CHAPTER II: COLONIZATION
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CHAPTER II.
FOR a period of more than fifty years after its discovery by Captain Cook, New Zealand continued to be the scene of unceasing savage warfare; and it was left in the exclusive occupation of its aboriginal native race. The first to land in the country was the Christian Missionary: by degrees the South Sea whalers gained confidence to frequent its harbour; from time to time an escaped convict from New South Wales, or a runaway seaman, took refuge on its shores; and for the protection of our countrymen, a ship of war occasionally made its appearance on the coast: but it was not until the great natural advantages of the country, and its political importance, were prominently brought before the public by the New Zealand Association, that the true value of the New Zealand Islands was fully understood.
Believing that the occupation of the country would prove injurious to the native inhabitants, and a hinderance to the Mission, the Committee of the Church Missionary Society opposed the project put forward by the New Zealand Company, about twenty years
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ago for planting settlements in these islands; and the Government, averse to new projects, refused to give their sanction to the scheme. In vain was it represented by the promoters of the undertaking that the French nation were contemplating the establishment of a French settlement in the country, and that unless our right to the sovereignty was openly maintained, and immediately acted upon, the French would gain a footing in the country, and that the sovereign rights of Great Britain would be lost; for it was maintained by our own Government, that any right of sovereignty obtained by us from Captain Cook's discovery had already been abandoned: that it had in various legislative enactments admitted that New Zealand was no part of the British dominions; and that his late Majesty had made the most solemn declaration that it was a substantive and independent State. While the controversy was in progress, adventurers from the neighbouring colonies were flocking to New Zealand, to purchase land from the natives, and a Joint Stock Company was formed in England for colonizing the country; and while the Government were demonstrating the theoretical difficulties which prevented the occupation of the country, our countrymen were engaged in practically effecting its Colonization.
The Company which was formed for colonizing New Zealand, having the late Lord Durham at its head, consisted of political economists, colonial reformers, and influential shipowners, bankers, and merchants connected with the City of London; and in political influence it was one of the most powerful Joint Stock
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associations of the day. Amongst the Directors were several men of high character, who were influenced in becoming members of the association solely by patriotic and disinterested motives; but there were also amongst their number those who had a stronger interest in their own individual advantage than in the success of an undertaking formed for the purpose of promoting a great national object; and although men of rank and high character were made to appear before the public as taking an influential part in their proceedings, these gentlemen were frequently but the instruments of their more able but less disinterested colleagues. "I," said Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, "was the principal founder of the Company, and its principal managing director from the time of its formation till the summer of 1846; allowing for intervals of absence occasioned by illness and other occupation at a distance from England.... My incapacity changed the whole character of the direction of the New Zealand Company's affairs; which then fell into the hands of a few persons, in whose minds sound principles of Colonization and Colonial Government were as nothing compared with pounds, shillings, and pence." 1
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The first great object of the New Zealand Company was to induce the Government to erect these islands into a British Colony; but, disappointed in their endeavours, they themselves fitted out and despatched to New Zealand a preliminary expedition, for the purpose of making purchases of land from the natives, for selecting suitable localities for the sites of settlements, and to prepare for the reception of emigrants on their arrival in the country. And, calculating on the success of their agent, they proceeded at once to offer for sale by lottery, in England, the right of selection amongst the lands thus anticipated to be acquired by them; and though the country was at that time almost a byword for barbarism--without law or government, and inhabited by a wild and warlike native race; and though officially warned that their proceedings could not be sanctioned by the Government, the New Zealand Company found purchasers in England to the amount of more than 100,000l. Without waiting to hear what locality had been procured by their agent for the site of a settlement, or whether indeed he had succeeded in making the purchase of a single acre of land, they sent out several ships filled with emigrants, to be
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located on that spot, wherever it might be, which on their arrival in the country they might find to have been procured for that purpose. Yet at that time, and for several years after New Zealand became a dependency of the Crown, but little was known of the common law of real property then, and to this day, in force amongst the native owners of the soil: few were aware of the accurate knowledge they have of boundaries; of the use they make and of the value they attach to tracts of country which to us might appear waste and worthless; and of the tenacity with which they defend their territorial rights; of the number of individuals who, on different grounds, have various degrees of interest in the same piece of land; of the necessity, in order to make a safe purchase of any particular tract of country, of ascertaining who have individual rights to particular portions, as well as who are the chiefs and others who have general rights on the whole; and particularly of having well ascertained and clearly defined the sacred places, eel-fisheries, and other favourite localities, which the owners may desire to have reserved for themselves. It was not then known, in fact, that to complete a safe and satisfactory purchase of land from the natives of New Zealand is a work of as much difficulty, requires as much time, careful investigation, and knowledge of native law and custom, as to complete the purchase of an English baronial estate. 2
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In most of the localities best adapted for the sites of settlements, purchases of land from the natives had already been made by the old residents, by absentee Sydney speculators, and by a host of land-jobbing adventurers. Thus limited in his range of choice, and daily expecting the arrival of some hundred of the Company's emigrants from England, their agent, Colonel Wakefield, had little time or opportunity for a careful examination of the country. Meeting with natives asserting themselves to be the sole owners of the land in the neighbourhood of Cook's Straits, and but imperfectly acquainted with the native law of real property, Colonel Wakefield proceeded to deal with them as if they were its sole and rightful owners; and within a short time after his arrival in the country, he reported to the Company that he had completed the purchase of the harbour of Port Nicholson, and a large tract of the surrounding country, together with a considerable portion of the northern part of the Southern Island.
