MEMORIAL OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY
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MEMORIAL of the Church Missionary Society to His Grace the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the present circumstances of New Zealand.
1. YOUR Memorialists beg to refer to the part which the Missionaries of this Society bore in the first attempts to civilise the Natives of New Zealand:--to the part which they bore in explaining to the Natives the provisions of the Treaty of Waitangi, both before and at the time of its being signed by the Chiefs:--as well as to the fact that the Missionaries have been led by force of circumstances, and in some instances at the request of the Governor of New Zealand, to take part in the discussion of the question now at issue between the Government and the Natives. These references will afford, your Memorialists are persuaded, a sufficient ground for addressing Her Majesty's Government on the present occasion.
2. YOUR Memorialists have felt it their duty
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to investigate with the utmost care all the accounts which have been received from New Zealand through the public channels of information: and they have themselves received much additional information from the letters of the Bishops, Missionaries, and other Clergymen, several of whom are residing amongst the tribes now unhappily in conflict with the troops. Your Memorialists beg to refer to a Memorandum upon New Zealand Affairs which accompanies this Memorial. *
3. YOUR Memorialists are persuaded that they only express the sentiments of Her Majesty's Government in deprecating the notion that any just rights of the natives, which have been guaranteed to them by the Treaty of Waitangi, and by numerous subsequent official declarations, will be sacrificed on the ground of a superiority of race, or to satisfy the want of the settlers of enlarged cultivations.
4. YET your Memorialists are convinced that it is an apprehension of such an invasion of the natural and guaranteed rights of the natives, -- more especially in respect of tribal rights, and of the claim of the chiefs to represent those tribal rights as well as the interests of orphans, minors, and absent members of their tribes, --which has led to the unhappy collision with the natives of Taranaki.
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5. YOUR Memorialists deprecate the various statements which have been made by certain officers of Government, threatening the introduction of a "new system" in respect of native titles. But your Memorialists are happily relieved from the necessity of dwelling upon this point by a declaration of the Colonial Secretary to the Bishop of New Zealand so late as September 5th, 1860, to the effect "that the Government does recognise (to the fullest extent) all lawful rights of the chief and tribe which have been recognised by former Governments, or have ever been understood to exist"--which declaration the Bishop and the Clergy generally have accepted as a satisfactory disavowal of any "new policy" in respect of native titles.
First Suggestion
6. YOUR Memorialists, however, earnestly request Her Majesty's Government to make some authoritative declaration to the effect that the tribal rights, and the rights of the Chiefs in respect of land titles, will be recognized as heretofore: so as to allay the apprehension of all parties in New Zealand of any deviation from the policy which has been for twenty years regarded as established by the Treaty of Waitangi.
Second Suggestion
7. YOUR Memorialists are compelled further to express their deep regret, that under all the cir-
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cumstances of the disputed claims at Waitara, Martial Law should have been precipitately, as they apprehend, proclaimed, and proclaimed also under the equivocal expression in the Maori language of "Fighting Law," against all the tribes of Taranaki. Your Memorialists would, therefore, most respectfully urge, in the second place, that Her Majesty's Government should take some method of explaining to the natives that such proclamation of "Fighting Law" did not, and does not yet preclude the peaceable solution of the questions at issue.
8. YOUR Memorialists beg, also, to represent the importance of immediate measures for securing an adequate adjudication of the disputed claims of Wiremu Kingi, and of the other claimants who have objected to Te Teira's right of sale: so as to remove the immediate cause of strife, apart from the general settlement of the question of Native Titles, which may require much time and lengthened discussions before it can be brought to a conclusion.
9. YOUR Memorialists would venture to remind Her Majesty's Government that a Bill, the provisions of which would have facilitated the settlement of Native Titles, was in preparation at the very time of the outbreak at Taranaki, and that if such a law
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had been previously in operation in New Zealand, the adjudication of Kingi's claims would have been conducted by a very different process from that which occasioned a disastrous collision with the Natives. Your Memorialists also refer to a recent declaration of Mr. Richmond, the Colonial Secretary for Native Affairs (Memorandum, May, 1800), that the Colonial Government are anxious for some competent mode of adjudication upon Native Titles.
Third Suggestion
10. YOUR Memorialists therefore venture to suggest as a third measure, imperatively called for, the adoption by the Home Government of some mode of adjudication upon the particular case of the land at Waitara.
11. YOUR Memorialists are fully aware of the complications caused by the Land League and by the "Maori King" movement in New Zealand, but they believe that these combinations have received their most fearful aspect from the events at Taranaki, and that they would lose their chief strength if that affair were peaceably settled, and the Government policy on land-titles were distinctly avowed.
12. YOUR Memorialists confidently hope that the adoption of the measures they have now ventured to recommend would allay the apprehensions
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of the Native race, and they think it probable that Wiremu Kingi himself, whom they regard as a Chief not insensible to generous and noble sentiments, might be won back to his ancient loyalty; and they feel assured that the effect of such measures, if emanating from the direct authority of the Queen, upon all other Natives, especially upon those not committed against the Government, would be most salutary, and so tend, under the Divine blessing, to stop the effusion of blood, and to avert the horrors of a war of races.
13. Your Memorialists have not presumed to urge the three suggestions now specified as the only measures which may be required, but only as those which peculiarly belong to their own province and to their relations with New Zealand, and which are in themselves peculiarly urgent: they also believe that these measures would satisfy the numerous Europeans in the Colony who are now advocating the just consideration of Native claims, including the Bishops and the late Chief Justice of New Zealand, and the great body of the Clergy, and many other disinterested parties; and that their powerful co-operation would be thus secured to Government in the adjustment of existing difficulties. At all events, as your Memorialists would most respectfully represent, such a manifestation of the Christian principles of conciliation on the part of Her Majesty's
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Government, while putting forth the strong arm of power, will afford the best ground of hope for the blessing of Almighty God upon whatever measures may be subsequently adopted for the pacification of the interesting and important Colony of New Zealand.
CHICHESTER,
President.
CHURCH MISSIONARY HOUSE,
January 4th, 1861.
