SIR G. GREY AND THE CONSTITUTION.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 434, 4 January 1890, Page 6

SIR G. GREY AND THE CONSTITUTION.

By W. L. Rees,

NO. I.

Tiie first live years of the history of New Zealand' after its annexation was a period of anxiety and disquiet. The main feature of the history of this colony for the next twelve years, untit the Constitution Act of 1852.’was passed, is found in the struggle incessantly waged between the New Zealand jCjompany and the different Governors who bold office up to that time. Many New Zealanders have never even hoard of the New Zealand Company, while the great majority of colonists merely know that such a company once existed, but are ignorant of the fact that it founded Wellington, Nelson, Taranaki and Wanganui, and that by arrangement with it, the Church of England settlement of Canterbury was established and the Free Church of Scotland sent its settlers to Otago. Indeed, the real conflict in New Zealand, although waged under the name of systematic colonisation up to 1845, and between that and 1851 under the colour.of constitutional and representative, government, was, in truth, nothing but a long warfare carried on between this. Company, striving to obtain entire possession and control of these islands,for its own benefit, and the different representatives of tho Crown, aided and assisted by all those who had the welfare of both races in New Zealand at heart.

It is impossible to understand the varying phases of the conflict \yithout some general knowledge of the great joint stock company which drew within its meshes wild adventurer, and grave statesmen, as well as philosophers and dignitaries of the Church; which influenced the press, the pulpit, arid ' the Parliament of England with overwhelming power for many years. The Now Zealand Company was brought into existence in 1839, mainly by Mr EdWard Gibbon Wakefield, one of a family which has left its mark for good or ill upon the modern history of British colonisation. Mr Wakefield, in a series of letters, propounded a system founded, like modern political economy, upon human selfishness and the domination of capital over labour. In “The Three Colonies of Australia,” by Samuel Sidney, the auhor observes:— “Mr Wakefield contended that colonial land should be sold at a ‘sufficient price’ at a uniform rate so high as to prevent labourers from buying it. That it should be sold in large blocks, and the purchase money expended in bringing to the colonies healthy and capable young men and women of the labouring class, who, being debarred from becoming land-owners themselves, should continue to work for wages, and thus guarantee a perpetual abundance of cheap labour for the benefit of the capitalist.”

This theory of colonisation did not appeal to the best sentiments of human nature. “ But Mr Wakefield had to assist him in propagating his tenets, not only the charm of * style,’ but of personal fascination, with a more than Protean adaptiveness which rendered him a friend and bosom adviser of Republicans and Radicals, Whig and Conservative peers, Low Church and High Church bishops ; five Secretaries of State for the Colonies—Lords Glenelg and Stanley, Monteaglc, Aberdeen and Grey—have been more or less his pupils ; the influence of his writings, even quotations from them, are to sbo found in their despatches ; while so late as 1850 he led, or rather sent captive, to Canterbury, New Zealand, a crowd of educated victims. “Energetic, tenacious, indefatigable, unscrupulous, with a wonderful talent for literary agitation, for simultaneously feeding a hundred journalists with the same idea and the same illustrations in varying language, for filling eloquent but indolent orators with telling speeches—at one time, he had rallied round him nearly every rising man of political aspirations, and secured the support of nearly every economical writer of any celebrity. He had shaken a Ministry, rounded and distributed the patronage of at least two colonies, and left tno seeds, after nearly exciting open rebellion, in a third.”'

