History and Politics

Richard Wakelin

First published by Lyon and Blair; George W. Dutton in 1877

Digitised and made available online by the University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services.

Epub © 2013 Early New Zealand Books Collection

ISBN 978-1-927289-10-5

[TITLE PAGES]

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

CONTAINING
THE POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS
AND
LEAVES FROM THE WRITINGS
OF A
NEW ZEALAND JOURNALIST,
1851 – 1861 – 1862 – 1877.

BY
RICHARD WAKELIN .

WELLINGTON:
LYON & BLAIR; GEORGE W. DUTTON, AND SOLD BY CHAPMAN, AUCKLAND; L. ST. GEORGE, STATIONER, GREYTOWN; AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.
MDCCCLXXVII.
[All Rights Reserved].

PRINTER, WILLIAM F. ROYDHOUSE.

[CONTENTS]

CONTENTS

I. MY ARRIVAL IN NEW ZEALAND.. .. .. 3

II. NEW ZEALAND NEWSPAPERS IN 1860. .. .. 5

III. SIR GEORGE GREY AND HIS OPPONENTS ....10

IV. PROCEEDINGS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL .. 14

V. SIR GEORGE GREY'S RECOMMENDATIONS .. .. 19

VI. ARRIVAL OF E. G. WAKEFIELD.. .. 22

VII. THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE CONSTITUTION ACT .. .. 25

VIII. N. Z. COMPANY'S EMIGRANTS. .. .. 28

IX. THE PURCHASE OF THE WAIRARAPA.. .. .. 31

X. WAIRARAPA SMALL FARM SETTLEMENTS.. .. .. 34

XI. INAUGURATION OF DR FEATHERSTON'S SUPERINTENDENCY .. 38

XII. PROVINCIALISM RUN MAD.. .. .. 41

XIII. ADMINISTRATION OF THE WASTE LANDS .. .. 44

XIV. WASTE LANDS COMMITTEE .. .. .. 43

XV. PROVINCIAL LAND LEGISLATION.. .. 50

XVI. FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS, 1856.. .. .. 54

XVII. HOW THE SWINDLE WAS ACCOMPLISHED.. .. 57

XVIII. RE-ELECTION OF DR. FEATHERSTON.. .. .. 60

XIX. GOVERNMENT BY PARTY.... .. .. 63

XX. SIR GEORGE GREY RE-APPOINTED GOVERNOR .. .. 67

Leaves from My Writings

SIR GEORGE GREY'S NATIVE INSTITUTIONS .. .. 69

SIR GEORGE GREY'S CONFISCATION POLICY .. 71

PROVINCIALISM – A PREDICTION.. .. .. 72

THE ALABAMA.... .. .. 73

PRIVATE EXECUTIONS... . .. 75

THE STEAM PRESS...... .. . 77

MY POLITICAL CREED.. .. .. 78

THE LAND QUESTION.... .. .. 80

THE ELECTORAL FRANCHISE.. .. .. 82

THE UPPER HOUSE.... .. .. 84

SIR G. GREY'S RETURN TO PUBLIC LIFE .. .. 85

SIR G. GREY IN PARLIAMENT .. . 87

THE COMPROMISE...... . .. 88

WHAT ABOLITION MEANS.... .. .. 80

INSULAR SEPARATION.... .. .. 99

THE COLONIAL PRESS.... .. . 91

LOCALISM V. CENTRALISM.... .. .. 92

PLURAL VOTING...... .. . 93

EDUCATION AND CRIME.... .. .. 94

CARRIED WITHOUT A DIVISION.. .. .. 95

TEACHER, OFFICIAL, AND JOURNALIST.. .. .. 96

SETTLEMENT OF THE WASTE LANDS.. .. .. 98

BUSH SETTLEMENTS.... .. .. 98

SMALL FARM SYSTEM.... .. .. 99

SELF-GOVERNING INSTITUTIONS.. .. .. 100

ERRATUM. – Page 54, last line of first column, For £668,000, read £268,000.

