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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Rare Volume
Minute on the Government of New Zealand
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Having undertaken to represent, in this country, the opinions and wishes of my fellow-colonists of Wellington as to the future form of government in New Zealand, I should not discharge that task without giving expression to their complaints of the colonial government as now administered. (1)
These complaints are of a general and of a specific kind—general as regards the whole course and tenor of policy pursued—specific as regards particular acts of mal-administration.
The detailed proof of what I advance will be found in the Appendix, references to which will be made in the proper places.
The liberties which have been repeatedly promised to New Zealand are still withheld; and, though a measure has been proposed to her Majesty's government by Governor Grey, it falls far short of the desires and wants of the colony. What that measure ought to be cannot be properly settled without a distinct view of the evils from which the colony seeks to be relieved.
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It reached the colony in 1847, and the colonists soon became acquainted with its nature, though it was not officially promulgated. It remained for several months without any intimation of the intentions of the Government in respect of it. Its meditated suspension, and the grounds on which such suspension had been recommended by Governor Grey, became first known by accident, upon the publication of Lord Grey's despatch to Sir George Grey, of 1848.
His allegations were: partly of the unfitness of the colonists to exercise political privileges—a suggestion deliberately contradicted elsewhere by Governor Grey himself(3)—partly of want of means of intercommunication between the different settlements, a reason manifestly frivolous, and now practically abandoned(4)—partly of the fear of danger to native interests, by placing political power in the hands of the colonists; a reason founded on the wrongful and groundless assumption that political power would be likely to be abused by the colonists. (5)
Now, after several years of increasing dissatisfaction, these pretences are withdrawn, and without any material change of circumstances, he has recommended the introduction of what he calls free insti-
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tutions. But the long suspension of their rights, and the causeless infliction on the colony of the mischiefs of despotic rule for so many years, are grievances which have roused a spirit of angry discontent.
Disregarding the unanimous wishes of the colonists,(8) he passed a measure for establishing provincial legislatures composed exclusively of nominees. Even the benefit of that measure, such as it was, he withheld from the colonists of the northern province. In the southern province, he attempted to put the new measure in force, and with difficulty got together a provincial legislature, in which the principal and most eligible colonists refused to
take part as councillors. (9) The provincial legislature so constituted was summoned, and held one session of mere form in the commencement of the year 1849; and afterwards, during that year, held one session for the despatch of business. Since
that period they have never met. In 1850, Governor Grey interdicted their meeting, after they had been summoned by the Lieut.-Governor;(10) caused the revenue of the province to be appropriated for eight months without even a semblance of legislative sanction; and subsequently transferred
all the functions of the provincial legislature to the general council, subsisting under the provisions of the charter of 1840, which is composed almost exclusively of his own official dependents. (11) By that council he has caused an ordinance to be passed for appropriating the revenue of the southern province.
One of the consequences of these measures has been the resignation of the best members (six out of nine) of the provincial legislature, and its abso-
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lute demise for want of the requisite number of unofficial members, no other persons being found willing to supply their places.
2. Whilst thus directly infringing on the rights of the crown—rights which it holds* in trust for the public service of the colony—by wrongful alienation of its waste lands, he has deeply compromised those rights in other ways, by neglecting to put in force laws passed for their protection, which prohibit dealings for land between settlers and the natives; while by conniving at a system of unlicensed squatting on native lands, he has virtually neutralized the Crown's pre-emptive right, and raised insurmountable difficulties in the way of obtaining the cession from the natives of their territorial claims.
I refer in particular to the case of the Wiararapa Plains, near Wellington, which are now tenanted, in defiance of the law, by European settlers holding under the natives, to whom they are paying large rents, with the distinct knowledge and express
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acquiescence of the Government, which has acknowledged a vested interest in the squatters.(14)
His despatches to the Home Government, published in Parliamentary Papers, and thus unavoidably circulated in the colony, have a direct and mischievous tendency to feed the native mind with alarm at the introduction of popular institutions.(18)
They repudiate the imputation that, by giving them political freedom, the interests of the native race will be endangered. On the contrary, the colonists affirm with confidence, that no measure would tend so much to the advancement and civilization of the natives, as to bestow upon the colonists the power of giving effect to their kindly sentiments towards them.(19)
In their view—which is borne out by facts—the policy of Government, as administered by Sir George
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Grey, has not been beneficial to the native race
itself. Friendly intercourse with the settlers, and the efforts of missionaries, have doubtless made an impression on the general mass of barbarism. But this effect is almost purely local, and confined to the spots where such salutary influences are at work. The policy of Government has been that of neglect
and indifference. It has neither conciliated the chiefs, nor rescued them from being degraded to the level of their former slaves(20) nor promoted social organization, nor helped to introduce the knowledge and practice of useful arts. Three small hospitals
and a few schools, the former within the limits of British towns, and an ordinance for the adjustment of debts and disputes before a resident magistrate, the effect of which is ostentatiously magnified in the governor's dispatches, have been almost the only Government efforts in this direction.(21)
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V. He has burthened the colony with excessive taxation.
