The Sun.
London, England, 1845-06-18 00:00:00

Government for such an expenditure as other neighbourhoods in
the metropolis, and, besides, the expense could not be incurred
by the Woods and Forests without an Act of Parliament.
Sir T. D. ACLAND gave notice that when in Committee
on the Irish College Bill he should move the insertion of a
clause, requiring an assurance from both Catholic ann Pro-
testant professors, that a portion of the New Testament should
be daily read by the students.—( Hear. )
NEW ZEALAND.
Mr. CHARLES 4FLLER said that if he had only to
claim the attention of The House to the complaints on the part
of the New Zealand Company, in such a case he would rely on
the justiee and fair dealing of the Gentlemen he addressed to
preserve the rights of private property ; but that case was en-
tirely merged in a far greater case of public mismanagement.
The petition of the merchants of London and of the New Zea-
land Company, which he had the honour of presenting, com-
plained that a useful enterprise, wisely and usefully devised for
the benefit of the people of this country, had been marred by
the interference of the Government. After a successful
commencement, that colony, which, from its position and re-
sources, and the energy brought to their development, was
rapidly and steadily improving, was now in a stagnant and
perishing state, and a great body of emigrants—industrious
men—had all been cruelly treated. He waved all the advan-
tages that be could derive from the complaint that the Govern-
ment had been guilty of a breach of contract. His complaint
was that a wise system of colonisation had been frustrated by a
feeble and twiny jealousy. He knew no lesson so instructive on
the subject of colonisation as that which New Zealand fur-
nished. If he could prove to the House that the New Zealand
Company had followed that line of polity most conducive to
the interests of the people of this country, and on the soundest
principles, then be would ask the House to enforce the agree-
ment which the Government had entered into with the Company.
If the House would agree with him in the soundness of those
principles, which every sensible man outside the Colonial-
office must, he thought, concur in, he thought he would have
no difficulty whatever in making out a complete case. If the
House held the opinion entertained by commercial men and
the great mercantile community of this country—if they
thought that it was beneficial to cut out new employment for
the shipping, the trading, and the manufacturing population—
in fact, to extend the British name to the farthest ends of the
earth—to extend her arts, her language, and her civilisation.
He said that this was the great end which the New Zealand
Company had in view—an end a hich was worthy of the policy
of a great country—worthy of the consideration of a wise and
patriotic Government—a Government overlooking, excusing,
and repairing the many errors which might arise, with cor-
diality and with benevolence. He believed, than this there
never was a fairer field for British industry. He believed that
they never had opened to them a fairer prospect than the island
of New Zealand. With the one disadvantage of a long steam-
voyage, it opened up the fairest field for the capital of this
country. The extent of the island of New Zealand was nearly
as great as that of Great Britain and Ireland. He found that it
consisted of 78 millions of acres, out of which, deducting
morass land and the great chain of alpine mountains, there
were still left no less than sixty millions of acres of valuable
land for arable purposes. The island had another great ad-
vantage, in an extended line of coast of more than three hun-
dred miles, abounding with harbours. In confirmation of
these facts, he should refer the house to the evidence of highly
credible and respectable witnesses, who had been examined
before a Committee of that House during the last year, and he
would read an extract from a letter of Governor Fitzroy's,
dated the 16th of September, 1844. The House would find
it at page 141 of the Parliamentary Papers, which had been
laid en the table. ( The Hon. and Learned Member then
read the letter, which described the island of New Zealand as
being most valuable, and capable of the highest
cultivation; abounding in mineral wealth, with large
mines of copper, sulphur, iron, and coal.) Captain
Fitzroy stated, what had long been known, that
there were excellent mines of iron, copper, and sulphur close
to the coast—that the whales were again returning to the
coast. And here he would remind the House that the
Southern whale fishery was the only whale fishery in the
world, for the fishery in the Northern sea had almost entirely
declined. Of the political position he need not remind Lord
Stanley, for its whole aspect would be presented to his eyes.
