The Sun.
London, England, 1845-06-19 00:00:00

Mr. HOPE made a few observations in explanation, after
Which

Sir R. INGLIS said that though he was riot one of those
who were in the habit of complimenting young Members, he
could not rise without congratulating the Hon. Member oho
had just sat down, on the tone, temper. and talent of the
speech which he had just made. —( Hear, hear. ) He could oat,
at the same time, say that he should concur with him in the
conclusions which he had drawn, though he liked the manner
in which he arrived at them. He would state haw mush he
differed from the Hon. Mi tuber for Coekermouth, and still more
from his Hon. Lnd Lear, eel Friend, to whose speech he listened
with perfect attention yesterday evc [neg. The principal error
in the speech of his Hon. Friend, and upon which he (Sir R.
foglis) held that the falsity of his cnnelusione entirely depended.
was the assumption that when they were dealing :with the New
Zealanders, they were dealing with people with whom it was
not possible nor fit that the people of England should put them-
selves on any species of equality. He described them as savages
and cannibals, ivho, from their degraded state of ignorance,
were totally incapable of appreciating the value of land, and
truly incompetent to make a bargain, which they themselves
pru.fessed to respect arid desired to preserve. He was not
prepared to come to the conclusion to which the
flenourable Member wished to lead tl.e House, that every
acre over which the natives had not carried the spade or plougli
aas as much the property of the New Zealand Company, or of
any first comer, as if that Company were purely and absolutely
the inhabitants. Several tears ago, when the question was first
brought forward, he helieved in 1838. he ( Sir R. Inglis) was
one of those who contended that they had no inure right to pro-
fess to colonize new Zealand than they had a right to prof. es to
colonize the kingdom of France. He made that statement
tinder no anticipation that any Honourable Member wouLl take
that illustration, and adopt it as his own, as his Honourable
Friend slid last night. From the moment when, whether
right or wrong, they recognized the independence of New
Zealand, from that moment they hail no right to deal with it as
.he New Zealand Company now wished to deal with it. The
first discovery of a country was sufficient to give the nation
which had discovered it the right of pre-occupancy as against all
other nations, but never had it been contended that they had a
right to claim property as against the inhabitants of the soil.
How different was that from the doctrine which his Honourable
Friend laid down last night? He said that the New Zealanders
had no idea of the sale of property, and then he rather incon-
sistently proceeded to maintain the statements of the New
Zealand Company with respect to the purchase which they had
made from those whom, by his admission, knew nothing of the
sale of property. It was very convenient for the New Zealand
Company to say that the natives had no knowledge of property ;
but if that be true with respect to the area which still remained
open, surely it must be equally true with respect to
the property which it had become possessed of. The
whole of the property purchased, consisting of some millions,
had been obtained for the sum of 7,388/. 7s. 7d. The price
which they sold it at, amounted to 128,1361. These were the
protectors of the natives of New Zealand ; these were the per-
sons who complained of the missionaries for instigating the
natives against them, and of Captain Fitzrey' for taking their
part. With respect to the allegations made against the
missionaries, he thought they could be met as easily as they
were ramie. He agreed with the Hon. Member for Leominster
that the glory of trod was the main object to be regarded in
the conversion of these unfortunate creatures, and, he believed,
that that was a truth recognised by the great bulk of Mem-
bers on both sides of the House. He would now ask any man
to state what was the difference in the state of New Z Island
when it was visited by Captain Cooke, or even later,
in 1814, and its present condition ?—( Hear, hear.)
So recently as 1814 a white man could not land on it, or walk
alone in the country without endangering his life ; while, on
the other hand, in the past year, the Bishop of New Zealand
had walked 300 miles in the visitation of his diocese, and in a
situation where it was impossible to procure a conveyance, and
during all that time he experienced the greatest hospitality—
hospitality that would do honour to the most civilised people in
the world.—( Hear, hear.) What, then, he would ask, could
this change be ascribed to but the influence of the missionaries?
In the northern island there were even at present 33,009
Christians, 14,000 of whom were attending school, and there
were no less than 3.200 of them regular communicants. He
therefore thought that he had made out a case in their favour
which entitled them to the gratitude of the House for those
glorious results. It had been said by the Hon. Member for
Liskeard that the missionarii s took the lead in speculations for
the purchase of land, and these were Church of England mis •
sionaries. He (Sir R. Inglis) was not in a position to say
much of the missionaries of the Church of Rome, as their resi-
dence there had been but very recent; nor had he sufficient
information to enable him to do so ; but there was this impor-
tant
difference between them and the Wesleyan missionaries
on the one hand, and the missionaries of the Established
Church on the other, that the former were removable from
station to station, while the latter settled down, with their
wives and families, in a particular locality. There was, there-
fore, he contended, a necessity thus imposed upon them to in-
vest a certain portion of their salaries in the purchase of land.
It had been stated that 196,000 acres were possessed
by the missionaries; but when every deduction was
made, it would be found that their portion was
less than one-half of what the Government allowed

