Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 10

Imperial Policy Towards The Colony

Imperial Policy Towards The Colony.

Object of Maori protection.

It may be said, if the war was not for the benefit of the colonists, it was certainly not for that of the English people, and the taxpayers of the three kingdoms should therefore not be more heavily taxed to carry it on. This is a very natural observation to make, but the time to make it has gone by for the present.
The philosophy of English statesmen and the philanthropy of the people were early enlisted on behalf of the Maori race. England had become ashamed of those pages in her history which describe the destruction of the aborigines in those countries where her earlier colonies have been planted; and she determined to save the Maori race from a similar fate. The Maori was a fit subject for the attempt. Missionaries had been very successful in Christianizing the race, and a readiness to adopt the habits of civilization had long been perceived among them. The work of preserving and elevating a savage race demanded the resources of a powerful nation and the careful observance of a plan. Haphazard intercourse with white men would spoil the race rather than improve it. A small body of colonists might succeed in gradually killing off the aborigines, as had often been done before, but not in administering a page 57 strong government among them. Such was the accepted doctrine at the foundation of New Zealand as a colony. Influenced by these views, the British nation, through its government, deliberately accepted the protectorship of the Maori people, confirmed them by treaty in the enjoyment of their existing rights; and undertook so to govern the colony that the two races should grow up together for the benefit of each other. This noble policy has always enlisted the intelligent approval of the colonists, though at times the wisdom of the methods adopted for carrying the intention into effect has been doubted by them. They would have been willing at one

Willingness of colonists to work out policy.

time to take upon themselves, without any hesitation, the duty of governing the native tribes, in the hope of carrying out the same policy with closer attention and greater success. Though they never in terms offered to do so, the Imperial Government having always treated the surrender of its protectorate as an impossibility, yet the impatience of the settlers under the system of double government which has been described would doubtless have led them to accept the duty, had it been tendered to them while its performance seemed within their power. But the protectorate was jealously

Offer to transfer powers.

maintained, and no offer to abandon it was even hinted till last year, two years after the outbreak of war. The transfer of power was then tendered in a despatch from the Secretary of State, dated May 26, 1862, [Parl Papers, N.Z., August, 1862, page 58 p. 79,] in a way which was not deemed satisfactory by the colony. The Duke of Newcastle said to the Governor in this despatch (p. 80), "I am ready to sanction the important step you have taken in placing the management of the natives under the control of the Assembly." He did so, both because he thought the Governor's views correct, and because "the endeavour to keep the management of the natives under the control of the Home Government has failed."

Misapprehension by colonial office.

If the Secretary of State supposed, as he appears to have done, that his 'readiness to sanction' this important step settled the matter be was mistaken. It is clear that such a step, intended as it was to shift the responsibility of native government from the Home Government to the Colonial Assembly, required the acquiescence of the latter body to render it complete. It is not possible, even in the small matters of private life, for one man to ease himself of a duty by transferring it to another without the latter's consent. No doubt his Grace misapprehended the meaning of the Governor's despatch to which he was replying [ib. p. 27], and finding that the separate native Department in the colony had been done away with, and the agency of the Colonial Ministry employed in its place, assumed that the colony had already acquiesced in an entire change of plan. But this was not the case. The Crown was of course at liberty to perform its own work through and by whom it might choose; but page 59 all its servants are not necessarly 'Responsible Ministers.' Sir George Grey found the better to transact native affairs through the ordinary heads of departments than through a separate staff. He did this because he agreed with his colonial advisers, who, acting upon a resolution of the Legislature, pointed out the difficulties of a double government in the colony [lb. p. 3.] But it did no; follow that the two sets of affairs were to be conducted on the same terms. It would have been idle, indeed,

Complete change of plan not possible.

to think of such a thing. To have brought Sir George Grey from the Cape of Good Hope to an inferior Government, because he was the most able Governor of aborigines the British Empire could produce, and then to mate him merely a constitutional ruler, leaving the colonial representatives to direct and be responsible for all native as they were for all colonial affairs, would have been an extravagant mockery. It is only necessary to suppose the case of a difference on an important question between the Governor and advisers having the support of a strong party in Parliament; or that of a hostile vote in the Assembly against a Ministry supported by the Governor. If the Assembly was to be responsible for the consequences, the Governor must give way. Nobody except Sir George Grey himself would have ventured to recommend a plan treating so lightly the Governor selected for a special emergency. The suggestion of a responsible government in native affairs was at the time not feasible. His page 60 Excellency's colonial advisers could not undertake their part in such a scheme; and even had they done so temporarily, the Assembly when it met could not and would not have sanctioned the arrangement. The plan will be possible when the Governor can consent to follow whatever policy in native affairs may be approved of by any set of advisers in whom the Legislature of the time may have confidence. This has been the bugbear in the way of Responsible Government in native affairs hitherto. It will be well for the Imperial Government to assure itself that in this way only will complete responsibility for the management of the New Zealand aborigines be fixed upon the colony.

Probable mistake of H.M. Government.