And he ( Mr. C. Buller) might say that he did not think that
any man of sense could not but see what this country would be
in the hands of any other power. The French were in posses-
sion of the Friendly Islands and the Marquesas. The United
States were in possession of the Sandwich Islands. On
one side there was the coast of America, the isthmus
of Darien, Mexico, and Oregon. On the other,
there was the whole of the Asiatic coast and the
Indian Archipelago. Under a British Government, new
Zealand was the Tatural arbiter of the ocean in which it was
placed. In every portion of the coast there were harbours
capable of taking the whole of the fleets of the world, and if
the government were judiciously administered, the possession of
the country would establish British empire over the Pacific
Ocean. It became necessary, then, that this fine territory
should be colonised in a regular manner, for it should be recol-
lected that it was being colonised in an irregular manner.
Sailors and sawyers, who ran away from the whalers'which came
there, had all settled on the island, and taken possession of
allotments, and it was at length seen that it was impossible that
things could go on there without British government and Bri-
tish law, and that it was necessary that some means should
be taken for carrying order into New Zealand. The first regu-
lation was introduced by the Church Missionary Society. He
would not attempt to speak with disrespect of the Church Mis-
si.onary Society. He must say, however, that in the colony
of New Zealand religious zeal had been used by worldly men
for worldly ends. This afforded an instructive lesson, and one
that ought *ll to be considered.—(Hear, hear.) Many of
the person?' to whom he had alluded, not only jobbed
in land for themselves, but they jobbed for others. Mr. Camp-
bell, the head of the Church Missionary Society, had made ap-
plication for himself and friends for land to the extent of forty
miles square. An apologist of this gentleman in a pamphlet
which had been addressed to the Hon. Member for Oxford,
( Sir R. Inglis) said that the Rev. Gentleman was justified in
making this application. Of the thirty-five persons who had
been employed by the Church Missionary Society in 1838, no
less than twenty-three had sent in claims for land,—the total
of which amounted to no less than 186,000 acres. This fact
was mentioned in the Company's petition which he had pre-
sented a short time ago. The Rev. Henry Williams, one of the
missionaries, bad obtained 11,000 acres. The same apologist
to whom he (Mr. Buller) had alluded said that this Rev.
Gentleman was fully entitled to this extent of land, seeing that
he had a large family to provide for. With respect to the other
missionaries it had been said that they had made application for
the land with the secret object of restoring it to the natives.—
( Laughter.) This was a melancholy page of history, and he
would not have dfiuded to it if it had not been to show what
the influence of the Church Missionary Society had been.
Whatever might have been the good effect produced by the
exertions of the missionaries in New Zealand, there could be
no doubt but that the first intercourse of the New Zealanders
with Europeans had been attended with fatal results. In the
year 1825, a chief, named Ilogae, who had been educated in
England by thgsChurch Missionary Society, returned to New
Zealand, bringing with him a cargo of fire-arms. He used
those fire-arms against the other native tribes. He aimed at
conquest—dreadful conflicts ensued—the other tribes got par-
tial possession of fire-arms, and were instructed in the use of
them-_a war of extermination was the consequence. The
middle island was utterly depopulated, and the northern island
suffered greatly. Every traveller who had visited New Zealand
since had spoken of the disastrous depopulation which had been
the consequence of those wars. Another instance was that of
a most remarkable character, of whom they had lately heard a
great deal in connexion with the massacre of Wairou—he
meant Raphinera. He was a chief of the Southern Island.
He had made war against a rival chief—had defeated and
taken him prisoner—had hung him up by his chin to a hook—
had tortured him—and the next day the chief's wife was seen
with his entrails hanging about her neck ; and this Raphi.
raua was the chieftain who was the object of the especial
patronage and regard of Governor Fitzroy.—(Cheers.)
Other serious evils had also resulted from their connexion
with Europeans. It was said that the New Zealanders were
not as yet much addicted to the use of ardent spirits, but it
should be remembered, that some time always elapsed before
the wild man became thoroughly imbued with a taste for ar-
dent spirits, and as the New Zealanders had already began to
acquire that taste, he was greatly afraid, that unless some
great moral effort was made to raise their character, they
would suffer as much from the use of ardent spirits as the North
Americans had done. But the introduction of more innocent
commodities had been productive of almost equally fatal results.