Taking the tide of public opinion on this system of colonisation at its flood, Mr Gib' bon Wakefield and a large circle of frie*” s and admirers registered a joint stock C( ? m ‘ pany destined to become famous, r rattier infamous, as the New Zealand tympany. This corporate body was *, 01 purpose of colonising Zealand upon Mr Edward Gibbon s plan, and to make money. A * that fc . ime Isew Zea ; land was a free sovereign power. It owned fco no authority beyond its own sho^ B - Its tribes were free to deal with intending settlers as they chose. No law >ut that which the chiefs chose to make, and which they had power to enforce, existed, from Cape Maria Van Diemen to Stewart’s Island. To this land—fertile, beautiful, and waste—the longing eyes of Mr Wakefield and his friends were turned. In defiance of the warnings of the British Government, numbers of people were attracted by the hopes held out by the Company, and joined in the adventure. Money flowed in swiftly, became intending emigrants and speculators had to pay in London for the land they were to own in New Zealand. Colonel Wakefield wa3 hurriedly despatched to obtain land from the natives. Purchasers flocked to the London Office. In a short time upwards of £IOO,OOO was received as purchase money. Without waiting to hear that a spot sufficient even to land upon had been purchased, ithe Company sent off several ships filled with emigrants to find a homo, if possible, among the savage and warlike Maoris. This .“highly irregular and improper conduct ” (Select Committee of the Houseof Commons, 1844)was consistentwilh the purposes for which the Company was formed. “ The New Zealand Company was founded for two objects: the one was to put in practice, certain views with regard to colonisation, the other was to make money” (Sir W. Molesworth, speech on New Zealand Bill, 1852). As English subjects were thus being carried to New Zealand from Great Britain, and-as from Australia a stream of colonisation had previously set in, Her Majesty’s M misters were driven to adopt the only effectual measures for establishing in these islands a settled form of government. Capfajn. Hobson, who had been officially sent to New Zealand and had made a very able report, was appointed to undertake the ;< negotiatipns. The meeting called by him-vras held at Waitangi, and there,under the moet solemn- promises that their titles to their;landß should be secured to them by the Crpwn,.the famous treaty was signed, by which .the'.Britain of the . South became incorporated ,_|n.„„the empire. Great fears were expressed by the chiefs present. at the, meeting that in ceding sovereignty, . th.ey r vvould be held as giving upt^their 1 lands. The project was nearly-defeated. Many chiefs wavered. At iast.Tamati Waka rose. : To him, equally renowned-in i.the field and the Council, the assembly glistened attentively. He ; spoke with’great tearnestribes and ability. ‘ When be bad-concluded he turned to Captain Hqbeonj;and; wi th pathetic confidence said, "You must be our father. You mußtnot allow us to become slaves, You must pre-

servo our customs, and never permit our ( lands to be wrested from us.” Tamati i Waka’s speech was decisive ; the treaty was .1 signed, the aid of the missionaries of the different churches wa3 invoked, and many other influential chiefs not presentat Waitangi joined inthemovemenb. Bub the same promise was always exacted and was always made. The Maori was bo be guaranteed, on the faith of England, all his rights in the lands of his fathers. On the 6th of February, the first forty-six signatures were appended to the treaty. At that time the first settlers of the Company at Port Nicholson, who had been landed at Petone some sixteen days before, were wondoring where they were to get the land for which they had paid before leaving England. On the 21st May the sovereignty of the Queen was proclaimed, and the 16bh of November created New Zealand a separate colony. So great was the influence which the New Zealand Company had by this time acquired that when tho colony was declared independent of New South Wales Lord John Russell formally recognised it, and made arrangements with its directors in order that the colonisation of New Zealand should be carried on conjointly by the Government of the colony and the Company. The agitation for what was afterwards called “local government” commenced with the landing of the Company’s settlers at Petone. They formed a government of their own with courts and officers, and acted as if they were invested with the authority of the Crown. From the first it became evident that the agents and officers of the Company were determined to exercise sovereign rule. Their idea of constitutional and representative government was, and always has been, continuing until the present time, that New Zealand was made especially for them, that they had or ought to have the light to rule, to legislate for their own benefit, to acquire great estates in land as their own inheritance, and, under the name of constitutional or representative government, to use the public money, the public credit and the public patronage for themselves and their friends. The same struggle is being maintained now as commenced between Captain Hobson and the Wakefields in 1840, continued be tween the Wakefields and Captain Fitzroy in 1843, and afterwards between Sir George Grey, aided by Bishop Selwyn and Sir William Martin on the one side, and Sir William Fox. Sir Charles Clifford, Dr. Featherston, Weld, and the whole host of land speculators and land jobbers who sided with them. The immediate consequence of the Treaty of Waitangi was the creation of courts by the authority of Government, which, after due deliberation, declared that the pretended purchases of native land made by the Company were nearly all invalid. The Company at once set itself by its agents and members to destroy the principle on which the Treaty of Waitangi was based, namely, the rights of the Maoris to their lands. Those rights were denied. They were assailed with ridicule. They were stated to be in antagonism to the rights of civilised humanity. No effort was spared to induce the Government of England to adopt this view, and although for some time these efforts were unavailing, at length, in 1844, they succeeded in obtaining a resolution from a committee of the House of Commons, recommending the Crown to take possession of all lands not actually occupied by tho natives; and in 1846, not only did Earl Grey deliberately set out his opinions to this effect in his despatch to the Governor, but in the Royal instructions, which accompanied the Act of ’46, and the Charter, provisions were made for registration of native lands, which, had they been carried into effect, would have absolutely despoiled the natives -of the great bulk of their ancestral territories.