From Mr. E. G. Wakefield To The Hon. H. W. Petre.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 430, 15 September 1849, Page 3

From Mr. E. G. Wakefield To The Hon. H. W. Petre.

Reigate, 17th April, 1849. My Dear Henry Petre, Wishing to communicate with our friends in New Zealand, I cannot adopt a more suitable mode of addressing them than by writing to you, who were among the first to project the British colonization of the islands, and with whose emigration as a permanent colonist I had perhaps more concern than with that of any other of the many settlers whom I assisted in inducing to embrace a colonial career. Our long friendship, as it spares me the necessity of apologising for giving you some trouble, furnishes another motive for asking you to receive this letter as a communication addressed to all our friends ia the colony. If you can enable them to read it without having it printed, well and good ; but if not, I beg of you to send a copy of it, and of its enclosures, to each of the newspapers at Wellington, whose editors I thus further request to oblige meby printing it in their columns. The inclosed copy of a correspondence which I haye recently held with the Court of Directors of the New Zealand Company, will show you that I am no longer a member of that body : it will also fully explain why I tendered my resignation as a Director, and why the offer was accepted. The acceptance of that offer was a great relief to me ; for, if they really had wished to keep me amongst them, a dread of seeming to desert them whilst the Company is in a state of adversity (which alone of late years has induced me to continue in the Direction), would probably have

held me until the end of the chapter in that most false and uncomfortable position. That position was for, me false and uncomfortable to the extent of being a painful thraldom. My state of health was such as to prevent me from being even a member of the Managing Committee of the Court, which principally directs the affairs of the Company. As the inclosed correspondence will show, I have always and strongly objected to the arrangements with the Colonial Office, by which the Company and the colonization of New Zealand were placed on a new footing in May, 1847. Two years' experience of that arrangement have verified my worst predictions with regard to its operation on the Company and Colony. I have perceived for some time that the New Zealand Company, as respects the objects of its incorporation, was really defunct. In this opinion, as well as in my view of the arrangement made in 1847, I have differed from all my colleagues in the Direction. They were satisfied with that arrangement, and are still not greatly discontented with its effects ; and the collective action of the Court represents their opinions. Thus by continuing a Director, I seemed to approve of what entirely dissatisfied me, and to take part in proceedings which in my view of the subject, were unreal, and likely to delude the Proprietors and the Colony. Yet I was powerless (from ill-health) to attempt bringing about any change for the better. During the two years in question, I have been unable to attend the Court meetings except for two purposes ; — first, that of promoting the arrangements which the Company has made with the Canterbury Association, in which I took a lively interest because they held out a hope of some good colonization for New Zealand notwithstanding the state of the Colony and Company ; and secondly, that of endeavouring to falsify my own predictions as to the effect of the arrangement made in 1847, by helping to preserve the Company from a danger, growing out of tl^ arrangement, which threatened its life, and wholly deprived its existence of vitality, during a large portion of the two years in question. In other respects, I have been only a nominal director since July, 1846, when severe illness compelled me to abstain for along while from any kind or mental exertion. You will see therefore how irksome must have been latterly my position as a Director : it resembled that of poor Charles Buller, during the time when he was held responsible for proceedings of the Colonial Office in which he had no share, and of which he cordially disapproved. I feel my retirement from the Court as a most pleasant liberation. It has set me free, amongst other emancipations, to write this letter of explanation and warning to the colonists of New Zealand. You may naturally ask (for every New Zealand colonist has a right to question me on this subject) why, when the Directors entered into the arrangement with the Colonial Office in May, 1847, I did not then retire from the Court, and state to the proprietors and colonists ray unfavourable opinion of the footing on which that arrangement placed the Company and Colony ? My reasons for not doing so were several. I was so very ill at the time as to have doubts of the soundness of my own judgment on any question. Differing from all my colleagues, whose regard lor the Proprietors and Colonists was at least equal to mine, and whose capacity for judging I might (though I never wavered in differing from their opinion) well deem superior to my own, I might have mistrusted my own judgment though my health had been perfect. Neither, if I had insisted on my own view, was I in a condition to give it practical effect by co-ope-rating with such Directors as might perhaps in that case have agreed with me, and with the Proprietors, in the endeavoar to get a different arrangement. I was crippled by illness : and although I have never doubted that » better arrangement for both Company and Colony, and a far better one for the Colony, might have been obtained if the Directors had stood firmly to the principles of the Company as these were laid down in Lord Stanley's time, I could not induce any body to agree with me on this point. In fact, the Directors generally were tired out by the long struggle with Downing-street when Lord Grey was our champion ; aud when he changed his views on attaimug power, they were content to take whatever they could get rather than continue the struggle as against him. Peace and quiet had with them become the one thing needful. This being their state of mind (and who can wonder at it ?), they naturally disregarded my objections to the arrangement and my suggestion that it would be better for us to put an end to the Company then, when it stood high in public opinion, than to make it a party to a great delusion and see it slowly extinguished in disgrace. These views they attributed to the irritability of bad health and a too pugnacious disposition. So the fatal arrangement was made. Any public protest against it by me could have done no good : it might only have hastened my own gloomy anticipations of the result. Instead therefore of retiring