The Colonization of New Zealand was thus forced upon the Government; and to protect the natives, to avert a war of races, and to rescue the emigrants themselves from the evils of a lawless state of society, it was now resolved "to adopt the most effectual measures for establishing amongst them a settled form of Civil Government." Captain Hobson, who
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had recently visited New Zealand for the purpose of affording protection to our countrymen, and who had shown great ability and judgment in his Report on the state of the country and its people, was selected to conduct the undertaking. All claim to Sovereignty on the ground of Discovery having been abandoned, Captain Hobson was instructed to urge upon the native chiefs the impossibility of extending to them any effectual protection, unless the Queen were acknowledged as the Sovereign of their country; and he was commissioned to enter into a Treaty with them for the formal cession of the Sovereignty to the Crown.
On his arrival in the country in the character of British consul, New Zealand was an independent State; its native inhabitants were a wild and lawless race; its European occupants were unrestrained by any law, and amenable to no tribunal, and had been alternately the authors and the victims of every species of crime and outrage. Before a British Colony could be founded in New Zealand, everything was yet to be done. The Sovereignty over the country had to be obtained by Treaty from the natives; territory for the occupation of our countrymen had to be acquired; and the machinery of Civil Government was to be organized and set in motion. Nor was the establishment of British authority in New Zealand an easy or a popular task. Its native inhabitants were a high-spirited, well-armed, warlike race. A large portion of the European population had long been living in a state of utter lawlessness. To curb and restrain, where all restraint had been unknown--
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where every man had been a law unto himself--and to put a stop to all private dealings with the natives for the purchase of their lands, could be no popular duty for the Minister of the Crown. His first great object was to obtain the concurrence of the principal chiefs to a Treaty, ceding to the Crown all their rights and powers of Sovereignty; yet no inconsiderable difficulty was experienced by him in prevailing on them to become parties to the Treaty, from a jealous fear; lest, by ceding the Sovereignty, they might be deemed to have parted with the property in the soil: and, at the outset of his proceedings, the project had nearly been defeated. After announcing to the chiefs assembled at "Waitangi," the object of his mission, he carefully explained to them that it was the Sovereignty, and not the land, that would pass to her Majesty by virtue of the proposed Treaty: that, to use their own figure, "the shadow would go to the Queen, but that the substance would remain:" and he assured them that they might rely implicitly on the good faith of her Majesty's Government in the transaction. Many of the assembled chiefs addressed the meeting on the subject, and a protracted and stormy discussion ensued. Several of them, having been instigated into opposition by disaffected Europeans, opposed the cession of the Sovereignty with so much skill and ability, that apprehensions were for a time entertained as to the result of the negotiation. "Send the man away," said one of the opposing chiefs, turning to Captain Hobson. "Don't sign the paper. If you
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do, you will be reduced to the condition of slaves, and be obliged to break stones for the roads, and your lands will be taken from you." And but for the timely interference of one of the most influential of the northern chiefs, it is probable that the project would have been completely defeated; but the powerful eloquence of our faithful ally ultimately turned the scale. "You must be our father," said Tamati Waka, turning to Captain Hobson, in concluding his address. "You must not allow us to become slaves: you must preserve our customs, and never permit our lands to be wrested from us." With this touching confidence in our honour, did the native inhabitants of these islands consent to place themselves under the dominion of the British Crown. The example of Tamati Waka decided the waverers, and a large number of the most influential chiefs of the north now became parties to the Treaty of Waitangi: the adherence of many powerful chiefs in other parts of the Northern Island was afterwards secured. Many, however, steadily refused; believing that if they put their signatures to the Treaty their land would be taken from them. They had heard, they said, of the history of America--of New South Wales--and of many countries taken possession of by the English, and they could not but be jealous of the intentions of the British Government. In some instances, those who signed the treaty, refused to accept any present, lest it might be construed as a payment for their land; and many influential chiefs in various parts of the country, though strongly
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urged to give in their adherence, to the last continued steadily to refuse. Before the negotiations were brought to a conclusion, and while agents were still engaged in various parts of the country in endeavouring to obtain signatures, intelligence reached Captain Hobson that the settlers sent out by the New Zealand Company had organized a system of government under the authority of the Port Nicholson chiefs; and deeming the proceeding to be of a treasonable character, he at once (February, 1840), and without waiting for the completion of the cession, proclaimed the Queen's Sovereignty over both Islands. For a few months, they were annexed as a dependency to New South Wales; but on the 16th of November following, by a Charter under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom, the Islands of New Zealand were erected into a separate and independent Colony.