[Pages 1-31]

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

INTRODUCTORY.

A writer of a "history of his own times" has a difficult task to perform. He can scarcely take a step without treading on somebody's toes. Besides there are so many stand-points from which contemporary events can be viewed that no two versions of them will be found to agree in every particular. In the following pages I do not pretend to do more than relate, in homely language, the impressions certain public events, and certain public acts of public men, made on my own mind. I have not attempted to write a history, but only to furnish a portion of the raw material out of which at some future day a history may be woven. I had not made much progress in the execution of my self-imposed task before I discovered that I should either have to suppress facts, which in the interests of justice and of truth ought to be recorded, or give unintentional pain to many persons whose feelings, if possible ought to be spared. On that ground, alone I should have withheld, at least for a time, the present publication, but for the following considerations: –

(1). Having seen statements repeatedly made by men in high authority in the Colony, or by leading Colonial journals, relative to Sir George Grey's first administration of the Government of New Zealand; to the settlement of the public lands; to the Financial Arrangements of 1856; and to other questions of great historical importance, which I know to be not only untrue, but, in many instances, the very reverse of the truth, I feel that I not only ought not to allow such statements to pass uncontradicted; but that the true version regarding matters of so much present and future interest ought to appear in a more durable form, and obtain a more lasting publicity than would be afforded by its bare publication in the leading columns of an up-country journal. Hence the present publication.

(2). It having been represented to the writer, by men whose opinions he values, that as he must have become conversant with many facts relative to the public men and Political History of New Zealand during a long journalistic experience, which could not possibly be published at the time in the columns of small newspapers, only issued twice or at most thrice a week, and as there, must have been recorded other facts equally interesting, now only to be found in a disconnected shape in the columns of the journals he has edited, they ought to be collected and published in a less perishable and more accessible form, he has in these pages, though no doubt in a very imperfect manner, endeavored to give effect to their wishes.

INTRODUCTORY.

He has had less hesitation in doing so as he was the only reporter present at the later and more important meetings of the Settlers' Constitutional Association, and at the public dinners and demonstrations held under ita auspices; while with the exception of the Hon Robert Stokes, he was the only person who took notes of the important proceedings of the General Legislative Council, held at Wellington in 1851, under the presidency of Sir George Grey, as well as of those of the first session of the Wellington Provincial Council at a time when Mr Gibbon Wakefield was one of the most distinguished of its members. Information thus obtained, involving no breaches of confidence, and furnishing some of the material facts for authentic or contemporary history, and which at least in some cases could only be known to himself, ought, it will be admitted to be preserved in a more durable form than in the fleeting columns of a newspaper. Hence a second reason for the publication of these pages.

(3). My reasons for publishing the latter portion of this work will be found of a more personal, and will be deemed of a less satisfactory character. Some at least of the leaders which will be found in these pages, are on subjects of more than passing interest. They contain the mature views of the writer on those subjects, and in every instance those views have not been so much acquired from the study of books as from first-hand observation and reflection during a long and varied experience in a school in which it is said that even fools may learn wisdom. I have not accepted opinions on political questions upon trust or merely because they were orthodox, or stamped with the names of great men, nor have I rejected them merely because they were unpopular. In no case have my political opinions been borrowed from any man, party, school, or coterie. I have thought out every question for myself, and have been perfectly indifferent whether the views published were in harmony or the reverse with those held by the popular idols of the day. The idea that the colonists of New Zealand were engaged, whether they knew it or not, in the important work of laying the foundations of a future great nation has never been absent from my mind; and I have consequently been anxious that these foundations should be so laid as would be most likely to establish and secure the future freedom, happiness, and greatness, of this my adopted country. I have always felt satisfied that my views, whether accepted at the time or not, must, so far as they are found to be true, ultimately prevail; and I have already had the satisfaction of finding that opinions which I have ventured to publish, in opposition to those which have been generally held, have afterwards been accepted by the public quite as a matter of course. More than one instance of this kind will be found in the following pages; and as I believe time will furnish others, I have ventured to submit what I have written to the clearer judgment of another generation.

