II.

Compensation to the New Zealander for the Cession of his Land versus the New Zealand Land-League.

It is not the object of the writer to show that he uttered prophecies twenty years ago which, like those of Cassandra, would, had they been heeded, have averted the present calamities. His object is to help in the inquiry, now so intensely interesting and important, what is the true, the honourable, the safe, the hopeful way to get out of the present dilemma, and establish our future relations with the native race on a footing safe and honourable to all parties. But he believes that he will do this best in this place by showing how he fought the battle for them from the year 1837 to the year 1842.

The most important consideration that arises in view of the colonization of such a country as New Zealand is how to give the native a substantial eqvivalent for the land he cedes to us. In former times it was thought sufficient to pay in beads and trinkets. It was with such articles that Penn purchased Pennsylvania. Now such a payment, or any payment in perishable articles, or in money to he spent in such articles, is in fact no return at all for a possession so inestimably valuable as the soil.

In proof that this system of Reserves has not been a failure, I have now to quote what will, I trust, be read with deep attention by every thoughtful reader, as it seems to be a light breaking into the cavern and showing us the way out. I quote it from an article in the "New Zealander," giving an account of what passed at the conference of native chiefs, which was held at Kohimarama, the educational establishment page 31 of the Melanesian mission near Auckland, on the 10th of July last.

"Governor Gore Browne opened the proceedings with a formal address, and his Excellency has since, on several occasions, communicated with the meeting by 'message.' Day by day the several points raised in the Governor's speech, and special questions incident thereto, have been discussed with orderliness and propriety, such as we might look in vain to find in some other places of greater pretension.

"One of the most important results likely to issue out of the conference is the disabusing of the minds of the Maories with respect to the value of their lands without population. This is a point upon which the native secretary (Mr. M'Lean) has been very frank with the assembled chiefs. In introducing the Governor's message on the land question, he remarked that there were two topics which mainly demanded their special consideration. The first was the land; the second, the Taranaki war. It was for them to decide to which they would first pay attention—the individualization of property and Crown grants for their lands, or the Taranaki quarrel. The chiefs were not long in making up their minds—the land question was that which they most cared about.

* * * * * *

"Mr. M'Lean, having thus elicited the general views of the chiefs, urged upon them the necessity of great caution with respect to the definition of boundaries, so as to prevent future quarrels. The whole matter should be most carefully considered in their several tribes. There were some of them who blamed the Government for purchasing native lands for a small sum and re-selling them at a comparatively high rate to Europeans; but, as he had always been careful to explain in all the purchases he had effected, the land was of little value in itself until English capital was expended upon it in the construction of roads, bridges, and other material improvements, without which there was little chance of their being able to take their produce to a profitable market. Land again, was of little value where there was not a dense popula- page 32 tion to act as the consumers of its produce. So clearly was this principle understood among white men, that, as in the case of Andalusia in Spain and of Canada on the American continent, free grants of land were offered as inducement to Englishmen to become settlers, and thus give a value to that which was otherwise valueless. In New Zealand, too—in this very province of Auckand—this great truth was understood and acted upon; and while the natives were paid for their land, and the provincial Government was at the expense of having the land so bought surveyed and divided, it awarded to each immigrant a certain proportion of land in exchange for his passage-money from England, and thus gave a value to otherwise waste lands, and induced a large flow of consumers for the products of Maori as well as European cultivation.

"This practical argument was well understood by the southern chiefs, many of whose 'reserves' have risen to a value in consequence of the influx of European population, which has made them men of considerable wealth. They have given their northern countrymen the benefit of their experience, and the consequence is that the wisdom of selling their surplus land is a question that is eagerly discussed each night in the respective hapus or cantonments."

One thought which irrepressibly arises on reading this report of proceedings at Kohimarama is the question: Why was all this not done before! Why was this assembly not held before? Why were the natives left for twenty years without instruction on a matter so vitally important both to them and to the colonists as the comparative value of land in a wild and in a well-peopled district? Why, during all this time, were they not invited to have a voice or express an opinion about their own affairs? Another thought which arises in the writer's mind, and which he trusts will commend itself to the minds of his candid readers, as helping to indicate the course we ought now to adopt, is the conviction that he was right; and that, if the principle of reserving certain page 33 portions of land, both in town and country, in each settlement as it was successively formed, for the benefit of the native race, had been generally adopted, and administered with wisdom from the foundation of the colony, the land-league would never have existed, and the happiest relations would by this time have existed between the races. And he cannot forbear referring now to the further steps which he took to promote its adoption, as he believes that in doing so he will best show his views as to the way out of the present difficulty.

