The Express.
London, England, 1848-01-01 00:00:00

THE BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND.

Mr. Heyworth, of Liverpool, has transmitted the
following excellent and jud,cious communication to the
editor of the New Zealand J01t17104. it iota be hoped that
Mr. Hey worth'a name may secure a [eyelash:6 hearing for
truths in certain quarters where they have hitherto been re-
fused admission—st is to be feared front a partisan feeling,
disguising itself (even to those who entertained it) in the garb
of religions seal.
"Yew Tree, 1/ec. 23, 1847.—5ir,--The protest which the
Bishop of New Zealand has recently published, in which he
solemnly resolves to aid the natives in resisting the decisions
of the imperial parliament, induces me to request that you
will insert the accompanying letter in your journal. The
object of this letter is, as you will perceive, to disabuse
the missionaries of a fallacy which they entertain, it is to be
feared, in common with the bishop, in respect to the right of ,
property. This fallacy, mixed up as it is wilt the vital
truths they are commissioned to communicate to the natives,
and harmonising as it does with their savage instinctive co-
vetousness, comes to the aborigines with a force that stir
up th, it worst passions, and is pregnant with the most dis-
astrous consequences to our common humanity.—l am, sir,
youn respectfully, LAWRENCE HEY WORTH."
" Yew Tree, near Liverpool, Dec. 15, 1847.—My dear
Sir,—Part of a pamphlet, published, I presume, by the
' Aborigines Protection Society,' has been sent to me.
have read it, and as I perceive:that you are named asthe pre-
sident of the society, in addressing this to you, I venture to
make some remarks, which the perusal of this document has
induced. Whilst I give credit to yourself, and the gentle-
men of the committee, for the sincere philanthropy with
which, I doubt not, they are actuated, permit me to say, I
think they and their agents, by assuming that the merle in-
habitants of New Zealand have any right of property in the
wilderness land which they do not occupy, and which re-
mains unsubdued to all the purposes of man, do grievously err
in judgmeet, being totally ienorant of the first principles of
the rights of property, as they exist in the law of nature, and
are set forth in holy writ. It is greatly to be lamented that,
instead of a just principle, they have substituted the hea-
thenish one—that might can beneficially establish right—
right of property. Surely a glance at the traditional
history of New Zealand, not to adduce that of all 'm-
iens on the earth, ought to explode the foolish policy
of this wicked principle. Ask the present native claimants
of any portion of New Zealand by what title they pretend
to bold it in possession, the general reply will be, through
the infliction of rapine and murder, and not nnfrequently by
the total extermination of the preceding claimants, or may
be of the legitimate possessors, who have became such by
the veritable title of having, by their own labour, reclaimed
the wilderness. Thus, by the savage rule, that might earVers
right of property, the whole island has keen succeLively
deluged with blood and carnage, and kept desolate of inha-
bitants to this day; and these beautiful islands, which God
has created to be replenished with human spiritual beings,
will ever continue a desolation, until this iniquitous prin-
ciple, which has its origin in the fleshly lusts of insensate
covctousuess and insatiate ambition—in the grovelling
passions of our lower animal nature, and in the mere
brute instincts which we have in common with savage
besets—shall have ceased to direct the acts of the
natives, and in its stead, the true law, which esta-
blishes the right to property in him who by labour has
acquired it, shall have become the intellectual and universal
ru'e with them. The principle of this law is not instinctively
felt, but is intellectually discerned, and rests on the follow-
ing basis : that God has given, indiscriminately, to the
children of men, the crude materials of the p:anet on which
he has brought them into existence. Another is, that God
has enjoined them to multiply, increase, replenish, and
subdue the earth. And a third is, that whatever costly
social arrangements have been made to obtain the
curate surveys, the orderly subdivision, and peaceab'e set-
tlement of its wilderness lands, and whatever fruitfulness
man's labour has conferred upon it and reaped in
produce front it, and whatever means his labour has
provided for obtaining, transferring, and beneficially dif-
fusing its spontaneous or artificial productions—these are
emphatically his own property, because they are the crea-
tion of his own labour, and they give the only rightful
claim to the lends they aff ct. Of these, or of the lands
they affect, he cannot be deprived, without committing an
infraction of the divine law, Thos shalt not steal,' and in-
curriog the certain penalty of judicial social suffering and
outrage consequent on its systematic infringement, except
at the social requirement of the land for evideutly public
purposes and public benefit, and then only by an equivalent
compensation being conceded to him for them. These
Christian and only honest views of the law which confers
the right of private property the missionaries ought to have
taught to the chiefs and to the natives of the countries they
visit, and not to have confirmed, by their sanction, the here
thenish law referred to ; and then, in peaceful advantages,
to the aborigines and to their children, of an extent is-
calculably great, the natives would have continued to
hail with joyous satisfaction the settlement of the Europeans
amongst them. The application of this principle, in its integ-
rity, will perpetuate " peace and good will;" and, in spite of
the lack of faith, too evident on the part of the missionaries
in the efficacy of this right principle, it will fill the islands
with a happy, a prosperou., and a dense community of inha-
bitants ; for as surely as that the earth is to be replenished
with inhabitants, this rule for ascertaining and determining
the rights of property will and must of necessity prevail.
The inadequate application of this principle has plunged the
world through all past ages in conflict. Ireland is now
struggling in agony to give birth to a more perfect recogni-
tion of it, and, as a step in advance of its righteous demands,
the tries of suffering humanity call aloud fur the eoneemion
of tenant's rights, and the abolition of the l►w of entail I
hope you will p►rdon the liberty I have taken in placing
before you this explanation of my views on what all must
consider a very important subject —And I am, my dear sir,
yours truly, LAWRENCE Rev WORTH.
"To the President of the Aborigines Protection Society."