It was not originally my intention to introduce any personal narrative into these pages; and, with the exception of the first chapter, I have, as far as possible, avoided doing so; for if I had had any intention of that kind such a narration would not have commenced but have concluded on my taking my departure from England for New Zealand. Those who have been led to expect anything of the kind will consequently be doomed to disappointment. My object has been to expose some prevailing falacies with regard to those public men and public measures that have occupied no inconsiderable space in the early history of the Colony, and to give at the same time, a more lasting publicity to views which I believe would, if generally accepted prove of advantage to the

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present and future welfare of the people of New Zealand.

Having had no Blue Books, or Works of authority to refer to, and having, consequently, had to depend almost exclusively on my memory for the details I have given, both with regard to public men and public events those details will not, perhaps, be found strictly accurate in every particular. If, under such circumstances, I shall be found to have made some mistakes in my narrative, I trust no reader will be so uncandid as to think I have made them intentionally or with any design to mislead. If I succeed in removing some misapprehensions with regard to Sir George Grey's first administration of the Government of the Colony; with regard to the administration of the Waste Lands; with regard to the Financial Arrangements of 1856, and with regard to other matters of early colonial history, my purpose in giving to the world this compilation will be accomplished.

CHAPTER I.

MY ARRIVAL IN NEW ZEALAND

Sail for Nelson in the barque Eden. – Some of my fellow passengers. – New Plymouth, Nelson, and Wellington. – Wages of Mechanics and Laborers. – Official Salaries. – Unsuccessfully apply for Journalistic Employment. – A Constitutional Meeting at the Brittania Saloon. – Defeat of the Constitutional Reformers. – Mr Fox Appointed Political Agent in London, – Turn Schoolmaster. – Effects of my Letters on Education. – Commencement of my Career as a New Zealand Journalist.

ON the 4th June, 1850, I embarked with my wife and four young children for Nelson in the barque Eden, the last but one of the vessels despatched to this Colony by the New Zealand Company. Emigration from my native land was no new thing to me, as it was to most of my fellow passengers, as I had emigrated to Upper Canada in 1834, had travelled over the greater part of that Province, and through the Northern States, had returned to England after some years' absence, and had again emigrated to America in the fall of 1839, at about the same time the first four emigrant ships sailed for Port Nicholson It is worthy of remark that amongst the passengers per Eden were Mr Adams, subsequently Superintendent of the Province of Marlborough; Mr Wells, long a member for Nelson in the General Assembly;, the Hon. Mr Scotland, M. L. C.; Mr Tatton, subsequently member of the Taranaki Provincial Council; Mr Pheney, the editor and, publisher of the Taranaki News; Mr Black, the well-known Nelson storekeeper, and afterwards, I believe, a member of the Nelson Provincial Council; Mr C. R. Carter, long M. P. C. and M. H. R. for the Wairarapa; Mr Beamish, afterwards a leading settler of the Chatham Islands; and Messrs Mollison and, Langlands, subsequently members of the Otago Provincial Council. The Eden arrived off New Plymouth about the end of October, after a long but otherwise pleasant voyage, when I went ashore and was struck with the primitive method of landing passengers, with the quantity of iron sand on the beach, the splendid white clover crops in the streets, the, remarkable beauty and luxuriance of the vegetation, and the very fine breed of sheep, cattle, and pigs that were to be seen, the latter being much superior to anything I had ever witnessed either in Canada or the United States. During my stay at New Plymouth the Eden had to slip anchor and put to sea, but, after a few days' absence, again returned to the roadstead, landed the remainder of her passengers and a portion of her cargo destined for New Plymouth, when she had again to slip anchor and proceed to Nelson. At the time of our arrival there Mr Dillon Bell was then the New Zealand Company's

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

Resident Agent; but the Company having in the preceding month of July surrendered its Charter to the Crown, he was shortly after appointed by Sir George Grey Crown Lands Commissioner for Wellington. After a sojourn of a few weeks at Nelson, I embarked with my wife and family in the schooner Mary, bound for Port Nicholson, and arrived at Wellington early in December, 1850.

