The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-30 00:00:00

NEW ZEALAND.

The following letter, from the Under-Secretary of
State for the Colonies, has been received, with in-
structions, &c., subjoined, by the secretary of the
New Zealand Company :
" Downing-street, Dec. 26.

" Sir,—l am directed by Lord Grey to inform you
that draughts of a new charter for the government of
New Zealand, and also of a new commission and in-
structions to the Governor, having been submitted to,
and approved by, her Majesty in Council, these docu-
ments, as soon as the necessary forms have been com-
pleted, will be published in the London Gazette, in
conformity with the provisions of the Act passed in
the last session of Parliament, from which they derive
their authority. As the change which will thus be
effected in the constitution of the colony must neces-
sarily be regarded with great interest by the New
Zealand Company, and as the legal instruments, of
which the publication has been prescribed by Parlia-
ment, might not by themselves be very easily intel-
ligible, lam further directed to transmit to you, for
the information of the directors and shareholders of
the company, the copies which I have the honour to
enclose of a dispatch which Lord Grey has addressed
to the Governor of New Zealand, and which will be
forwarded to him by the earliest opportunity.—l am,
sir, your most obedient servant,
" T. C. Harrington, Esq., &c."

" B. HAWES.

INSTRUCTIONS TO GOVERNOR GREY.
Downing-street, Dec 23, 1846.
Sir,—you will have been apprised, long before your
receipt of this dispatch, that in the last session of Par-
liament the Act which I now enclose was passed for the
better government of New Zealand. The motives which
suggested such an enactment are best explained by a
general reference to the correspondence between your-
sell and preceding governors of this colony on the one
hand, and myself and my predecessors in office on the
other. Any more specific retrospect would, for my im-
mediate purpose, be superfluous. It is enough to say,
that the necessity of a fundamental change in the sys-
tem adopted by the charter of November, 1840, has been
insisted on by all parties to the discussion, and that there
is an almost equally unanimous concurrence among them,
in the opinion that the change should be in the direc-
tion of calling the settlers to participate much more
largely in the business of legislation and local self-go-
vernment. The accompanying Act is accordingly
framed on that principle.
For the institutions established under the charter of
November, 1840, it contemplates the substitution of mu
nicipal corporations for the government of each separate
district of New Zealand which is or which shall be set-
tled by colonists of European birth and origin. Every
such district is to be erected into a borough; every such
borough is to elect a common council, from which are to
be chosen a mayor and a court of aldermen ; every
such common council is to elect members to serve in a
House of Representatives, forming one of the three
estates of a Provincial Assembly. For this purpose the
Whole of New Zealand is to be divided into two or more
provinces. In every such Provincial Assembly laws will
be made for the province by the House of Represents•
tires, by a Legislative Council, and by the Governor,
Who, together, will constitute the Provincial Legislature.
But, as there are many topics of general concern to
all the inhabitants of New Zealand, respecting which
some uniformity of legislation and of administration will
be indispensable, it is further provided, that a General
Assembly of the New Zealand Islands shall be holden
by the Governor-in- Chief. That General Assembly will
be composed of himself, and of a Legislative Council,
and of a House of Representatives. But no one will be
a member of the Legislative Council of the General
Assembly who is not also a member of one of the Legis-
lative Councils of the Provincial Assemblies ; neither
will any one be a member of the House of Representa-
tives of the General Assembly who is not a member of
one of the Houses of Representatives of the Provincial
Assemblies.
In order to adapt the system of the local executive
Government to this scheme of provincial and general
legislation, the charter (if the mere text of that instru-
bent be alone regarded) provides for, and supposes, the
?reation of five different offices. They are a Governor-
In-Chief of New Zealand, a Governor of each province,
and a Lieutenant-Governor of each. But the actual
appointment of five such distinct officers forms no part
of_ the design at present entertained. It is proposed to
address to the same person the commissions of Governor-
Ae•Chief and of Governor of either province; and to ad-
dress to another person the commissions of Lieutenant-
`l:°,rernor for each. Although, with a view to precision
question
to various technical considerations, all the offices in
;I,T.stion are mentioned in the charter as distinct, they
ir.bl thus (at least for the present) be combined in the
7)(te of two persons only.
these, the highest—who will be at once Governor
`°l Governor-in-Chief—will be the official superior of
the.,. other, who will be designated in each province as the
Lieutenant-Governor of it. The relation will not be one
ofe,
ll* —ere precedency and rank, but will carry with it
.ee
nye authority on the one hand, with subordination
',•`„°,4 obedience on the other hand. To the Governor in-
Chief it will belong exclusively to correspond with her_
Majesty' Secretary Secretary of State having the department of
e
,_ Colonies. To the Lieutenant- Governor it will belong
Correspond exclusively with the Governor-General.
stateauthority and control exercised by the_Secretary of
over the Governor-in-Chief will, by the Governor-