One of the earliest duties which devolved on Capt. Hobson was to select a suitable site for the seat of Government. Having migrated from a warmer climate, the Maori race had settled themselves for the most part in the more congenial latitudes of the New Zealand group; and they were chiefly to be found congregated in the northern part of the Northern Island--nineteen-twentieths of the whole native population being settled in the Northern Island alone. And as the principal object of the Government in establishing British authority in the country was to promote their civilization and advancement, other considerations besides the natural advantages of the
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locality, had to be taken into consideration, in deciding upon the most suitable situation for establishing the Capitals of the Colony.
When the New Zealand Company sent out their exploring expedition, they explained to Col. Wakefield that there was probably some one part of New Zealand better suited than any other to become the centre of its trade. The shores of safe and commodious harbours, the sheltered embouchures of extensive rivers communicating with a fertile country, were the situations to which his attention was directed; and he was especially instructed to make purchases of land on the shores of that harbour which should appear to offer the greatest facilities as a general trading depot, and port of export and import for all parts of the islands. But closely followed, unfortunately, by several hundred intending settlers, Colonel Wakefield had no time to spare in selecting a site for their location. Many harbours, in other respects suitable for extensive settlement, were already occupied by claimants still earlier in the field; and in the selection of a site for their "first and principal settlement," the New Zealand Company were confined to unoccupied localities; while Capt. Hobson, as the representative of the Crown, had all before him where to choose.
There are many good harbours in New Zealand, and many districts abounding in rich and fertile land, and not a few where the facilities of internal water communication are considerable; but the difficulty was to find these natural advantages in combination. The Bay of Islands, as a harbour, is second to none: but
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the country in the immediate neighbourhood is hilly and broken, with but a limited extent of open country available for agricultural purposes. Taranaki has a large extent of excellent land, well watered and beautifully wooded; but it has no harbour, and abuts upon an open roadstead. Wellington has a spacious harbour, surrounded by beautiful scenery; but, owing to the broken and hilly character of the neighbouring country, there is but little available land within a radius of eight or ten miles of the port. The harbour of Nelson is of but second-rate character; and there also the available land in the neighbourhood is of limited extent: and both at Wellington and Nelson the facilities of internal water-communication are inconsiderable. At Canterbury, the harbour is not of first-rate character; but the district possesses a vast extent of open available fertile land, covered throughout its whole extent with fine natural grass; though the plains are separated from the harbour by a lofty ridge. The Otago district comprises a large extent of fine open grassy country; but its harbour, although sufficiently good for the purposes of the settlement, is not by any means of a first-rate character. The district of Auckland, however, in addition to its excellent harbour, with a second port within six miles, on the opposite coast, and extensive natural facilities of internal communication, has its town, suburban, and country lands, in a compact and convenient area; and all impartial testimony is united in favour of the wisdom of Capt. Hobson's choice.