to the other missionaries in New South Wales. The greater
part, toe, of this land was described (and he believed most ac-
curately) as nothing better than moving sand. This led him
to the proportion of cultivated and uncultivated land in New
Zealand. It had been stated that there were 78,000,000
of acres altogether in the country, of which 60,000,000
were cultivable ; but he apprehended that that state-
ment could not be sustained by the actual survey.
He had it on the authority of an eminent na-
turalist who had visited the country, that the proportion of cul-
tivable land was far less than in any other country in the world;
in tact that there was not more than five per cent. of the
whole island that could be cultivated. Supposing therefore,
that Mr. Fairbairn or Mr. Taylor had received a grant of
5,600 acres of this kind of land, he did not consider that they
had received a greater amount of remuneration than they
would have received from Government, had they been situated
in any other part of our South Australian colonies. Ile
thought that they were entitled to be supported. There never
was any irregularity proved against them, and he thought they
did not deserve the running fire which had been kept. up
against them in the speech of the Hon. Member for Liskeard.
With respect to the son of Mr. W. Clarke he did not consider
that he was entitled to the censure which had been passed
upon him, unless it was for the atrocious crime of being a young
man. He thought that no one could be got so well 4,ll,,litied to
fill his situation. He had now to thank the House for the in-
dulgence which had been given to him in making these re-
marks in defence of the missionaries. He would now, therefore,
say to the House that if there was one duty more incumbent
on them than another it was that they should not avail them-
selves of their position—that position which had been conferred
on them from on high for other purpo,es—to sanction an inva-
sion of the lands of a weak and defenceless people.
Throughout the speech of the Hon. Member for Liskeard
there was an utter disregard of all parties concerned, with the
exception of the New Zealand Company, and of a certain por-
tion of their fellow-subjects who were in New Zealand. He
was willing to admit there could be few public companies con-

taining a greater number of respectable names; and he ad-
mitted, also, that they were not jobbers in the market, as the
shareholders of other companies were. They were not gam-
bling or jobbing speculators. He thought that the gentlemen
who composed that company had no unfair object in view
in joining it but to gain an honourable profit; and he
was sure they had no wish to invade the rights of others. He
was not, therefore, one of those who wished to run down the
New Zealand Company. He would now briefly advert to an-
other subject which he had already slightly glanced at, namely,
the right of the natives to these lands. He bad it on the autho-
rity of one who had travelled among them, that there was no
people in the world who possessed a more keen sense of the
rights of property. They had, he might almost say, a here-
ditary sense of those rights. Was he to be told, then, that those
people, who had a name for every hill, every valley, and every
mountain in the country, that they had no sense
of the rights of property ? He would beg leave to read
a petition from Mr. Busby, a missionary, which he was pre-
vented from doing that evening, when he had presented it to
the House. (The Hon. Member here read the petition.) He
(Sir R. Ingiis) could not understand, after the unbiassed state-
ments of these respectable authorities, the grounds which had
been put forward by certain parties that the natives had no
right to the land of which they disposed, or that from their
ignorance they should be deprived of its full value.—( Hear.)
He had, in conclusion, to to thank the House for the kind in-
dulgence which they always extended to him, but especially to-
night, while he went through those minute details which he
felt bound to refer to. The Hon. Gentleman concluded by
giving his decided negative to the resolutions brought forward
by the Hon. Member for Liskeard.
Mr. HAWES said it was not often that colonial subjects oc-
cupied the attention of the House, and he was glad to find
that the present one had come so prominently before their
notice, as it involved not only the principle's of their policy in
New Zealand, but indeed all their colonial policy. In taking a
part in the discussion of this question he would not be influenced
by any party factions or motives. Before lie went further, he
would address himself to one or two points on which the Right
Honourable Baronet had spoken in a manner calculated to
excite prejudice, if not delusion. He had said that the New
Zealand Company had put 1'21,0001. into their pockets, having
sold land for I 2,00 'l., which they had purchased for little more
than 7,000/. But it should be remembered that the 7,000/.
was not to be considered the value of the land ; subsequent
to their purchase, large sums of money had been expended
upon surveys, roads, bridges, and other improvements,
ail calculated to give a value to the land. He
had had a paper put that evening into his hand containing but
a sketch of the amount which the Company had expended upon
emigration, transmission of ships, surveys, public works, wages,
and trusts of churches and parochial charities. The sum. there