from the Direction, and making known my rea~ sons for the step, I resolved not only to abstain from doing anything that could possibly interfere with a fair trial of the arrangement, but to assist, if my health should permit, in giving it a fair trial : and to this resolution, I steadily adhered down to the 29th of January last, when my resignation was tendered to the Court. Why I then proposed to retire is fully shown by the correspondence. We come now to a new stage in the course of events. Though incapacitated by feeble health from doing more with the Company than, as before observed, help in laying the foundation of the Canterbury Settlement, and in averting an extreme danger to which the Company was exposed by its dependence on the Colonial Office, I was able somehow or other to prepare a book for the press. This book is really a large pamphlet for New Zealand. Its publication necessitated my retirement from the Direction of the Company. It would not have been published if the prospects of the Colony had been good. Tn publishing it, I have made public, in general terras, my own opinion of the arrangement for Colony and Company which was concluded between the Company and the Colonial Office in 1847. I have thus taken a position separate from the Company. It was not without careful deliberation that I resolved thus to express my opinions relating to the state of the Colony and Company. At the end of last year, the time had come when nothing done by me could make matters worse. The Company was a mere name. Colonization was stopped, without a hope of revival except by means of important changesin the Government of the Colony and the treatment of its waste lands. An ample trial of the arrangement of 1847 had ended in the most complete failure. By appealing to the public on behalf of colonization in general and New Zealand in particular, I could hurt neither the Colony nor the Company, but might do some good to the Colony at least. So the book was published ; and here I am, free to address you without reserve about the state and prospects of the Colony. This freedom, however, does not at present extend Jo speaking out herein England. If I were now to make known here the particulars of my opinion as to the state and prospects of the Company, a majority of the Proprietors might agree with me, and might choose to wind-up the affairs of the Company immediately. Their doing this, or an attempt by them to do it — nay, any mooting of the question publicly — might at least have the effect of preventing the Directors from ma* king another effort to resume colonization," an<i thereby save the Company from extinction next year, when the arrangement with Lord Grey will expire. I must do nothing to interfere with their endeavours for this purpose. Though I am intimately persuaded that the attempt will fail, like all those they have made under the present arrangement, I must do nothing that might have a tendency to promote its failure. It suffices for myself that, by publishing the book, I have washed my hands of responsibility for the arrangement of 1847. The Proprietors are aware of my retirement from the Direction, know generally my opinion of the arrangement of 1847, and can judge for themselves. It would be unbecoming in me to meddle in any way between them and the Directors. This letter will be sent without the knowledge of any Proprietor. Indeed, on the subject of the state of the Company I have not communicated, and do not intend at present to communicate, with any Proprietor who is not a Director. Thus the contents of this letter will not be made public here for a twelvemonth, when a colonial newspaper may bring them from New Zealand. Long before that time, the attempt of the Directors to save the Company, by resuming colonization on a sufficient scale, will have ended in failure or success. If in failure, my prediction thereof not becoming known here till after the failure, will be of no consequence ; if in success, I shall only be laughed at as a false prophet, and shall join in the laugh with as much satisfaction as anybody. As soon as this letter shall be on its way, I shall show a copy to some of the Directors, but certainly to no other Proprietor so long as there shall be a chance that the Directors may prevent the dissolution of the Company in May, 1850, by means of obtaining in* the interval funds wherewith to pay off the Company's debt to the Government, and carry on operations with the Company's own funds. With the foregoing explanation about myself, I dismiss personal considerations. In the remainder of this letter, my objects will be to furnish the colonists with information which they may find useful, to put them on their guard against dangers of which they are not aware, and to offer them some words of counsel which I trust they will attribute to no presumption on my part, but to the 'deep interest that I take in their welfare, and to feelings of sympathy and attachment which 1 cannot help entertaining even towards those of them with, whom I am not personally acquainted.