Wellington was neither so prosperous nor populous as I had been led to anticipate, and this fact was accounted for by Mr Roe, then the landlord of Barrett's Hotel, by the statement that a larger population had left Wellington since its first settlement, than it then contained. There was a rough but hearty hospitality offered by the settlers to new-comers at New Plymouth; and at Nelson seeing that we were new arrivals we had been invited to the houses, and politely asked to take a walk round the gardens of the well-to-do settlers there; but no such reception awaited the appearance of the newcomer on the shores of Lambton harbor. The state of society was too much like that to be found at the small seaports of the Mother Country. The difference in the character of the population of Wellington was accounted for, in part, by the fact of its having been from the first the principal seat of the operations of the New Zealand Company; and, for some years past, the seat also of a sort of bastard Provincial Government, under Lieut-Governor Eyre, the gentleman who afterwards became so notorious as Governor of Jamaica. But the difference I refer to was chiefly owing to the circumstance of its being not only a seaport, but a garrison town, which last circumstance did not operate to its moral and social, though it might to its pecuniary advantage. Be this as it may, there was a difference between the population of Wellington and Nelson, which was not only observed by myself, but had, previously and subsequently to my arrival, been remarked by others. The appearance of a man in a blue serge shirt on Lambton Quay, though then, the every-day dress of all classes in Nelson, marked him out as one of the "lower orders," a being of an inferior species, who, if be wanted to obtain employment, found nobody to put him in the way of obtaining it, and was roughly told to take his stand at the "Poor Man's Corner," situate in the vicinity of the old Custom House, where men stood to pick up odd jobs, and who could be engaged at 6d an hour to do any casual work that offered. The wages of mechanics, who found their own tools, were then 6s, and those of laborers 3s 6d per day, or 18s per week "wet or dry;" but this was before the discovery of the Australian goldfields. "The Company's emigrants," at the settlements round Wellington, either occupied small sections of land belonging chiefly to absentees, or obtained a livelihood as sawyers, splitters, or carters of firewood and potatoes; advances on the growing crops of the latter being readily obtainable, and generally obtained from the Wellington storekeepers at from 2s 6d to 3s 6d per cwt. The highest official salary (£800 per annum) was paid to Mr Justice Chapman, who received his appointment from home; but Civil Secretaries, Colonial Treasurers, Commissioners of Crown Lands, and Resident Magistrates had to be satisfied with salaries of half that amount. Yet even then the people and the officials probably lived as well as they have done since, and even then, though with much less reason than now, a great outcry was made by Wellington place-hunters about the lavish patronage and disgraceful official extravagance of the Government of Sir George Grey!

Having been for a number of years connected, as contributor and editor, with the serial press, and for some time the successful editor and pro-

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prietor of a weekly newspaper, before my departure from England, I had not been long in Wellington before I made application for employment in any capacity at the two newspaper offices, but without the slightest success. That blue serge shirt I had fondly bought at Nelson was evidently a great mistake; though the appearance of Mr Gibbon Wakefield in that costume, some two years later, tended somewhat to soften the prejudice felt by the Wellington snobocracy regarding those who wore it.