LI:I-Chief, be exercised over the Lieutenant-Governor.
That authority will extend even to the suspension of the
Lieutenant-Governor from office, if unhappily the neces-
sity for so extreme a measure should ever arise.
The Governor-in-Chief will fix his own place of resi-
dence according to his own estimate of the greater or
less demand for his presence in one or in the other pro-
Vince. But, wherever he may be, he still acts as Governor
44 the province in which he may be resident, and as
Zovernor-ite Chief of the whole of New Zealand, direct
41C and controlling the acts of the Lieutenant-Governor
vseftea as he may think any such control or direction
•
401, e provide for the administration of the executive
ernment of either province from which the Governor-
ise;?ihief may absent himself it will be in his choice,
serjeling to his view of the exigencies of the public
re !ice, either to call on the Lieutenant- Governor to
4,,Lue and to act for him there, or to appoint a Lien-
wir-Governor for the purpose, whose appointment
tn__` be made to terminate on the Governor-in-Chiefs re-
p.m and resumption of his own office as Governor of
the province for which such temporary appointment may
made. You will find that the necessary
powers for this purpose are created by the charter.
In favour of this
executive polity, relyeme of municipal, legislative, and
on the following considerations :
•--It is framed with
close
stances would allow to the m adherence as circum-
stances
%%ions, an object which I regaerldof our English
eescl adheres e the
a s n e a highestnearly
Portance in every such design,
practicable to that scheme of
eain North
American
i policy
loonnicoos
diffused over the greater part of the colonial
constitutions;
Continent, and still surviving in our re
there, and yet to be distinctly traced in the
of the flourishing states new united into the
American commonwealth. It provides for the great
~.▪ "flOvernment of districts in a country where the dis-
,Veibn of the settlements is such as to render any one
central authority incompetent to that task. But while
• blie spirit and a practical acquaintance with public
affairsl will thus be cherished in every part of New Zea-
• the erection of provinces and provincial assemblies
, I trust, counteract the tendency which such corpo-
i:ra, institutions must otherwise have to disunite, in
Fru'erest and in feeling, the various remote districts
hetin each other. Natural causes forbid the combi-
neerl,ef all those districts in the choice of members to
butl In single assembly for the whole of New Zealand;
the,,"'lo such assemblies at present, and perhaps more
and two such hereafter, may be sufficient to consolidate
pa_ cement and protect the interests of the various se-
or"tte boroughs. To prevent those intercolonial contests
oreerneh frequent occurrence elsewhere, and to watch
Oen the general interests of the whole country, the
thoseral Assembly is charged with the exclusive care of
same interests and with no other function. The circum-
hersecehtohisat the General Assembly will consist of mem-
burbber en by the provincial assemblies out of their own
the othewill' hope, prove an effectual security against
and the "Pi" too probable conflicts between the local
that for general Legislatures. I anticipate, however,
Itrise for some time to come the occasions which will
exceecrealling together the General Legislature will
t.re, neactedingly rare, and the amount of business to be
'bat it ev, ,bY it very small; it will only be necessary
e,,Xiato,°llid meet when some change is required in the
-aeegi,d: law upon those subjects with which the separate
$y l
will not be competent to deal.
Y DI •
seatearacing the corporations and the Houses of Repre-
ti,es
or es in the relation of constituents and representa-
With s each other, they will have such common interests
then, t° much of mutual control, as probably
.to maintain
Withoutoth in the possession of their appropriate powers,
aehenae the risk of encroachment on either side. The
exp)a, of executive government which I have briefly
med will assure to the various authorities, muni-
dri and legislative, of New Zealand the benefit to be
larithyed from
oftuniy purpose and uniformity of system
eervicee e.onduct the administrative branch of the public
a system
project it has been objected, that it introduces
efecieteurtia too complicated to be easily understood or
think is,Ythatecthlete • The answer to that objection I
Problem to b e solved
s 0
wn weree
inevitable conditions of the practical
more than usually numerous
and complex. is the extent of the whole terri-
tory, so remarkable the dispersion of the settlements
tws7, so many -ne impediments to rapid intercourse be-
ehsr‘a them, and so strangely contrasted the habits and
It betters of the different races of the inhabitants, that
of 0 "le necessary at least to attempt the reconcilement
timpbaite and yet co-existing dangers. There was the
tips er of enervating all the springs of Government by
due
Gas the dispersion of separate authonties, and there
Govern danger of impeding the useful action of the
parr:eat by an undue centralization of its powers.
et which was submitted to and sanctioned by
meat,as her Majesty's Government attempted as far
Whether
to escape from both of these difficulties.
reconeethe scheme adopted affords the best attainable
thet 'tient of them or not, it will scarcely be denied
Safe 50,7 ti Were serious difficulties, and admitted of no
on of a short and simple character.
tut:
In_ framing the Act, her Majesty's Government
ere
cti not forgetful of their extreme liability to error when
he-"_gcii f
reference to a state of things so remote from
yservation aml from thpir own vet., t I
thern the business of civil " x
the.afore, studiously provided that the alt.ptaltiownaosi'
11/IT to the local circumstances of New Zealand