The utter incapacity of the Company to serve *s an instrument of the State in carrying on the colonization of New Zealand is a fact of which every colonist must now be persuaded, and which requires no comment from me. But some people here who admit {he fact, indulge nevertheless a vague hope that some change for the better may presently occur. I have not the least hope of it. I am persuaded that the arrangement of 1847, was made on the part of the Colonial Office with "the deliberate intention of putting an end to the Company in 1850. I think that in the negotiations for that arrangement, the Directors, though they gave up many points against their will, were in a great measure deluded and taken in. Sick as they were of the long previous struggle, they snatched blindly at the hope of being able to get on well if the Company were hut at peace with the Colonial Office. But peace in this case was really the complete subjection of the Company to "the Office." Every thing of importance was left to depend on the mere pleasure of Downingstreet. By an arrangement, the very basis of which is that the Company should depend for its continued existence on adrances of money from the Government, and should take no important step without the sanction of the Colonial Office, the independence of the Company was destroyed. When it lost independence the Company lost the public confidence. But except by means of enjoying the public confidence, its success as a colonizing body was impossible. It is a remarkable fact that the Company has never, from the hour of its birth to the present day, stood well with the public except when it was at open war with the Colonial Office, By the arrangement of 1847, the Company was so tightly muzzled as to be thenceforth incapable, not merely of biting, but even of barking. It took to praising the Colonial Office for a settlement of New Zealand affairs, which left every public question of moment unsettled, and to boasting of its own subjecjection to Downing-street, as being calculated to strengthen its hands by means of co-op-peration with the Government. The public listened, but was not convinced. To those who carefully examined the arrangement of 1847, the seeds of the dissolution of the Company were plainly visible ; a notion got abroad that the Company was prepared for its own dissolution in 1850, and had taken real care of nothing but its own pecuniary interests ; and colonization was not resumed. With the exception of some little movement in the planting of Otago, which has been but a feeble continuation of an impulse which took place in Scotland before 1846, and of the formation of the very important Canterbury Association, which was not the work of the Company, nothing, it may be said, has been done for the colonization of New Zealand during the last two years. The dispatch of a ship every other month is next to nothing in itself, and is a business which ship owners and brokers would have performed in order to provide for the little emigration that would have gone on spontaneously if there had been no Company. All that the Company has done, has been to get further into debt to the Government. Even the shareholders, whose confidence in the Directors was unlimited in 1 847, and who then joined with the Directors in glorifying the arrangement made with the Colonial Office, are beginning to find out that their position as shareholders is getting worse every day ; and I should not be surprised if, at their annual meeting next month, they were to express some wish that the Company's affairs should be at once wound up. I say this without knowing their views, not having. I repeat, communicated with any of them on the subject ; but I have heard that some of them are very much dissatisfied ; and their interest is so plainly concerned in putting a stop to the increase of the Company's debt, whilst the hope of being able to pay off any part of the debt by means of sales of land during the next year appears to me so entirely delusive, that I think it probable they may wish to prevent the Directors from going on from bad to worse as respects the Company's funds. But at all eveuts, I am convinced that the Company will not last over May, 1850. The Directors may perhaps contemplate rubbing on somehow till then by means of some sales of land, and then getting a fresh lease with perhaps, some fresh advances from the Government ; and it is just possible, if Lord Grey should continue in office so long, that he may be disposed to preserve the Company for another year or two in order that its final dissolution may be less manifestly a consequence of his own arrangement in 1847. Indeed, the dissolution of the Company whilst Lord Grey is in office, is an event which he reay be desirous to avert for the reasons which, as I firmly believe, would have induced him in 1847 to place the colonization of New Zealetnd on a sound footing if the Company had then stood firm to the principles of which he and they were the strenuous advocates when he was in opposition; for Lord Grey professes, and I have no doubt