Some weeks after my arrival in Wellington a large public meeting was held at the Britannia Saloon; and by way of illustrating the state of political opinion, and public feeling, at that time, I will give here some particulars with reference to the meeting in question. It had been convened by the Settlers' Constitutional Association for the purpose of adopting the report of a Committee which had been appointed to prepare a memorial to the Home Government as to the form of Representative Constitution which was desired by the Colony. Though the meeting had been pretty well packed by the members and supporters of the Association, it refused point blank to adopt the report in question. The opposition was led by Mr Robert Hart, who, in an eloquent speech, showed how monstrous it was to ask the meeting to adopt a report on so important a subject before it had been printed, and the public had been afforded the opportunity of carefully and calmly considering the recommendations it contained. I should here mention that the Lord William Bentinck, the only English woolship of the season, was then about to sail for London, and Mr W. Fox, who had succeeded Colonel Wakefield as Principal Agent of the New Zealand Company, having no further official business in the Colony, had taken his passage in her. In vain, therefore, did he, Dr Feattherston, and others urge this as a reason why the report should be at once adopted instead of waiting until it was printed. Amidst loud cries of "print, print," "adjourn, adjourn," the meeting rejected the motion for the adoption of the report, and an amendment in favor of the adjournment was carried by a large majority. But, for some reason which never obtained publicity, the leaders of the opposition at the original meeting absented themselves from the adjourned one, and consequently the Association's report, after much heated discussion, was eventually adopted; as was also a resolution appointing Mr Fox the Political Agent of the Wellington settlers in London. The foregoing will give a pretty accurate idea of the state of political feeling in Wellington at the period of my arrival.

A short time after this, it having been represented to me that the settlers at the Te Aro end of the town were sadly in want of a school, I resolved to open one there, and having taken a house as I thought suitable for the purpose, I put an advertisement in the Independent to that effect; at the same time announcing that I would open a night school, and undertake to teach any adult that did not know his A. B. C. both to write letters and make out accounts in a very small number of lessons, or I would charge nothing for my trouble. Judge, however, my surprise when, on the first Monday morning I was about to commence my duties in my new capacity of schoolmaster, I discovered that, instead of there being no school at Te Aro, there was actually a large school at the very next door to the house I had taken for my academy. In my then circumstances the discovery of such a fact must have been, to say the least, discouraging; but nothing daunted, I commenced writing a series of letters on the subject of education, which I signed with my own name, and got inserted in the Independent, more

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with the view of calling attention to my school than with any idea that they would create any interest on the question amongst the leading settlers of Wellington, still less that they would excite any interest, on the part of His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief, in the welfare of their author. This, however, was the case; for though some wiseacres denied that those letters were my own, Sir George Grey at once made enquiries regarding me, and offered, through Mr St. Hill, to promote my interests by all legitimate means within his power. At the same time the latter gentleman convened a meeting of his friends, organised the Church of England Education Society, and took immediate steps for the erection of a large schoolhouse on Thorndon Flat the first Church of England school that had as yet been erected in this part of the Colony. If, therefore, the publication of my letters did not bring me pupils they fulfilled perhaps a better purpose – they originated a very important educational movement, and they were the primary cause of an application being made to me by the proprietors of the Independent, that I would undertake to report the proceedings of the General Legislative Council then about to sit in Wellington. I accepted the appointment, somewhere I think about the month of May or June, 1851, and this was the commencement of my journalistic career in New Zealand.

CHAPTER II.

NEW ZEALAND NEWSPAPERS IN 1850.

The New Zealander, Southern Cross, Nelson Examiner, Spectator and Independent. – Hugh Carleton, Bishop Selwyn, and Sir George Grey. – The Blood and Treasure Despatch. – The Suspension of the Constitutional Charter of 1846. – Earl Grey's views thereon.