should be transferable to those who should bring to the
discharge of that duty the greatest amount of local
knowledge and the best opportunities of ascertaining the
state of public opinion amongst the colonists. The broad
outlines of the scheme having been partly drawn by Par-
liament, and the Queen in Gunnell being authorised to
complete these outlines, her Majesty was also empowered
to delegate to the Governor-in-Chief the duty of filling
up all the various details ; and so wide are these powers
of delegation as to supply a remedy for any errors of
mere ignorance or oversight into which her Majesty's
confidential advisers may have unconsciously fallen.
I now transmit to you four instruments for sarrying
this Act of Parliament into effect. Of these the first is
a new charter for the government of New Zealand. It
is little more than a mere creation of the powers, muni-
cipal, legislative, and administrative, which the Act of
Parliament authorises the Queen so to create. It re
peals the charter of 1840, leaving it, however, to the
Governor-in-Chief to determine at what time the new
charter shall be promulgated and brought into operation.
You will observe that the Act of Parliament enables
her Majesty for a limited time to continue in force, as
regards the province of New Ulster, the charter of 1840.
When this measure was submitted to Parliament there
seemed reason to believe that it might be desirable to
make a distinction between the northern and the southern
settlements, with regard to the time at which the intended
change in the form of government should coins into ope-
ration; but more recent information has led to a different
conclusion, and, accordingly, her Majesty has not been
advised to avail herself of the power with which she was
invested in this respect.
The second instrument is the series of instructions
under the royal signet and sign manual to which the
charter refers. This, as will appear in the sequel, is the
instrument in which the plan of the new constitution is
exhibited in all the detail in which it has been possible
to prepare it in this country. Technical reasons, into
which I need not enter, render it highly convenient to
make the instructions, rather than the charter, the
channel of signifying the royal pleasure at full length
and circumstantially.
The third of the accompanying documents is your own
appointment as Governor-in-Chief of New Zealand, and
as Governor of each of the provinces into which those
islands will be divided.
The fourth and last instrument constitutes Mr. Eyre
Lieutenant-Governor of each of the two provinces which
it is now proposed to establish.
It may be convenient that I should in this place point
out how vacancies in these offices are to be filled provi-
sionally, whenever the necesssity for such provisional
appointments may arise. If the Governor-in-Chief
should die, or otherwise create an unexpected vacancy,
the following is the order in which the various officers
capable of a provisional succession will be called to it,
each later designation always supposing the absence
from New Zealand of any person bearing the- immedi-
ately preceding designation. In the case supposed, then,
the provisional succession will devolve, first, on the Go-
vernor of New Ulster; secondly, on the Governor of
New Munster; thirdly, on the Lieutenant-Governor of
New Ulster, if appointed immediately by the Queen;
fourthly, on the Lieutenant-Governor of New Munster,
if appointed immediately by the Queen; and fifthly, on
the senior officer for the time being in conarnand of the
Queen's troops in New Zealand.
On the death or absence or other vacancy of the office
of the Governor of either province, his office will be
tilled by the Lieutenant-Governor of it.
On the death or absence or other vacancy of the office
of Lieutenant-Governer of either province, the vacancy
will be filled provisionally by an officer to he appointed
by the Governor-in-Chief. I have already observed,
that Lieutenant Governors so appointed will not stand
in the line of provisional succession to the general go-
vernment.
Provision being thus made for establishing the muni-
cipal, the legislative, and the executive institutions of
New Zealand, there is a virtual accomplishment of all
that is necessary for its future government. From those
institutions will flow all subordicate powers, judicial,
fiscal, magisterial, or of whatever ether nature they may
be. The respective Legislatures will progressively
mould these derivative organs of government into such
forms as the exigencies of society shall require. To a
great extent it will be competent to those Legislatures
so to mould even the instutton which the charter itself
creates, by regulating the elective franchise and the
whole system of elections, municipal and legislative,
care being taken that no such enactments be either re-
pugnant to the text or at variance with the spirit of
the Act or of the charter. To prescribe fundamental
rules, and to create an authority for the better adapta-
tion of them to the real wants of the colony, is the only
function which the Queen or Parliament have assumed
to themselves, or could properly have assumed.
At first sight it may appear that something more than
this has been aimed at in the accompanying royal in-
structions. They are unavoidably copious and minute ;
but they will be found rather to impart powers than to
lay down inflexible rules ; and so wide is the field over I
which the subject ranges, that even to accomplish this
design has unavoidably led into many elaborate and pro-
tracted details.
To render those details as clear and as useful as may
be, they are drawn up, not in the usual form, but in a
series of chapters, each of which is subdivided into sec-
tions, the whole being introduced by one comprehensive
reference to the powers under which the instructions are
issued, and by one equally comprehensive declaration of
the royal pleasure that they shall be observed. Much
tautology and useless repetition is thus avoided.
Believing that the instructions, as thus prepared, will
be found to convey their meaning perspicuously and
completely, I abstain from any attempt to recapitulate