mentioned was 377,000/,, but he had been assured, and he felt

conrineed;of the truth of the statement, that that estimate was
200,000/. short of the sum actually spent by them. Again the
Right Hon. Baronet said that nothing was mentioned by his
Friend the Member for Liskeard, but the rights of the New

Zealand Company. That assertion, he must be permitted to
say, was not correct ; other, and equally sacred interests, had
been discussed, but even if the charge were true, which he
em-
phatically denied, his Hon. Friend had bnt considered
the interests and rights of the New Zealand Company in-
volved in the right of forming missionary establish-
ments in their colony. He thought the Colonial-office had
made serious errors, and to them he would now call, and, if
possible, keep the attention of the House. A report had been
laid on the table, expository of the course pursued by the
Government towards the colony in question. In the spirit
and intentions of that report he entirely concurred ; but
changes had taken place, and changes of such a character as
precluded the applicability of the recommendations of the
report to the altered circumstances of the colony. The speech
of the Under-Secretary of State had given him no satisfaction.
He had expected that the Hon. Gentleman would have, at
least, addressed himself to the evils of the colony, and admit-
ting, have shadowed out some means of remedying them.
—( Hear, hear.) A part, however, of that speech
it was incumbent on him to notice. He had raid
that the Member for Liskeard had described the natives of
New Zealand as debased. What he said was, that while they
were not as morose, vitiated, or unsociable as the North Ame-
rican Indians, they were inferior in the arts of civilization and
of war. But even these admissions of deficiency he turned into
arguments in their favour. They were easily to be engaged in
trade, and showed great capacity for all the arts of civilisation.
Such wr.s the present state of the colony. But a few years
since it had been prosperous. He had before him the accounts
of the ships that left the harbour in tLe year 1844, at which
period the inhabitants were thrivinir and its trade increasing.
But, by a dispatch of Captain Fitzroy, dated October 15,
he found the very reverse. It was there stated that there was
no export, no funds. No titles to the land were issued.
The salaries were several months in arrear, and
the local Government had no resources. —( Hear. )
Surely, when such an alarming change had Occurred within a
short period, the House ought to have heard hem the Govern-
ment the reasons or the remedies for the decline. Nothing,
however, had been given. The entire speech of the Under
Secretary was absorbed in a defence of the Colonial Office—a
petty defence of the pettiest officers of the colony .—(Hear )
As the Government had not ventured to touch upon these
points, he would himself discuss them. It was the actual in-
flux of settlers into the colony that yhad been the prime and
original cause of all the subsequent disasters. In 1813, Mr.
Busby was appointed president, and in consequence of the influx
of questionable settlers, had been obliged to seek the interference
of the Government at home. At that period the missionaries,
of whom he wished to speak with all respect, but who, he must
say, did not deserve the credit which the Right Honourable
Baronet had accorded them, had oppo-ed colonization generally.
" The internal wars," said Mr. Busby, " had depopulated the
country." The missionaries could, therefore, have