1862

On the 7th July, 1862; Sir George Grey met the General Assembly for the first time since his return to the country, and the House received him in a spirit of the utmost frankness. Old wounds, connected with the introduction of the constitution, were forgotten, and there appeared a general disposition to allow His Excellency sufficient means to test his plans for the restoration of peace and good will, though the position of the Taranaki Province was nevertheless not lost sight of. On the 23rd July, I moved for information respecting present and prospective military operations against the Taranaki and Ngatiruanui tribes, with reference to the murders committed and the plunder removed by them; and I also moved, on the same day, for information respecting the restoration of the Settlers to their homes in the Tataraimaka block, and both these motions were affirmed by the House.

On the 25th July, Mr Fox, the Colonial Secretary, moved a resolution on the subject of ministerial responsibility in Native affairs, which the House, not exactly approving of, and yet unwilling to reject, shelved, by passing to the "previous question." The votes being 22 on either side, the Speaker voted with the noes, thus leaving the subject an open one. This decision of the House led to the resignation of the Fox Ministry, and the acceptance of office by Mr. Domett, aided by Mr. Dillon Bell and others; and, on the 19th of August, Mr. Domett gave notice of a resolution on the same subject, by which the decision in all Native matters was left with the Governor, while the Ministry would, at his mutest, advise and administer, the Colony remaining free from any liability past or future. This resolution was carried by a majority of nine. The question, however, received a final decision when, on the 13th day of September, Mr. Domett moved, and the House adopted, an address to Her Majesty, in reply to a letter from His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, of the 26th May, 1862, intimating that Her Majesty's Government recognizing "that the endeavour to keep the management of the Natives under their control had failed," had resolved to sanction the important step taken by His Excellency in placing the management of the Natives under the control of the General Assembly, subject to certain specified conditions. It may be sufficient to quote from this masterly remonstrance the following page 8 passage, as indicativo of' the position of the Colony:—"In respectfully declining, therefore, to accept the proposal of your Majesty's Government, we do so, not as shrinking from labours and burthens which we ought rightly to undertake, but, because, along with a desire on the part of your Majesty's Government to confer an apparent political boon on the Colony, we seem to discover in the despatches to which we have referred, the intention to withdraw from engagements to which the British nation is honorably bound, and to transfer to the Colony liabilities and burdens winch belong to the Empire."

Thus stood the question at the close of the Session of 1862. But, while declining the task assigned us, the Legislature evinced its deep interest in the Natives by passing an Act which secured to them "the practical advantages of ownership in their lands," and gave them "titles which are recognised by our laws." "The Native Lands Bill" was a step in the right direction. By it the preemptive right of the Crown was waived, winch had hitherto been jealously guarded, and through the instrumentality of which the price of land, from want of competitors, was kept low, while the difference between the buying and soiling price furnished a very needful supply to the Provincial Governments of the Northern Island for the purposes of government and colonization. On the important question of Ministerial responsibility in Native affairs, I protested against the power of the Crown to abdicate "its responsibilities without the consent of the Natives;" I strongly recommended "the avoidance of obligations which there was no power to fulfil," and I "earnestly entreated the House to pause before it saddled posterity with a debt which would crush it to the earth." I felt it to be my duty to vote against Mr. Fitzgerald's motion for the introduction of Her Majesty's Native subjects into the Executive and Legislative bodies, as I foresaw certain practical difficulties which appeared at the time insuperable. The motion was lost on a division of seventeen to twenty.

While appreciating at its full value the importance of the route to England viâ Panama, I was compelled to vote against the annual appropriation of £30,000 as a contribution to the service, endeavouring to restrict the duty of the Colony to assisting and encouraging the movement at a time when it was engaged in a contest page 9 needing all its energies and absorbing all its revenues. Mr. Dick's motion for the removal of the Seat of Government to the shores of Cook's Straits, which was lost on a division of 23 to 22, received my hearty co-operation. I scarcely need remind you that I opposed the "Otago and Southland Boundary Bill," which, if passed, would have abstracted a large portion of the Otago territory bordering on the Gold-fields and the Mataura; while the "Miners' Representation Bill" and the Representation Bill peculiarly affecting Otago had my support. Owing to the division of the Electoral District in consequence of the passing of this last-mentioned Act, I considered it my duty to resign my seat, and my resignation was intimated to the House of Representatives on the 12th September—at the close of the Session.