The Secretary of State, then, seems to have forgotten that the acquiescence of the colony in a transfer of duties and responsibilities was necessary, and that it had not been obtained. It seems, indeed, very like the truth that the Colonial Office had come in the course of years to forget that the Governor was the representative of the Crown, and to look upon him only as the chief and mouthpiece of the colonists. In New Zealand native affairs, as has been shewn, the Governor was only the former, and not the latter at all. This supposed erroneous view would account for the absence which has been noticed of any instructions to the Governor on matters of policy; for the belief which has grown up in colonial responsibility for the war; and for the assumption just now mentioned of an acquies- page 61 cence on the part of the colony in the Governor's proposals. And though the words of the Secretary of State acknowledging failure, quoted above, seem to oppose this view, they may bear a different meaning.
In the same despatch, the Duke of Newcastle

Despatch from Secretary of State.

claims prompt payment of colonial contributions to military expenditure arising out of the war; throws all past and future expense for militia and volunteers upon the colony; condemns the New Zealand Government for "ignorance of the obligation under which the colonists themselves lie to exert themselves in their own defence, and to submit to those sacrifices which are necessary from persons whose lives and property are in danger;" calls for the imposition of additional taxes: announces, "though not an immediate, yet a speedy and considerable diminution of the force now employed;" and consents finally, as a concession, "in consideration of the present difficulties of the colony," to remit from the colonial contribution to the forces, for three years and no more, about one-half the cost of restoring the machinery of Government among the natives by pacific measures,—to an amount not exceeding £25,000 a year.
The colonists had been somewhat prepared for

Previous desatch of same kind.

language such as this. About fifteen months before, in the session of 1861, when the Governor had determined that the proper courst to restore order and assert the Queen's sovereignty was to attack the head quarters of the King movement in Waikato, he was page 62 compelled to tell the Assembly that unless the colony would undertake some additional liability, demanded by the Imperial Government, he could not employ the forces in the manner proposed. [Journals of House of Rep. N. Z. 1861, p. 37.] A despatch from Sir G. C. Lewis, of 26th July, 1860, seems to have been the first and chief instruction to the Governor to take a step such as this. [Appendix to Journals, House of Rep. N. Z. E. No. 3 b., 1861, pp. 6, 7.] The occasion was too serious to hesitate; refusal would have thrown the blame of inaction on the colony; and the Assembly then undertook to furnish men and means, to the extent of the resources of the colony. [Journals, &c, 1861, p. 47,] The fulfilment of this pledge was never exacted, for the threatened invasion of the Waikato country was suspended from other causes; but the colonists had felt for the first time the horns of the dilemma—to submit to a hard bargain, or to be condemned as indifferent to the welfare of their country.

Colonists' opinions on despatch.

Nevertheless the terms of the Duke's dispatch of May 26, 1862, grated harshly on the ears of the Colonial representatives, who at the time of its arrival were assembled in session. On further consideration the propositions contained in it were universally condemned. If the acknowledgment of failure in the words already quoted really meant that the Imperial policy had broken down, and that the attempts to govern the natives page 63 bad failed;* if it was admitted that the misgovernment of the aborigines bad resulted in war, or if it was maintained that the government had been rightly conducted up to the outbreak, but that the war was a mistake; in either case the Duke ought at least to have acknowledged the large assistance already given by the colony both in men and means, and to have admitted the sacrifices which the settlers had undergone. Had the colonists been met in this spirit, they might have been content not to urge their opinion that their revenues and their property and the lives of many of their number had been sacrificed to Imperial mistakes. They would have been satisfied as citizens of the Empire to take a share of that liability which they contended was one resting on the Empire at large; and, remembering their approval of the war from its beginning, they would not have disputed the amount to be contributed by them, as that share, up to the limit of their estimated resources. But to be told that all that had been done was in their defence, when their protection alone had never brought a single soldier into action; that they did not exert themselves for their own protection, when they had lot only been ready to do this if necessary, but bad actually fought from loyal sentiment as though they had been paid soldiers of the Crown; that they ought o make sacrifices to save their property, when the act of the Government alone had swept away much of that property, and page 64 might at any time cause the destruction of all that remained in the North Island; to be told these things was to be grossly insulted. I regret that I have not at my command a milder expression to describe the fact. That these insults should be the introduction to a plan to leave on the colony the task of governing the native population who were still for the most part in a state of determined rebellion—a task involving, as a recent resolution of the House of Commons told them, the cost of repressing all disturbance—and that the whole should be accompanied by an intimation that the troops would shortly he withdrawn while the prospects of further war were still imminent, left the colonists in such a such a state of blank amazement, as might have been that of the Israelites when ordered to make bricks without straw. The subject occupied many long days of debate, and called forth every variety of opinion. It seemed at last hopeless to leave the answer to a despatch so full of misconceptions to be conveyed in a mere formal reply; and it was resolved accordingly to embody a statement of the case in the form of an address to the Queen. This remonstrance, as it may properly be called, has been recently published. I quote it at length in an appendix to this letter.

Address to the Queen.

The main points in the reply of the colonists are—a disclaimer of responsibility for the past; a statement of the reasons which render it impossible for the colony alone to take up the government of the page 65 natives at the present crisis; a remonstrance against the seeming intention on the pact of Her Majesty's Government to withdraw from engagements to which they are honourably bound; a recapitulation of the losses and sufferings which have been entailed upon the colonists by no misconduct or imprudence of their own; an undertaking to carry on the government of the natives, if it be offered to them under possible conditions; and a consent to hear the burden of expense under any circumstances, to the extent of their means.
This remonstrance has been read as if it were a

Its true meaning.

mere evasion of responsibility. It would undoubtedly appear to be mainly so to any one possessed with the belief that the colonists have been the authors of all Maori troubles. But whoever is willing to listen to and examine into the real facts must acknowledge that the New Zealand settlers, who had innocently suffered as individuals, and were willing to drain their public resources to pay a debt which they had no share in incurring, were fully justified in drawing the line there, and refusing to acknowledge a liability of indefinite amount in the future.

* See Note at the end.