1840 - Hawtrey, Montague J. G. An Earnest Address to New Zealand Colonists, with Reference to their Intercourse with the Native Inhabitants. - An Earnest Address, p 7-107

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Countrymen and Fellow-Christians,

You are at this moment on your way to New Zealand, a country which has long been regarded by most of you with feelings of the deepest interest, and which you are determined henceforth to consider as your home. You will often, no doubt, during your voyage, bestow a thoughtful hour upon the many singular features of your future position, and more particularly upon the peculiar and delicate relations in which you will be placed towards the remarkable and interesting people who are now its lords. It is on their behalf that I now address you, for deeply as I am interested in your whole scheme of colonization, my most anxious hopes respecting it are for its beneficial operation upon the aborigines. Indeed, I have the strongest persuasion that the success or failure of the enterprise, as a measure of colonization, depends mainly upon the course which is pursued with regard to the native inhabitants. No doubt there are higher motives to urge you to respect, befriend, and elevate them; every principle, which as Englishmen and Christians you ought to cherish--honour, justice, and religion--imperatively demand that you should confer upon them every possible benefit. But I am persuaded that, quite irrespectively of such considerations, your own interest would urge the same thing, and that as colonization may be made a powerful instrument for benefiting the natives, so the culture and protection of the natives may become one of the most powerful promoters of your success as colonists.

Almost all the opposition the colonization of New Zealand has met with has been based upon its presumed injury to the natives. Now, if from the outset of your proceedings, it should appear that you befriend

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and benefit them, and that you do not injure them at all, either directly or indirectly, this cause of opposition will be removed, and the true friends of the natives in England will see it to be their duty to forward instead of thwarting your designs; if the contrary should be the case, all their prejudices against you will be confirmed, they will prove themselves to have been true prophets, and those who have acted with you, in the hope that you would benefit the natives, will be obliged to confess their error and endeavour to repair it.

Now to benefit the natives will require something more than good will on your parts. In proposing as you do to civilize and elevate them to the same social condition with yourselves, you have undertaken to solve a moral problem which has never been solved as yet. The publications of Mr. Saxe Banister (himself a zealous friend of colonization on sound principles), and the Reports of the Parliamentary Committee on Aborigines, are enough to show the frightful destruction of human life, and the utter violation of justice, honour, and humanity, which have hitherto attended the intercourse of civilized and savage races. And this not always in consequence of the evil intentions of the civilized race, but often in spite of their very best intentions. It is a most remarkable thing that the uppermost desire in the heart of Columbus himself was to forward the designs of a benevolent Creator; the charters granted to the first colonists of America breathe a spirit of fervent piety, and allege the conversion and civilization of the heathen as the chief motive of the enterprise; but what has been the event? Not one native remains in the whole range of islands discovered by Columbus, and the history of British colonization in America is one continued narrative of extermination. I only say this to show you that the work you have undertaken is no easy one,

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and must be performed on principles totally different from any that have hitherto been brought to bear upon it. Some novel and admirable methods of dealing with this subject were suggested by the New Zealand Association, and have been adopted by the New Zealand Company. Others will, no doubt, evolve themselves, and be discovered by those who are alive to the subject, in the early stages of your intercourse with the natives.

In the meantime I have, thought it might be useful, and trust you will not consider it intrusive, to present you with some thoughts which have occurred to me upon the subject.

The first thing I would most earnestly recommend is, that you should guard yourselves against a feeling of dislike for the natives. White men, in general, are accustomed to regard their coloured brethren with a kind of antipathy, and to speak of them and treat them with contempt. This feeling, unhappily, seems to be rather fostered than allayed by a residence in the neighbourhood of coloured races. The American hates and despises the negro, and denies the common rights of humanity to his own coloured offspring. The European of India has feelings of the same kind towards the native inhabitants and half-castes. I believe this feeling to be, in a great degree, artificial--if we begin by injuring and degrading our swarthy brother, it is no wonder that we should end by despising and hating him. But whether wrought within us by our own evil actions, on the principle of odisse quem laeseris, or whether it be natural to us to dislike what is different from ourselves, it is a most inhuman and unholy sentiment; and should it get ground in New Zealand, must end in the downfall and extermination of the native race.

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I rejoice to think that there is much in the character and condition of the New Zealanders themselves, to prevent this unholy feeling. All accounts agree in representing them as a very fine race of human beings, possessing many noble traits of character, highly intelligent, and most anxious for civilization. If these traits are drawn out and cultivated, it must be a very mean spirit that would regard them with contempt on account of their difference of colour. I derive great encouragement on this head from the footing on which Nayti was received into English society. Few could enjoy anything of his acquaintance without being deeply interested by his intelligence, his gentleness, his self-respect, and his perfect propriety of demeanour. He won the regard and consideration of all classes, and seemed instinctively to adopt towards all that tone of blended respect and self-confidence, which marks the character of the gentleman. If Nayti is a fair specimen of his New Zealand countrymen, you will be in little danger of entertaining those feelings of antipathy to which I have referred; and if you treat them as you treated him, we shall have nothing to fear for the fate of the aborigines.

Still you will find much in the present state of the New Zealanders to surprise and shock the prejudices of Englishmen, and for this you should be prepared; you will probably find them dirty, intrusive, violent, thievish, restless, already perhaps affected by the low habits of the most degraded of your countrymen, having manners and customs of their own utterly at variance with all your ideas of right and wrong, and displaying the most extraordinary ignorance about things which to you are perfectly familiar.

If you should find this to be the case, you should recollect that it was your own choice to go among them; that you have gone among them knowing them to be savages; and that these are the universal

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characteristics of savage life. If you hope to civilize them, you must not expect to find them already civilized, or despise and dislike them because they have savage manners to get rid of. You must use the same patience and forbearance with them which a parent or wise instructor would use towards a wayward child.

I sometimes hear this given as a reason for expecting the aborigines to be exterminated in consequence of your settling among them. You settle among them, it is said, for what purpose? To make money; and how is your making money to be promoted by civilizing the aborigines? Now, for my part, I cannot believe that the sole object which takes you to New Zealand is to make money. It would be absurd to suppose that you were insensible to the value of wealth as a means of comfort, respectability, and power. But that you go there with a sordid eye to the acquirement of riches, and are dead to the far higher and nobler purposes of life, I will not believe.

The disposition which impels mankind to seek a home in distant countries, is not the single wish of acquiring riches, but a very complicated feeling, and results from some of the most natural instincts and generous aspirations of the human heart. It is not a sordid desire of gain that wishes to enjoy domestic happiness, and be surrounded by a numerous and happy family. It is not base avarice which desires that our offspring should have room to spread and multiply in the earth. It is not a narrow, money-loving spirit that wishes to be free from those cares and solicitudes which in an over-peopled country press down the energies of generous minds. The man whose feelings centre in himself, and whose ruling passion is to acquire wealth, will never think of colonizing.

It should never be forgotten that the planting of

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colonies was called by Lord Bacon an heroic work; and I trust that you, the countrymen of Bacon, and the planters of the first British colony in New Zealand, are fully penetrated with this idea,--that you seek wealth not as an end, but as a means; a means not only of promoting your own happiness and elevation, but of carrying forward all those great designs of which the founders of a new state are the appointed instruments in the hand of God.

While I am anxious to give you credit for these generous feelings, I would earnestly exhort you to let them be the actuating motives of your conduct on all occasions. For it is possible to entertain truly generous sentiments, and yet to find them give way when brought into competition with the every-day interests of life. The first and most indispensable manifestation of this feeling will be a scrupulous adherence to truth and honour in all your dealings with the natives. They will probably afford you a great many opportunities for taking an unfair advantage of them; and it is also possible that they may afford you a kind of excuse for taking such unfair advantage, by themselves endeavouring to deceive you. Then will be the time to show the high principles by which you are actuated, and to inspire them with that respect with which truth and honour are everywhere regarded. Let every transaction that you have with them convey to their minds a sense of your strict justice, and become a means of implanting a principle of justice in their minds. This will give them confidence in you, and cause them to distinguish you from those lawless settlers whose only object is to get all they can from them. And this confidence (which will continue and increase as long as it is not deceived) will be of the

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greatest value to you, for it will dispose them to follow your directions in matters of which they cannot see the tendency, but which you may know to be conducive to the general good. It is by such a course as this that the missionaries have acquired their great influence in the country. "I have frequently been much delighted," says Mr. Wallis, a Wesleyan missionary, "with the passive manner in which they place themselves under our direction; forbearing to exercise their own judgment, they cheerfully and confidently pursue any course of conduct to which we may direct them. This confidence is not founded in any good opinion entertained by them of European settlers in general; hence they frequently remark, that as a missionary does not come to get their pigs, and corn, and potatoes, and flax, and timber, he must be a good man, and a proper person to govern and direct them." This extract shows how important it is that the natives should see a strong contrast between you and the common sort of European settlers.

The above remarks are addressed to the colonists at large; but I would respectfully suggest to Her Majesty's Government, that it should industriously promote this important object, by making early and active inquiries into the nature of the dealings which are likely to take place between the natives and the colonists, and the particular instances in which the natives will be liable to be over-reached, and by making such laws as may be necessary for regulating these transactions, and by rigorously punishing any act of false dealing which may occur 1 . In order, however, to guard the natives against deception, you should not only renounce every unfair advantage which you might derive from their ignorance; but actively devote yourselves to the removal of that ignorance, and to their gradual instruction in all the valuable know-

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ledge of civilized life. I am deeply affected when I think of the incalculable good which might be done among the native New Zealanders by one thousand of my countrymen, were they all temperately to resolve to avail themselves of every opportunity for conveying instruction to their minds: the opportunities will be constantly occurring, and nothing will be required to make them profitable, but a feeling of active benevolence and religious responsibility on the part of the British colonists. If they have the fear of God before their eyes, and the love of man in their hearts, every day and every hour may afford them the most happy opportunities for doing the work of their Redeemer. Long before you are enabled to communicate with the natives by words, you may be giving them the most valuable instruction by your actions. A kind and courteous demeanour towards all; a sympathy for those who are in trouble, and a desire to relieve them; diligence in business; command of temper when interrupted; readiness to explain any process which may excite their curiosity; a conscientious adherence to truth, both in looks, words, and actions; and a firm stand against every species of intemperance and immorality, are qualities which may be exercised by you all from the moment of your landing, which scarcely require the intervention of language, and which cannot fail to be powerfully influential upon the wild but noble natures among which you will find yourselves.

There is another objection which is frequently urged against your whole scheme of colonization. The conduct of the lawless settlers is cited against you; and it is contended that those of the labouring class among you will fall into the same habits; that, once

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landed in New Zealand, there will be nothing to prevent them from roving over the whole country; that there will be no law to govern, and no power to coerce or punish; that whatever authority there is, maybe easily escaped; and that human nature being prone to evil, and having the power to do evil, will run rapidly into every species of mischief and licentiousness. I trust that where such objections are made, they proceed from an entire ignorance of the plans and principles upon which you are proceeding; but they may serve to indicate the direction in which your measures are liable to fail, and put you studiously on your guard against such an occurrence; and for this purpose it should be the effort of all to make it the interest of each to live together in a compact and well-ordered community. That this will be the result of your plan I have the strongest expectations. It is the object of the land regulations of the New Zealand Company to ensure it; and it is still more effectually promoted by the circumstance of your going out in families and married couples, and not as single individuals. Still, much must be left to your own wisdom and good feeling when you get there; and I trust it will be the ambition of every one of you to make your settlement the most perfect model of what a colony ought to be.

You are all embarked together in a great experiment. You are going to give a trial to the principle of concentration. It is the advantage of concentration, that it gives labour to the capitalist and wages to the labourer, and affords protection, and society, and active employment, and a ready interchange of the necessaries and conveniences of life to all. In fact it creates at once, in the new country, the advantages and enjoyments of an old one, while it affords an abundant supply of these enjoyments and advantages to all. Still it is not every one that can foresee these conse-

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quences, and appreciate their value. It is therefore doubly incumbent on all who do, to take the utmost pains to give the principle its full effect by patience, by mutual good offices, by friendly intercourse among one another, and by winning the confidence and affection of the labouring classes. These objects will be greatly promoted by the institutions already founded among you--the Hospital, the Literary and Scientific Institution, and the Infant School. You will probably add to this list a Mutual Benefit Society, and Savings' Bank, and such other benevolent institutions as are found conducive to the general interests of the community.

The simple fact that you take out with you a clergyman of the Church of England, and another of the Church of Scotland, for the two great religious bodies of which your colony consists, would appear almost sufficient to silence the objections of those who foretell the future dispersion and vagrancy of the colonists. I trust that these two great and sacred institutions, while teaching you those doctrines, and filling you with those affections which shall fit you for an eternal inheritance hereafter, may bind you together in a close and friendly brotherhood on earth.

In fact, everything ought to be done to distinguish you from the lawless settlers, and to give you the character of a people; and, for this purpose, I would recommend that from the outset of your proceedings, a full and complete register should be kept of every individual member of your community. A complete system of registration, from the earliest times, is one of the most valuable and least expensive boons which the first founders of a nation can confer upon posterity, and it would be one powerful means for keeping you together, and giving you the character of a people.

I ought perhaps to apologize for introducing so much that bears rather upon your relations with one

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another, than upon your intercourse with the natives. But you will readily perceive my reason for doing so. It is because nothing will give you so much power to benefit them, as to be firmly united among yourselves, and fully bent upon the great design of founding a compact, well-ordered community.

The matter at which I look with the deepest anxiety is your treatment of the native chiefs. Upon this point your success or failure, as regards the aborigines, appears to me to depend. Not only justice to themselves, but a respect for the national importance of the New Zealand people, requires that the chiefs should continue to occupy as high a relative position after your settlement among them as before.

I fear that this important point has not been sufficiently attended to by the missionaries, and that the course of things at present going forward in New Zealand, is to depress the chiefs to the level of the lower orders. It is very evident that this is felt to be the case, by the chiefs themselves. Many of you have seen the Letter addressed by a New-Zealand chief to Mr. Marsden. After mentioning several matters respecting which he requests Mr. M. to give them a law, he concludes his letter by the remarkable words,--"Another thing of which we are afraid, and which also degrades us is this, slaves exalting themselves above their masters: will you give us a law in this?" This expression from a Christian chief is very affecting; and it is clear that unless something be done for the purpose of obviating such a result, the natural consequence of the progress of civilization would be to degrade them from the position which they occupied in their savage state.