Nothing had been more fatal than the substitution of the
blanket for the native mat. It had given rise to the most de-
populating conflicts. It was quite clear that up to the first
attempt at regular colonisation the depopulation of the country
had been going on rapidly. Many districts which had been
formerly well peopled were at the present moment absolutely
uninhabited. It was proved upon the authority of a gentle-
man (whose name we did not hear) who was well acquainted
with the whole region, that in 1837 the depopulation of the natives
had gone on so far that they were but a remnant of the
race, which flourished within the memory of many European
residents. It became, under those circumstances, the policy
of the English to establish their authority, and to lay down
some rule of government for the colonists. But all those who
had given their attention to the subject said that the present
mode of government could not be persisted in.—( Hear.) His
esteemed friend Sir R. Inglis had referred to the statements
of Mr. Clarke as a high authority. But he (Mr. C. Buller)
could scarcely ascribe such high authority to the statements of
a gentleman who combined in his own person the occupations
of Church missionary and jobber in land.—( Hear, hear.) He
could not be persuaded upon such authority that the New
Zealanders preserved records of the regular succession of their
landed estates for 30 generations, or about 800 years. He could
not think that such was the case amongst a people, who were
clothed in mats, and fed upon fern roots, until Captain Cook
euppli'ed them with potatoes.—( Hear, hear.) He could not
believe that they were, as Sir R. Inglis had said, in a state of
civilization equal to that of our Saxon ancestors, who
laid the foundation of our Constitution, maintained a represen-
tative system, and the trial by jury.—( Hear, hear.)
All this squeamishness, therefore, about applying the old Eng-
lish word " savage," seemed rather fastidious and absurd, when
the subject of it was the only people who sedulously, or rather
obstinately, persisted in cannibalism. A common expression
'of all neighbouring tribes had been " Pork is the fooa of the
European and human flesh of the New Zealander."—
"(Laughter.) They were inferior to the Caffres in all the arts
of government or war, and were in every respect unworthy of
comparison with that or any contiguous or contemporaneous
'race. But while thus deficient in many of the facilities which
noisily were conspicious in the most barbarous aborigines, they
had qualities which rendered them pecudarly easy of civilisa-
tion. Instead of the gloomy and morose insociability which cha-
racterised the North American, they were possessed ofan amenity
of disposition, and an inclination to associate with strangers,
: which marked the character of the negro race. They were
easy to be accosted. Europeans readily found access to them ;
'and as they had no chase, they lived on the produce of very bad
:aaZeultare, and were interested in learning the arts of others,
repugnance between them and Europeans consequently
subsided. It therefore wasperfectly easy to amalgamate the
- two races, and it was right t have conquered and subjugated
the one, becauxseceitt was hopeless to civilise the other—the New
Zealander—except
inhabitants
ttlltaenstablishing British rule. There were
about 1
the whole of this large country.
Stewart's Islands was tottsalt uninhaisited ; the middle island
was as large as England andyScotland together, and contained
barely 1,500 inhabitants and there were about 10,000 people
in the southern part of the northern
ftsland. It was preposter-
" ous to assert that the po•isession by inhabitants
d of so large
a place was to exclude the rest of mankind going there to
cultivate the soil, and turn it to some
principle.ifserofuml account. He
knew no justification of any suchand it
land
seemed to him made for mankind general
• not for a particular race to prevent alty'
other Itrawceas‘
from enjoying it. The Government did not limit colonists as
to the possession of the country, and he did not see why the
Nee Zealanders should have more right to progress themselves
in their wanderings from valley to valley, of one valley more
than another, than the English had to make a settlement
in the country. Suppose, for instance, the population of France
were to be reduced to 20,000, which would be the number in
• proportion as compared with the inhabitants of New Zealand;
and suppose, further, that the entire population was confined
' exclusively to Brittany and Normandy' and lived solely by
cultivating the fields in those districts, would anybody assert
that it was proper and justifiable to allow that people to devote
the remaining part of that extensive territory to. eternal bar-
renness? and that other countries would not consider it advis-
able to pour in their hordes to occupy the waste land ? The
condition of New Zealand, as contrasted with this statement,
was precisely similar. A civilised man, whenever he comes in
.contact with a savage, was bound to treat him with consideration

and kindness. He was bound to guard against anything
that should allow the savage to perceive his own degradation