During the late session of the legislative council he has caused a new tariff to be framed, on a scale higher than that of any other British colony, except the convict establishments of Van Diemen's Land and Swan River; compared with those of British North America, Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, and South Australia, it is on a scale nearly (in the last instance exactly) double that on which the tariffs of those colonies are framed. A duty of no less than ten per cent, is imposed on all unenumerated articles, and on enumerated ones, duties nearly double those of most other colonies. To add to the weight of these duties, their value is, by an ordinance passed by the present governor, estimated at the port of entry. It was formerly estimated on the invoice. This nearly doubles in practice the amount of duty paid. These duties were imposed in a council, consisting of the governor, eleven paid officers of Government, and four nominees, only two of the whole number having any acquaintance with commercial affairs, and one of these resigning, on the ground of his objections to this ordinance.
VI. 1. This grievance is aggravated by the wasteful and profitless expenditure of the colonial revenue.
The colonists complain that, year by year, that expenditure has grown, without reference to any greater necessity for outlay. (23)
It is wasted in the maintenance of establishments and offices, not unfrequently created for the express
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purpose of making provision for political friends and dependents. I allude to one instance in particular, viz.:—the case of a judge appointed at
Otago, with a salary of £800 a year, whose sole business in the first year of his filling the office has been, not even to try a single case or a single prisoner, but only to issue letters of administration to one small intestate estate.(24)
A further burthen has lately been imposed on this fund, already amounting to upwards of £60,000 (and probably involving a still larger ultimate amount, the particulars of which have not yet appeared), for the cost of pensioner emigrants, whose introduction has been effected at an enormously disproportionate cost, and which is attended with no real benefit to the colony; the colony being thus made to suffer without the means of protest, the consequences of an unsuccessful government experiment.(26)
VIII. The last cause of complaint to which I shall advert, is Governor Grey's neglect to put in force any measures for enabling the colonists to undertake
their own defence. The cost to Great Britain of naval and military establishments in New Zealand has recently exceeded £200,000 a year, and
cannot now be so little as half that sum.(27) Notwithstanding the bribe which is thus administered to infant settlements by so great an outlay of imperial money, the colonists (I speak at least for those of the southern province, whose mind I know) desire to be free from this state of dependence.
The necessity of a change is self-evident, and has been long confessed. The propriety of establishing a militia was pointed out by Lord John Russell in
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1840. (28) In 1844, Lord Stanley, referring to
Lord J. Russell's instructions, directed the enrolment of a militia. In 1845, an ordinance was framed for the purpose by Governor Fitzroy, and received the royal assent,(29) under which the militia was enrolled and drilled: but from that time no attempt has been made to organize or discipline a local force,
except for a very short period during the native disturbances in 1846, when a small portion of the militia was called out, but very shortly again disbanded. Thus the colonists are left unarmed, and
untrained in the use of arms. Without military skill or discipline, unfitted to undertake their own defence, and dependent on this country for military protection, they have been compelled to barter for it their political rights. (30)
Minute on the Government of New Zealand.
Complaints of the colonists against the Government of New Zealand.
General and specific.
Proofs referred to.
Self-government still with-held from the colony.
The complaints which the colonists of New
Zealand make against the existing government relate to the following subjects:—
Complaints of the colonists classified.
| 1. | The unnecessary postponement of free institutions, and the attempts to force on the colony an odious form of government. |
| 2. | The illegality of various acts of the local administration. |
| 3. | Injurious, if not unlawful, tampering with the currency. |
| 4. | Injudicious native policy. |
| 5. | Excessive taxation. |
| 6. | Wasteful expenditure. |
| 7. | The creation of heavy debts. |
| 8. | The non-establishment of a militia. |
I. Since the year 1845, the colony has been tantalized
with frequent prospects of obtaining the management of its own local affairs. (2) It has been subjected as frequently to a succession of irritating disappointments.
I. Unnecessary postponement of free institutions.
In 1846, Parliament passed a measure for establishing
a constitution forthwith. A measure which, if suffered to take effect, would have vested in the colonists, in a large degree, the desired control of their own affairs—and with all its defects, it was accepted cheerfully and gratefully. After a long
period of despotic rule, under which the colony had suffered deep injury, the proposed change was hailed as an important, if not a complete answer to their wishes.
page 12Lord Grey's constitution of 1846.
Accepted by the colonists.
Suspended by Governor Grey.