or to explain their provisions. I turn to other topics, on
which it seems indispensable that on the present occasion
I should convey to you explanations for which, of course,
no appropriate place could be found in the legal instru-
ments already mentioned. I advert especially to what
relates to the aborigines of New Zealand, and the settle-
ment of the public lands in those islands.
I cannot approach this topic without remarking, that
the protracted correspondence to which it has given rise,
the public debates and resolutions which have sprung
from it, and the enactments and measures of your pre-
decessors in the Government, have all contributed to
throw into almost inextricable confusion the respective
rights and claims of various classes and individuals
amongst the inhabitants of New Zealand, to render very
embarrassing the inquiry into which you must doubtless
be engaged respecting the line of conduct which her
Majesty's Government expect you to pursue, and at the
same time to make it almost impossible for us to deter-
mine, with any confidence, what that conduct ought to
be, and how far, in a state of affairs so complicated, it is
possible now- to act upon the principles to which, in the
absence of these difficulties, I should have prescribed
your adherence. I will not attempt any retrospect of
those documents and proceedings ; I should but be
adding to the perplexity which I acknowledge and re-
gret. It shall be my attempt rather to explain, as
briefly as the nature of the subject admits, what is the
policy which, if we were unembarrased by past transac-
tions, it would be right to follow, and which (so far as
any freedom of choice remains to us) ought still to be
adopted, regarding the right of property in land, which
should be acknowledged or created, more especially as
affecting the aborigines of New Zealand.
I enter on this topic by observing that the accompany-
ing statute,',9 and 10 Victoria, chap. 104, sec. 11, repeals
the Australian Land Sales Act, as far as relates to lands
situate in New Zealand. Thus there is a complete ab-
sence of any statutory regulations on this subject. The
Queen, as entitled in right of her crown to any waste
lands in the colony, is free to make whatever rules hi•r
charterMajest mayocc rd seein
Majestyrissuebsjtehcet.
GovernorT heaccompanying
charter accordingly authorises the Governor to alienate
such lands. The accompanying instructions direct how
that power is to be used. I proceed to explain the
accordingly ona authorises
motives by which those instructions have been dictated.
The opinion assumed, rather than advocated, by a
large class of writers on this and kindred subjects is, that
the aboriginal inhabitants of any country are the pro-
prietors of every partof its soil of which they have been
accustomed to make
ert
accustomed to assert claim is repre-
sented Th.•
as sacred, however an title.
any use, or to which they have been
of the arts or
habits of civilised life, however
small the number of
occasional the uses they their tribes, hewever imperfect
make of the land. Whether
they are nomadic tribes
living by the chase, or
sea-
coasts or the banks of rivers, frequenting the fist,spasiering cattle, or hunters
question is alike ascribed to them the proprietary title in
From this doctrine, whether it be
grounds of religion, or of morality, or 11.
maintained on the
o
entirely dissent. What I hold to bere expediency, I
with regard to property in land is that weh-leh
I find laid
true principle
down in the followieg passage from the
w
Arnold, which I think may safely be acceptedor as
sooff Dr
thority upon this subject, not only on account of his
high character, but also because it was written, u
reference to passing events, or to any controversy Which
with.lawas at that time going on, but as stating a principle
which he conceived to be of general application:—
" Men were to subdue the earth; that is, to make it
by their labour what it wonld not have been by itself,•
and with the labour so bestowed upon it came the right
of property in it. Thus every land which is inhabited
at all belongs to someb.idy ; that is, there is either
some one person, or family, or tribe, or nation, who
have a greater right to it than any one else has; it
does not and cannot - belong to everybody. But,
so much does the right of property go along with
labour, that civilised nations have never scrupled
to take possession of countries inhabited only by tribes
of savages—countries which have been hunted over, but
never subdued or cultivated. It is true, they have often
gone further, and settled themselves in countries which
were cultivated, and then it becomes a robbery; but when
our fathers went to America and took possession of the
mere hunting-grounds of the Indians—of lands on which
man had hitherto bestowed no labour— they only exer-
cised a right which God has inseparably united with in-
dustry and knowledge."
The justnes4 of this reasoning must, I think, be gene-
rally admitted, and if so it can hardly be denied that it
is applicable to the case of New Zealand, and is fatal to
the right which has been claimed for the aboriginal in
habitants of those islands to the exclusive possession of
the vast extent of fertile but unoccupied lands which
they contain. It is true the New Zealanders, when
European settlement commenced among them, were not
a people of hunters; they lived in great measure, at
least, upon the produce of the soil (chiefly perhaps its
spontaneous produce), and practised to a certain extent
a rude sort of agriculture. But the extent of land so
occupied by them was absolutely insignificant when
compared with that of the ceuntry they inhabited; the
most trustworthy accounts agree in representing the
cultivated grounds as forming far less than one-hun-
dredth part of' the available land, and in stating that mil-
lions of acres were to be found where the naturally fer-
tile soil was covered by primeval forests or wastes of
fern, in the midst of which a fees patches planted with
pote
as woes, the en!. sere. el human h hitation and
•
iniu. (). New Z •alund art- not much less
extensive than the British Isles, and capable probably of
supporting as large a population, while that which they

