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 80a

"The Native-land Difficulty

"The Native-land Difficulty.

"The Premier then referred to the increase of the European population, and the urgent necessity for land, the gradual impoverishment and decadence of the Natives through recklessly parting with their land to private persons, and the paramount importance of effecting such adjustment of matters as would insure the solution of the present difficulties, and the rapid and systematic settlement of the surplus Native lands. The European population was like a lake constantly increasing in volume with no outlet. The Natives were like the banks of the lake, and if no outlet was provided for the banked-up waters the time would come when they would break down their banks and sweep everything before them. The flow of water could not be arrested, but the banks could be preserved if the Natives would listen and act according to wise counsels. By the Treaty of Waitangi their forefathers had ceded sovereignty to the Queen, and secured the powerful protection of the British flag for themselves and their descendants. No other nation on the face of the globe had ever protected the aboriginals like the British nation. Those who remained loyal remained in peaceful possession of their lands; those who rebelled had become landless and poor. There could not be two powers in New Zealand. The authority of the Queen was supreme. There could not be two Parliaments, but only one, in which Natives and Europeans were both represented. There could be only one Premier, the head of the Government of the colony. Various districts possessed so-called or mock Parliaments, for the discussion of political questions, which mock Parliaments had mock Ministers. So, too, the Maoris had Parliaments. Te Whiti had one, there was another on the East Coast, and a third here in the Waikato. All these were merely advisory bodies having neither legislative nor administrative power. The Maoris were represented both in Parliament and in the Cabinet by persons of their own race. If more Governments were permitted in the colony than one their lives would be endangered, and everything end in confusion.