The colonists complain of the double wrong committed in this matter. They complain of Governor Grey's unconstitutional, if not illegal, privation of political rights conferred on them by Act of Parliament. They complain yet more loudly and bitterly of the groundless and injurious allegations by which the Governor attempted to justify it.
Reasons for suspension assigned by Governor Grey.
Those reasons now abandoned.
tutions. But the long suspension of their rights, and the causeless infliction on the colony of the mischiefs of despotic rule for so many years, are grievances which have roused a spirit of angry discontent.Subsequent events have aggravated this feeling.
By the Act of 1848 of the Imperial Legislature,
suspending the constitution for five years, the Governor was invested with power to constitute during that interval temporary provincial legislatures, embodying, if he so pleased, the representative principle,(6) and so restoring to the colonists in part the rights of which they had been deprived.
Governor Grey's Provincinl Councils of 1848.
That Act was purposely framed so as to permit
the partial introduction of self-government—if thought fit—into either of the two provinces into which the colony was divided. The reasons alleged by Governor Grey for suspending the constitution of 1846, applied exclusively to the northern province.(7) In the southern province, Sir George Grey had himself declared, "that there never was a body of settlers to whom the powers of local self-government could be more wisely and judiciously entrusted;" and he pointed out that there was no reason why any delay should occur in bestowing representative government on the southern colonists, on account of any supposed unfitness in the northern.
Might have been representative.
Representing, as I do, the colonists of the former
province, I respectfully protest against the wrong done to them by Sir George Grey, in withholding from them, after this testimony to their fitness, the
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means of local self-government, distinctly contemplated by the provisions of the Suspension Act.
And ought to have been so.
means of local self-government, distinctly contemplated by the provisions of the Suspension Act.But Governor Grey established Nominee Councils;
Which, after one business session, break down;
The Governor interdicting their meeting in 1850;
And falling bark on the old official Council of 1840.
Results of Governor Grey's interdiction of meeting of council.
lute demise for want of the requisite number of unofficial members, no other persons being found willing to supply their places.Finding it impossible to bring into effectual
operation a system of government opposed to the sentiments of the whole colonial community, Governor Grey has at length proposed a measure of more popular aspect, but embodying in a large degree the very principles which caused the failure of his previous measure. By this last scheme, he proposes to constitute provincial legislative bodies, to be composed one-third of nominees and two-thirds of elected members, but reserving paramount legislative authority to his general nominee council, composed, as already stated, mainly of his own official dependents. This system of centralization and nomination is directly opposed to the municipal and elective system, to which the colonists are inflexibly attached. Against this new scheme the
colony protests by almost an unanimous voice, as being calculated to defer the establishment of responsible government, whilst, at the same time, it has the effect of relieving the governor from all real responsibility.(12)
He makes mother Attempt to introduce a new class of Provincial Councils,
which the colony unanimously protests against.
II The same disregard of law which marks
Governor Grey's acts in reference to the introduction of free institutions, has been shown in other instances.
II. Illegal acte of Governor Grey's administration.
1. He has caused ordinances to be passed affecting
the crown lands, and has disposed of such lands both absolutely and for temporary purposes, by acts
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of his nominee legislative councils, which are at least doubtful in point of law; the consequence of which has been to sacrifice rights of the crown, which, it is understood, have been affirmed by decision of the privy council, to confirm acts of his predecessor which had been made ground of his recal, to dissipate and waste the demesnes of the crown and the resources of the colony, and to lead, as he himself points out, to the probable stoppage of land sales in the northern province, to possible disputes with the natives, and the cessation of even such colonization as had previously gone on in that province.(13)
Disposes of crown lands in a wasteful and improper manner.
of his nominee legislative councils, which are at least doubtful in point of law; the consequence of which has been to sacrifice rights of the crown, which, it is understood, have been affirmed by decision of the privy council, to confirm acts of his predecessor which had been made ground of his recal, to dissipate and waste the demesnes of the crown and the resources of the colony, and to lead, as he himself points out, to the probable stoppage of land sales in the northern province, to possible disputes with the natives, and the cessation of even such colonization as had previously gone on in that province.(13)Permits unlicensed squatting on waste lands.
Particular! of the Wairarapa case.
* See note 25.
acquiescence of the Government, which has acknowledged a vested interest in the squatters.(14)3. In other instances, his course of government has been marked by a similar disposition to recognise no rule but his own will.
In 1848 he arbitrarily closed the County Courts,
and transferred their jurisdiction from judges who were barristers and solicitors of the courts at Westminster, to salaried resident magistrates, not one of whom is a lawyer—who hold office at the mere will of the local government, and who are the executive representatives of the governor, absolutely under his control and influence.(15)
Arbitrarily closes the County Courts.