There is a tendency to this even when the civi-

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lizing process is carried on by missionaries alone. It is with the deepest pain that I read such a passage as the following, in the journal of a Wesleyan missionary. It refers to a conversation with a chief named Kia Roa, upon the subject of their funeral rites. "I asked if they cried for the slaves in this manner: 'What,' said Kia Roa, 'the slaves taken in war?' 'Yes,' I replied. 'No, no,' said he, 'where, or near where, a slave dies, he is buried; we don't take them to the Wahi-tapu (or sacred place).' 'Why?' said I. 'Because,' said Kia Roa's friend, 'New Zealand man would be angry.' This specimen of pride in these degraded creatures (who appear to us to be all on a level) above their fellow worms, affected my heart." I am far from disputing the piety or benevolence of the person who expressed this sentiment; but I think the result of his ministrations would be to bring about that state of things of which the Christian chiefs are afraid, and by which they feel themselves degraded.

One of the points most perseveringly urged against the colonization of New Zealand, has been its interference with the independent sovereignty of the country. Now, the present possessors of this sovereignty are the native chiefs, for there is no king, nor is there any representative of the whole New Zealand people. The only way, then, in which we can respect, and the way in which justice imperatively demands that we should respect, the sovereignty of the New Zealand people, is to confer upon their chiefs such benefits as shall be fully tantamount to whatever rude authority they possess in their savage state, and which must necessarily pass away from them, as civilization advances, whether this civilization is effected by a British Colony, or by missionaries. Power or influence of some other kind must be given to them instead of that which they lose. This is no more than justice to them, in respect to the rights which they must

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lose, and it is the only way in which their presumed prerogative of sovereignty can, under present circumstances, be made available for the welfare of the New Zealand people.

For it must be plain to any one, that the best way to make the New Zealanders truly respectable and dignified in their own feelings, and in the view of others, is to let them have some persons among them occupying a position of wealth and distinction. Even if there were no chiefs in New Zealand, it would be far more judicious to select certain persons from among them, and place them in a position of honour, than to distribute what would be requisite for this purpose over the whole people.

A gratuity to each individual could only be a small temporary source of gratification, would tend to encourage idleness, and would leave the whole body of the people in the same uniform low condition as before. To raise some among them to a position of permanent respectability would have a great many high moral results. It would make all the people feel that as a race they were not dishonoured; and would excite among all a laudable emulation to raise themselves by industry, activity, or skill, to a position which they saw already occupied by persons of their own blood.

But as this would be obviously judicious, quite irrespectively of the rights of the chiefs, how imperatively is it not demanded, when there is a class of people in the island who by common consent and prescriptive right hold a position of eminence above the others, and connect with this position of eminence the acutest sense of the distinction which it confers.

The importance of the views here expressed seems fully to have been appreciated by the New Zealand Association, as appears in the Appendix to their work on the British Colonization of New Zealand; and by the framers of the New Zealand Bill, who provided

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by its twenty-ninth clause, that, whenever a native chief should cede his territory to the British, a quantity of land proportionate in extent to the number of the inhabitants of the ceded territory, should be reserved and held on trust for him and his family and descendants, in order that they might preserve, in civilized life, a relative superiority of condition over the lower orders of inhabitants of the native race.

The Directors of the New Zealand Company have also recognised the same principle in reserving one tenth of the purchased land for the use of the natives. It must be obvious to every one that, if your colony succeeds, as there is every reason to expect, these reserves will form an ample fund for the national wealth of the New Zealand people in general, and the chiefs in particular. It is impossible, at this moment, to foresee in what way these reserves ought to be dealt with. This must be determined by the progress of events; any arbitrary determination beforehand, on so extremely delicate a subject, must be productive of evil; all that can be done now, is to look upon them as sacredly set apart for the benefit of the New Zealand people, to increase their value by the wisest management, and to prepare the natives for their possession by the most judicious treatment.

The first question to determine will be the persons who are to benefit by the reserves in any given case. And to this the answer is plain: the chiefs from whom the land has been purchased, by whose consent and authority it has become amenable to the institutions of the colony. The inquiries, therefore, which the agents of the New Zealand Company will be obliged to make, in order to give the Company a valid title to the possession of their lands, will have the indirect benefit of ascertaining, with the greatest precision, who the persons are, on whom an elevating influence should principally be brought to bear.

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This suggests the absolute importance of keeping, from the very first, an accurate register of the native chiefs from whom the land shall have been purchased. But this will not be enough. The civilizing and elevating process cannot be expected to have any great effect upon these individuals themselves; we must look into futurity if we wish to see the full effect of the working of our principle. It will therefore be necessary not only to register the chiefs themselves, but also to make out exact tables of the descendants and family connexions of each of them, in the manner in which the genealogies of the principal families of England were registered by the heralds who visited the counties for that purpose in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 2.

From the conduct which the New Zealand colonists and their friends adopted towards Nayti, when in England, I feel sure that you will be anxious, as soon as possible, to admit the native chiefs to your tables, and teach them how to associate with English families without being intrusive. It will also be useful and convenient to yourselves to follow the example of the missionaries, in receiving the children of the native chiefs into your families, for the double purpose of assisting you, and learning by observation the habits

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of civilized life. But you will, of course, be very careful that not the slightest feeling of servitude is connected with such a position, and that they have time and opportunity for the general cultivation of all their faculties. And recollect that you will be dealing with a most delicate material, and one of the nature of which you have never yet had any experience, and the management of which--it would be folly not to expect--will occasion you much trouble and annoyance. Anything like coercion or correction would, probably, in the present state of things, have the most disastrous results. Mr. Turner, a Wesleyan missionary, wrote from Wangaroa, in 1824: "This morning, having occasion to complain to Tebooa, of his son Shunghee's conduct, that he might control him, he replied, That if a New Zealander beat his child, the child would hang himself through vexation, and his father's friends, in return, would put the parent to death; so that correction, on any account, is forbidden 3."

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It is obvious that they must be won by kindness, by patience, by exciting their interest,--that their habits should be observed, their feelings appreciated,--that they should be allowed much liberty,--that they should be led to consider their association with the British families a privilege and not a restraint,--and that anything likely to injure their health, or aggravate or depress their spirits, should be carefully avoided.

An early consequence of your settlement in New Zealand will, I trust, be not only the establishment of an Infant school, but of other schools for those more advanced in age. The great amount of good which is done in England by means of voluntary instruction in Sunday and Day schools, will, I trust, act as an inducement to the New Zealand colonists to cooperate in similar labours of charity for the benefit of the young New Zealanders. An incalculable amount of instruction might be conveyed to them by six persons agreeing to devote three hours a week each to the work of their instruction, and would be a most desirable way of instructing them until funds are raised for the support of a schoolmaster. Great use may also be made of their hours of freedom, by promoting among them a taste for manly English habits.

These remarks apply to the young New Zealanders in general. But I think something more ought to be done in favour of the young chiefs: those whom it will be expedient to form into the props and buttresses of the national honour of New Zealand. It will be highly desirable to select the most promising, well-disposed, and intelligent among them, and send them to be educated in England. What funds and facilities there may be for effecting such an object future events must disclose. But it appears to me that nothing would so infallibly secure the future prosperity of the New Zealand race, as for their young chiefs to

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obtain a thoroughly good English education, bypassing several years of their youth, between the ages of ten and twenty, partly in good English families, and partly at our public schools. Nayti is an example of the good which might be effected by such a course; but much more would be done for them if they were to come over earlier and to stay longer 4. And by the time of their return to their native country, their portion of the reserved land would have acquired such a value as to support them comfortably in that kind of life to which they would have been accustomed, and enable them to associate on a footing of perfect equality with the British settlers. Were this plan adopted it is highly probable that, in the course of ten or fifteen years, we might have a number of young native New Zealanders, not only perfectly acquainted with the manners, habits, and language of Great Britain, but thoroughly well instructed in all those branches of study which are essential to a liberal education--able to take correct views of men and things, and justly to appreciate and carry out those measures which had conferred such great benefits on themselves and their country.

I will say no more on this subject at present, as the possibility of effecting it depends so much upon future contingencies. I merely suggest it as an important object to be had in view, according as possibilities arise, while the colony advances in prosperity and the native reserves increase in value. Might we not reasonably expect that many of those wealthy and powerful individuals in this country, whose interest is at this moment so strongly excited in favour of the native New Zealanders, would be happy to promote an object so obviously conducive to their national prosperity?

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As I have just alluded to the native reserves, I would take this opportunity of expressing the pleasure with which I observe that her Majesty has announced her refusal to acknowledge as valid any title to land in the islands of New Zealand, which either have been or shall hereafter be acquired from the natives, which is not either derived from or confirmed by a grant to be made in her Majesty's name and on her behalf 5. Nothing gives me better hopes for the rectification of past evils and the prevention of future ones than the existence of this right in the crown of England, and her Majesty's determination to exercise it.

"Adventurers," it was said, in 1836, "go to New Zealand from New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, and make a treaty with a native chief--a treaty in duplicate--the poor chief not understanding a single word about it; but they make a contract upon parchment with a great seal, and for a few trinkets and a little gunpowder they obtain land 6." For more than three years since this statement was made things have gone on in the same way, and the principle of non-interference with the sovereign rights of the New Zealanders would have suffered it to proceed till not only "the whole coast line from Cape Bult to Wangaroa" and "all the Kouri forests," but the whole length and breadth of New Zealand, without an exception, had become "the private property of her Majesty's subjects 7."

It is a most happy thing that her Majesty can interpose and give her subjects somewhat juster notions

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about the acquisition of property in New Zealand; a most saving and hopeful provision of our laws, that no one can possess himself of land in a country claimed by Great Britain (which, happily for its inhabitants, New Zealand is), except as granted to him by the crown; that it does not follow that the dexterous adventurer who first tempts the native-chief with his bundle of blankets and firelocks, is to be the future lord of districts measured in square miles, and covered with timber valued almost in millions. It only now depends upon the just and wise exercise of the power which England undoubtedly possesses, guided by the experience of past days, and enlightened by the foresight of coming events, to rescue the natives of New Zealand, who have already parted (or seemed to part) with their lands, from the consequences of their own ignorance; and to make such regulations for the future as shall amply provide for the preservation, wealth, and honour of the New Zealand people, under that influx of European settlers which it is now impossible to prevent.

I trust it may be found that the New Zealand Company will not be among the number of those whose purchase the Crown of England will refuse to confirm, on the ground of their not having given a sufficiently valuable consideration to its native proprietors. But I still more earnestly hope that the power which her Majesty has determined to exercise will be the means of securing to the New Zealand people, all over their islands, as large a portion of the lands which have been ceded by them to Europeans, as will be reserved for them within the territory of the New Zealand Company; and that measures will be taken as favourable as those adopted by the New Zealand Company for securing to these reserves in an equal degree with the land held by British settlers, that improved value to which the British settler looks

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as his pecuniary remuneration for settling in the country.

If this be done it will be securing to them an advantage far more valuable than that half-conceded, half-disputed right which they are said to reserve to themselves, of entering upon the lands they have parted with at some future period; while the possible existence of such a right makes it absolutely imperative upon Great Britain, when about to take a step which will fix the state of property in New Zealand, to see that in depriving them of this right of re-entry she confers upon them some fully equivalent advantage.

The common ignorant argument that we hear urged against you in England, is, that you are gone to take possession of a part of New Zealand by force of arms. Your powder, your cannons, your militia, are all cited as positive proofs that you go with the intention of wholesale destruction and forcible occupation. I have already said that I believe you go with the intention of paying the New Zealanders such a price for their lands as shall not only amply satisfy them, but amply satisfy any commission of inquiry which may be appointed to examine into the titles of lands held by Europeans in New Zealand. At the same time there are one or two difficulties connected with the occupation of native territory, to which you should give your most serious consideration.

What will you do in the case of plots of ground under native cultivation, and in case of native dwellings which may be found within the territory purchased by the Company?

What I want to guard against in suggesting this question is, that dreadful consequence of a purchase of native territory by Europeans, from the imputation of which, even the Church Missionaries have not escaped.

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I earnestly hope and trust that the imputation in their case may be an utterly groundless one. But I pray that it may stand out as a warning beacon before you, and that it may be your constant study to prevent it as the most fearful shipwreck of all your plans of benevolence, the destruction of New Zealand, and the fulfilment of the worst forebodings of your opponents. The consequence I refer to is, that the natives residing on your territory, cultivating little spots of ground within it, and freely making use of it for passing to and fro in all directions--interfering with you, and finding themselves interfered with by you, and being unwilling to submit to the regulations you may establish--will assemble themselves together, go off in a body, and fall upon and massacre some distant tribe, in order to take possession of their land, and be at a distance from British interference.

Against this disastrous consequence, it will be your business most carefully to provide, and the way to do so will be to make your settlement exceedingly attractive to the natives.

It would be extremely desirable that you should acquire a territory sufficiently large for your purposes, on which no natives are actually residing, and to draw them into it, instead of driving them from it. But it is most likely that this will not be the case, and that land will be cultivated within it, and natives residing upon it, and in the constant habit of passing over it and using its unoccupied parts according to their pleasure.

From all that I have heard upon the subject, I should judge that the natives have a common prescriptive right to the cultivation of the soil, and perhaps

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other prescriptive rights quite independent of the right of the chiefs, as lords paramount, to dispose of the soil, and that it is, in fact, some kind of sovereignty, and not the soil, that the chief disposes of when he sells land to Europeans. I should infer from Nayti's evidence, that even the Cookees, or slaves, have a right to cultivate the soil for their own use, though they have no right to its possession 8. And Captain Fitzroy states, that in the Case of the purchases made by the Church Missionary Society, the natives have been allowed to remain upon them, and that their right of common has not been interfered with 9. In all these respects, your course will be a difficult one, and require your utmost wisdom, patience, and Christian charity, to guide you through it.

Speaking in general, I would earnestly hope that you will studiously abstain from everything vexatious; that your whole treatment of this question will be such as to inspire the natives with a feeling of liberty and privilege under a sense of an immense power to control them; that while they are overawed and restrained, not by force or interference, but by their own sense of your great superiority, they may be attracted by your beneficence, and by the interest with which they shall behold the great fabric of civilization rising up in the midst of them. But to come to particulars, I mean the particular expedients to be made use of in respect of natives residing, cultivating land, and passing to and fro within your territory.

I would advise you--

1st. To ascertain what prescriptive rights of this kind may be considered to exist among the natives.

2nd. To ascertain who the persons are that enjoy these rights within the territories of the Company.

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3rd. As far as may be consistent with your objects, to preserve these rights to the persons enjoying them.

4th. As far as may be consistent with the welfare of the natives, to regulate, define, and modify them to suit the circumstances of civilized life.

5th. To confer an ample equivalent wherever it is necessary to remove them altogether.

I feel sure you will appreciate the importance of ascertaining specifically who the persons are whose interests will be affected in the way referred to. Considering the scantiness of the population of New Zealand, compared with its extent, it is not probable that there will be any great number of native residents upon the Company's territory; but all that are, it will be important to ascertain and know, both in order to secure them against injury, and to secure yourselves against unfounded reproach, in case evils should be perpetrated in New Zealand not originating with you, but which others (if you have not the means of refuting them) will be too happy to allege against you.