AT the time of my arrival there were only five newspapers published in New Zealand, and there were then no professional journalists, that is, no persons who received regular salaries for editing newspapers, except perhaps Dr Bennett, the editor of the New Zealander, and Mr Hugh Carleton, the editor of the Southern Cross; both bi-weekly papers published at Auckland. The Nelson Examiner, then a demy sheet, was published weekly at Nelson by Mr Charles Elliott, and amongst the contributors to its leading columns, besides Mr Domett and Mr Fox, who had long before my arrival left for Wellington, were Drs Greenwood and Munro; the first now Sergeant at-Arms in the House of Representatives, and the latter the successor of Sir Charles Clifford in the Speaker's chair. Great ability was displayed in the leading columns of this, and, indeed, of all the other newspapers then published. They had but little local news, and scarcely anything else to recommend them but the ability of their political articles. The New Zealand Spectator was also a demy sheet, published bi-weekly at Wellington by Mr Robert Stokes, and was the only newspaper in the Colony, with the exception of the New Zealander, which supported the policy of Sir George Grey. The Wellington Independent, edited by Dr Featherston, shortly after my connection with it was enlarged to a double crown sheet and was also issued bi-weekly. Soon after, Otago, which had made more than one unsuccessful attempt to start a weekly paper, succeeded I believe in doing so. I can speak more positively with regard to the Lyttelton Times, which was started in 1851 as the organ of the Canterbury Association, and which was printed once a week at Port Lyttelton, till then known as Port Cooper. The whole of these newspapers, with the exceptions I have named, were the organs of small but influential sections of the community, and were violently opposed to Sir George Grey, then as now the un-

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compromising opponent of native land claimants, land monopolists, and land sharks, and the warm supporter of the rights and interests of the working settlers, of the Natives, and of the people generally, as distinguished from the factions, cliques, and coteries which looked upon themselves as the governing classes in the Colony. It is a somewhat remarkable circumstance, which I do not remember to have seen publicly noticed, that four out of the five or six principal contributors to the New Zealand newspapers at the time of my arrival were medical men. Amongst the candidates for Executive or Legislative honors at a subsequent period a large proportion belonged or had belonged to the medical profession, whereas both in the Provincial Council, and also in the General Assembly, lawyers were so scarce as to render it difficult sometimes to appoint an Attorneys General or a Provincial Solicitor. But this by the way.

The following remarks published by me in the New Zealand Advertiser on June 13th, 1860 – a bi-weekly newspaper of which I had the year preceding been appointed editor – give a very good idea of what kind of man the editor of the Southern Cross was, what kind of men they were of which he was the champion, and what kind of views I at that time entertained of Sir George Grey, who was then Governor of the Cape, and many months before anyone had the slightest idea that he would ever again return to this Colony. The remarks would appear to have been elicited by the appearance of Mr Carleton as the champion of Bishop of Selwyn in the action he had taken relative to the Waitara question. I observe – "Vanity is one of the weaknesses of the editor of the Southern Cross. This vanity in times past took the form of an extravagant and tiresome pedantry; and his present egotism, harmless and ridiculous, is but a consequence of overweening self-conceit. He prides himself on being a classical scholar, a smart logician, and the perfect gentleman; but his continual reference to his possession of these qualifications leaves upon us the unfortunate impression that there may be some doubt on the subject: nay, that he had some doubts himself. When an assertion has to be supported by continued repetition, instead of by proof, it looks suspicious, to say the least of it. There is something insulting too in the boast. It seems to infer that he thinks himself not as other men are; that he possesses qualifications which his neighbors have not. Mr Carleton consequently has made but little progress in the good opinion of others. He is satisfied perhaps that he stands so well in his own. His articles in former days were remarkable for the number of farfetched quotations which they contained. He ransacked his library, like a mistress her casket, to make a display, and to astonish and dazzle the eye, rather than to convince the judgment or captivate the heart. His vanity has now assumed another form. He formerly prided himself on his learning; now upon the exclusive and accurate character of the information, upon current topics, of which he is possessed. He doubts not that he is chivalrous to a fault, but instead of standing up as the champion of the defenceless and weak, he is regardful only of the interests of the strong. He first distinguished himself as the advocate of the missionary, and other land claimants, and as the bitter and uncompromising opponent of Sir G. Grey. In the latter work he secured for himself the sympathy and acknowledgments of those in this Province, who, like himself, despairing of obtaining place and power under the Governor, became the wordy advocates of Representative Institutions, and the principles of local self-government. But they at least prided themselves upon being colonists. Not so Mr Carleton. He boldly admitted