This peculiar system of native reserves having been adopted and set on foot by the New Zealand Company, the next object aimed at was to get them adopted throughout New Zealand by Her Majesty's Government. For this purpose a hitter was addressed to Lord John Russell, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies, at the end of December, 1840, minutely setting forth the objects aimed at, and the plan proposed for carrying them out. This letter was courteously acknowledged by Lord John Russell, who thanked the writer, through Sir James Stephen, for the pains he had taken to explain and enforce his views for the benefit of the natives of New Zealand, adding that the subject had from the first engaged the serious attention of Her Majesty's Government, and that when the whole correspondence relating to the affairs of New Zealand should be printed, he trusted it would be found that the most effectual securities had been taken for the protection of that race which the case in its nature admitted of.

This was in the beginning of January, 1841, and the correspondence came out in May. It then appeared that Lord John Russell had on the 9th of the previous December addressed a despatch to Governor Hobson containing that sentence, which must over be so reassuring to the friends of the native New Zealanders in the midst of all the perils that beset them and threaten their existence from within and without: page 34 "The aborigines of New Zealand will, I am convinced be the subjects of your constant solicitude, as certainly there is no subject connected with New Zealand which the Queen, and even' class of Her Majesty's subjects in this kingdom, regard with more settle) and earnest anxiety." And the despatch went on to give many wise and valuable directions on a great variety of topics relating to the management and cultivation of the native race.

After referring here to the provision made by Lord John Russell, and confirmed by Lord Stanley, that a portion of the proceeds of the sale of land, amounting to not less than fifteen, nor more than twenty per cent. of the purchase-money, should be devoted to providing for and humanizing the aborigines, the letter proceeds,

"I trust your lordship will believe that I am fully sensible of the large and liberal character of this provision, as compared with any thing which has ever yet been done for aboriginal tribes. But at the same time I cannot help expressing my conviction, that even this large share of the proceeds of the sale of their land will afford them less solid and permanent advantage than they would derive from the reserve, for their benefit, of a moderate share of those choice portions of their land which are so highly prized by Europeans. If it be probable, as Lord John Russell observes, that the proceeds thus arising will, generally speaking, be expended within the year, what will remain for the subsistence and comfort of the natives when all the land is disposed of? If all is to be spent in their civilization, what is to support them when they are civilized? It may be replied, 'their labour.' Should we then be satisfied with a provision, which, however large and liberal it may be as a present supply, tends at last to disappear, and leave the whole native population in the condition of a labouring class? and this, while by a contemporaneous process, carried on by means of the occupation of their land, some of the lowest of our countrymen arc rising to opulence and honour!

"But, my lord, it appears to me that every thing could he secured at precisely the same expense to Great Britain by a slightly different arrangement, namely, by assigning, for the benefit of the natives, a portion of this 15 or 20 per cent. in the shape of reserves, and a portion in money. Supposing, for instance, that the probable proceeds of the sale of a township were 100,000l., and that twenty per cent. out of the sum so raised, that is to say 20,000l., were to be devoted, in pursuance of Lord John Russell's plan, to the charges of the protector's establishment, and the other charges connected page 40 with the civilization of the natives; I should propose that laud to the value of 10,000l. should be reserved far them within the settlement, and that 10,000l. only should be devoted to their present protection and civilization. This would require greater economy in the protector's establishment, and in the process by which this civilization is to be promoted; it would also leave more to be done by the voluntary charity of benevolent societies at home, and perhaps in New Zealand; but it would give a greater stimulus to the exertions of all parties, in the better prospect it would hold out for the ultimate success of all these measures. Besides which, I think it is to be expected, that after a few years the annual proceeds of the lands so reserved would far more than make up for the moiety of the fifteen or twenty per cent, withdrawn on their account from the present service of the protector's establishment." 12th March, 1842.

The proposal contained in the above letter was referred by Lord Stanley to the consideration of the Commissioners of Colonial Land and Emigration, who discussed it at great length and decided against it.