The usage of our country would indicate that rights of way should be respected; there can hardly be a question about it, where the path is distinct and defined, but where there is a right of going at large in a certain direction, it would I trust be attended with no ill consequences to prescribe a certain path-way; the principle of taboo so perfectly understood by the natives would make this easy. At the same time it would not be well to be vexatiously and needlessly particular.

Where land is under actual and profitable cultivation by a native, it would be a great hardship to oblige him to remove from it without any other equivalent

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than the general price paid for the whole territory to his chief or tribe, and the prospective advantage which may accrue to him from the native reserves. And yet what else is to be done when the section in which it lies has been selected by its British purchaser? We are tempted to wish that the New Zealand Company had determined to purchase no land under native cultivation. The land to be reserved for the natives is quite another thing: the advantage to the New Zealanders of the native reserves is the national importance they will derive from their improved value in future years; and this object would be defeated if they were to be made over to such individuals as may happen to be cultivating spots of ground within the territory purchased by the Company. It must also be confessed that, until the natives acquire a greater knowledge of agriculture, it would not be desirable that much of the land should be under exclusively native cultivation; while it would be a great hardship, and a cruel impolitic act, to check any little effort of native industry, by obliging them to leave any spot of ground which they held in cultivation.

This appears to me to be the only thing incident to the principle of concentration, which is at all likely to be oppressive to the natives. Those who go to spread themselves over the country at large, may keep quite clear of the parts under native cultivation; but the principle of concentration requires that the whole of one district should be brought, as speedily as possible, into the highest degree of cultivation. And thus, though the principle of dispersion must be, in the long run, most injurious to the natives in general, while the principle of concentration, with large reserves within the improved land, is certain to provide a great fund for their support, the principle of concentration may press most heavily upon individual

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natives, who are cultivating land in their own way within the district to be improved.

The course which I should suggest with reference to this subject would be,--

1st. To take an exact account of the land within the township under native cultivation.

2nd. To spare such land as long as possible; caeteris paribus, let it be the last interfered with.

3rd. Where such land would be of great importance to the colonists, let a handsome remuneration, and if possible a permanent benefit, be conferred instead of it.

4th. Where any natives are allowed to continue cultivating land for their own use within the Company's territory, let them understand that, as before they cultivated by the sufferance of their chief or tribe, according to New Zealand custom, so now they cultivate by the sufferance of the person who has purchased the section, and as his tenants; and let them be led to pay a small rent for it, either in kind or labour: if on the native reserves, they would be tenants to the trustees of the native reserves. And in the present state of things, although it would wholly defeat the plan for elevating the natives, to grant them portions of the reserves in respect of the land previously held by them in cultivation, it might be very convenient to allow them to cultivate them as tenants under the trustees, taking care, however, that such an arrangement should not detract from their improvement in value.

5th. Let the natives perceive that it is more advantageous to them to labour for hire under the British settlers, than to cultivate the land on their own account 10.

The above remarks apply to the case of spots of

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ground cultivated here and there within the Company's land, and upon sections subject to selection by individual proprietors. I suppose I am right in conjecturing that, in the case of a small settlement of natives within the circuit of the territory purchased by the Company, the Company's agent and officers would have taken care to exclude such settlement from the Company's purchase, or, at least, not to include it within the sections of land subject to selection by the landowners under the Company. This I should judge, not only from the hardship that would be inflicted, and the dangerous results that might ensue, and the bad repute it would occasion to the colonists if they were removed, but also from the value of their labour to the settlers.

For the same reason, it would be important to deal gently with any spot of ground which they may be in the habit of using for their public assemblies.

But the great object will be to treat them so well, to inspire them with such a persuasion of your good will,--so to convince them that your prosperity will insure theirs, that they shall freely give up whatever would thwart the progress of the colony, and unite heartily with you in all your objects.

I will mention a few things by which the interest of the natives might be excited, and the public good promoted.

1. Public Structures.--I should think it would be easy to interest them in the erection of public buildings. More so, perhaps, than in making comfortable dwellings for themselves, it would, I think, suit their taste to be engaged in the production of large works, which would strike the imagination, and be permanent.

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2. Religious Assemblies.--Their imaginations would also be much struck by your religious assemblies; and they would be inspired with a feeling of veneration for the great object of your worship, long before they could appreciate the truth of your religion. This feeling of interest and veneration it will be highly expedient to cultivate, by always allowing them to be present at your religious services, and by attending them with great regularity, and conducting them with great decorum yourselves. Let everything connected with the worship of God be conducted on a large and commanding scale. The cheerful notes of the church-bell, the solemn tones of the organ, and the united chorus of praise offered up by a whole Christian congregation in a large and handsome edifice--while they would recall to you all the home-felt recollections of your native land--could not fail to have a most beneficial and civilizing effect upon the minds of the natives. And although religion does not consist in these outward and adventitious circumstances, we may go too far in our neglect of them.

3. Military Discipline.--The drilling and exercise of your militia may also be expected to have a good effect upon their minds. Both for your own sake and for theirs, it is expedient that they should be strongly convinced of your superior power; but let them also feel that it is a power intended as much for their protection as for your own. They will probably be very willing to imitate your military exercises. And it would be extremely desirable that every native of sufficient age should be enrolled in your militia, and have the same military uniform, and be drilled and exercised together with them. Such a course will give to them, and to their friends in England, the strongest assurance that you have no intention to injure them. And if you continue to treat them well, you will never be the worse for the additional military skill they will

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thus acquire, while the coolness and discipline of our military tactics, as compared with the savage excitement of their war-dances, will tend rather to allay than to excite in them a thirst for bloodshed.

4. Manly Games.--Another instrument of civilization and good fellowship, will be the introduction among them of the manly games of England, and, indeed, of any manly exercises requiring skill and bodily discipline, and carried on with temperance and decorum. One of the earliest and brightest ornaments of the Church of England 11 did not disdain to describe in one of his sermons the fine moral effect produced upon the companions of his younger years by their practice of archery, and the demoralizing and enervating character of the sports that supervened when the old English long-bow was set aside. If such manly practices are adopted with design, and as constituent parts of one great plan for the formation of a people, and carried on with judgment and on principle, they will be almost as certain to effect good, as idle, vicious, and inhuman sports, accompanied by gambling and intemperance, and carried on with passion and for self-gratification, would be certainly pestilential and destructive. The New Zealand colonists have engaged in a great and most difficult enterprise, and the eyes of multitudes are fixed upon them. I earnestly hope that they may one and all be animated by such a sense of duty, such a masculine energy of mind, such a steady contemplation of futurity, as will give them a thorough disgust for the cock-pit, the gambling-house, the prize-ring, and every other idle and vitiating pursuit of the felonry of New South Wales.

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I have already said that one way to recompense the natives whom you deprive of their prescriptive right to cultivate the soil in common, will be to make it more advantageous to them to labour for hire under the British settlers, than to cultivate the land on their own account. This leads me to make some observations on the wages that New Zealanders ought to receive for their work.

The New Zealander in his native state has as little notion of the value of labour as he has of the value of land, and very little idea of measuring the value of money by what it will produce. If a certain weekly payment in money is offered to him for his labour, the last thing that he will do is to sit down and calculate whether, upon the whole, he might not obtain all the substantial advantages which that money would produce to him by remaining his own master. His imagination will most probably be excited by the idea of possessing British money, and without at all knowing its value, he will suppose that he is going to become a rich man 12.

The pernicious consequences which result to the natives from this ignorance as to the value of money and labour, are observable in the working of the timber-trade. This will best appear by comparing together an extract from a letter published in the first

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number of the New Zealand Gazette, with some evidence that was given before the Lords' committee.

Extract from Letter.

For the remainder of the letter, I refer you to the first number of the New Zealand Gazette. It is well worth reading, and carries internal evidence of its truth. It is not at this moment before me, but it states that the above-mentioned work was done by three or four pair of natives, superintended by a European. I will observe by-and-by upon the injustice of this distribution of Wages, as between employer and labourer, and as between Englishmen and New Zealanders. But I shall now request you to observe some of its natural results.

Extract from the Evidence of Messrs. Coates and Beecham, before the Committee of the House of Lords.

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Extract from the Evidence of Mr. John Downing Tawell 13.

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Observe that this evidence was given before a committee of the House of Lords, in May, 1838; and that, in December of the same year, the New Zealanders were still working at this laborious and exhausting employment for 4s. a-week, while an Englishman, for one of the lightest of all occupations, received an ample supply of every necessary for himself and family, and 12s. a-week 14.

Many indignant feelings are aroused by these statements, but they concentrate themselves into one intense and fearful conviction, that, IF YOU DEAL WITH

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THE NEW ZEALANDERS ON THEIR OWN TERMS, YOU ARE CERTAIN TO EXTERMINATE THEM: if you deal with them on their own terms, you will have their lands and their lives for nothing.

It is of no use, it never would have been of any use, to say, "Leave them alone." Nothing but a united determination on the part of all the naval powers in the world, to make it an act of piracy to land on New Zealand, could have given us any hope that they would be left alone. But since we cannot leave them alone, and since you have undertaken to go among them, you may be sure of this, that if you proceed upon the

the doom of the New Zealanders is sealed. And it is not by arguing for their abstract rights, or denouncing New Zealand colonization, but by examining every minute phenomenon of their social state, and their actual relations with Europeans, and by the determined and conscientious use of every possible effort to regulate these matters upon the principles of highest justice and clearest philosophical discrimination, that their doom can be averted. Nor can I help expressing my fear, that the Church missionaries are not as much alive as they ought to be to the temporal and bodily interests of their people,--interests which should be fostered with the most jealous care, and which take a new and complex character, and are assailed, in a great variety of imperceptible ways, the moment that civilized man sets foot upon their shores, and are above all most vitally affected by their changed position as to the results of their manual labour. Nor must I withhold my opinion, sensible as I am of the misrepresentation which I risk in expressing it, that Christianity itself--in so far as it tames the indignant,

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wilful spirit of the New Zealander, and teaches him to be meek and submissive, to distrust himself, and to resign temporal advantages--has itself a tendency to let him sink and disappear, unless we make the most resolute, wise, and highminded contemporaneous efforts to sustain and elevate him.

There are two modes of regulating wages, the one unrighteous and the other equitable.

The former regards the labourer not as a person, but as a thing, and only inquires how it may get the most work done at the least expense; and it willingly avails itself of every advantage it possesses over the ignorance or other unfavourable circumstance of the agent it employs. Now, in point of fact, this is the common mode of regulating wages in this and other highly-civilized countries; we do not stop to inquire the rights of the case, or to regulate wages on principles of equity; we let every man see to his own interest, and we depend upon the principle of demand and supply for their adjustment. And in countries like this, where every one has so keen an eye to his own interest, where each child from its infancy knows the relative value of labour and money, instances of the unequitable and oppressive character of this mode of regulating wages are not often brought before us; and we let ourselves insensibly adopt the notion that every one has a natural right to get his work done as cheaply as he can; and if any one chooses to labour at a disadvantage to himself, he only reaps contempt, together with injustice. But give a man the power to labour, and deprive him utterly of the knowledge and judgment which would teach him to make his labour most available for his own advantage, and the iniquity of such a course will at once appear.

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The equitable mode of regulating wages proceeds upon two considerations; one regards the advantage reaped by the employer, and the other regards the abilities expended by the labourer.

The wages obtained by the labourer ought to bear a certain proportion to the advantage reaped by the employer. What the exact proportion should be, I am not prepared to say; but we may say, with safety, the proportion which usually obtains between them in prosperous and happy countries, where all classes thrive together. I am not aware whether this proportion has been ascertained in any particular cases; it would be curious and useful to ascertain what it generally is in different countries, and for different kinds of employment, and how it varies. But we have no difficulty in pronouncing that, upon any estimate which can be made, there must be a gross violation of equity where a person clears in a few months 7000l. or 8000l. by the labour of eight or nine persons working for 4s. a-week: and where there is so enormous a disproportion in the rate of wages that a sawyer, expending the best strength of his body, receives but 4s. a-week, while an out-door servant, employed merely to "job about stores," receives 12s. a-week, provisions for self, wife, and three children, good house free, and water and wood brought by the natives to his door.

I have been informed that, in England, sawing is generally done by task, and a pair of sawyers in full work can earn from three to four pounds per week. The prices per hundred feet are, for oak and ash, 4s.; elm, 3s. 6d.; and fir, 3s. But if at day labour, they are paid a guinea each per week, making no difference between the top sawyer and the pitman. In the Portsmouth dock-yard, top-sawyers of the first class are paid 24s. per week; those of the second class, 21s. In both classes the pitmen are paid alike, and receive 21s.

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The wages which would be obtained in England by an out-door servant, employed to "job about stores," would depend upon the amount of labour required, the judgment necessary, and the confidence reposed. Perhaps 15s. per week might be stated as the average.

In order to carry out the comparison between wages in England and wages in New Zealand, we ought to know--

1st. Whether the New Zealand sawyers were or were not victualled by their employer, and if they were, what was the cost of their victualling; and,

2ndly. What would be the cost in New Zealand of provisions for an Englishman, his wife, and his three children, a good house, and the carriage of wood and water for the family.

It would be very desirable to ascertain these particulars exactly; and they ought to be ascertained by any commission of inquiry having for its object to secure justice to the aborigines while undergoing the severe and dangerous passage from savage to civilized life. But, considering that the food of the New Zealand labourers employed in the timber-trade is "scanty and very mean, consisting chiefly of potatoes;" and, considering the abundance in which potatoes are produced in New Zealand, we may safely say that the victualling of each New Zealand sawyer (if they were victualled by their employer) would not exceed 3s. per week. On the other hand, considering the abundant and comfortable maintenance which appears to have been enjoyed by the out-door servant, and the scarcity in New Zealand of those supplies which would be essential to the comfortable maintenance of an English family--a scarcity which is in some measure indicated by the facts that the Bishop of Australia, on his departure from New Zealand, had to request Captain Harding to leave what could be spared from the stores of the ship for the relief of the sick natives, and

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that the support of the New Zealand mission last year cost the Church Missionary Society nearly 17,000l.--we may infer that the maintenance of the out-door servant and his family could not have cost his employers less than 30s. per week. Thus, in all probability, the remuneration of the New Zealand sawyer would be to the remuneration of the English out-door servant in a ratio not greater than that of 7 to 42, or 1 to 6; while the wages of a sawyer to those of an out-door servant in England would probably be in a ratio of 24 to 15, or 8 to 5. So that--taking into consideration the nature of the two employments, and taking the practice of England as a fair criterion of the relative amount of remuneration that should be assigned to each--the pay of the Englishman in New Zealand was to the pay of the native as 48 to 5, or nearly ten times as great !

The only unexceptionable arrangement in such a case--the arrangement which would at once do justice to the New Zealander, and excite his ambition, while it secured his employer against the chance of defective work--would be to ascertain the price per 100 feet, which would be paid in New Zealand to English sawyers, and to pay the same price to the natives, letting them do their work by task.