i actually supported has been variously estimated, but
I believe never so high as 200,000 souls. To contend
that under such circumstances civilised men had
not a right to step in and to take possession of the
vacant territory, but were bound to respect the supposed
proprietary title of the savage tribes who dwelt in, hut
were utterly unable to occupy the land, is to mistake
the grounds upon which the right of property in land is
founded. To that portion of the soil, whatever it might
be, which they really occupied, the aboriginal inhabit-
ants, barbarous as they were, had a clear and undoubted
claim ; to have attempted to deprive them of their
patches of potato ground, even so to have occupied the
territory as not to leave them ample space for shifting,
as was their habit, their cultivation from one spot to an-
other, would have been in the highest aegree unjust ;
but so long as this injustice was avoided, I must regard
it a vain and unfounded scruple which would have ac-
knowledged their right of property in land which re-
mained unsubtlued to the uses ')t man. But, it' the savage
inhabitants of New Zealand had themselves no right of
property in land which they did not occupy, it is obvious
that they could not convey to others what they did not
themselves possess, and that claims to vast tracts of waste
land, founded on pretended sales from them, are altoge-
ther untenable. From the moment that British domi-
nion was proclaimed in New Zealand, all lands not
actually occupied in the sense in which alone occupatio:►
can give a right of possession, ought to have been con-
sidered as the property of the crows), in its capacity of
trustee for the whole community, and it should
thenceforward have been regarded as the right and
at the same time the duty of those duly authorised
by the Crown, to determine in what manner, and
according to what rules, the land, hitherto waste
should be assigned and appropriated to particular indi-
viduals. There is another consideration which leads to
the same conclusion. It has never been pretended that
the wide extent of unoccupied land, to which an exclu
sive right of property has been asserted on behalf of the
native inhabitants of New Zealand, belonged to them as
individuals; it was only as tribes that they were sup-
posed to possess it; and, granting their title as such to
have been good and valid, it was obviously a right which
the tribes enjoyed as independent comtnunities—an at-
tribute of sovereignty, which, with the sovereignty, na-
turally and necessarily was transferred to the British
Crown. Had the New Zealanders been a civilised
people, this would have been the case—if these islands,
being inhabited by a civilised people, had been added
either by conquest or voluntary cession to the dominions
of the Queen, it is clear that, according to the well-
known principles of public law, while the property of
individuals would have been respected, all public pro-
perty, all rights of every description which had apper-
tained to the previous sovereigns, would have devolved,
as a matter of course, to the new sovereign who suc-
ceeded them. It can hardly be contended that these
tribes, as such, possessed rights which civilised commu-
nities could not have claimed.

