, from Ten Shillings to one Penny an acre. This last Proclamation was transmitted by the then Governor, on the 14th of the same month of October, 18441 Lord Stanley's Despatch of the 30th' November, 1 844, though disapproving the first of these Proclamations, gave a distinct, but reluctant sanction to it. On the 27th June, 1845, bis Lordship, in his Despatch of that date to yourself, directed you to recognise any sales which Governor Fitzroy . might have sanctioned under his second proclamation. But his Lordship expressed his opinion, that it was a most impolitic arrangement, and earnestly impressed upon, you the inexpediency of allowing such purchases for the future. On the 14th August, 1845, Lord Stanley recur-

red to the subject, and expressed his deshe that the practice might be discontinued as toon as it could t be safely done, and he explained tha( he had understood the first proclamation as limited to a particular district, which he proceeded to define, and he stated his earnest wish to revert to the original plan of prohibiting all direct purchases from the natives. The result therefore seems to be that the first, or (as it has been called), the " Ten Shilling an acre" Proclamation, has been sanctioned by her Majesty's Government, in reference to the particular district defined by Lord Stanley ; that the " Penny au acre" proclamation (as it has beeu termed), has been sanctioned by her Majesty's Government to this extent, viz. — that any sales which Governor Fitzroy might have sanctioned under it, were to be recognised. To whatever ex* tent the faith of the Crown is thus pledged to the purchasers, it must be maintained inviolate be the consequent inconvenience what it may. But", except to the extent to which any such pledge has'teen given, her Majesty remains perfectly ftee to take such measures as the welfare of her subjects in New Zealand requires. In assuming the right to issue any such Proclamation, your predecessor was plainly exceeding his lawful authority. This roust be perfectly obvious to any one who reads the Royal Charter, Commission and Instructions, which enacted and limited his powers. But though Captain Fitzroy thus exceeded his authority, in a manner which, even if had there been no other reasons for doing so, would have rendered it indispensable that he should be removed from the government of New Zealand, to refuse now to acknowledge the Claims of individuals, founded upon acts done by him, while he was in the exercise of the powers conferred upon him by her Majesty's Commission, would be inexpedient, since it might unjustly affect persons who have availed themselves of the Proclamation, in ignorance of the defective authority on which they rested, and, also because it might very injuriously impair the authority of those who exercise the power of the Crown in its distant colonial possessions, thus to establish the principle that their exceeding their authority, vitiated their acts, and that private individuals cannot safely regulate their conduct upon the principle that whatever a Governor may do under his Commission, is to be assumed to be lawfully and proper/; dope, until the contraryjs declared by superior^ authority. , While therefore, on the ground of Captain Fitzroy's having disobeyed hit instructions, and also on that of the manifest impolicy of the Proclamations of the 26th March, 1844, and of the 10th October, 1844, and of the Notices of the 7th of December, 1844, waiving the Crown's right of pre-emp-tion, the Queen js pleased to disallow and annul those acts, and each ot them, her Majesty is nevertheless further pleased to declare that this order of disallowance shall not prejudice any acts which may have been done in strict pursuance of the Proclamation of the 26th March 1844, antecedently to your receipt of this Despatch, or any acts which may have been done in strict pursuance of, and under the authority of the Proclamation of 10th October,. 1844, antecedently to the receipt by the Governor of New Zealand, of Lord Stanley's Despatch of the 27th June, 1845. It is her Majesty's further pleasure that all such acts so done befote such respective periods shall be as valid and effectual as if the Proclamations under which respectively such acts may have been done had been confirmed and allowed by her Majesty. Having thus reconciled the observance of the faith of the Crown, with the prospective abrogation of these unfortunate acts of your predecessor, it remains for me to observe that the claimants under these Proclamations have a title, retting on.no other ground bu{ that of a strict and positive legal right, and that their titles fckve no support frbitf'juatice r equity, or public policy. To whatever extent they can clearly bring their cases within the true meaning of Governor Fitzroy's Proclamations, to that extent their demands must be satisfied." But it is not merely competent to you, but is your plain duty to withhold any grant from the Crown, and any aid in any other form, from every purchaser under these Proclamations who shall not be able to prove in the strictest manner that he has completely and literally satisfied the, requisitions of the Proclamations in every particular they .contain. You will, therefore, refer every such claim to the Attorney General ior New Ulster, calling on bim to report whether it is inexact conformity with the Proclamation under which it may be preferred. And you will make no Crown Grant to any such claimant without the previous certificate from the Attorney General to that effect. It will further be necessary that beforeauy such Crown Grant be issued, the Attorney General should certify to you that the uatives from whom the purchases may have been made were, according to the native laws and customs the real and sole owners of the land that they

.undertook to sell,- .It will, . be the business of parties claiming the benefit of such sales to produce such evidence as the Attorney General ir ay consider to be required to enable him so to certify ; and they must do this at their own charge without cost to the Colonial Treasury. Finally, in every grant which you may make in pursuance of these Proclamations, it must be expressly declared that her Majesty enters into no guarantee or warranty of the title to the lands, save on)y so far as to engage that the grant shall be considered as barring the title of the Crown to such lands, and as transferring to the Grantee any right to the lands, which, at or previously to the date of the Grant, may have been vested in the Queen." " You will give immediate publicity to her Majesty's decision, and to the motives of it, as I have already explained them. I anticipate that the result will be that of the purchases made under Governor Fitzroy's Proclamations very few indeed will be sustained. " I have no difficulty in avowing that it will be ! gratifying to me to learn that such is the re-; suit, for the whole transaction is one which it is impossible to contemplate- without a lively regret that any persons should be benefited by it at the public expense, and an earnest de1 sire to confine that benefit strictly within the limits which the Royal faith, as pledged by Lord Stanley's despatches, prescribes. I am Sir, &c, (Signed) Grey. To Governor Grey.