But without the aid of a map it would be difficult
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to convey a clear impression of the position selected for the capital of New Zealand; begirt as it is by harbours, and forming a centre from which water-communication radiates inland in every direction. It is the centre of the great bulk of the native population; it possesses unusual facilities for internal water-communication; it has a safe and commodious harbour, and several smaller ports in its immediate neighbourhood, abounding with valuable timber; and it is surrounded by a considerable extent of available land. "With my present knowledge of New Zealand," wrote Capt. Hobson, addressing the Secretary of State upon the subject; "having for some time resided at the Bay of Islands; having visited Cook's Straits and Banks's Peninsula; and, after seeing the Company's settlement formed at Port Nicholson, I do not hesitate to state my opinion that the neighbourhood of Auckland combines advantages for a very extensive and prosperous settlement, not to be found in any other part of this Colony." "There can be no question," also wrote Dr. Dieffenbach, the naturalist who accompanied the New Zealand Company's preliminary expedition, and who had a personal knowledge of the locality, "but that the place has been judiciously chosen for the site of a town; as commanding a great extent of cultivable land in its neighbourhood, great facility of communication with the coast and the interior of the Northern Island, and as being a central point for the most powerful native tribes--the Nga-Puhi, to the northward, the Waikato, to the southward, and the Nga-te-haua to the eastward; --separat-
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them in a military point of view, but uniting them for the purposes of civilization and commerce."
No one has since travelled more extensively throughout the length and breadth of the land than the Bishop of New Zealand; nor has any one a higher estimate of, or a more familiar acquaintance with, its capabilities than himself. Yet "no one," he says, "can speak of the internal capabilities of New Zealand till he has seen the useful rivers which converge upon Auckland and its landlocked sea." But it was not until some weeks after Captain Hobson's death that the intelligence reached the Colony that his choice had been confirmed. "In reference to your selection of Auckland, in preference to Port Nicholson, as the site of the capital of New Zealand, I am happy to acknowledge," wrote the Secretary of State, "that the grounds on which you proceeded, appear to me satisfactory. On a subject so peculiarly local, and to the right understanding of which so much topographical knowledge is essential, my opinion must of course be guided by the comparison of the statements transmitted to me, and by balancing the weight of conflicting authorities. Approaching the question in that manner, and unaided by any personal acquaintance with the localities, I have thought there is such a clear prepared course of motives in favour of your choice, as to justify me in advising the Queen to decide that Auckland should be the seat of Government of the new Colony; and I have received Her Majesty's commands to acquaint you that such is Her Majesty's pleasure."
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In fixing the seat of Government amidst the great bulk of the native population in the north, Captain Hobson drew upon himself the bitter hostility both of the New Zealand Company and their settlers; who were disappointed that the settlement planted by the Company at Wellington was not selected by Captain Hobson for the capital of New Zealand: overlooking the fact that Auckland was chosen with reference to the permanent interests of the country, while Wellington was selected by a private company with reference to the private interests, the limited means, and the present views of a trading association whose proceedings had not then received either the sanction or recognition of the Crown; their intending emigrants having, in fact, before leaving England, been officially informed that the Government had no connection with the New Zealand Company, nor any knowledge of their proceedings, and could hold out no expectation that Her Majesty would be advised to recognise or sanction them. Knowing the great natural advantages of the northern portion of these islands as a field for colonization, and foreseeing the prestige which would attach to the locality fixed upon as the Capital of the Colony, the New Zealand Company from the first regarded the settlement founded at Auckland by Captain Hobson with undisguised jealousy; and, at the outset of his proceedings, the first Governor of New Zealand drew upon himself and upon his government their bitter and increasing hostility.
Seeing that the country was already inhabited by a
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the Government should have the power of directing the course of colonization, of determining the localities to be from time to time occupied by our own countrymen, and of prescribing the limits within which their colonizing operations should, in the first instance, be confined. But systematic colonization had been rendered almost impossible by the delay which had taken place in commencing the undertaking. Without the sanction, and in direct defiance of the authority of the Crown, the New Zealand Company had sent out a large body of emigrants from England; and while the controversy between the Government and the Company was still pending, and during the two years immediately preceding Captain Hobson's arrival in the country, large numbers of speculators and adventurers had flocked over to New Zealand from New South Wales, with ready-made deeds in English common form, in the expectation that they would be able speedily to make valid purchases of land from the natives for little more than a nominal consideration. And by the time British authority was proclaimed in the country, the claims to land were so numerous and extensive, as to make it at once obvious how essential it was to the systematic colonization of the country, not only that no land should in future be ceded by the natives except to the Crown, but that the purchases alleged to have been already made from them should be subjected to investigation: the basis of the inquiry being the assertion on the part of the Crown, of a title to all lands in New Zealand which had been granted
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by the chiefs in accordance with the customs of the country, and in return for some adequate consideration. Accordingly, during the short period that New Zealand continued in the relation of a dependency of the neighbouring Colony, the Legislature of New South Wales, in accordance with instructions from the British Government, passed an Act providing that all claims to land alleged to have been purchased from the natives before the establishment of British authority, should be submitted to the investigation of a Commission of inquiry; that in case it should be proved by the claimant that he had made a purchase, that the quantity of land to be granted to him should be regulated by the sum expended in the purchase; and that, as a general rule, no claimant should have granted to him more than 2,560 acres.