believes, that he has carried out those principles as Minister ; so that the utter aod proclaimed failure of the Company as a colonizing body would not be very agreeable to him even though it should be postponed to next year, when lapse of time and the gradual i sinking of the Company will to a great extent have disconnected the failure from the promises- of success, and especially from Lord Grey's large individual part in those promises and in his denunciations of the procee- ' dings of the Colonial Office under Lord Stanley. But all this is mere speculation which 1 believe has no solid foundation. The event alone can determine whether my opinion is correct ; but my full expectation is that certainly in May, 1850, and probably before, the Company will be as dead in form as it now is in fact. ' A.t the same time, I am not without hopes, that whenever the Company shall be formally dissolved the Canterbury Association may preserve a separate existence, and may acquire greater means of usefulness than it can possess as an appendage to the New Zealand Company. With this new Association, the Colonial Office has never been at war ; still less has this Association ever defeated the Colonial Office : it is not therefore hated by the Colonial Office as the old Company has been, is, and ever must be. Neither has it ever been a close coadjutor with Lord Grey in proclaiming the principles which he has abandoned ; so that he may be supposed to regard it without the feeling of bitter dislike which commonly actuates a reuegade in his dealings with those from whom he has differed. The unquestionable public spirit and the public influence arising from character and station of the members of this Association, afford further grouud for supposing that they may become an independent corporation when the New Zealand Company shall have expired. Their usefulness to New Zealand as such, and the interest which every colonist has in promoting the success of their great experiment, are topics on which I need not dwell. I will only express generally my own opinion, that if they should accomplish their objects, the example will produce a most happy revolution in the whole business of colonizing by England. The ruin and probable extinction of the New Zealand Company is full of disappointment and regret for me, who have been so identified with that body as to be almost incapable of distinguishing between its fate and my own. But the colonists are not in that predicament. I am satisfied that for their advantage the speedy extinction of the Company in form as well as in fact is a most desirable event. At present, the Company stands between them and all good. It purports and professes to colonize New Zealand, which it does not do. It passes as the representative and organ of the colonists at home, which it is not. It is a paity, passively and tacitly at least, to the official representation that the settlements of New Zealand are prosperous and contented, and that the colonization of the islands is proceeding satisfactorily; a representation which you all know to be not merely unfounded, but directly the reverse of true. As the supposed organ of the colonists it stops their complaints of bad government and no colonization from reaching the public j and Parliament ; it shelters the Colonial Office from the attacks that ought to be made upon j it for the fantastic tricks that it has played since 1846 with regard to constitutional government for the colonists, and for rendering the progress of colonization impossible by its continued mismanagement of the waste lands ; it enables the Colonial Office to mislead public opinion here on the subject of the government and colonizatian of New Zealand, and to withhold from the colonists those institutions of government and colonization which they might probably obtain if there were no Company. For if there were no Company — if the present members of the Company whether in or out of the Direction were no longer held in subservience to Downing-street by pecuniary considerations — by the Company's debt to the Government, and by the impossibility of maintaining even a show of corporate existence without further advances from the Treasury — those of them-who once fought the J battles of New Zealand in Parliament, would i again be active as the friends of systematic colonization including responsible government for the Colony. One cannot imagine that if the Company had been dissolved when it was enslaved by the arrangement of 1847, its members who are public men would have failed to get a better constitution for the Colony than that of which every body has^disapproved ; and at all events the continuance until now of a perfect despotism in New Zealand would have been impossible, if the coadjutors of Lord Grey and Mr. Hawes during the long struggle with the Colonial Office under Lord Stanley, had not been got into a position in which they have necessarily sacrificed public considerations and the Colony to what they deemed the advantage

