The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 10
1.—The Opposition of the North
1.— The Opposition of the North.
It must always be recollected that New Zealand not only consists of several distinct colonies, each having ends and interests almost as separate and well defined as the five colonies of Eastern Australia; but that a broad line of demarcation, in truth, antagonism, exists between the Northern Province, Auckland—formerly known as the Province of New Ulster, formed under the auspices of the British Government—and the Southern settlements formed in the Province of New Minister by and through the New Zealand Company. This antagonism had its origin in the very foundation of the colony; for the cession of the sovereignty of New Zealand and the establishment of Auckland as the seat of Government were adopted by the British Government expressly to check the illegal proceedings of the Company (then an association merely) in endeavoring to establish sovereign power at Wellington, to which we have already referred. No sooner were these proceedings checked than the Company and its settlers opposed themselves in every way to the authority of the Government because established in the North, and strove to obtain its removal to Cook's Straits, resorting to every imaginable device to depreciate the great natural advantages of the North as a field for settlement.
"These two systems are essentially antagonistic, for the chief scene of the missionary labors has been the Northern Peninsula of the Northern Island. A great proportion of the native population is there—Auckland is there, with the tribes with which the colonial Government has come in contact.
"The chiefs, whose independence we acknowledged, are entirely included in that district, and there alone can the treaty of Waitangi have any legal force, because there alone can it be asserted that the title of the Crown was founded on cession thereby. On the other hand, this district, from the number of natives, &c. &c., does not present a very attractive field for colonization. It contains, however, the positions most desirable for the purposes of a naval station commanding the Pacific, and is the sole repository of that Kauri timber, whioh is so valuable to our navy.
"This Northern Peninsula should be made a separate government; whether it could be directly placed under the missionaries we cannot pretend to determine, but at any rate the religious, societies should be assured that it should be kept strictly under their system, and that the missionaries should be allowed to retain their influence over the natives, whose interest should be the main care of the Government.
"The remainder of the Northern Island, and the whole of the Middle and Southern Islands (being in fact the province of New Minister) should be formed into another government, and be the field of European colonization." *
* Commons Papers, 6th June, 1845; No, 867.
The ingenious attempt thus made to stop all British colonization in the North, by diverting its streams entirely to the South, as might be expected, did not succeed with the present Earl Derby. The Company were, in effect, told that Great Britain did not intend to abdicate the functions it had undertaken, and that it was better that the Company should die decently, and "relieve themselves, the colony, and the Government from the embarrassments consequent upon the then state of their affairs."
This they at length did in 1850, after founding the additional settlements of Otago and Canterbury. But their spirit has evidently survived them, for "the tone of dictation and authority totally subversive of all authority" of which Governor Hobson complained in 1841 has been and is still maintained by the Southern settlers against those in the North, with the addition of arrogance of language which proves its authors to be totally unfitted for the exercise of the power they seek. The feeling of "bitter rivalry and hostility "of which the same Governor then complained as existing between the Government settlement and that founded by the Company has increased a hundred-fold between Auckland and Wellington, whilst a similar feeling is rapidly springing up between Wellington and Otago in the extreme South.
Nor, indeed is this surprising when it is known that the first act of the new native Minister (Mr. Fitzgerald) was to denounce from his place in the Assembly the Southern settlement (Otago, having 49,000 inhabitants,) as a bubble, and the Northern settlement (Auckland, having 42,000 inhabitants,) as rotten at the core!
The Northern settlers are in fact now contending for the very scheme of separation put forth in the above plan of Mr. Charles Buller; but for various other reasons besides the one there mentioned.
First, Because the Southern members, having succeeded in transferring the seat of Government to Wellington, have entirely excluded the North from any representation in the Government, and they are practically deprived of all power and influence in the Assembly; the North having under the Constitution Act 15 members only against 45 Southern members, who are united on all questions affecting the interests of the South as against the North.
"The settlers are already brought into contact with a native population of probably 20,000 (?) persons. Without the presence of some controlling power, which may challenge the respect and submission of the natives, and may, at the same time, inspire them with confidence that they shall be maintained in the full enjoyment of their lawful rights, it is impossible to assert that the peaceful intercourse hitherto so happily maintained will be permanent. If, from the absence of such a power, any dissension should unfortunately arise, the presence of your Excellency will be imperatively required, but it may then be too late to cure the evils which an early residence in this place might have prevented; deep-seated distrust and enduring hostility might take the place of the kindness and confidence at present existing." *
"This work is yet to do; nay, rather yet to be commenced. It must be commenced under circumstances of far greater difficulty than of old, becausethe irritation arising out of the war is a new element sorely complicating the question. It must at least be a task of long years, far longer by reason of the war than it need have been."* D. No. 78, Appendix 12, Report of New Zealand Company,
Thirdly, Because the settlers of the Northern Province have from the earliest times submitted to the policy of the British rule in regard to the natives, whether founded on the missionary or any other principle. Whilst the settlers in the Wellington and Hawkes Bay districts set the law at defiance, and grow rich by leasing large tracts from the natives, contrary to the ordinance, the settlers of Auckland were, in the words of the New Zealand charter,
"Obedient, aiding and assisting to the Governor."
Although confined within the narrowest limits, they devoted them-selves to commerce, and became the merchants of the islands. Until the recent war, all lands acquired in the Province of Auckland were honestly purchased from the natives, not at a fraction of a farthing, but at an average rate of 3s. per acre, paid out of provincial revenues, and this although, being principally forest and fern lands, it was necessary, owing to the cost of clearing, to give them away to induce immigration from England, and it being, further, the policy of the Government gradually to introduce population so as to outnumber the natives.