At that time nearly the whole European population of the North Island were claimants of land alleged to have been purchased from the natives before the proclamation of the Queen's authority: the number of claims, in addition to the gigantic claims of the New Zealand Company, amounted to upwards of twelve hundred; and, in extent, they varied from a single rood to more than a million and a quarter of acres. Three of these claims exceeded a million of acres each; three of them comprised more than half a million of acres each, three others exceeded a quarter of a million of acres, and upwards of thirty of the claims comprised more than twenty thousand acres each. For some of these claims, the claimants had nothing to show but the ornamental scrawl or signature of one or more
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New Zealand chiefs to a deed, which, in its terms and phraseology, must have been utterly unintelligible to those who signed it; comprising a description of the boundaries purporting to be conveyed by it, so vague and indefinite as to to render it void for uncertainty. Some of the most extravagant of the claims were never actually prosecuted before the Commissioners; many were ultimately commuted for scrip credit at the sale of land by the Government; and for several hundreds of them, Crown grants were issued: after a lengthened but unavoidable period of delay. In carrying out a measure almost universally regarded by the claimants as an act of general confiscation, the Local Government, though but the instruments of superior authority, was involved in the most unfriendly relations with the whole of the European population of the north; and for many years the country was kept in a state of unprofitable agitation by their angry and determined opposition. After a lapse of eighteen years a few of these old claims remain unsettled to this day; and the question which so long and so vexatiously agitated the country has hardly yet been entirely set at rest. 3
Having large families growing up around them, and having no reasonable expectation that New Zealand would shortly become a regularly settled English Colony, affording a profitable field for the industry and enterprise of their children, it is hardly surprising
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that some of the Missionaries and catechists stationed in the country availed themselves of the permission given them by the Church Missionary Society to purchase land from the natives for the use and benefit of their families: but these Missionary claims eventually proved to the parent society a source of painful interest. Even in a merely financial point of view, it is a short-sighted economy to expose a Christian Missionary to the temptation of eking out a provision for his family by trafficking with an ignorant people for the purchase of their lands. For, to be efficient, the Missionary must be altogether beyond even the suspicion of self-seeking objects: and ten men, relieved from all care in providing for their families, will effect more real good amongst a semi-barbarous, but clearsighted people like the New Zealanders, than double the number, tempted to become traffickers with them for the purchase of their lands. The Roman Catholic and Wesleyan Missionary bodies wisely prohibit the purchase of land by their Missionaries from the people they are commissioned to convert. The Church Missionary body in New Zealand were placed in a false position, when it could be said, with but the slightest appearance of the truth, that, unlike the self-denying members of other denominations, their Missionaries had taken advantage of their position to secure their own aggrandizement: and so long as they are allowed to provide for their families by purchasing land from a heathen native race, they can never compete on even terms with the members of those bodies who are relieved from the temptation. A few only, it is true, of the
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members of the Church Missionary body had made purchases exceeding what might fairly be considered a reasonable provision for their families; and some were not purchasers of so much as a single acre. The real evil, indeed, was not so much in the extent of the land purchased as in the fact of the purchase itself: the fundamental error of the Society consisted in giving any sanction to the purchase of land from the natives by their Missionaries, even to "a moderate extent;" and experience has doubtless led them to the total prohibition of the practice. The prejudice, however, which in the first instance was studiously excited amongst the Colonists against the members of the Missionary body in New Zealand, was soon seen by them to be unfounded and unjust; and whatever difference of opinion may be entertained by the settlers of the extent of Missionary influence amongst the natives, all are now agreed that the Missionaries have rendered important services to both races, and that but for their labours, a British Colony would not at this moment have been established in the country.
