The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-11 00:00:00

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notions- of certain circumstances (frequently connected
with their peculiar sitperstitions) giving preferable claims
to particular tribes over particular districts, yet, practi-
cally, the right by which territory. was held was that of
the strotigest. Your 'Committee peed hardly point out
the manifest absurdity of attempting fo Apply' the no-
tions of English law, with respect to landed properly, -
to such a state of society, and the utter fruitlessness of
an endeavour to disentangle the complicated and con
Icting claims set up by different tribes to wild land ;
this inquiry having to be conducted by Europeans, igno-
rant both of the language of the natives, and of their
barbarous and superstitious customs, on which the claims
to lsnd very frequently depended.
The policy adopted of entering Into such an inquiry,
and of acknowledging the claim of the natives to pay-
ment for the unoccupied lands, has had effects very in-
jurious to the interests both of the settlers and of the
natives themselves. With respect to the settlers, by
preventing them for so long a period from obtaining pos-
session by a secure title of the land they required for
cultivation, it has given a most serious check to the pro
gross of improvement, and very greatly retarded the
arrival of the time when the colony would have been
able to produce food enough for its own consumption,
and also something to eiport in payment for the various
supplies it requires from the mother country and from
other quarters. To the natives this policy has been still
more injurious ; it has created a strong feeling of irrita-
tion between them and the settlers, from the existence of
which they cannot fail. ultimately to be the chief suf-
ferers ; the large amount of property they have received
in payment for land:which was of no real use to them
before, instead of being of permanent advantage to
them, has been speedily and improvidently consumed,
and has only served to excite in them the passion of
cupidity, and to produce quarrels amongst themselves,
which in one case at least have broken out into open war.
Even Mr. Clarke, the chief protector, who has insisted so
much upon their obtaining a very high price for their
land, has admitted that the " sudden affluence" to which
thsy have been raised has had " an unfriendly in-
fluence on their moral improvement." The worst con-
sequence of all, as it appears to your Committee, of the
coarse which has been pursued, is, that it has lowered
the authority of the Government over the natives, and
given rise, on their part, to claims which it is greatly
to be feared they will not peaceably be brought to forego;
and which yet cannot be allowed without the sacrifice of
the principal means of promoting the advancement of
the colony. We beg particularly to refer, in support of
what we have now stated, to the long report of Mr.
Spain, the Commissioner of Land Claims, dated the 12th
of September, lid 43, and to the dispatch of the acting
Governor of the 30th of October, 1843, and its enclo-
sures. On reference to these documents it will be
found that the effects attributed by your Committee to
the policy which has been pursued are distinctly recog-
nised by those of the public servants in the colony by
whom that policy has been chiefly maintained. It is also
peculiarly deserving of remark, that precisely the same
difficulties in establishing to the satisthction of the na-
tives the validity of sales of land alleged to have been
made by them, which, in the case of the settlements in
Cook's Straits, have been attributed to the careless mode
of proceeding adopted by the Company's agents have
since been experienced to fully as great an extent with
respect to purchases made on behalf of the Government
in the northern part of the island by the Protector of
Aborigines himself. In the letter of Colonel God-
frey (one of the Commissioners of Land Claims) of the
10th of February, 1843, will be found an account of
the embarrassment created by the positive denial by
the natives of the validity of a sale of land which
Mr. Clark reported had been made to him, as agent to
the Government, with every possible precaution, in the
year 1840. If these and similar claims are rejected, we
cannot but apprehend that, after the concessions already,
made, much dissatisfaction, if not resistance, is to be an-
ticipated from the natives ; on the other hand, if the,
claims are admitted, we see no security whatever that
additional payments now made for land formerly sup-
posed to have been sold will give any permanent satis-
faction, and will not, on the contrary, serve as a stimulus
to still more unreasonable demands hereafter, while, even
if such payments should be final, we cannot but regard
it as a great misfortune that large sums of money should
be so applied. In Mr. Spain's report, already quoted,
he estimates that from 5,0001. to 6,0001. will be required
to compensate the natives for the blocks of land al
ready surveyed by the servants of the New Zealand Com-
pany in the southern part of the northern island ; and,
in making this estimate, it appenrs (though this is not
very clear), that he contemplates leaving them in pos-
session of the grounds they actually occupy. If this
land is to be paid for at so high a rate, it is obvious that
it will create in the minds of the natives an expectation
that similar prices will be given for the land that will
hereafter be required, and thus an enormous charge will
be entailed upon the progress of future settlements.
Whi:e we were considering our report, additional evi-
dence of the magnitude of this evil has been laid be-
fore us.

The land, it must be remembered, derives its only
value from the application of European labour and caps-
; whatever is paid for it to the natives must even-
tually be taken from the price paid for it by settlers,
either to the Company or to the Government, and will
be so much deducted from the fund, which ought to be
most carefully husbanded and applied to the great pur-
poses of promoting emigration, and of meeting the first
and pressing wants of a young settlement ; as, for in-
stance, the construction of roads and bridges, and the
building and endowing of churches, schools, and hospi-
tals. For these purposes, in which the British settlers
and the original inhabitants are equally interested, every
shilling is wanted which the emigrant can afford to pay
for land, without trenching too deeply on his available
e_apital; and it appears to your Committee to be equally
contrary, both to real justice and to sound policy, that
large sums of money should be taken from a fund de-
voted to objects of such high importance, in order to be
given to barbarous tribes, who at best will unprofitably
squander what is so improvidently placed at their dis-
posal.
Your Committee have found it necessary to enter more
at length than we could have wished into the question,
whether the ownership of unoccupied land ought to
have been considered as vested in the Crown or in the
native tribes, because, in our opinion, all the difficulties
which have been experienced in the colonization of New
Zealand are mainly to be attributed to the erroneous
view of this question which has been taken by those to
whose hands the powers of government have in these
islands been committed. But, erroneous as they believe
the policy hitherto pursued to have been, they are sen-
sible of the great difficulty which may. now be expe-
rienced in changing it ; and, bearing in .mind the great
distance of these islands, and the consequent impossi-
bility of knowing what may be the state of affairs there,
when any instructions that may be sent out shall reach
the Governor, they are not prepared to recommend that
he should be peremptorily ordered to assert the rights of
the Crown as they believe them to exist ; all they advise
is, that he should have clearly explained to him what
those rights are and the principles on which they rest,
and should be directed to adopt such measures as he may
consider best calculated to meet the difficulties of the
case, and to establish the title of the Crown to all un-
occupied land as soon as this can be safely accomplished.
He ought also, we conceive, to be directed to grant legal
titles to the actual occupants of land, unless under special
circumstances of abuse, requiring in those cases in which
it may seem to be proper reasonable payment from the
settlers for land so granted to them.
(To be continued.)