At this point the efforts of the writer to benefit the New Zealanders, by securing for them a portion of the wealth which the colonization of their country was to produce, came to an end. The matter seemed taken out of his hands, and he left it. But the events which have recently occurred imperatively recall him to the subject. And he now entreats his countrymen to give to it their frank and honest consideration.

It is the principle that he contends for, the principle of winning the New Zealander to become civilized, and to co-operate in the colonization of his country by giving him land for land—land made valuable by colonization, which he cannot have without us, for land to become valuable by colonization, which we cannot have without him; and by bringing this principle to bear on the whole question of the land-league, the tribal tenure, the individualization of native land rights, and the substitution of British page 41 for native titles to land. This fair and just principle of a little of the land such as we make it, for a great deal of the land such as he gives it, has never yet been adopted, except by means of the native reserves of the New Zealand Company, and in that case it has been successful. Mark the words,—" This was well understood by the southern chiefs, many of whose 'reserves' have risen to a value in consequence of the influx of European population, which has made them men of considerable wealth." The way in which the Crown has given land for land is very different from this. The Crown has bought land from them at 3d. an acre, and if they wish to hold that land or any part of it unfettered from the disabilities attached to the native title, they must buy it back from the Crown at 10s. an acre. The land is precisely the same in every respect, not a whit improved by population, but to purchase the chance of selling it on some future day at an advanced price, he must pay 10s. for what he has sold for 3d.; or, in other words, for ceding 120 acres of wild land to the Crown, he gets three acres of wild land returned to him. This is not fair, and it is no wonder that he prefers retaining his wild land and tribal tenure with all the disabilities attached to his native title.

To say that wild land is of no value is a fallacy. It is of no value quá civilization, but it is of immense value quá savage life. It gives the savage his uncontrolled freedom, his ignorance of social inferiority, the unembarrassed enjoyment of his old rights and customs, the free indulgence; of his traditional habits and recollections. Now from much of this it is highly important to wean him. But this is not to be done by taking every thing and giving nothing, or by taking what we value very highly and giving what he does not value at all.

The failure of the Canada Clergy Reserves has been cited against the system of Native Reserves, proposed ill these pages. But the cases are not page 42 similar, and it only depends upon ourselves to avoid in this case all that was objectionable in the case of the reserves in Canada. But I repeat that it is the principle I contend for, and if the principle can be carried out with fairness to the native and under the watchful eye of those having his interest at heart, in any other way, I am not so wedded to the particular plan which I. thought of before New Zealand was colonized as to dissent from what may, under the present circumstances, be more expedient.

Under this feeling I close the present section of my work with a passage from the pen of a distinguished Member of the Legislature of New Zealand⁸.

"The fact is, that in New Zealand as well as elsewhere the natives have been treated justly in theory only; practically they have been injured. They know it, and feel it now, and hence a growing disposition to withhold their land. In theory they were told that they were British subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of British subjects. But in practice they are quite shut out from the privileges of reaping all the advantages they might have done by the sale of their surplus lands. They were not allowed to sell to any hut the Government, and the Government would only buy when it suited its convenience to do so, and then only at a merely nominal price. The natives soon found that the land which they sold for threepence an acre to the Government would have fetched them, if sold to Europeans, 10s. or 20s., and in face of this apparent injustice it was useless to talk of the contingent advantages which they derived from the progressive occupation of land, formerly lying waste and useless. They were clever enough to reply—' True, but those advantages would still be ours, after we had obtained the best price for our lands.' Governor Fitzroy whose views on this subject were correct in principle attempted to introduce a better system, but he failed because his scheme was not perfect in its details, and it page 43 led to confusion. But some change must ere long be made. So deeply impressed are many of the oldest colonists on this subject, that a movement has recently been made for the purpose of bringing about an alteration. The plan they seem to contemplate is this, that the Government should abandon the practice of buying land; but that they should assist the natives in dividing and surveying their lands, giving them Crown grants for their possessions, making some of these grants inalienable, so as to secure them against improvidence, and leaving them to dispose of the others as they please, either by public auction or private contract; but in all cases under the sanction of the law. Whenever a system is introduced by which these surplus lands in the province—which are yet in the hands of the natives, and which are of a good quality—can be brought into the market, there will be inducements for capitalists far greater than those which the present system affords,"