III. Protest against the general doctrine put forth by Earl Grey, as the principle upon which Colonization should be henceforward conducted by Great Britain.
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ENGLAND AND THE NEW ZEALANDERS.
III. Protest against the general doctrine put forth by Earl Grey, as the principle upon which Colonization should be henceforward conducted by Great Britain.
It is not intended to enter into any argument as to the merits of the theory itself, but simply to protest against it, on the several grounds following:
1. It is hardly necessary to protest seriously against receiving any one man's authority as conclusive, in any matter of mere theory.
But, if one man's authority could be so received, certainly not Dr. Arnold's. Few men have put forth more theories; and few men's theories have won, hitherto, less acceptance. The one theory upon which he reflected most (that of Church and State) appears not to have been accepted by any one of the friends whose judgment he himself most highly valued. [See Life of Dr. Arnold, by Stanley.]
2. If any writing of Dr. Arnold's could possess such authority, certainly it would not be the writing which Earl Grey quotes.
The passage cited occurs in an article written for a Newspaper. . (Englishman's Register, No. 6. June 11th. 1831.) The article begins thus,
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"The Labourers of England.
"Since the publication of our last Number, I have happened to meet with some other writings upon this subject, which profess indeed to remedy the distresses of the poor in a manner sufficiently summary. According to them, etc." Dr. Arnold then enters into an argument, of which the passage cited by Earl Grey forms a part.
That "last number"--No. 5.--was published June 4th. 1831. The writings then were met with, considered, and answered--and the answers published---within the course of one week at the longest. 1
Earl Grey remarks, by way of a reason for accepting the passage cited by him as of authority, that "it was written not with reference to passing events or to any controversy which was at that time going on, etc." Does not the very first sentence of the Article, as just quoted, show the contrary to have been the fact?
The hastiness of the composition further appears from this, that the only statement made in the course of the Article, as of a matter of fact, is erroneous. It is not true, as Dr. Arnold assumes, that "our fathers took possession of the hunting grounds of the Indians." It has been shown above that they bought, and did not take, those hunting grounds.
3. This theory itself is expressly rejected by one author (at least) of not inferior authority, in a work written deliberately. Paley says, 'We now speak of Property in Land: and there is a difficulty in explaining the origin of this property consistently with the law of nature:-- Moralists have given many different accounts of this matter; which diversity alone perhaps is a proof that none of them are satisfactory. One tells
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us that, etc,--Another says that each man's limbs and labour are his own exclusively; that, by occupying apiece of ground, a man inseparably mixes his labour with it; by which means the piece of ground becomes thenceforward his own, as you cannot take it from him without depriving him at the same time of something which is indisputably his.--But this will hardly hold in the manner it has been applied, of taking a ceremonious possession of a tract of land, as navigators do of new discovered islands, by erecting a standard, engraving an inscription, or publishing a proclamation to the birds and beasts, or of turning your cattle into a piece of ground, setting up a landmark, digging a ditch or planting a hedge round it. Nor will even the clearing, manuring, and ploughing of a field give the first occupier a right to it in perpetuity, and after this cultivation and all effects of it are ceased. --Another, and in my opinion a better, account of the first right of ownership is the following: etc." 2
4. The theory, whether sound or unsound in itself, was not intended by Dr. Arnold to be applied to a case like this of New Zealand. When Earl Grey transfers it to the case of New Zealand he does so contrary to the express words of the author or propounder of the Theory itself.
Dr. Arnold limits his doctrine to "countries which have been hunted over but never subdued"--to "mere hunting-grounds -- to "lands on which man had hitherto bestowed no labour."
Earl Grey himself says
"It is ture the New Zealanders, when European settlements commenced among them, were not a people of hunters;
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they lived, in a great measure at least, upon the produce of the soil, (chiefly perhaps its spontaneous produce,) and practised to a certain extent a rude sort of agriculture." 3
In fact, a large part of the surface of these Islands--by far the larger part of the surface of this Northern Island--has been cleared and subdued by the labour of the native people.
5. This theory has been disclaimed, by solemn and repeated acts and declarations, in the name and by the authority of Kings and Queens of England, during the Colonization of North America. This has been shown above.
And it is to be remarked that, not only were those acts and declarations inconsistent with the theory; but that, precisely the same theory was distinctly propounded more than a hundred years ago, and was rejected by our fathers.
Dr. Arnold and Earl Grey were anticipated by the Revd. Mr. Bulkley of Connecticut in 1724. "But" says Mr. Chancellor Kent, "whatever loose opinions might have been entertained, or latitudinary doctrines inculcated in favour of the abstract right to possess and colonize America, it is certain that in point of fact the Colonists were not satisfied, or did not deem it expedient, to settle the country without the consent of the Aborigines, procured by fair purchase under the sanction of the civil authorities." 4
6. The New Zealanders, being British subjects, are entitled to the protection of British law.
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Now, by British law, certain rights of property are recognized and maintained, which are based, not on labour expended, but simply on the custom or law of the country. This is the case with many moors and wastes in England and Scotland, used for sporting only. The persons, whom the Law regards as proprietors of those tracts, can only be called such in a lower sense than that in which the term might be applied to the North American Indian ranging over his forests. The acts of dominion or ownership are fewer in number, and less important, on the part of the Englishman than of the Indian: the Indian's game being his food, whilst the Englishman's game is only his sport. Yet this lowest of all kinds of property is protected by English laws, under severe sanctions.
By the new principle, every labourer has a natural right to occupy any uncultivated land in any country.