Such are the principles upon which, if the colonization
of New Zealand were only now about to begin, it would
be my duty to instruct you to act; and though I am well
aware that in point of fact you are not in a position to
do so, and that from past transactions a state of things
has arisen iu which a strict application of these princi-
ples is impracticable, I have thought it right that they
should be thus explicitly stated in this dispatch (as they
are in the royal instructions to which it refers), in order
that you may clearly understand that although in many
respects you may be compelled to depart from them, still
you are to look to them as the foundation of the policy
which, so far as it is in your power, you are to pursue.
The imperfect information which alone at this dis-
tance I can hope to obtain as to the actual state of
affairs in New Zealand renders it impossible for me to
venture to prescribe to you how far you are to go in
attempting practically to act upon the principles I have
laid down. I should infer from your own dispatches, as
well as from those of your predecessors, that the rights
of the Crown could not now be asserted to large tracts
of waste land which particular tribes have been taught
to regard as their own. It appears that you have found
it expedient to admit these pretensions to a considerable
extent; and having done so, no apparent advantage could
be suffered to weigh against the evil of acting in a man-
ner either really or even apparently inconsistent with
good faith. While, however, you scrupulously fulfil
whatever engagements you have contracted, and main-
tain those rights on the part of the native tribes to land
which you have already recognised, you will avoid as

much is possible any ttirther surrender of the property

of the Crown. I trust also that the evil which would

otherwise arise from the concessions already made may,
to a great degree, be neutralised by your strictly main.
taining the exclusive right of the Crown to purchase
.