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that he was only a "sojourner" in the country for which he presumes to legislate, in whose internal affairs he intermeddles, and whose vital interests he continually disturbs. Out of Auckland he could find but few supporters, but there he has some influence, owing to his being the acknowledged mouth-piece of the old missionaries, and of native land claimants and land monopolists generally, whose interest it is that the Waste Lands of the Colony should not fall into the possession of the Crown, but continue in that of the maories, until they can get them into their own.

"Formerly Mr Carleton accused Bishop Selwyn of a lust of power, and of sacrificing means to ends. But then the Bishop supported the Governor, and set his face against the monstrous land claims of the elder missionaries. Now the Bishop feeling disposed to oppose the representative of the Crown and to question the expediency of his method of "cutting the Gordian knot of New Zealand difficulties" with the sword, Mr Carleton, anticipating succour from Wellington, comes forward in his defence, because the interests of the colonists and the Crown and those of missionaries and native land claimants are irreconcileable. When the Bishop opposed the latter he was very naughty; but now that there is a chance for the colonization of the country of which the Bishop does not approve, Mr Carleton can see virtues in him which he would formerly have us to believe he did not possess. "The time has been," said Mr Carleton as the missionary advocate, "when the Bishop might have carried all before him; when by legitimate means he might have raised his influence to the pitch of almost absolute authority; but he failed to improve the golden moment, which is now irrevocably lost." It appears that the Bishop mortally offended Mr Carleton and his clients, because he would not come forward and give evidence as to character, when the missionaries were charged by Governor Grey with having been the cause of the last native war, and being thus accessory to the shedding of human blood, for the sake of land. In the north, the Governor had the missionaries and the native land claimants to contend with; in the south, ambitious place hunters and disappointed office seekers; and in opposing both for the common interests of the natives, the colonists, and the Crown, he was denounced by both, and had only the consciousness of his own rectitude to support him. The Bishop in coming to his assistance of course made a grave mistake, and they told him they would never forgive him for it. But times have altered. In spite of his enemies Sir George Grey is now universally admitted to be the best Governor in the British dominions; and, in the progress of events, his bitter opponents have also obtained power, but only to mar the good work which he had so auspiciously begun. His name is remembered with admiration, and his works will endure, when those of his enemies are forgotten, or remembered only for the ruin which they wrought.

"At the present juncture it is well that we should know what were the opinions of Sir George Grey with reference to the conduct of Mr Carleton's reverend clients. In a despatch to the Secretary for the Colonies, Sir George Grey observed: "I have neither read in history nor met in real life with a case such as the present, in which a few individuals who were sent out to a country at the expense of pious people, in order that they might spread the truths of the gospel, have acquired such large tracts of land from ignorant natives, over whom they have acquired a religious influence, and who, being themselves missionaries, have then assaulted with such violence and obloquy a person who has endeavored

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to protect the rights of the suffering and complaining native?." The Bishop felt disposed to support the Governor against these missionary land cormorants, and was consequently accused by Mr Carleton with having sown division in the Church. "He has lost," says he, "the willing co-operation of many fellow laborers, who now work by the side of him rather than along with him. He has lost the support of the elder missionary families, now fast assuming an important position in the community. He has exposed himself to much injurious, even to unjust suspicion; and by having failed when he had put forth his utmost strength, has shown the measure of that strength." This was the character given Bishop Selwyn by Mr Carleton, when he opposed the unjust claims of the missionaries: but it was in no such measured terms he spoke of the conduct of Governor Grey for having adopted a similar course. In those days he was never tired of abusing Sir G. Grey, and of writing about "a blood and treasure despatch" (blood and treasure he always had printed in large capitals) which the Governor had written confidentially to the Secretary of State with reference to these northern land claimants. I never could well make out what all this blood and treasure meant, but concluded that it must have been something dreadful or there would not have been so much said about it. But I chanced the other day to come across this despatch the substance of which shall appear in its proper place.

