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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 10

Note, page 63

page 75

Note, page 63.

The Duke of Newcastle's words are: "I cannot disguise from myself that the endeavour to keep the management of the natives under the control of the Home Government has failed." [Parl. Papers, N. Z. Affairs, August 1862, p. 80.] The first and most obvious meaning of this sentence, when read along with the context, is a confession that the government of the natives by the Imperial authorities has been unsuccessful. But the words bear another construction, and may mean that the Home Government has been prevented from reserving to itself, as it desired, the exclusive control of the natives. If this be the meaning the words were intended to bear, allusion is probably made to the only circumstance which can be construed into an obstacle placed by the colonists in the way of the Crown's free action. In the session of the Imperial Parliament, held in 1860, a bill was brought in by the Government "For the better Government of the Native Inhabitants of New Zealand, and for facilitating the purchase of Native Lands." This bill passed through the House of Lords. But some colonists, who then happened to be in England, expressed great indignation at the suggestion of such a measure. The Constitution Act had established an independent Legislature for New Zealand, and it was not competent for the Imperial Parliament also to legislate. Nor was it necessary to do so. If the Colonial Legislature passed measures of which the Crown did not approve, it was within the power of the Crown to disallow them. And if measures which the Crown desired were not passed, the Crown was perfectly at liberty to act in native matters without them. The Constitution Act was widely constructed for the purpose. A despatch from the Colonial Office instructing the Governor, or at most an Order in Council, would have been quite as good as an Act of Parliament; but instruction to the Governor was the one thing which for some reason was never given. To pass an Act of Parliament where there was no jurisdiction, for the purpose of empowering the Crown to determine through what servants or in what way it should do its own work (which was the effect of the measure) was at once an error and an absurdity. The measure was withdrawn in the House of Commons, the Secretary of State for the Colo- page 76 nies being absent from the country at the time. When the result was known in the colony the opposition given at home to the bill was approved of; but a measure of a similar character was brought into the General Assembly and passed, as was the legitimate course. This bill was however deemed to restrict as well as to define the power of the Crown, and was not assented to by her Majesty. There may be other instances in which the Imperial Government conceives itself to have been thwarted; but the only one of consequence is the opposition on constitutional grounds to the Native Government Bill of 1860; and this took place after the war began. The question of responsibility for the war is therefore not affected by it.