4. Under proclamation of martial law, issued
without legislative sanction, he removed natives who were British subjects from the jurisdiction of the civil tribunals, and though charged with civil offences, subjected them to military trial and execution, though within the limits of, and in sufficient proximity to, the jurisdiction of the supreme court.(16)
Withdraws accused persons from the civil jurisdiction, and subjects them to military law.
III. He has, in express contravention of his instructions,
established a government bank, founded on principles dangerous in themselves, and distinctly disapproved of by the Home Government. He has made the notes of the bank legal tender; has charged them on the colonial revenue; has prohibited all other paper money; and has placed the bank funds at his own absolute disposal. (17)
III. Injurious tampering with the currency.
IV.—1. As regards the natives and their relation
to the colonists, the tendency of his policy has been
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injurious, and threatens the great disaster of fresh
collision between the races. His object (in which he has been partially successful) has been to ingratiate himself personally with the natives, and to excite in their minds towards himself, individually,
a favourable feeling. But he has purchased this at the cost of the colonists, by holding himself up in favourable contrast with them, and rousing feelings towards them of jealousy and distrust. To the alleged existence of these feelings he appeals, as his principal plea for retaining to himself arbitrary power.
IV. Injurious native policy.
injurious, and threatens the great disaster of fresh He conciliates the natives towards himself:
but at the expense of the colonists.
Creating in the native mind a dread of free institutions,
The colonists further complain of these injurious suggestions, as being contradicted by the whole tenour of the intercourse between the races, and by the friendly interest invariably shown by the colonists in all which concerns native welfare.
which the colonists contend would advance native civilization,
while they regard Governor
Grey, has not been beneficial to the native race Grey's policy as not beneficial to the natives.
What his policy has been.
Its inconside ruble results.
Considering the large means placed at Government disposal by the liberality of Parliament and colonial taxation, the effect has been lamentably disproportionate.
2. As regards the settlement of native territorial
claims, that difficult question remains unsolved, and is as far as ever from solution.
Governor Grey's failure to settle the territorial right of the natives.
The system of squatting on native land, openly connived at by the Government, in the face of ordinances and proclamations prohibiting it, has already become a barrier to the surrender of such claims, and if not immediately checked, or placed under control, can hardly fail to involve the colony in disasters similar to those which marked its early history. (22)
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V. Excessive taxation.
Oppressive tariff, double that of most colonies.
VI. Wasteful expenditure;
increasing in a disproportionate degree to the wants of the colony.
Excessive official establishments maintained for purposes of patronage.
purpose of making provision for political friends and dependents. I allude to one instance in particular, viz.:—the case of a judge appointed at The Otago judgeship.
2. The estimated revenue of the southern province
for 1851-2 amounts to £29,735; of this not less than £21,744 was appropriated by the Nominee Legislative Council to official establishments, chiefly in the item of salary, exclusive of police; while the merely nominal amount of £950 for roads, in a province larger than England, and £1800 for a gaol at Wellington, is all that is voted for any useful public object.* The number of officials, exclusive of police, on whom this large revenue is lavished is 118—employed in administering the government of 17,000 Europeans, and about 11,000 natives.
Revenue of southern province waited on official establishments and nothing left for public objects.
VII. Whilst their resources are thus wasted, the
colony is being saddled with grievous burthens of debt. Under previous administrations a debt was
incurred of upwards of £50,000, which has been funded, with interest at £8 per cent. Under an act passed in 1847, at the instance of the New Zealand Company, and without consent obtained or
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asked from the colony, a charge of £268,000 has been imposed upon the land fund, which, by the Charter and Royal Instructions of 1846, had been solemnly dedicated to the public service of the colony. (25)
VII. Creation of heavy debts:
50,000l under previous governors.
* These statements are on the authority of published documents of the council, recently received, They are not yet printed among Parliamentary Papers.
268,000l. charged on land fund in favour of New Zealand Company.
60,000l, and upwards on account of pensioner emigration.
VIII. Non-establishment of militia.
Cost of imperial forces maintained in the Colony.
Colonists desire to be self dependent for military defence.
Necessity of establishing militia pointed out by Lord .1. Russell, Lord Stanley, and Marquis of Normanby.
1840. (28) In 1844, Lord Stanley, referring to Militia, ordinance passed by Governor Fitzroy, and militia called out.
Governor Grey's neglect on this head.
Colonists left altogether unprepared to protect themselves.
The time is fast approaching when this aid must be withdrawn. It is a point which the colonists earnestly desire to attain, so soon as due preparation has been made for throwing on them such a responsibility. That time might have already arrived, but for the neglect hitherto to establish a militia, But the first step to that end must be to confer on
them the privileges of British subjects, and the ordinary means of self-government; and that this may be done without delay, and in a bonâ fide manner, is the prayer which I venture earnestly and respectfully to urge on their behalf.
The only remedy to confer self-government.