of the Company as a body of shareholders. In my opinion, therefore, the sooner the Company comes to an end, the better for the Colony. When there shall be no great sham of an organized body representing in this country the interests of New Zealand, the interests of New Zealand will be cared for by public men who may sympathise with that Colony in particular, and by others belonging to the class of colonial reformers. So lpng as the Company shall last, nobody else, I fear, will be induced to take up in Parliament the grievances of the Colony, or to make any other effort for bestowing on the colonists those free institutions which are indispensable to their prosperity and comfort. Do not, however, suppose me to mean that the subjects of colonization and colonial government obtain less attention in this country now than they did three or four years ago. The very reverse of this is the fact. Although the advocates of systematic colonization who used to be the advocates of these principles in connection with New Zealand have been silenced by a clever manoeuvre of the Colonial Office, new advocates of those principles have appeared; the almost universal disorganization of our colonial empire under Lord Grey's rule, compels attention to these subjects ; and I have no Joubt that they will be more discussed in Parliament during the present session than in any bygone year. Let not the settlers in New Zealand be discouraged by the debate of last night in the House of Commons. Most of the colonial reformers in Parliament deprecated Mr. Scott's motion, and rejoice in its failure. If he had obtained his committee, all colonial questions would have been shelved for the session, as those relating to Ceylon and Guiana have been, by being referred to a committee up stairs. The division on Mr. Scott's motion proves nothing as to the state of opinion on these subjects. Attend rather to the speeches of Mr. Gladstone and Sir William Molesworth. Many questions relating to the colonies will be brought separately before Parliament during the next two months. By this means, the subject of colonization and colouial government will be discussed over and over again. lam persuaded myself, that one effect of these discussions must be to get public opinion into such a state as to render great reforms inevitable, perhaps during the year 1 850. Every body predicts (and what every body says is generally true) 'that Lord Grey must soon cease to be Colonial Minister. The existence of the whole ministry is most precarious; and nobody would be surprised if we had a Stanley government within a month. If that or any other government proved capable of accomplishing large reforms, more especially in Ireland and the colonies, it might last for years ; but if not, one session of what is called fair trial would see the end of it. If a Stanley Ministry can last, so much the better ; if not, its failure will do what perhaps nothing else can do, namely, break up the Protectionist party : and then will come a new party made up from all the others, and represented by a ministry composed of the most capable men that all parties can furnish. Such a Ministry may perhaps be in existence, at all events it will be fast approaching, before I can know that you have received this letter. The meeting of Parliament next year will, I believe, be a better time than we have ever known, for agitating colonizing questions with effect. If my view on this point is correct, it behoves the colonists to lose no time in taking the care of their own welfare into their own hands. They know what they want. They want local self-government and extensive colonization. If New Zealand had a constitution similar to our old colonies in New England, and if its fertile wastes were laid open for settlement instead of being closed against it, the emigration from this country, both of people and capital, would exceed what the most sanguine of us ten years ago anticipated as being possible by this time. Instead of one ship in two months to all New Zealand, two or three ships in a month would proceed to each settlement in the case supposed. Every colonist, therefore, has a personal interest in procuring good laws of colonization and government for New Zealand. This is the object : the means consist of importunity by the colonists in praying to the Imperial Parliament for what they want. Knowing, as well as any one can, the state and prospects of opinion here on the subjects in question, I say to the colonists Petition, Petition, Petition. Mr. Fox, in his excellent letter to the Nelson Examiner, gives the same advice. I cannot mention his name without expressing my admiration of him. In this country, where the value of official distinction in a colony cannot be fully understood, there are but few who would appreciate his public spirit in resigning the important office, which he accepted under a free constitution, because he could not bear to hold it under a miserable colonial despotism. But there is a class here that of the best informed and more earnest colonial reformers — who honour him-> as he deserves. He is, indeed, fit to be a leader of the colonists of New Zealand. If he