There is another point to be considered; it may be offered in explanation of the fact, that such large profits may be cleared by the New Zealand timber-trade, but it supplies an additional reason for giving good wages to the native labourer. It is this--I state it in the words of Mr. Baring, in his evidence before lie Committee of the House of Lords:--"The timber is not purchased; they do not purchase the right to cut timber..... The wood is taken out of the forest; the natives attach no value to it; no purchase-money is paid for it." The fact is, that the timber of New Zealand is one of those possessions which the

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natives hold in common; and since no price is paid for it to any one else, equity demands that its prime cost should (in respect of their common right to its possession) be paid to those New Zealanders who have expended their labour upon it. And if it were cut by Englishmen, and not New Zealanders, a certain price or duty ought still to be paid, and go to the formation of a fund for the national wealth of the New Zealand people.

"But the natives attach no value to it, and can derive none from it." Very true; and they attach scarcely any to their land, and this is a very strong reason why they ought to be allowed to part with both on equitable terms, but no reason why we should enrich ourselves by what belongs to them, without returning them an equivalent.

It may be irksome to go into such particulars; but we may be certain that it is the neglect of these nice points of equity, which has always occasioned the destruction of the native races; these nice points which we so easily overlook, when they are overlooked by the persons themselves with whom we are dealing, and which there are so many specious reasons to make us overlook. It may be said, for instance, that "the New Zealanders wants are not so many as the Englishman's, and that therefore he ought not to be paid so much." But we forget that it is his savage state which causes his wants to be fewer; and that, through our agency, he is undergoing the perilous transition from savage to civilized life, and that we are exhausting the last efforts of his savage strength; and can we suppose that if justice is not attended to--if equity is not administered--if we do not grant him the full measure of advantage which we should have to grant if we were dealing with civilized men--he will be able to support himself through the perilous change, and to acquire the same relative position as a civilized man which he enjoyed as a savage?

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The other consideration, upon which an equitable appointment of wages may be made, regards the abilities expended by the labourer. If the person we employ, in order to serve us, must forego certain positive advantages, justice requires that these advantages should be amply made up to him.

If a man, by the natural exercise of his powers in the position in which he finds himself placed, could supply himself with all that is necessary to health and comfort, it would be highly criminal to throw an illusion over his mind which should make him give up these natural advantages, and expend his strength in our service for an utterly worthless consideration. But such, precisely, is the witchcraft which the civilized man has it in his power to employ upon the savage. He makes him give up his freedom, and his health, and elasticity of mind, and his common right to the cultivation of the soil, and all the supplies he could obtain from sea and land by working for himself, and throws over him an opiate spell by which he is led to employ "immense efforts of animal strength" in his service, and gives him in return--FOUR SHILLINGS A-WEEK! But how far will this go to supply him with comforts and appliances equivalent to those which he enjoyed in his state of wild freedom, and to make provision for the supply of those other and far more numerous wants, which it is the tendency of civilization to create?

I am glad that the above facts have enabled me to urge a point which has been very much overlooked in dealing with the question of justice to the aborigines. Very great stress has been laid upon the injustice of depriving them of their lands and their sovereignty, the advantages of which (with the exception of the common right of cultivation) are remote and ideal; and yet, under the eye of the missionaries, the grossest injustice is practised in dealing with the only thing which may be said properly to belong to them, namely,

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their bodily strength and their personal freedom; besides depriving them as effectually of their common interest in the soil, as if it was taken away from them by purchase. I am glad, too, that in urging this point, I am addressing those who have not yet touched the shores of New Zealand, and who go there, I doubt not, with the sincere desire of doing good to the natives, and redeeming the character of British colonization from the opprobrious imputations which have been cast upon it.

I am sensible that some of the above remarks would almost appear to come from an opponent of colonization. They certainly do come from an opponent of colonization conducted on the loose and disordered principles on which it has hitherto proceeded. But they come from one who is perfectly convinced that colonization will proceed, whatever may be done to thwart it, and who is equally convinced that it only requires the bold and conscientious exercise of wisdom, justice, and Christian charity, and liberality, to make it a messenger of peace and prosperity to the native inhabitants; for the resources of the country are amply and superabundantly sufficient, both for the wealth of the colonists and the equitable remuneration of the aborignes. If full justice is administered, and the relative advantages and obligations of the different parties are minutely attended to, the application of industry to so promising a field cannot fail to secure the prosperity and happiness of all; where mean selfishness and villainy are the actuating impulses, they will issue in a worthless and ill-omened prosperity to the despoilers, and the utter destruction of the native race.

The above thoughts lead me to suggest,--

1st. That the principal members, or rather, the whole of the first New Zealand colony, should form themselves into a society for the protection of the aborigines.

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2nd. That they should regulate, on strictly equitable principles, the wages to be received by the New Zealanders.

3rd. That when the same amount of work is done by a New Zealander and by an Englishman, the New Zealander should receive as much as the Englishman.

4th. That where the works done by the New Zealander and the Englishman are different in kind or quantity, the New Zealander should be fully remunerated for his labour; and that the common rights which he resigns by living in the British settlement, and working for Englishmen, should be made up to him.

5th. That where the wages so to be received by the New Zealander are more than he requires for his present maintenance, they should be placed to his account in the hands of responsible trustees, until advancing civilization and his own improved capacity point out some desirable mode of employing it.

The foregoing pages were already in print when I met with a remarkable confirmation of the inference drawn in page 44, as to the enormous disproportion that exists between the pay of the Englishman and the pay of the native in New Zealand 15. It occurs in an extract of a letter from Mr. T. W., dated Hokianga, 12th August, 1839, and appears in the New Zealand Journal, for March 21, 1840. Mr. T. W. writes as follows:--

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The insight which this affords into the price paid for native labour, is the more remarkable from being accompanied by expressions which indicate that, in the opinion of the writer, his treatment of the natives was humane and liberal. It appears to him,--and he no doubt expresses the opinion that was universally entertained by his countrymen in New Zealand,--that a New Zealander receives good pay when he receives one-tenth of what would be paid to an Englishman for the same amount of work. But upon what principle of justice or equity, upon what principle but the law of superior might, can this be held?

If to the first colonists of a new country labour is extremely valuable, it should be paid for in proportion, whether the work be done by natives or Europeans; that it is extremely valuable appears from another passage in the same letter:--

From my knowledge of the trade and the river, and with the natives' and my own exertions, I am satisfied, that in the course of twelve months, I could double any capital I could command, to the extent of 500l. or 1,000l.......

In striking contrast with the "four shillings a-week," of the New Zealand sawyer, is the price which has been received by Englishmen, for similar work, in another rising colony. The following passage occurs in a recent work on South Australia:--

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If we may draw any inference from this passage as to the intrinsic value of labour in a new colony, and if the British colonists deal fairly with the aborigines of New Zealand, there will be no want of funds for the support and elevation of the native race 16.

The most distressing circumstance connected with civilization is, that it involves something which tends to the destruction of native life. The true cause of this remarkable phenomenon remains undiscovered; but under its operation, the aborigines are said to disappear like snow melting beneath the sunbeams. It has been observed by writers of all characters and opinions, some of whom appear to have no better hope for the coloured tribes than that its action should be retarded as much as possible by shielding them from intercourse with the whites, while others think it ought to be acquiesced in, as a mysterious but inevitable appointment of Providence.

It is, moreover, a painful and surprising fact, that the population has been observed to disappear, even under circumstances which we should be disposed to consider the most favourable to the coloured race, where no act of oppression is inflicted,--where they continue in the undisturbed enjoyment of their political and territorial rights, and where large sums of money are expended on their improvement.

This is proved by what has taken place in the South Sea Islands, islands which still retain their national independence, which have been the scene of the most successful labours of the London Missionary Society, but of which the native population has decreased with frightful rapidity.

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It appears for some time to have been believed, that these distressing results were not occurring on the scene of the Church Missionary Society's operations in New Zealand. This is implied in the following passage of Mr. Coates's address to Lord Glenelg, respecting the New Zealand Association:--

The fact of the decrease in the population of New Zealand was afterwards pressed upon the notice of the Missionary Societies and the public in general. But it was contended, in reply, that the evils complained of in New Zealand "were greatly exaggerated, that it was doubtful whether the population had decreased to the extent that had been represented,--that the chief cause of the decrease of population was not intercourse with Europeans, but scarcity of food and domestic wars, and that the labours of missionaries had a direct tendency to diminish the operation of these causes." It was also urged in explanation of the alleged decrease in the number of the natives, that "an epidemic had raged at the Bay of Islands, and proved fatal to many of them 17; and that the transition state from barbarism to civilization is not favourable to the health of aboriginal people."

These statements, however, were but little qualified to remove the misgivings of those friends of the aborigines who continually heard of the rapid decrease of the population of New Zealand, and of the sad fore-

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bodings entertained by the natives themselves, that they were disappearing from the earth, and that the white man's God was destroying them in order to give their land to a more favoured race.

But whatever doubts may have been entertained as to these facts, they have been for ever set at rest by the painful testimony to their truth, which I shall now lay before you in some further extracts from the letter of the Bishop of Australia:--

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My object in giving you this extract, is to let the truth be known on a most important subject, and to show the necessity of making more diligent inquiries into the cause of this evil, and taking more effectual measures than have ever yet been taken to prevent it. For if it be true that "the transition state, from savage to civilized life, is not favourable to the health of aboriginal people," it becomes the first duty of those who are introducing this change among them, to examine into the causes which render it unfavourable to their health, and to endeavour to remove them.

Before giving an opinion upon the possible cause and remedy of this waste of native life, I should recommend you, at the outset, to take such measures as will enable you, at any future period, to pronounce with certainty as to the effect which your residence among them may produce upon their numbers, and to this end, I should advise you,--

1st. To make a periodical census of the numbers resident within the territory which you occupy.

2nd. To keep an exact account of their births, deaths, and migrations, whether into or out of your settlement.

I have already said,--and the same opinion is expressed by more competent judges,--that it is highly probable there may be some cause, or combination of causes for this evil, beyond those which are

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obvious, or easily discoverable. While, therefore, I am most anxious to make you acquainted with every thought which has occurred to my own mind upon the subject, I am quite sensible that any suggestions I can offer with respect to it must be exceedingly defective. Their aim, indeed, is rather to suggest courses of inquiry, than to propose specific expedients.

The deleterious influences which are brought to act upon the New Zealanders, in the first steps of their progress to civilization, have appeared to me to arrange themselves under the following heads:--

I. The sudden, incomplete, and intemperate adoption of new habits.

II. The want of good food and substantial comforts.

III. The contraction of diseases, and the degradation of native women.

IV. The prejudicial effect produced upon their minds by the peculiarities of their new position.

I. The sudden, incomplete, and intemperate adoption of new habits.

The action of this cause may be illustrated by something that occurred during the Peninsular war. While the soldiers were living under tents in the country they enjoyed uninterrupted health, but as soon as they came into their winter quarters, they died in great numbers. Upon this, it was ordered that they should be brought into town by parties, at first for a night or two, and then for longer periods, and be sent back into the country in the interim. By this means the change in their mode of living was gradually effected, and their lives were preserved.

The precise expedient which was adopted to save the lives of the soldiers is obviously inapplicable to the case of the New Zealanders; but the whole cir-

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cumstance may serve to show how natural it is that mortality should occur, when a number of people suddenly change their mode of living, and when proper precautions are not taken to render such change innocuous.

During the completely savage state of New Zealand, its natives, notwithstanding their barbarous practices, were hardy and simple; their food was supplied abundantly, and offered no temptation to excess: their drink was water from the brook or the river, and that they drank seldom, and in small quantities. They had no laborious employment; they were at liberty to take rest or exercise as inclination prompted, and their habits were such as to harden their frames against all the contingencies of savage life.

The approach of civilized man introduces a new element into their existence. For the first time they become acquainted with luxuries in the shape of warmer clothing, a greater variety of food, drinks of various kinds, and tobacco under various forms. By these the constitutions are assailed in many ways. (1.) They are rendered less hardy, less able to withstand the common vicissitudes of savage life. (2.) They are exposed to an additional vicissitude, in suddenly losing the enjoyment of the imported luxury, and being unable to replace it. (3.) They are liable, through ignorance of their effects, to indulge in these luxuries in a manner highly prejudicial to their health, and this consequence probably follows, not only from the use of things manifestly injurious, as spirituous liquors, but of things commonly thought innocent, as tobacco, and of things in themselves beneficial, but rendered injurious by an injudicious use, as warm coverings. There is much reason to fear that the blanket, so largely introduced among them, and so valuable to Europeans as an article of barter, has been productive of injury in causing violent perspirations,

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of which they suddenly relieve themselves by exposure to the cold, and thus bring on all kinds of pulmonary disorders. (4.) They become liable to injury from the use of certain luxuries and comforts coming within their reach, while they are unable to obtain other luxuries and comforts which are made necessary by the use of the former ones, in order to qualify and balance the effects which the former have upon the constitution 18. (5.) They are induced, for the sake of these luxuries, to undergo great and unwonted bodily fatigue, without having the stamina or animal sustenance which are necessary in order to bear up against it. (6.) They are ignorant of the remedies to be applied to the disorders which are introduced by any of the means above described.

It is easier to point out these evils than to show how they may be obviated; it is clear, however, that there are three courses to adopt with regard to them, namely, (1) to prevent, (2) to habituate, and (3) to counteract.

1. To prevent.--Let the natives be taught that there is a danger in adopting European habits in a random irregular way: that it is injurious to be warmly clad in a European dress, or perhaps wrapped up in a number of blankets one day, and to go nearly uncovered the next. If they are not in a state to live altogether as Europeans, let them not give up their mats, the clothing which appears to be most suited to the other circumstances of savage life; let them be taught that the proper use of the blanket is to protect them from the cold at night, not to oppress them with unnatural heat during the day, and to tempt them to seek relief by exposing themselves to sudden

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extremes of cold. Let similar expedients be adopted with regard to all other European luxuries; let them not make violent and irregular efforts; let them not starve one day, and eat to repletion the next; let spirits, as an article of barter, be conscientiously renounced, and let not the convenience of dealing with them, by means of blankets and tobacco, overbalance the evil thereby inflicted on the natives, should it appear, on impartial examination, that they tend to enervate and undermine their constitutions. Let us endeavour to discover articles of barter which they would value as much, which would be more conducive to their health, and more suitable to their present state and their opening prospects 19.