For the few months during which New Zealand continued to be a dependency of New South Wales, the newly-founded Colony was subject to a code of laws enacted for a penal settlement: and even after it had been erected into a separate and independent Colony, in November, 1840, New Zealand continued for a while to be subject to the laws of the convict Colony; for by an early Act of the New Zealand Legislature, it was provided that, until the laws necessary for its government could be specially framed with that object
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by the Local Legislature, all such laws of New South Wales as were applicable to the Colony of New Zealand should continue to be in force. Happily, however, the period of bondage was of short duration. Soon came English lawyers, imbued with English spirit, and eager to relieve the Colony from the baneful influence of a convict code; and measures were speedily enacted for establishing Courts of Judicature, and for providing for the administration of Justice-- for the establishment of Municipalities -- for the transfer of real property--for the regulation of marriages -- and a variety of other important subjects. In the structure of the laws themselves, too, the precedent was established of framing them in simple, concise, and intelligible language; of confining the matter of each clause to a single subject; of arranging the clauses methodically under appropriate heads; and of avoiding the prolixity and tautology by which our English legislative enactments were usually distinguished. And not being hampered by any complicated pre-existing system, nor impeded by the opposing influence of a powerful profession, the lawgivers of the Colony were also enabled to effect amendments in the law, which the British Legislature has hardly yet succeeded in accomplishing. A simple system of oral pleading, suited to the primitive condition of the community, was established, for eliciting the issue in civil actions; and the form and language of indictments in criminal proceedings were materially amended. Of enactments of a more permanent character, that relating to real property is perhaps the most conspicuous
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for the boldness of its alterations. Many useless forms and subtleties in this abstruse branch of the law were abolished; not a few of its rules were amended.
Many doubtful points, not even yet well settled in England, were set at rest by declaratory enactment; and to reduce the length of purchase-deeds, mortgages, and other conveyances, it was provided that a single, short, and simple deed should be sufficient: and, the more certainly to provide against unnecessary prolixity, that professional men should be remunerated according to a prescribed scale of charges, irrespective of the length of the instrument itself. By this means, and by the further enactment that they shall imply the lengthy covenants and provisions in common use, instruments for mortgaging and conveying land in New Zealand have in practice been kept within a moderate compass. These alterations in the law of real property, complemented by a system of registration, affording to an intending purchaser or mortgagee an easy means of ascertaining the true state of the title, have done much to render the dealing with real property in New Zealand a comparatively simple and easy transaction. The changes effected in this important branch of the law were of so sweeping a character, as even to attract the guarded attention of the authorities at home. "Her Majesty would have been advised to confirm and allow the Ordinance for facilitating the transfer of real property and simplifying the law relating thereto," wrote the Colonial
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Minister (Lord Stanley), "had it not been that this enactment introduces innovations of such magnitude and importance, that no opinion of its probable effects, antecedently to the actual trial of the experiment, would seem entitled to much weight. I am gratified in observing how large a range of knowledge and how much diligence have been brought to bear in the structure of this Ordinance; nor do I dissent from the learned framer of it in the general opinion, that it is an object of inestimable importance to relieve a new society in its infancy, when alone it can be relieved, from thraldom to that complex and artificial system of law regarding the acquisition and transfer of real property which has grown up in this country.... I therefore do not object to this experiment, venturous as it is. But neither am I willing to advise the Queen to sanction it, until I shall be able to lay before her Majesty some surer proof than I can at present command, of the real wisdom of the fundamental changes." Nor has experience of more than fifteen years suggested any doubts of the wisdom of the changes effected by "this great experiment in legislation;" and the measure has remained almost unaltered to this day. But with the six Legislative bodies established in the country by the recent Constitution, in addition to the General Assembly, there can be no security for the continuance of uniformity in any branch of the law. The Colonists have, however, been warned that there is scarcely any subject on which diversity or uncertainty is more carefully to be guarded against than in the law relating to
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real property; that it would by no means tend to facilitate the transfer of land, if, in time to come, the title to such property should be found to depend upon what was the particular law at a certain time in a particular district of New Zealand, as to the execution, for instance, of a particular description of legal instrument. Seeing the expense, the uncertainty, and delay which have been experienced in England in the transfer of real property, arising from the existence, in different parts of the country, of a variety of laws, customs, and usages relating to this subject, it has been wisely questioned whether the subordinate Councils of the Colony ought, not only to have been prohibited from making any law for "regulating the course of inheritance," but also from making any alteration whatever in the law of real property or in the transfer thereof.