is amongst you, the wisest and mott effective step you could take for obtaining those things which are indispensable to your prosperity, is to induce him to come home, loaded with your petitions, to- act for a time | here as your Representative in setting forth your grievances and claiming- suitable redress* But if neither he nor any other fitting representative of the colony can be induced to undertake the voyage and the task, then send your petitions without delay. The business of gathering them from every settlement and transmitting them home should be undertaken by some committee, or small number of colonists permanently organized for the purpose of doing that, which, if it is treated as every body's business, will certainly be nobody's. The state of my health prevents me from courting trouble ; but if such a committee, as I have suggested, should be organized, and should be at a loss for some one here to take charge of the proposed petitions, I will gladly receive them, and can promise that they shall be placed in the hands of public men disposed and able to bring the prayer, of them before Parliament. I should very much prefer, however, seeing Mr. Fox as the organ of his fellow-colonists and the bearer of their petitions. By persuading him to undertake this office, though it must needs cost you some money, I am sure that you would save money, time, trouble, and sickness of the heart from hope deferred. He, or any other colonist, coming home as your delegate, might rely on my zealous co-operation in his exertions. You will have read with interest the report of the Debate in the House of Commons on convict emigration to South Africa. In order to prevent the extension to New Zealand of the new plan of the Colonial Office for " dispersing" British convicts over such colonies as do not earnestly protest against the infliction (see the speeches of Sir George Grey and Lord John Russell on Mr. Adderley's motion), some Proprietors of the New Zealand Company have requested the Directors to convene a public meeting of the Company, which will be held on the 27th instant. lam afraid that the Directors as a body disapprove of this meeting being held. As no account of itsproceedings can reach you by the Cornwall, and as I have some fear that the meeting may end in nothing in consequence of the dread of giving offence to the Colonial Office which now actuates the Directors in their collective capacity, I strongly recommend the colonists to lose no time in sending home petitions, such as Sir George Grey and Lord John Russell have declared to be the means by which other colonies will escape the " disgrace and affliction" to which South Africa has been subjected. I have no doubt that it is the present intention of the Colonial Office to make New Zealand a convict colony. If the Company, notwithstanding the Directors' present awe of Downing-street, should agitate as of old to preserve the Colony from this new official infliction, the purpose of the Colonial Office will probably be abandoned ; but I expect nothing of the sort from the Company ; nothing more, I think, will come of the meeting of Proprietors on the 27th than a petition to Parliament not followed up by the Directors ; and I therefore say to the colonists in this case, as with respect to the questions of colonization and responsible government, Agitate for yourselves ! There are several other topics on which I should like to dwell, because they are of importance to the Colony ; but they are not of such urgent importance as those which I have noticed ; and this letter is already too long, I therefore reserve them for notice on another occasion. Indeed, it is my purpose, if illness should not prevent me, to write something to New Zealand by every ship. One of the functions of the New Zealand Company of old I can perform individually ; that of supplying the colonists with information from home which it greatly concerns them to receive ; and this I purpose doing in a busi-ness-like way, that is — fully and with regularity. You may, therefore, expect to hear from me again by the next ship. The subject on which I shall probably write most at length by that opportunity, is the operation of the Company's arrangement with Lord Grey in 1847 on the Colony after the expiration of the three years for which that arrangement was made. I remain, Ever yours most truly, E. G. Wakefield. The Hon. Henry Petre.