2. To habituate.--But as it would be impossible, and contrary to our intention to prevent them altogether from the adoption of European habits, let them be adopted as far as possible in a gradual and orderly manner. The highland kilt has, I believe, been introduced into South Africa as a good step towards a more civilized vesture; and the highland plaid and kilt

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has been suggested as a suitable and picturesque costume for the New Zealanders. Perhaps a loose shirt and duck trousers might be advantageously adopted as the first general addition to their dress, while they continue to retain the mat for their upper covering; after these have come generally into use, other articles of dress can be added, as taste or expediency may dictate. The same course might be adopted with regard to all the other European luxuries which it is thought proper that they should learn to enjoy.

3. To counteract.--When the above expedients are insufficient to protect the natives against a premature and intemperate use of European luxuries, everything should be done to counteract the bad effects that are found to result from them. If the natives are led through your means to indulge in anything which tends to exhaust and enfeeble, you should administer whatever is necessary to restore and invigorate, and any particular form of disease which is introduced by their change of habit should be studied in its origin and progress, and active measures taken for its removal. But no distinct opinion can be formed upon this branch of the subject, except by personal observation on the spot.

In all that precedes I have supposed the natives to be guided by their own natural impulses in the irregular use of European luxuries. But they may be subject to another destructive agency in the encouragement to intemperate and pernicious habits which is offered to them by Europeans. I need not say that where conduct of this kind comes to light, it should be promptly and decisively coerced by the public sense of the community.

II. The want of good food and substantial comforts.

Although their constitutions may be injured by an indiscreet and irregular indulgence in what may

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be called European luxuries, I am strongly inclined to believe that a more active cause of the failure of native life is an insufficient supply of such necessaries and substantial comforts as their altered circumstances require,--a plentiful supply of good food is an indispensable requisite to good health. There is something in a low wretched way of living which renders the constitution an easy prey to some disorders. Witness the wide ravages of the cholera and the typhus fever among the poorer classes in our own country. And one kind of food may be quite sufficient to preserve health, when the mind is perfectly free from care, when the body enjoys perfect ease and liberty, and the man is surrounded on all sides by the salubrious influences of a primitive mode of life, while a very different description may become necessary when the body is engaged in hard labour, the mind is occupied in new efforts and contemplations, and the constitution is assailed by the noxious effects which the approach of foreigners has been so frequently observed to inflict upon aborigines.

The following extract will show how important it is that the colonizing race should use forethought as to the means to be adopted to secure to the natives a continual supply of good food and clothing at an easy rate. It is from a communication of Mr. J. Matthews, a catechist of the Church Missionary Society, to the Parent Committee, dated March 4, 1839. He writes:--

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Thus we see, and I do not say it to inculpate the missionaries, but to put you on your guard, that, after more than twenty years labour, and an expenditure of

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more than 100,000l. on the part of the Church Missionary Society, the natives are in a worse condition, as it respects food and clothing, than before the missionaries arrived.

To a plentiful supply of good food two things are necessary:--

1st. That there should be food to obtain.

2nd. That there should be means to obtain it.

Both of these objects will be promoted by the systematic colonization of New Zealand.

It was stated by Mr. Coates, as a reason for supposing the waste of native life to be less than is represented, that the labours of missionaries tend to its preservation by promoting an increase of food; under their hands, however, this particular effect could only be secondary and incidental, and it will be promoted in as much greater a degree by a large colony, as the number of persons in the colony devoted to its production by commerce and agriculture exceeds the number who can give themselves up to similar pursuits among the missionary agents. Nor should we infer, because Mr. Matthews tells us that the demand for food by missionaries and others induced the natives to sell nearly all the grain they had, that a similar demand followed by similar results would be the consequence of the establishment of a regular colony. Because it cannot be supposed that there would be the same regularity in the supply of provisions, whether native or foreign, to a small, scattered, unorganized, and, in a great measure, artificially-supported community, as to a large colony fixed in one spot, the aggregate of whose wants it would always be easy to foresee and provide for. At the same time this fact should warn you to make sufficient provision beforehand both for yourselves and the natives.

Their means of obtaining a supply of food must depend in a great measure upon the exertions they

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shall make, and the way in which you will remunerate them for their exertions. Should the English labourer thrive in New Zealand, and the native labourer be paid as the English labourer, he will thrive too, if he does the same work; and I have the strongest persuasion that all they require to make their work valuable to themselves and their employers, is to let them have fair play. Give the natives a fair prospect of raising themselves by their exertions to the same comfort and respectability which they see enjoyed by Englishmen, and they will have such an incentive to exertion as they have never had before. And let them have the means of providing themselves with a complete and comfortable dress, a sufficiency of wholesome food, and the necessary implements of labour, and it may be hoped that we shall not hear so much of their rapid decrease when brought in contact with Englishmen.

It will be for the colonists to judge whether some encouragement ought not to be given to the manufacture of native mats. If the mat is a durable and useful article, suitable to their climate and habits, it is lamentable that the introduction of blankets should extinguish this branch of industry, and make the natives more wretched than they were before. The mat for certain purposes might probably be made use of by Europeans, and this would promote both its use and its production among the natives. It will be easy to determine, by ascertaining the time and labour expended on its preparation as compared with its utility and the demand which is likely to be made for it, whether its manufacture ought to be continued or not.

I have said before, that the natives would probably be more inclined to assist you in the erection of great public buildings than to make comfortable dwellings for themselves. This, however, will only be an

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additional reason why you should make for them such dwellings as will be most suited to their circumstances, and most likely to win them to civilization.

III. The contraction of diseases, and the degradation of native women.

There is much contrariety of opinion as to the extent to which the natives have been affected by specific diseases, and little need be said upon the subject, except that wherever such diseases occur their exact nature and cause should be carefully inquired into, and the proper remedies applied; and that wherever they are traceable to the misconduct of Europeans, measures should be taken to check the evil at its source.

Another consequence of the misconduct of Europeans, and another reason for the diminished number of native children, may be the melancholy fact, that "their maidens are not given to marriage." "Their women, I am sorry to say," said one of the witnesses before the committee of the House of Lords, "are reserved for bad purposes." And from all that we have heard of the present state of New Zealand, the conduct of ships' crews, the infamous character of the New Zealand rovers, and the indifference of the unconverted natives to the purity of their females, we must believe his statement to be true. And to whatever extent it is true, fewer marriages will be contracted among the natives, and fewer native children will be born. It is needless to say that this must be a direct cause of the diminution of the native race, not to speak of its degrading and depraving tendency; and it should therefore be the zealous effort of the colonists to stop this evil wherever it exists, and to prevent it where it has not yet shown itself. It should be the object of the colonists to convey into the minds of the natives the anxious wish which they have to elevate them to the same social level with themselves,

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and to let them know how indispensable it is for that purpose that their females should attach the same sense of disgrace to a loss of virtue which is attached to it by our countrywomen. I need not add that this should be accompanied by a united determination on the part of the colonists to regard an act of immorality in any of themselves as a serious injury to their common objects, and a grave offence against the honour of their community.

IV. The prejudicial effect produced upon their minds by the peculiarity of their new position.

In the various degrees of semi-civilization in which the aborigines at present exist throughout New Zealand, they cannot help feeling themselves reduced to a far lower grade of social life then they were in before. Where once they saw none above them, they now see none below them, and they are without the power of rising to that higher grade with which they are brought into contact, and by which they feel themselves overwhelmed and pressed down.

Now, upon a people so mentally constituted as the New Zealanders, this sense of degradation must, I think, have the most pernicious consequences. It is evident that the New Zealanders possess in a very strong degree that sense of personal estimation, which forms the basis of what is called the code of honour in civilized countries and polished society. It is not the highest form under which the feeling of honour exhibits itself, but it is a wild stem on which true honour may be engrafted. This sense of personal estimation is so acute in the New Zealander, that he commonly resorts to self-destruction as the only cure for its imagined injury. Indeed, I have already laid before you an allusion to this practice in the reply of Tebooa to Mr. Turner respecting his son Shunghi.

In how many ways might not injury be given to so keen a sense of personal estimation, even by well-

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intentioned Europeans! In the past history of New Zealand, such an injury was resented by the massacre of seventy British subjects at a stroke. But the days are gone by when a whole ship's company could be sacrificed to the offended pride of a Savage Chieftain; for subsequent experience has led them to believe that such a mode of vindicating their honour would only entail their own wholesale destruction.

In the present state of things, therefore, they are obliged to acquiesce at whatever expense to their feelings. And while, by the award of British law, they are pronounced to be the possessors of vast territory and sovereign dominion, they see themselves surrounded by foreigners living in a state of comfort and affluence, which they feel that no exertions of theirs could ever attain; they are tempted to use every means, even to the selling of every acre of their land, to the degradation of their wives and daughters, and to bodily toil in the same gang with their slaves to gain a little of that wealth which they see as if miraculously enjoyed by the British Settlers. The pitiful hire which they attain by these means is wholly inadequate to their elevation to the level of Europeans, and only just enough to obtain for them the momentary and intemperate enjoyment of some pernicious European luxury; instead of becoming rich, they reduce themselves to beggary; and instead of the freedom of heart and thought, and the proud sense of having no human superiors which they once enjoyed, they are degraded in their own feelings, and they feel themselves to be a degraded race in the eyes of those who have now become their masters,--hope is extinguished--life has lost its value: while with those natives who have adopted Christianity, there will probably be a feeling that this altered position of things is one to which they ought to submit, and that they must look to another world for

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the blessings and honours of which they have no share in this.

It would not be surprising if, with feelings of this kind, and having lost the wild excitements of their savage state, they should have fallen into that idle, lounging, slovenly, and filthy condition, which is described by the Bishop of Australia as existing among the natives of the Bay of Islands. I hardly think it a sufficient explanation of this fact to say that the natives delight in filth and disorder. Naturally, it may be true, they regard them with no repugnance; but when we consider the neatness of the native workmanship, and the neatness of their mode of cultivating the ground, as witnessed and recorded by Captain Cook, I am inclined to think they would have acquired habits of order, neatness, and diligence during a twenty years' residence with a well-disposed class of Europeans, if there had been the means of placing before them sufficiently valuable rewards of industry.

The animation and activity which is excited when any prospect of this kind is held in view, together with their natural diffidence of their own ability to realize such an object, are affectingly made evident in the following extract from the journal of Mr. Davis, the head of the Church Missionary Society's farming establishment at Waimate, dated February 23rd, 1839.

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I think we may infer from this that they are not hopelessly wedded to their filthy and degraded condition, and that the way to raise them out of their present state is to place before them sufficiently valuable objects of attainment. Such objects of attainment, when set before them, they will easily reach, if you give a proper direction to their efforts, and pay them such returns for their land, their labour, and their produce, as upon an enlightened and philosophic view of the case are just and equitable.

I shall here insert a subsequent passage of Mr. Davis's Journal, as it bears upon the topic I have been most anxious to press upon your attention.

This passage might suggest many important inquiries. It seems not improbable that the native labourers in this case abandoned their work because they were not satisfied with their wages; it is evident, at least, that they wanted an increase of wages to make them return to it. It is extremely desirable that we should know the exact amount of wages that they received, and that we could ascertain how far they were just and equitable as compared with the rate of wages in England. The best way to satisfy ourselves about this, would be to compare them with the

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wages paid to the "farming man" for whom Mr. Davis wrote to Hokianga. If we knew the precise relative duties of the farming man and the native labourers, and the wages that persons occupying these relative positions would receive in England, and the wages that were actually paid to them respectively by Mr. Davis, we could determine whether the wages paid to the natives were equitable. My own very strong belief is, that they could not be equitable; for I think it extremely improbable that sawyers at Waimate, or in its near neighbourhood, should be content to receive such very mean returns for their labour 21, while agricultural labourers in the same district obtained anything like a fair remuneration. Perhaps the missionaries will acknowledge that the native labourer is not paid so much as an English labourer of the same class would receive, and will say in explanation, that a New Zealander never does a fair day's work; but I would still urge the question, how much exactly does the New Zealander receive! and I would suggest whether the New Zealander would not be induced to do a fair day's work if he knew that he was to receive for it a price to the full as good as an Englishman would receive for the same work.

Should it be as I am inclined to believe, I do not say that Mr. Davis or any other individual missionary is to blame; but I say that it forms part of a system which is very much to blame, and which must end in the destruction of the native race. And I cannot help thinking, that if since the first influx of British settlers into New Zealand, now ten or fifteen years ago, the missionaries had determinately set their face against any attempt to obtain the labour of the New Zealanders for less than an equitable remuneration, and out of the pecuniary resources at their command had given ample pay to the natives for every species of

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labour about which they employed them, several most important results would have followed.

1st. It may be supposed that some, if not all of them, would have been induced by the influence of the missionaries to lay by, in some public fund of the nature of a savings' bank, all the wages they received beyond what was necessary to supply their daily wants.

2nd. These accumulations would by this time have amounted, in many cases, to large sums, and would have given to those possessing them a sense of property and independence.

3rd. They would have been available in times of sickness and scarcity, such as that witnessed by the Bishop of Australia, or for helping to build a mill, or any other such purpose.

4th. They would have set before the other natives an evident proof of the value of continued labour.

5th. The larger reward would have excited the natives to greater industry, and they would have acquired more active, lively, and diligent habits; there would have been a spring to their motions which would have quickly raised them out of that state of indolence and apathy which was witnessed and lamented by the Bishop of Australia. While a system of definite remuneration, accompanied, as it should be, by definite prices, affixed to every article with which they could be supplied out of the missionary stores, would have engendered a feeling of self-dependence, and have afforded less occasion for the "duplicity" and "covetousness," which, with indolence, appeared to him to be the "chief remaining vices of the converted natives." And his opinion as to the source of these vices confirms the view that I have here expressed:--

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6th. Had the missionaries from the first fixed the rate of wages at a just standard, other Europeans would have been less able to exact the labour of the natives for an insufficient remuneration.

The foregoing matter has led me to make some reflections on the principle by which we should be guided in settling the rate of wages for such a country as New Zealand; and I here submit them to your consideration.

It is perfectly obvious, that for the social or economical machinery of a people to be in good order and work well, nothing is more essential than that there should be a well-calculated scale of remunerations to excite and reward the energies of the different members of the community in their several spheres. In all civilized countries there is some such scale of remunerations, and the degree of perfection of the whole commonwealth and the relative happiness and efficiency of its several parts depends very much upon the wisdom with which this scale is adjusted. If, therefore, we wish to lay the foundation of a prosperous and happy people, we must do all we can from the very outset to make the scale of wages adjust itself according to the best possible principle. And if we have before us the example of a country like England, which may be said, upon the whole, to be a prosperous and happy one, we may adopt it for our model, unless we have some reason for supposing that we can improve upon it.

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Now, in England and other free and civilized countries, the remunerations received for all other descriptions of industry are proportioned in different ratios to the wages of the agricultural labourer, and it is a received maxim of political economy, that the price of a fair day's work of an agricultural labourer should be the same as that of a peck of wheat. If his pay differs much from this, things will be more or less out of joint and in danger throughout the community. And if this be so in all free, civilized, and happy countries, it must be made to be so in New Zealand, or its natives will not be civilized, will not be formed into a happy people.