7. The old principle having been nationally re-asserted and applied to the case of New Zealand by a treaty in the Queen's name, by express recognitions and confirmations by four successive Colonial Ministers in the name of successive Governments (to say nothing of words and deeds in the Colony itself);
Is it possible to admit an after-thought of a fifth Colonial Minister, on the supposed authority of Dr. Arnold? Is it not too late, when the Colony has been founded on a principle directly opposite to the doctrines now propounded?
8. What would be the practical result of the application of these new principles to New Zealand, may be inferred from the following brief statement of the actual position of the natives, in respect of the soil of their country.
A few centuries back, the forefathers, of the present native people reached this country. In order to cultivate, they be-
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gan to clear away, by the aid of fire, the forest which then; covered nearly the whole of the land. Every year a fresh strip of forest was burned off, and a fresh strip of soil cultivated. So the different parties of immigrants advanced inland: some from the sea; others, who happened to have explored a river or discovered a lake, from the banks of the river or the lake.
In this way a very large portion of the surface has been cleared: in this Northern island, probably not less than two thirds of the whole. That the process has been such as is here described, is made apparent to a person travelling across the country, by charred and broken stumps of trees remote from any existing forests--by forest trees still growing in patches on spots inaccessible to cultivation, or in belts along the very edges of watercourses, etc. 5
At such points of the cleared portion as are eligible for purposes of defence, of fishing, etc, permanent villages have been established: but the natives are generally met with in temporary dwellings on the borders of the forests. For example, near Auckland are a few villages on the sea coast. Travelling thence inland for 20 miles over an open country, you find at Papakura a piece of forest (rapidly decreasing) and a native village. Ten miles further, over fern hills, bring you to a second village (Tuimata), at the edge of a second forest. After some miles of forest, broken at intervals by old clearings, you enter upon cultivations, which extend upwards from the valley of the Waikato.
Again at Tauranga, in the Bay of Plenty, there are several
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villages on the sea coast. Travelling inland, towards the South for about 12 miles, you reach native villages on the skirt of the forest. After about 15 miles, you emerge from the wood, and meet a party of cultivators, of another tribe, who have worked upwards from the lake of Rotorua.
The same appearance presents itself to an observer standing on the height of the Wairere, looking Westward across the upper part of the plain of the Thames to Matamata with its forest and two pas, and thence to Maunga Tautari, with its scattered villages, where the cultivators are again settled a-long the borders of the wood.
Indeed, the same state of things recurs, on a larger or smaller scale, in all parts of the country.
In this position the natives are uniformly found. Behind them lies the tract which they or their progenitors have subdued; before them is the forest, into the heart of which they continue to work year after year.
To the natives both tracts are of value; but the value of the unsubdued land is far higher than that of the other. The cleared land affords fern root and runs for their pigs; the swamps yield raupo for their houses, and flax for clothing and for trade; the streams supply ducks, eels and other fish. But the woodland is the source of fuel and of timber for houses and pas, and for canoes, and for the demands of the timber trade. It supplies harbour and breeding places for their pigs; but above all, it is that portion of the soil by the yearly appropriation of which they mainly subsist. It is, in their present state of agriculture, the very bread in their mouths.
They are now to be told that the land already cleared belongs to them, but that the forest land belongs to the Queen: --that to the latter they have no right at all, because they have expended no labour upon it; but that the Queen, who
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also has expended no labour thereon, has an absolute right. That, from which they and their forefathers have derived substantial benefit, and which they have been by daily labour evincing their determination to subdue, is to be yielded up at the command of a distant power; that command, moreover, being issued in violation of solemn promises and assurances to the contrary, proceeding from the same power. They are to be required to sit down and starve, in order that in years to come (in some parts of the country, probably, not within a 100 years at the earliest,) a stranger may appropriate to himself that, which they are at this moment, putting forth their hands to appropriate to themselves.
Can we expect any human beings to acquiesce in a claim like this? especially, men so shrewd of head and strong of hand as the New Zealanders? and that too, when they have been in the habit for generations past, of waging deadly wars in defence of the least of these their rights.
9. But the new theory involves yet more serious consequences, and calls for a yet more solemn protest.
It is not confined to New Zealand. It enunciates a general principle, viz.
That we may enter into any other Country similar to New Zealand, and, without any reference to the usages or customary rights of the people of the country, may lay down our own definition of right, and confiscate the soil of the country in conformity with that definition. Nay, that we ought to do this by preference,--that, even though the natives may be willing to yield to us quiet possession upon receiving some compensation for that which they cede to us, yet we ought always to seize rather than to buy. We are to "avoid, as much as possible, any surrender of the property of the Crown." 6 Now, if the Queen
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were to buy, and pay for, that which is declared to be her property, she would clearly by the very act of purchase surrender her property, and acknowledge it to belong to another.
British Colonization will spread in time over a large part of Polynesia, and the case of New Zealand will occur over and over again. As applied then to the whole Polynesian race, there is now asserted on behalf of Britain a right of invasion or seizure, subject only to such restrictions as we may be willing to impose on ourselves. To the practical working of such a doctrine we do not advert, though there has been abundance of recent experience in various parts of the Pacific. Everywhere, the assertion of a right to take has been met by a not less vigorous assertion of the right to keep. But it cannot be too seriously considered, that now, for the first time, it is announced by a Minister of the Crown of England, that, in the guidance of British Colonization hereafter, the old national principle of Colonization by fair purchase shall (so far as in that Minister lies) be abandoned, and, in its stead, the new principle of Colonization by seizure shall be adopted.
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