The return which the Home Government now makes to the settlers of the Northern Province is to withdraw their troops, and to hand them over, together with the natives, to the Government of the Southern settlers, who, as already shewn, are unwilling to submit to any sacrifice to carry out the task they have undertaken.
Fourthly, Because the Northern settlers and the British people have to thank the Southern settlers for the existence of the recent native wars. Under the old system of British Government in the North, call it what you please, peace was maintained, and the most friendly relations existed between the natives and the settlers.
"It is when all the tale is told that history will begin to judge. It willthen relate how the English came to New Zealand shores, and were warmly welcomed by the savage islanders; how the natives rapidly dropped their savage customs, abandoned cannibalism, in a great measure gave up their wars, took to English habits, adopted our dress, and used our implements of labor and cultivation. It will tell how for thirty years we lived amongst them, with slight exceptions, in perfect peace, not only in our own settlements and under the protection of our armies, but isolated families, women and children, defenceless in the midst of remote tribes, and yet with no sense of wrong or even of danger. It will record the amazing fact, that, setting aside those scenes in which war was recongnised as existing by both races, (and the periods of war have been very brief,) there is hardly an instance during all that time of the murder of a European by a native. It may probably be asserted as a fact that, excepting in those few districts, and at those short times in which we were at war with the natives, there have been more white men murdered by white men than by natives. Do the new comers in those Southern Provinces know this startling fact? When they hear the natives spoken of as a savage people, resisting every effort on our parts to bring them under our law, do the ? public here know that without force, without police, without law, numbers of Englishmen have been living in all parts of the native districts, and have been enjoying their hospitality during the past thirty years? If they do not know it, history will not be so misinformed; and it will further relate that this people, who are described as acting the part of the dog in the manger in respect of their lands, have voluntarily given up to us something like two-thirds of the whole area of these islands for an amount of remuneration so insignificant that the estate may be almost regarded as a gift All this will be told with fatal accuracy in times to come; and history will then go on to state, that as we poured more and more of our population into the country, a bitter jealousy arose between the two races in respect to the possession of the land." *
The peaceful state of things here described might have been continued but for the desire of the Southern settlers for the introduction of responsible government; and with responsible government came the attempt of the South to advise and interfere in the management of native affairs, until at last Governor Browne, yielding himself to the influence, back, and guidance of the squatter spirit of the South, which was then dominant in his responsible Ministry, adopted those disgraceful proceedings for the acquisition of land at Waitara, New Plymouth, which at once precipitated the country into hostile conflict with the natives—a war which 20,000 men (10,000 British troops and 10,000 colonial forces), as was then prophesied by Northern settlers, have not been able to bring to an end. †
"But it seems Mr. Wilson is beginning to feel that the war is becoming unpopular and that it is prudent to disown it With an energy of language which, as with most weak men, never becomes vigorous without becoming vulgar, Mr. Wilson asserts that it is 'a lie' to say that the votes of the Southern* Canterbury Press, May 20, 1864
members caused the war. It is not safe for men with treacherous memories to handle public affairs. Mr. Wilson must have forgotten that in the debates on the Waitara question as to whether the war policy of the Stafford Ministry should be sanctioned by the House or not, a majority of the Northern members were against the Ministers, a majority of the Southern members were for them. He forgets that Mr. Stafford refused a committee of enquiry into the Waitara question, and that the policy of enforcing the Waitara purchase by force of arms was ratified by a majority of the Southern members. It is humiliating to hear any public men denying well known facts; still more humiliating when the facts are such as he not only would have admitted, but would have boasted of two or three years ago." *† See Postscript.
"For our own part, we shall never cease to feel that if the Middle Island, after having forced the North into the war, now even professes to desert her in it, it will be an act of far greater baseness and selfishness than anything of which Auckland has been guilty in working the war to her own advantage." †
This is plain speaking, and other members of the Canterbury Province (Messrs. Crosbie "Word, and Moorhouse,) have also borne honest testimony to the same fact.
Fifthly, The future promises to increase these Northern grievances ten fold.
'All chance of representation of the North in the Assembly is to be still further lessened by a Bill now pending in the Assembly, by which five additional members are to be given to Canterbury, six to Otago and two to Southland, that is to say, thirteen more Southern members, without any increase whatever in the Northern Province.
* Canterbury Press, 26th December, 1864.
† Ibid. 4th November, 1864.
"But those who have played in the great game of politics know that the soul of all party government lies in the noble ambition of men to carry into action the speculations of their brains; and that place and power are only valuable as affording opportunity for the gratification of this longing, which is ever keener and purer the greater the mind that feels it. But who would care to devote his intellect and time and labor to the public service, if, no matter how successfully he may have striven in promulgating a view, it is liable to be overthrown and spoiled at any moment by the crotchets and caprices of a power responsible to no one." *
"Our second objection to Separation is, that by reducing the size, and with the size the number of interests of the colony, the whole standard of its public life will be lowered, and the tone of its public men dwarfed and stunted; weshould be descending towards the Vestry instead of ascending towards the Parliament. Little interests make little minds." ** November 8th, 1864.
The colonists of the Auckland Province having settled in New Zealand under the auspices of the British Government, and faithfully assisted heretofore in forwarding its objects, conceive that the Home Government had better have allowed the New Zealand Company to establish a separate authority in Wellington in 1840, or have adopted their above-mentioned scheme of 1845, than now abandon the North and direct the settlers there to recognise the sovereignty of the South. They cannot help themselves in what is called a "constitutional mode," having no voice in the Assembly; and if they had, that body cannot pass an Act to alter the Constitution and effect separation without an Act of the British Parliament.
* November 4, 1864.
* See Postscript