That the general production of wheat is held to be the prime ingredient, and, as it were, the index of the civilization of a country may be inferred from the very fact that it is the first object which those who are engaged in the work of civilization endeavour to promote; and if we have ascertained by an extended observation of the state of things in free and happy countries, the remunerating stimulus that is necessary in order to effect the production of wheat, we may infer that where this stimulus is wanting wheat will not be produced, and that to attempt to produce it, will be to overtask and exhaust the producing class. The New Zealand labourer therefore should be paid per day, the price that a peck of wheat would fetch in New Zealand, or we cannot expect that he will have the stimulus that is necessary to make wheat grow: he labours at a disadvantage to himself: the state of the country is a forced and an unhealthy one, and it may be expected that he will either give up the work from an instinctive feeling that it is not worth his while to continue it, or labouring at a disadvantage, will sink for want of the necessary stamina.

These appear to me to be natural conclusions from an admitted principle; if there is anything defective in

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this reasoning, or anything in the particular case of New Zealand, which exempts it from the general rule, I should be happy to have it pointed out and to acknowledge my error. But I do not see it myself, and I think I am borne out in my views by the present condition of the New Zealanders in the missionary settlements. I would add that I have no knowledge of the actual amount of wages paid by the missionaries to the native labourers, but I infer that where the labour of the saw-pit is paid so badly, the labour of the field by the same race in the same district will be paid no better.

Perhaps it will be said, that when the missionaries began to cultivate wheat to any extent in New Zealand, it was so scarce an article in the country, that the price of a peck would have been something too extravagant to allow for a day's work to a native. But what would be the consequence if, notwithstanding this, the principle had been strictly acted on? In my opinion it would have had two results, both highly conducive to legitimate and sound-principled civilization. In the first place, it would have indicated to them that the most prudent step at that stage of their proceedings, was to make wheat plentiful, to import it in large quantities, and store it up in granaries, by which means a wholesome food would be always at hand, for the use both of natives and Europeans; the natives would not have been obliged to have recourse to their rotten maize, nor the Europeans to the grain raised by the natives. And in the next place, by offering a very high remuneration to the natives, they would have been induced to apply themselves more actively and in greater numbers to the cultivation of the soil, and wheat would have been raised in greater quantities at home. By the combined action of both these causes wheat would have been rendered plentiful, and the price of labour would have been lowered

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without detriment to the labourer. The most important article of food would have become cheap, and by its constant use, would in all probability have improved the native constitution, and made it more able and more disposed for continuous exertion. It is probable, too, that if it had been felt that to make wheat cheap, was a step of the utmost importance to civilization, there would not have been so great an importation of blankets into the country; and instead of that which has too evidently proved a pernicious luxury--the introduction of which has had the triple ill effect of checking a branch of native industry, of being fatal to their health in many instances, and causing them to adopt an inferior description of clothing to that which they wore in their primitive state,--they would have had in plenty the prime sustenance and most substantial aliment of life. Its use would have become general, the labour necessary to obtain it would have been cheerfully undergone, and native health and native industry would have flourished together.

To effect these objects, a bold outlay of money would have been necessary for the double purpose of importing large quantities of wheat, and paying a high price for native labour. But good food and good wages are such powerful incentives to industry, that I think this outlay would long since have been recompensed by the improved condition, both of the people and of the country, and the increased facility the mission would have had for supporting itself without drawing so largely upon the funds of the Missionary Society.

If it be objected that in England, and other well civilized countries, such a state of things naturally grows out of the circumstances of society, and that we ought to leave such arrangements to the natural course of things, and not attempt to produce them by

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artificial means,--the answer is, that our whole object in the present inquiry is to arrest the natural course of things, seeing that they now tend directly to the ruin and extinction of the natives.

Artificial means are not to be disregarded because nature sometimes works without them. God has given to man a power regulative of nature, even in those matters which are farthest withdrawn from his usual sphere of operation. Artificial means are sometimes necessary to give its first motion, or restore its suspended action, to the vital machinery of the human frame. And if this is true in the case of bodily life, whose functions for the most part are so independent of extrinsic regulation, may there not be something analogous in that which falls so much more under human control, the life social and political?

The preceding digression relates to what might have been done by the missionaries for the temporal and civil welfare of the New Zealanders ten years ago, and may, I think, afford some hints as to what may be done by you to secure similar benefits for the natives with whom you will be thrown more immediately into contact. It is true, that in the case of the missionaries there were public funds with which they could have given the necessary stimulus, and a sufficient reward to native industry, and that no such funds are at your disposal. But since in your case the existence of a large amount of European labour will tend to fix the price of labour at an equitable rate, it will be your chief business to see that a uniform price is paid for work done, whether it be done by an Englishman or a New Zealander.

I have been thus led to recur once more to the subject of wages; but I am glad of it, for the more I hear of the present circumstances of New Zealand, the more I am convinced that the inadequate pay of native labour is one of the most destructive and least

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suspected forms of injury inflicted on them by Europeans.

I will now return to the subject which led me to this digression,--the importance, for the preservation of native life, of keeping the native mind in a healthy state of excitement, hope, and satisfaction.

This I think would be secured to the natives in general by giving them employment which would interest their minds; by rewarding them sufficiently for their work; and letting them find that the progress of civilization among them was the fulfilment, and not the disappointment, of their hopes.

But a still more exciting and elevating effect may be produced upon the whole people, by that which forms the distinguishing feature of your scheme, as contrasted with every other project which has ever been set on foot for the benefit of aboriginal tribes, namely, the provision which has been made for enabling the native chiefs to sustain their place among the gentry of the future community.

The material provision which is requisite for the maintenance of the native lords of New Zealand in their relative position of superiority has been amply made in the reserve of one-tenth of all the land purchased by the Company for the future benefit of the chiefs and their families. How far they may be fitted for such a position will depend upon the wisdom with which the intercourse between the settlers and the natives is conducted, and the institutions which are framed for the government and regulation of the country, either by the native chiefs themselves, under the instructions of the settlers, should they prefer to retain the independence which has been so emphatically asserted to belong to them 22,--or by the crown of England, or the constituted authorities in New

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Zealand, should they make a formal cession of their independence to this country.

I am now brought to a topic which I naturally approach with the greatest diffidence, as it is by far the most important and most delicate that can be discussed with respect to New Zealand, and is beset with difficulties of every kind.

Those who opposed the New Zealand Association of 1837 were anxious for the establishment of a native dynasty governed by laws framed with an especial view to native interests, and administered by natives. I should have rejoiced had it been possible to realize a project so novel and so chivalrously benevolent to the aborigines. But I believe that such expectations are now given up by every one. It only remains for us to hope that the whole New Zealand question will be taken up by Government, and that the collective wisdom of the legislature will be exerted in the construction of a scheme which shall provide for all the peculiarities of the New Zealand case, and lay the foundation of one uniform, powerful, and happy state.

The grand difficulty that besets the case is, that at present the sovereignty of New Zealand may be said to be in abeyance. Whether it will be obtained by England, or retained by New Zealand; or whether the country will be parcelled out into little separate sovereignties, (some under Great Britain, some under single chiefs, and some under congresses of chiefs,) it is impossible to say; and it is therefore impossible to say what individual, or what body of individuals, should be addressed with a view to the establishment of a good constitution and code of laws for New Zealand.

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That neither you nor any other body of Englishmen resident in New Zealand, can legally enact laws for your own government, has been decided. But it is by no means so certain that you will not be called upon to propose laws to be enacted and executed by the native chiefs in the territory where you reside. This the missionaries of the London Society have done for the natives of Otaheite, and the same thing might be done with equal propriety by the Church missionaries for the natives of the Bay of Islands, or by you for the natives of Port Nicholson.

So that,--although I believe you will agree with me in thinking that such a contingency is neither to be expected nor desired,--it will not be altogether out of place to address you upon this subject. And, indeed, whether British sovereignty is established or not, every British inhabitant of New Zealand must exercise an important influence over the future destinies of that country; and the law must leave much to be determined by the opinion and will of individuals, whether acting separately or conjointly.

One thing I trust may be anticipated with confidence, that some laws will be made with an especial reference to the circumstances of the natives. For to submit them at once to the rigorous action of British law, would be to oppress and exterminate them under a show of justice,--the most cruel and most wicked way in which a helpless and confiding people can be destroyed.

For a rigorous subjection to British law they are unfitted on two most important accounts:--1st, Because British law is law suited not for a savage, but for a highly civilized people; and 2ndly, Because British law is law suited for a people of one race;--whereas the inhabitants of New Zealand are of two races, not merely differing in language and national usage, but in every possible way in which two people

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can be contrasted. Hence the absolute necessity of exceptional or special laws of some kind or other;--of special laws to regulate the course of justice between British and native, and special laws to regulate the course of justice between native and native.

When I first thought of sending you this address, I believed that, once landed on the snores of an independent country, you would possess as against the crown of England a natural right of self-government; that it would be open to you and the other colonists of New Zealand to organize yourselves into bodies cooperating together for the common good, and agreed upon certain broad principles of fair dealing among yourselves, and just and judicious treatment of the Aborigines.

This impression I have since found was an erroneous one: you have no right of self-government, and no encouragement to investigate the principles of social organization most suited to your peculiar circumstances. You may be now, and may continue to be when this reaches you, in a state of perplexity as to your actual position, and uncertainty as to your future prospects. While therefore I feel that the prosperity or the ruin of the natives within the sphere of your influence mainly depends on you, I ought not to address you as if you could make laws for them, or bind yourselves by laws in their favour.

At the same time there can be no harm in my stating to you a few considerations which I think ought to be borne in mind by those who will have it in their power to make laws for the New Zealanders, and by you and all other British settlers, until such laws are made.

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We should first consider that they are a people having already among them certain conventional rights and usages, which may be called the common or customary law of the land. And it has not been usual for England to interfere with customs having this character, in her subject states, even where they have been quite contrary to our customs, and built on totally different views of morality. They ought, therefore, with much more reason, to be respected, when no charge of immorality or variance from natural justice can be made against them.

Among these there are some which we very probably do not yet understand; but which, so far from being a proof of savage ignorance, seem to mark them as connected with the whole family of man. The customs to which I here more particularly allude, will be easily recognised by their New Zealand names.

These words indicate national practices, which have greatly assisted the missionaries in addressing the natives upon the vital truths of Christianity, by having familiarized their minds with the ideas of being set apart and made sacred, and of the necessity of payment or propitiation; and which, though sometimes rudely administered, have still in them a character of ordinance and retributive justice.

I think that we should carefully examine them and observe the forms under which they exhibit themselves in the institutions of the country, and endeavour, without abolishing them altogether, to purify and improve their action, and make them subservient to the progress of Christianity and law.

It is very likely that under some form or other these usages will speedily present themselves to your notice, and may be a subject of unexpected annoy-

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ance to you. Just as a submission to local imposts and examinations is an annoyance to those who travel on the Continent; but as necessity obliges us to submit to the latter, so justice and our frequently declared respect for New Zealand rights demand that we should deal gently with the former.

I am particular in making these remarks, because I believe that some trouble was experienced when the Tory was in Cook's Straits, in consequence of an utu being charged against Colonel Wakefield for having trespassed on a tabooed place. The matter, Colonel Wakefield says, was settled,--how, we are not told,--but I trust it was in a manner which did not roughly interfere with the established custom of the country.

For another instance of the kind I am indebted to the Church Missionary Record. The story is a very painful one, whether we consider it as an exhibition of the vices of the native character in its unreclaimed state, or as indicating a course which appears to me to have been injudiciously adopted in dealing with their customs.

The facts of the case are briefly these. On the 19th of July, 1838, Taraia, a chief of Ngatetematara, came to Maraetai, (where Mr. Fairburn was residing with his family,) in a war canoe accompanied by thirty armed men. His object was to exact an utu, which he appears to have long demanded, for a wahi tapu which had been trodden on by Mr. Fairburn's cows. The charge was no doubt a vexatious and unpleasant one; but, if it was made in strict accordance with what may be called the customary law of New Zealand, it ought to have been respected. And it would seem from the terms in which Taraia made known the object of his visit to Mr. Fairburn, that he made his demand more for the sake of what he believed to be his right than of making any considerable acquisition: he had not come, he said, to behave ill or to do him an

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injury, but he wanted a payment, however small, for his wahi-tapu. Mr. Fairburn continues:--"I told him he knew very well that those matters had all been settled long ago, when he, among others, signed a document to that effect at the Puriri; which document I produced, and showed him his signature. This seemed to puzzle him a little. He then argued that the wahi tapu was not included. After telling him that the boundaries named included everything, I cut the matter short by assuring him that I did not intend to give anything more."

In the discussions upon the feasibility and justice of colonizing New Zealand, it was frequently asserted that when the New Zealanders sold their land they did not intend to part with it altogether, or wholly to divest themselves of the rights which they possessed in respect of it; and it is extremely likely that the right of demanding utu for the desecration of a wahi tapu is the very last of which a New Zealander conceives that he divests himself, when he sells land to an European, or rather when he joins with other chiefs in signing a document, the full purport of which it is impossible for him to understand, although the European may believe that it conveys the land in fee-simple. Nor is there anything more absurd in this exaction than in many of the customs which our law still retains in relation to certain kinds of tenure. But the New Zealander had no precedents to allege, nor any lawyers to plead his cause, nor any court of justice to try the question at issue; and the Englishman, therefore, had full power to cut the matter short by refusing to pay.

Mr. Fairburn's refusal to make any kind of atonement for the trespass on the sacred place was followed by a great deal of intimidation on the part of the natives, but no act of violence against Mr. Fairburn or his property; they were detained for a

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week by bad weather in his boat-house, and, as he heard before the end of that time that their provisions were consumed, he sent them out of compassion a large basket of corn, for which they were thankful; and two days afterwards they left Maraetai.

But the mischief had not come to an end; released from the overpowering awe which paralyzed their arms in the presence of the European, and exasperated no doubt by the fruitlessness of their late endeavour, they crossed over the country to the banks of a river in the Waikato district called Horotiu, where they found seven individuals in a solitary house, six of whom they murdered, and "brought bach their limbs as evidences of their success" in this horrible exploit.

That a degree of sanctity should attach to the place where a dead body has reposed, is not an instance of barbarism but of sympathy with the universal feelings of the human kind. We display this sympathy ourselves in the care with which we fence the monuments of our kindred, and the pains we take to preserve our cemeteries from violation. Nor should we forget the minute and troublesome regulations which were imposed upon the Jews by the laws of Moses in reference to the accidental defilement which they contracted by touching a dead body, or entering the place where a dead body lay. All this should lead us to respect any regulations of a similar kind which we find existing among an infant people.