Although the seat of Government was established in the centre of the great bulk of the native race and of the European population settled in the north, it soon became obvious that one general central authority could not satisfactorily legislate in detail for the several settlements almost contemporaneously planted in the country. In addition to the settlement founded by the Crown at Auckland, three settlements were planted by the New Zealand Company, at Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth; all widely separated from each other, and some of them, at that time, distant from the capital a four weeks' journey or a fortnight's sail: and one of the earliest enactments of the Colonial Legislature was a compre-
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hensive measure of a Municipal character, empowering the Colonists to manage their own local affairs, and to provide for the good order, health, and convenience of the public. The measure was based upon the principle that the people themselves are best qualified to provide for the management of their own local affairs. It was so framed as to entitle any then existing or future settlement, whenever its population should amount to two thousand souls, to be erected into a separate Municipality; and if cordially accepted by the Colonists, it was expected that it would relieve the general Government from a duty which it could but ill perform, and that the progress of the Colony generally would be promoted by the honourable rivalry which might be expected to spring up amongst the various settlements, when entrusted to their own local management.
The duties which devolved upon the Local Government in founding the Colony of New Zealand, arduous as they would have been under any circumstances, had to be performed amidst the angry opposition of an irritated community; and the most strenuous efforts were made, not only by land claimants in the north and by the disappointed settlers in the south, but by a powerful English Joint-stock Association, to effect Governor Hobson's recall. Almost alone--looking in vain for despatches from home--failing in health-- surrounded by angry opponents, and assailed by the bitterest abuse--uncertain whether his proceedings would be approved by the Ministers of the Crown-- the last few months of Captain Hobson's life were
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passed in a state of painful and harassing suspense. Had he lived but a few weeks longer, he would have been cheered by the knowledge that his general administration of the affairs of New Zealand was approved by her Majesty's Government; that his selection of the site of the capital had received the sanction of the Crown; and that in all his transactions with the New Zealand Company, he might rely upon the support of her Majesty's Government against the "exaggerated pretensions" of that Company and their agents. Removed beyond the reach of praise or blame, none will now deny that, in founding a British Colony in New Zealand, Captain Hobson had a novel and arduous duty to perform; that he laboured honestly and assiduously to discharge it; and that his services entitled him to the favourable consideration of his country. And if the native inhabitants of these islands shall escape the fate which has hitherto attended uncivilized tribes when brought into the vicinity of civilized men, they will owe something to the inflexible sense of justice of their first Governor; who, while living, enjoyed their esteem and gained their confidence, and whose paternal government is still held by them in respectful remembrance. "Mother Victoria," wrote one of their greatest chiefs, addressing her Majesty after Governor Hobson's death, "my subject is a Governor for us and for the strangers of this island. Let him be good man. Look out for a good man: a man of judgment. Let not a troubler come here. Let not a boy come here, or one puffed up. Let him
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be a good man, as the Governor who has just died."
Brief as it was, Captain Hobson's career, as the first Governor and founder of the Colony, will always deserve a prominent place in the history of New Zealand. Between January, 1840, and September, 1842, during his administration of affairs in the several characters of Consul, Lieutenant-Governor, and Governor, the Sovereignty over the country was obtained by treaty from the native chiefs; considerable tracts of land became by purchase the demesne land of the Crown; the machinery of Government was organized and put in motion; the purchase of land from the natives by private individuals was put down; the seat of Government was established on a well-chosen site; an important body of Laws was devised and enacted, for the peace, order, and good government of the Colony; and, almost for the first time, our colonizing operations excited the interest and attention of the British public. It was now seen, however, that an experiment was about to be tried deeply affecting the interests of humanity: that a pledge was given by the Ministers of the Crown that the natives of these islands should, if possible, be saved from that process of extermination under which uncivilized tribes had hitherto disappeared when brought into contact with civilization; and that the British Government was, for the first time in earnest, about to try the experiment whether a fragment of the great human family, long sunk in heathen darkness, could be raised from its state of
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social degradation, and maintained and preserved as a civilized people: whether it were possible to bring two distinct portions of the human race, in the opposite conditions of civilization and barbarism, into immediate contact, without the destruction of the uncivilized race; and whether, in rendering the Colonization of a barbarous country possible by his religious teaching, the Christian Missionary is not also, at the same time, the pioneer of the destruction of its heathen people. Such were the grave issues involved in the proceedings now taken by Great Britain for the Colonization of New Zealand.
