No. 2.
The Earl of Durham to Lord Glenelg.

Dear Lord Glenels,—

Entirely concurring in the general views expressed in your letter of yesterday's date, I proceed to offer some remarks on those parts of it only which, with a view to some practical and well-considered result, seem to require the discussion which you invite.

With respect to the suggestion of a royal charter, to be framed with reference to the precedent of the Colonies established in North America by Great Britain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although the Association readily adopt your view as to the mode of a delegation of authority, yet they wish to express their belief that it will be necessary, according to the modern law and practice of the Constitution, to obtain a parliamentary sanction of some of the provisions of the charter.

The suggestion contained in paragraph 10, as to the holding of quarterly courts with a view to publicity, appears open to no other objection than that, unless the Government of the Colony be intrusted to a company of speculators or adventurers, as they were sometimes termed in the old charters, it would be difficult to find the materials of a corporate body sufficiently large to insure the desired publicity in this manner. This question, however, depends upon another, to which I will now advert.

I gather from paragraph 18, and some other expressions in your letter, that you would have the Corporation to be founded on a private pecuniary interest in the individuals comprising the body corporate. Now to this suggestion, if I have not misunderstood it, there appear several objections. In the first place, nearly all the gentlemen who compose the Committee of the Association, and who would be the first directors of a speculating company, have expressly stipulated that they shall neither run any pecuniary risk nor reap any pecuniary advantage from the undertaking; and they would more especially object to any plan by which they should become holders of shares liable to fluctuations of value in the stock market, a result which, as it appears to me, could not be avoided if the Corporation were founded on a private pecuniary interest. 2ndly. Unless the Corporation should engage in private speculation either as buyers of public land or as traders, it appears difficult to say in what way their subscribed capital could be invested; and in whatever way their capital was invested, with a view to the highest profit, it would be still more difficult to prevent their private interest as shareholders from clashing with their public duty as the Government of the Colony, as happened, I believe, with nearly every one of the old colonizing companies in America. 3rdly. Although the old Colonial charters were founded on a private interest, a better knowledge of political economy in modern times has condemned the practice of placing in the same hands a private interest and a public duty, incompatible with each other, as has been conspicuously shown by the recent reform of the East India Company, whereby they are divested of trading character. Lastly and chiefly, if the corporate government had a private interest, there would be ground for asserting that they had obtained privileges and a monopoly; so that, besides exposing the Corporation to odious imputations, reasons would be furnished for letting in another set of evils, which, we imagine, would result from limiting the territorial extent of jurisdiction awarded to the Colonial Government.

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For if the Government were also a speculating company, and their authority extended over the whole of New Zealand, it might be fair to say that they obtained privileges in the nature of a monopoly; whereas if they be but a public corporation, such, for example, as that of the Trinity House, then would the extension of their authority (always with full consent of the Natives) over the whole country be no more than a method adopted by the Supreme Government for regulating British colonization in New Zealand in the best possible way, without privilege, monopoly, or favour to any one, and without any injurious restriction or rivality.

On the other hand, if the jurisdiction of the Corporation were limited as to territorial extent, and particularly if other governing corporations were established in a country naturally of such limited extent as New Zealand, numerous and grave evils, it appears to me, could not but arise.

The experience of nearly all of the colonizing states of modern Europe, and especially our own experience in America, shows that governing bodies engaged in colonization are apt to regard each other as competitors and rivals, unless they be separated by a great distance. While there are numerous instances of disputes, and some of downright war, between authorities of this kind, the Natives have, I suspect, invariably suffered from such rivality between competitors of a superior race. In the case of New Zealand, other peculiar mischiefs could not but occur from the existence of rival governments on so limited a territory, or even from having a portion of the territory "tabooed," as it were, against the establishment of British authority. I allude to the present vagabond colonizers of that country, some of whom are established in the neighbourhood of every one of its harbours, and who would either take part with one or other of two rival governments, or who, if British authority were established in some parts of the country, while other parts were precluded, even temporarily, from coming under that authority, would naturally resort in masses to those lawless spots, and by thus concentrating their mischievous power, prove more injurious than ever to the Natives, besides enjoying a sort of impunity in the security of their lawless places of refuge for any outrages that they might commit on the legalized settlements, or on the traders whom legalized settlements are sure to attract to the coast of New Zealand.

As the words "public auction" appear to have been used but incidentally—perhaps accidentally— in paragraph 16, I will not trouble you with the serious objections entertained by the Association to the sale of public land by auction or otherwise than at a fixed and uniform price, but will only refer to the invariable tenor of their previous communications on that point.