But while it is incumbent upon the British settlers to treat such institutions with respect, it would be quite possible, in the pliant state of the mind and national habits of the New Zealanders, so to circumscribe and modify them as to render them a benefit, instead of an injury to the public. The wahi tapus, while retaining their sacred character and imposing the necessity of paying utu for their desecration, might be limited in number and place; they might be made

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fixed and permanent, instead of shifting and accidental; they might become, in fact, the cemeteries of the country; and while the solemnity of the taboo should be retained, any gross and superstitious notions respecting it might be removed; the amount of utu might also be fixed, and become a mere harmless fine for trespass on a burying ground.

Besides the right of demanding compensation for trespass, the New Zealanders possess, under the sanction of their utu, a right of becoming individually avengers of blood, by exacting a life in return for that which has been taken; and it has often been represented as leading from murder to murder, until the very existence of whole tribes has been endangered.

This law of retaliation has prevailed in the early history of all people, and ought to be superseded--not by the more sweeping and certain vengeance of a still sterner law, which would confound in one common destruction, both manslayer and avenger of blood; but, according to the course which has been adopted in all former cases of a like kind, by substituting in its place the law of compensation. For it is certain "that one of the first steps towards civility in the infancy of all nations, has been the substitution in criminal justice of fines proportionate to the offences, for the savage law of retaliation and the right of private revenge 23."

As they designate their right of revenge, as well as their right of demanding compensation, by the single term of utu, it is very probable that they confound the two ideas. And a remarkable instance of this confusion of ideas, appears in the conduct of Teraia, who having failed in obtaining the compensation that he required, proceeded to take the lives of six individuals. But it should be the object of the reformers of their

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laws to point out the distinction between the two ideas, and to substitute the bloodless payment for the exaction of blood.

Another right akin to that of the avenger of blood, and which could probably be got rid of in the same way, is the private right which they exercise of avenging the dishonour of their beds by taking the life of the adulterer.

It is possible too that the law of compensation, besides being a good substitute for the bloody law of retaliation, might in the first stages of improved native justice be made use of as a punishment for certain crimes, which the New Zealanders may consider themselves entitled to commit by a kind of prescriptive right, such as infanticide, arbitrary destruction of slaves, &c. For independently of the degree in which we may suppose their national honour to be involved, in claiming the right to exercise these crimes according to their common law, their punishment as capital offences might be very oppressive, from the inadequate notions which they have been accustomed to entertain respecting their moral guilt, and the slight value which, as compared with other human beings, they attach to the possession of life.

The institutions of Slavery and Polygamy are wholly inconsistent with our legal and moral codes, though they have been tolerated by the legislatures of more civilized countries than New Zealand. But bad as they are, they have the absolute sanction of the present unwritten law of that country, and the natives are no doubt firmly attached to them. Now, if it be an immediate consequence of the establishment of British sovereignty, to put them down by force, should not the native chiefs who are invited to give up their

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sovereignty be made fully aware, that such will be the consequence of its cession?

It has been represented as an advantage in the position occupied by the missionaries, that it was out of their power to force any alteration in the laws and customs of the people; that they were obliged to tolerate them and submit to them, and had no other way but that of example and Christian instruction, to bring them over to less barbarous usages. And it is a question, whether British law should in either of these respects make a sudden and forcible innovation on New Zealand custom.

If these practices could be laid aside by universal consent, and if the chiefs could be sufficiently remunerated for the loss of privilege they would incur by the abolition of slavery, it would be extremely desirable. But in the absence of such universal consent it becomes I think a serious question, whether the establishment of British sovereignty ought to be more subversive of the unwritten but customary law of New Zealand, than it is of the Mahomedan or Gentoo laws of more civilized countries.

But customs of a far deeper shade of guilt are sanctioned by the common usage of the country. Cannibalism, infanticide, and the murder of one another in cool blood, are not the less horrible because they have now become familiar to our minds as practised by the New Zealanders. Such practices--and there are perhaps others, of which we have not heard and should not wish to hear--cannot be tolerated. But even they should be abolished without an appearance of tyranny, and without involving a loss of native life.

With reference to these usages, every Christian will echo the words of Lord Normanby, "The savage

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practices of human sacrifice and of cannibalism must be promptly and decisively interdicted. Such atrocities, under whatever plea of religion they may take place, are not to be tolerated within any part of the dominions of the British Crown 24." While, with Captain Hobson, we are strongly prompted to inquire in reply, whether, upon the failure of other means, the British authorities would be sanctioned in putting them down by force.

The above review of the evils and atrocities which are sanctioned by the custom of New Zealand, must strongly impress us with the obligations we are under to Missionary exertions, in having done so much towards their abolishment throughout the country. And, although I am far from thinking that such exertions can accomplish all that is required in New Zealand, nothing, I am sure, can so effectually put an end to all that excites our abhorrence there, as the universal diffusion of purifying and elevating principles, either by the example and improving intercourse of a Christian community, or the public and private instructions of a Christian ministry.

But I shall now state briefly some particular measures which I think might be useful in dealing with the difficulties of the case. I shall make my suggestions upon the supposition that British sovereignty is established over the whole of New Zealand, or at least over the Company's territory. And from what I say under this supposition, you will readily infer the course that I should recommend, in case the natives refuse to yield their sovereignty, and desire you to make laws for them.

I. I think the first business of the British consti-

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tuted authorities, in reference to criminal affairs, should be to observe and not to act.

(1.) To arrange and classify according to their different amounts of guilt the various crimes and enormities habitually committed by New Zealanders.

(2.) To observe and ascertain the different degrees of criminality or illegality which may be attached to them, according to New Zealand estimation.

(3.) To inquire what punishments, either in accordance with the lex talionis or in any more formal manner, are usually awarded to particular crimes.

(4.) To inquire what native customs respecting crime might with advantage be systematized and consolidated, so as to make punishment fixed and distinct, instead of random and uncertain; what native customs should be abolished as being in themselves criminal and contrary to humanity, and what new penal laws should be enacted.

But let it not be supposed that in dissuading from an early exercise of penal measures, I mean that criminal acts ought not to be prevented. Let every effort be made, let no pains be spared, to prevent them. Were a murder about to be committed, either of a child by its mother, a slave by his master, a victim by the priest, or a captive by the conqueror, there is a law above every law, which would impel us to rush in and prevent the butchery, even at the risk of our own life. In such cases the authority of the British magistrate may safely be interposed; and it is to be hoped that his calm presence and strong prohibitory arm, will be sufficient to put an effectual stop to all such proceedings throughout New Zealand. There must be in every human soul, civilized or savage, such an innate consciousness of the guilt of such actions, as to invest with a character of rectitude the power interposed for their prevention, even though that power have no civil right to exercise its authority for

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such a purpose; and these firm prohibitory acts would deepen in the New Zealand mind, the innate sense of the guilt of such atrocities, as their own old customary usage has long tended to weaken it. But it is one thing to prevent a crime, and it is another thing to punish it by death when it has been committed.

II. Whatever laws issuing from British authority are brought to bear upon the natives, ought first to have the sanction of the natives themselves, and afterwards to be thoroughly made known throughout the country. The office analogous to that of herald which they are said to have among themselves, would probably afford facilities for this measure. It appears to me that if this be not done, the course pursued in order to invest Great Britain with the sovereignty of the country, is a deception. If native consent is necessary in the one case, it is also necessary in the other. British sovereignty is not British despotism, and will not authorize an overthrow of the institutions of the country. The natives should find that the establishment of our dominion on their shores, is not the annihilation of their political existence. It is evident from the measures which they take previously to the alienation of their lands, that they have some kind of social organization among themselves; that they have methods for ascertaining the public will, and making it the rule of their proceedings. This certainly ought not to be abolished, but modified in such a manner as to find its place among the future institutions of the country. It ought especially to be made use of in order to lay before the natives, and confirm by their sanction any change which it may be desirable to make in the customary law of their country respecting criminal matters.

III. The difficulty of establishing a good penal code in New Zealand may suggest the advantage of adopting, in the case of an infant people, what is

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found so advantageous in the training of all other infants, the principle of rewards and honours. This principle is incompatible with an advanced condition of society, where a knowledge of the benefit of right doing is motive sufficient for the great majority; but there are many reasons for its adoption in the management of New Zealanders. For they, like infants, will not practice what is right for its own sake; but will easily be led to prize it for any arbitrary value we may append to it; and will by habit learn to esteem it as it deserves for its intrinsic worth.

No objection on the ground of right can be made against this mode of governing. If we establish a system of rewards and honours, we make for ourselves a legitimate and merciful instrument of punishment, by having the power of withholding rewards and depriving of honours.

And it would be far from difficult to devise a system of rewards and honours, which, with very little expense and trouble to the settlers, would be most highly valued, and afford the strongest impulse to good conduct among the natives.

One mode of conferring honours would be to place them in offices of authority and trust. It is a fact confirmed by the testimony of those who have had experience in the training of youth, whether in the navy or in public schools, that the very circumstance of being placed in a position of trust and authority, has often proved sufficient to call forth the qualities required for its discharge, where before there were no symptoms of their existence.

Nor would distinctions purely honorary be without their use. One might, perhaps, suggest a ribbon, or a medal, or enrolment in an order of merit 25.

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The very plan proposed to you as a substitute for law by the Directors of the New Zealand Company, when they found that "the agreement" was illegal, might be so modified as to operate upon the natives, and have the force of law without its penal enactments 26. We know how men are led by opinion in their estimate of honours, and what a natural taste we have for everything which gives us distinction, and identifies us with an honourable body. We may well believe, therefore, that if some of the principal members of the Colony would form themselves into an honourable association, into which it should be made a great privilege to enter, but which should be open to the native chiefs--if no one could be admitted into this association who was disgraced by habitual misconduct, and who had not gone through some preparatory discipline, including perhaps a course of military exercises, and if it imposed on its members an obligation to protect the injured, to prevent atrocities, to honour and respect women, and to keep faith, I think the

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native chiefs would be extremely desirous to enter it, and that it might have very valuable results.

IV. Before dismissing this subject, I am desirous of saying a few words on the mode of punishing the natives for crimes committed on Europeans.

The course to adopt in prescribing and enforcing the law in these cases is plainer than might at first sight appear. For a long time the natives have almost wholly abstained from such acts, and they are fully aware of the guilt and danger of committing them. And from their natural awe of the English, and their habit of considering them as a kind of superior beings, they would feel less disposed to consider themselves as hardly dealt with, if punished according to the rigour of British law for the murder of an Englishman, than if they received a similar punishment for inflicting death on one of their own people according to the right or the licence granted to them by the customary laws of their country.

The murder of an European by a native is a new thing, and happily a rare thing, and one for which the customary law of New Zealand has made no provision, unless it be the general provision of the law of retaliation, and therefore they will be the less surprised if British law should take upon itself to be the common avenger of all such murders. It is when a New Zealander does that which is no violation of the customs of his country, that he would have reason to be surprised if British law should interpose, and say that he had done a thing worthy of death.

In the former case, therefore, I think there could be no objection to follow a precedent which has, I believe, already been established, namely, to try the natives by a jury consisting of one half native and one half British; while, in the latter case, we should not be too precipitate, since, up to the present time, the New Zealanders have had no idea of being interfered

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with by foreign laws in their transactions among one another. It is one thing to be under the fatherly superintendence of a wise and benevolent guardian state, and it is another thing to become subject to the iron hand and indiscriminating vengeance of a code of laws of which we know nothing, and which we are by custom continually violating.

In this respect there is a remarkable contrast between the actual circumstances of the natives of Australia and the possible circumstances of the New Zealanders. From the greater wildness of the former, crimes, except when perpetrated on Europeans, can seldom come under the cognizance of the magistrate, and therefore, although their country has long been subject to British law, they may among themselves be lawless with impunity. While, in respect of punishment for crimes committed by a native on an Englishman, a far greater degree of equity could be administered to the New Zealander than has been administered to the Australian, inasmuch as the New Zealander could not be punished by British law until he had submitted himself to British sovereignty, and might be tried by a jury in part composed of his own countrymen, whereas the Australians are tried wholly by strangers, whose sovereignty they have never acknowledged, for crimes committed on strangers, whom the law of nations allows them to consider as invaders of their shores, and spoilers of their possessions.

I have hitherto spoken of measures to be taken with reference to the circumstances of the natives of New Zealand, while they continue in what may be called the infancy of their social existence. But it is right that we should throw our regards into futurity, and consider what is likely to be their condition after a lapse of time.

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We can hardly expect that at any future period the country will be inhabited by two races equally civilized and happy, and enjoying the same social and political privileges, but perfectly distinct from each other in blood and complexion. We may support the natives in a position of advantage for some years to come, and justice and sound policy require that we should; but if we wish to see the country inhabited by a powerful, happy, and well-ordered people, we must look forward to the amalgamation of the two races into one.

Upon the expediency and feasibility of this course I shall not dwell, as I believe you are all quite sensible of it; and there is an uniformly concurring testimony that the New Zealanders possess those mental and physical qualities which would qualify them for matrimonial alliance with Europeans, and give the hope of a fine and intelligent progeny. All I wish is to suggest some steps which I think might be taken with reference to this prospect.

It is very likely that when you arrive in New Zealand, you will already find some alliances to have taken place between the previous settlers and the native females. In some instances it is possible that these alliances may have been sanctioned by the marriage ceremony, but in others it is too probable that the parties will be living in concubinage.

Of course you will treat these different cases in a different way. It is extremely important that both the natives and the previous settlers should feel that you regard no connexion with approbation but such as amounts to lawful wedlock; and that it is your first wish, respecting all such connexions, that they should as speedily as possible be invested with a legitimate character.

But it would be hardly possible, and I question whether it would be right, to make any difference in

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your treatment of the offspring of such alliances. It would be very unwise to connect any feeling of disgrace with the mixed blood. Children of such complexion must be regarded with the greatest interest, and cultivated with the greatest care, as being in some degree the representatives of what we must expect the whole New Zealand people at some period to become. However essential, therefore, it may be to discountenance illicit connexions between Englishmen and native females, as being calculated beyond all other things, to degrade the native race and counteract your plans for their improvement,--it would be very unwise at the present stage of things to visit the crime of the father upon the child by attaching manifest disgrace to such illegitimacy. As far, therefore, as circumstances allow, these children, of whatever parentage, should be educated with the greatest care, and every pains taken to develop and regulate their moral and intellectual qualities. They must be considered as very remarkable and interesting specimens of the human family, and would no doubt afford you a most important field for moral culture. It is worthy of notice, that the two coloured men, Frazer and Peter Jones, who have from time to time excited attention in England by their sermons and speeches, are both of mixed blood, and this would seem to indicate that the best instances of intellectual and moral developement must be sought, not in the purely coloured race, but in the race that results from amalgamation.

It cannot be denied that the half-cast race in the various quarters of the world is often distinguished by very bad qualities, such as low cunning, violent passions, and immorality. And this has led hasty reasoners to declaim at large against the principle of amalgamation. But there can be little doubt that such bad qualities would be sufficiently accounted for

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by the worthless character of the parentage, the disgrace attached to the condition, and the utter absence of moral training, or rather the entire abandonment to the worst possible influences, which would doubtless be observable in all such cases. If the ordinance of Holy Matrimony be set aside, and give place to a selfish and unholy indulgence of the passions; and if the offspring of such connexions be handed down even by the criminal author of their being to contempt and crime; we may well expect them to become a deformity to their species, and a bye-word against the principle of amalgamation.

But if we reverse the picture,--if we suppose these alliances to result from a sensible persuasion that it is not good for man to be alone--to be viewed with a generous superiority to the prejudices of colour, and to be accompanied by those sentiments of personal regard, and those hopes for futurity which are the cementers and supports of matrimonial happiness in Christian countries,--and if we suppose that the offspring of such marriages become objects of jealous care not only to their parents, but to the whole community of which they form a part, it would be a libel upon God's dealings with his intelligent creatures to presume that such children would be less susceptible of moral influence than the children of unmixed blood, whether light or coloured.

This leads me to urge the absolute importance of surrounding these connexions by all that can make marriage most honoured and most respected, and of promoting the most rigid morality in the intercourse between the colonists and the natives.

I hope I may be expressing the conviction of every one among you, when I say that there is nothing which, as individuals, and as the germ of a future community, you ought so vigilantly and religiously to guard against, as the slightest approach to laxity of

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principle in this direction. Nor is there a subject on which it more behoves you to implore the succour of Divine grace in order that you may be "blameless and without offence."

There could not be a more certain portent of every social and civil calamity, of the utter failure of all your plans, and the shame and confusion of those who have looked forward to the colonization of New Zealand as an instrument of good, than for the British colonists to seek the gratification of their passions in the corruption and dishonour of the native race; while nothing would more contribute to the rapid improvement and elevation of the natives, and your own comfort and respectability, than to extend and refine their notions upon the subject of female virtue. I earnestly hope and pray that in this particular the first British colony of New Zealand may afford a striking contrast to the past crimes of colonization, to the conduct of the lawless settlers in New Zealand, and to the laxity of morals which is said to prevail in the neighbouring colony of New South Wales. And in this hope I am encouraged by the wise precautions which have been taken by the Directors of the New Zealand Company and the colonists, and by the happy examples of matrimonial comfort and respectability which you possess among yourselves, and from the means of moral and religious culture which you have carried out with you.

If any are disposed to smile at the idea of an amalgamation between the New Zealanders and the British, we may refer to the precedent of the marriage of Mr. Rolfe with Pocahuntas in the early times of American colonization, and the remarkable fact that many of the best families in Virginia are proud to trace their origin to such a source. Unhappily the example set by Mr. Rolfe was not followed. It was the custom and perhaps the policy of the age to regard

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the aboriginal races with contempt, and to rejoice at anything which gave a plausible pretext for their destruction. A better tone of mind prevails at the present moment; and the best proof that there is no natural repugnance to the contraction of marriages between the natives and the British, is to be found in the number of children of the half-blood already born in New Zealand.

The first step towards the promotion of marriages between the two races will be what I have already indicated, viz., the legal ratification of all such connexions actually existing in New Zealand, but which from indifference, bad example, or the absence of means have never assumed the matrimonial character. No doubt, while the natives are under the influence of missionaries, and the native female has been baptized, a marriage according to the rites of the Church would have been performed; and certainly where the female remains a heathen, she is not in a condition to participate in the performance of such a ceremony. But the difficulty which is here presented may, I think, be fairly got over by the permission given to us by the law to make marriage a purely civil contract; and however we might desire to invest it with a religious character, it is certainly no mean step in a progress towards civilization and good order, "dare jura maritis," to surround the marriage rite with those legal sanctions which have received the common consent of all civilized nations.

How far in any individual case, we ought to give our countenance to a contemplated marriage between a Christian and a New Zealander persisting in heathenism, is a very different question. Nothing I conceive but the necessity of preventing an illicit connexion could warrant us in advising such a measure. But such a case of conscience is not likely to arise, as from the strong disposition which prevails among the

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New Zealanders to accept Christianity, it is more than probable that no conscientious Briton would be likely to wish to marry a New Zealander who was not at least a catechumen; while for those with whom the question should lie between marriage and a connexion unsanctioned by marriage, there can be no question that a merely civil contract would be better than no contract at all.

To marriage, unexceptionable in every point of view, every encouragement should be given. If by any means marriage portions could be given with a native female, it would be well; and if the plan for enriching the families of the native chiefs should prove successful, (and its success will depend on the general success of the colony,) the daughters of the native chiefs will be among the most richly endowed heiresses of the country.

Nor should we neglect other means for encouraging such alliances. The natives who form them should feel that they are entering into a new family of countrymen and countrywomen; and their marriages should not only be celebrated with religious solemnity, but be made occasions of picturesque interest and innocent rejoicing. All men are powerfully influenced by ceremonies, and this taste is, no doubt, one of the intended means for promoting order and system throughout mankind: those who are affected with morbid hyper-civilization, think they can dispense with them; but it is a happy thing that this taste exists strongly among the infant races of the world, and it may, no doubt, be made an important instrument in their social culture.

Among the other matters of interest in New Zealand, we must reckon its future language. There can

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be no doubt, that in order to its rapid advancement and civilization, we must hope that the English language will become universal throughout the country. In aiming at this object, however, we must be as careful for the interests of the natives as in all our other purposes, and we shall find, as in everything else, that policy and humanity will dictate the same course.

There is a society which has for its object to disseminate the Scriptures in the native Irish, and by its means much colloquial intercourse takes place in the Irish language, between its agents and the native inhabitants. The consequence is, that the English language is now rapidly spreading in places where before it was not understood. The habit of reading, the cultivation of mind, and the enlargement of ideas, consequent upon the intercourse of the natives in their own language, with the agents of the society, has led the people to a still further developement of their faculties in the acquirement of English; where the opposite course, of refusing to speak to them in any language but English, effectually debarred them from the possibility of acquiring it.

Another reason for acquiring the New Zealand language is, that you may become acquainted with their thoughts. For unless you know the mind and genius of the people, you cannot frame laws and institutions for them; and unless they have laws to suit them they must perish. One of the first steps towards civilization and legislation, in New Zealand, would manifestly be to learn their language,--to examine it critically, to see what resources it possesses,--how far it is calculated for expressing the complicated processes of human thought, and of what changes for the better it is susceptible. It would also be desirable to collect, and reduce into writing, any rude poems or songs, and popular legendary tales or traditions, they

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may have among them, as well as any common sayings of a proverbial or ethical character.

It is extremely probable that the dialect spoken by the common class of British settlers is as remote from the perfection of the New Zealand language, as their English would be an unfair representation of the language of well-educated Englishmen; and it will be a question for future investigation, how far the terms into which the New Zealand missionaries have translated portions of the Scriptures, and the Liturgy, are those into which men of learning and philosophy would have moulded the language of New Zealand, to express the same ideas. Care should be taken to avoid words and expressions formed upon base and vulgar analogies, as well as everything which, to the New Zealand ear, must present the character of jargon; and the latter must, I conceive, be the case where an European word is made use of to express an European idea. It appears to me that, by following the analogies of the Greek or German languages, in their mode of deriving and compounding words to express new ideas, there is no important idea for which a word might not be legitimately formed from New Zealand roots. I am led to make this observation from the number of words of manifest English derivation which I see in the translations above referred to.

The Bishop of Australia, when in New Zealand, inquired very closely into this subject, and it is satisfactory to hear him say, with reference to the adoption of particular words and phrases by the translator 27, "I was gratified to find that he was invariably prepared with a reason; and my impression is, that where there were conflicting reasons, each carrying weight, he had generally given the preference to that which deserved it." The Bishop, however, acknowledges that his

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acquaintance with the language was not sufficient to enable him to judge critically of its fidelity to the original. Nor can it be supposed that any one could become thoroughly acquainted with its resources except by a great deal of intercourse among the people, accompanied by a clear insight into the metaphysics of language in general.

In many of the foregoing pages I have given my opinion with the utmost freedom as to the defects which I think observable in the course adopted by the missionaries for the improvement and benefit of the native tribes. They appear to me to have had no adequate notions either of the magnitude or of the minute difficulties and delicate character of the work they were undertaking in attempting to form an uncultivated people into the germ of a future nation. They appear also to evince the very common incapacity of establishing a fair adjustment of the relative rights and duties of savage and civilized men when brought into a common field of action.

But if we turn from the secular part of their proceedings to the religious effect of their labours, we have ample reason for gratitude. The fruits of their instructions, whether we regard the spiritual change which has been wrought in some, or the great moral change which is almost universal, have been indeed surprising, and give ample evidence that their ministry has been attended with the Divine blessing, and has paved the way for those ulterior measures of improvement which will now be brought to bear upon the natives. Nor can it be doubted that a continuance of the same and similar instructions will be absolutely essential as a guard against the spiritual danger of those ulterior measures, conducted, as they must be, with a chief reference to the things of this life.

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Can there be a greater proof of the miraculous effect of Christian teaching in reclaiming and ennobling the mind of the savage,--while it exhibits in the most odious colours the brutality and insolence of our own countrymen, and gives an instance of that kind of dealing with the old masters of the soil, which I trust will receive a sudden and surprising check by the establishment of British authority,--than is contained in the following incident:--

Nor do we want evidence of still higher effects of the power of religion. The dying moments of the New Zealander have often been accompanied by a sense of guilt removed, and an assurance of eternal life, which have amply repaid both the missionaries and the religious public at home for the trouble and expense which has been incurred in promoting their conversion.

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There is much that is deeply affecting in the results of Christianity on the mind of an uncultivated or infant people. Their ready reception of its truths seems to verify the words of our Lord, "I thank thee, O Father, lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." Such were the Galatians when Paul preached to them, and when they received him as an angel of God, and would, if it had been possible, have plucked out their eyes, and have given them to him. Such too, we may indulge the belief, was the effect produced upon our own ancestors by the first preaching of Christianity. In some particulars the religion of the converted New Zealanders may be very defective, especially in those points which require the exercise of a well-practised understanding; but in many respects, no doubt, it might put to the blush the Christianity of much more civilized countries. May God forbid that they should see anything in the general religious tone of the first British colony in New Zealand, which will tend to deaden their religious feelings, to make their devotion less fervent, or to blunt their conscience!

Every Christian must rejoice that the colony went out with the expressed intention of acting in a missionary character; but something more than intention is required for the performance of such a work. Enlightened self-interest must point out to you the great advantage you would gain by forming the natives into a well-ordered community. But self-interest will never teach the course or prompt the efforts that are necessary in order to change the heart of a heathen. "This kind," said our Lord, on one occasion, "goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." And you, too, will find that nothing but a sincere and self-denying zeal in the cause of religion, a zeal founded on strong faith and actuated by the Divine spirit, will

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give you any success as a missionary colony. It is my most earnest prayer, therefore, both on your own account, and for the sake of the natives, that the power of religion may be made manifest among the colonists themselves.

To this end the means of grace are necessary, and it is another subject for gratitude, that, from the moment of your arrival at your destination, you will possess these means in greater abundance than any infant colony that ever left Great Britain. But I trust that something more is in prospect. To the order and completeness of the Church of England,--adhering in this respect to the universal practice of the Church Catholic from the earliest times,--it is necessary that each community of her members should be under the superintendence of a bishop; and where-ever she exists without a bishop, her organization is defective in its most important part, namely, in that which presides over and regulates the whole. I am happy to say that there is at this moment in England an active and increasing desire to give to the Church in the colonies this important element of completeness and perfection, and that diligent efforts are now making, under the sanction of the highest ecclesiastical authority, to provide the means for appointing a bishop to oversee the flocks of Christ in the southern part of the northern island of New Zealand. May God vouchsafe his blessing on these exertions, and make them abundantly effectual in the promotion of his glory and the welfare of immortal souls.

In the mean time it is of the utmost consequence that the best feeling should be kept up between you and those important religious bodies which now exist in New Zealand. It should ever be remembered that, when that country was in its most savage state, they went there for the single purpose of converting its natives to Christianity, and that it is mainly owing to

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their labours that you are now able to establish yourselves in safety upon its shores. Nor can there be the slightest doubt of the purity of intention and devout Christian feeling of the superintending societies at home, or that their opposition to the measures for colonizing New Zealand was dictated by an anxious solicitude for the good of those whom they considered as their spiritual charge. On you the eyes of those societies are at this moment fixed, and it is still anticipated by many of their members that your settlement in the country will be a formidable impediment to the success of their missions, and a source of grievous injury to the natives. But if such fears are now entertained, as it is natural to suppose, I trust that ere long you will be known and justified by your fruits. It is also most earnestly to be desired that there should be a perfect understanding between you and their agents in New Zealand, and that you should heartily co-operate together in the great religious and philanthropic purposes which both of you desire to promote.

With regard to the reports which have been spread in this country to the disadvantage of the missionaries on the ground of the large purchases of land which they have made from the natives, I can only say that I hope everything respecting it will be cleared up to the satisfaction of every impartial observer. There was much to induce the missionaries to make such purchases at the time when they were made: and it yet remains to be seen how they will be disposed of. I earnestly hope that they will at least see it to be no less for their interest than an act of justice to make reserves for the natives out of the still uncultivated parts of such purchases, to the same extent, and on the same principle, as those which have been made for them out of the lands purchased by the New Zealand Company. It never could have been the inten-

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tion of the missionaries to raise the fortunes of their families on the ruins of the native race: and it is still in their power to contribute their influence to establish, as a general rule, that one-tenth portion of the whole territory of New Zealand,--to be determined by lot out of such portion of the soil as still remains uncultivated, and to share, therefore, equally with the rest of the land in the gradual improvement in value, which it will all acquire as a consequence of its colonization,--shall be the perpetual and indefeasible possession of the original proprietors of the soil.

May God, in his mercy, grant that the period of evil reports, suspicions, and recriminations, may be drawing to a close, and that the time may be approaching when men will understand each other better, and give each other credit for the same honesty of purpose by which they are actuated themselves! There certainly never was a time when so universal an interest was expressed about the future circumstances of any savage people, as is now expressed about the New Zealanders. And if as yet we have never witnessed the perfect civilization of an aboriginal race, it should impress us with a deep sense of the difficulties of our undertaking, but should not lead us to despair. Much thought,--much mutual forbearance,--a free communication of ideas,--an impartial investigation of all suggestions,--and, above all, an humble application to the throne of Grace for that assistance, without which all our efforts must be vain,--may, at least, be expected from every Christian, and every lover of his fellow-creatures who is now engaged in the exciting and most important work of planting the first British colony in New Zealand. Nor do I think that we should presume too much, were we to anticipate that such a course, accompanied by corresponding activity and perseverance, would be successful.