The denunciations of Sir George Grey by the Southern Cross never failed to be copied, capitals and all, by the Independent and the Examiner, while the Cross, in its turn, copied the denunciations which appeared in those journals. Yet the political opinions of the three journals were of the most opposite character, they agreed only on one subject and that was abuse of the Governor-in-Chief.

The unpardonable sin he had committed in the eyes of the Cross lay in his opposition to the land claims of the elder missionaries, and of the Auckland and Sydney land sharks. The unpardonable sin he had committed in the eyes of Dr Featherston and the Constitutional Association was his advising the suspension of the Constitution which had been granted by Royal Charter in 1846. The reasons Sir George gave for recommending this course were various and urgent, but those which had most weight with the Home Government were, some years later, thus referred to by Earl Grey in his place in the House of Lords. The noble lord observed: – "Sir George Grey recommended the suspension of the Constitution of 1846 and at the same time addressed a despatch to the Government at Home in which he explained the dangers which would have arisen at that moment from an attempt to introduce it. He pointed out that the war was scarcely over; that both the natives and the settlers were in a state of great excitement; that, by the proposed Constitution the entire power over the revenue would be vested in the representatives of the settlers, while the natives were large contributors; that, in fact, it would be making one section, and that the smaller section, of the whole population, arbiters of the whole; that it would be giving the complete disposal both of the revenue and of the other matters to the representatives of the European minority, excluding from all power and influence the native majority in the Colony. He stated that the natives could not be expected to accede to such an arrangement, and he predicted that the result of an attempt to enforce it would be armed resistance. The arguments of Sir George Grey appeared so conclusive to the Government of that day that they had no hesitation in admitting the error which they had committed in passing the Act of 1846, and the

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result was that they obtained the ready assent of Parliament to a bill for suspending the Constitution which had been given to New Zealand. Subsequent events had shown how sound was the advice upon which they acted. Armed with the powers conferred by the Suspension Bill, and with the full support of the Government at Home, Sir George Grey adopted a policy of which the principle was the firm maintenance of the authority of the Colonial Government, the suppression of everything like violence or disturbance, but at the same time the administration of justice to both races, and the display of kindness and consideration especially towards the Maories." It was, however, not alone the suspension of the Constitution to which the Independent objected, but to the whole policy and Government of Sir George Grey. This fact will require to be borne in mind when I come to speak of the ovation he received by the leading members of the Constitutional party on his return to the Colony in 1861. What I have said will give the reader a pretty good idea of the position, tone, and character of the newspaper press just before the meeting of the General Legislative Council.

CHAPTER III.

SIR G. GREY AND HIS OPPONENTS.

Arrival of Governor Grey in New Zealand. – Dinner given to him at Nelson. – "Blood and Treasure Dispatch." – Bishop Selwyn and the Missionary Land Claimants. – Dr Featherston and the Constitutional Association. – Opening of the General Legislative Council.

IN order to prevent this work attaining too great a bulk I shall not refer in this or any subsequent chapter to the military operations which took place in New Zealand during either the first or the second administration of the Government of the Colony by Sir George Grey. He arrived from South Australia, as successor of Governor Fitzroy, near the end of the year 1845, when native wars and discontent raged from one end of the North Island to the other. He convened the Legislative Council to meet him at Auckland on the 12th December, 1845, for the purpose of introducing a Bill for placing restrictions on the importation of arms, gunpowder, and other warlike stores, when he thus spoke of the financial condition of the Colony. He said "that the expenditure at present very largely exceeds the total income derived from the Colony, the parliamentary grant, and every other source; that a large addition is being made to the debt, already considerable, and must continue to do so until be was able to determine upon measures to equalise in some degree the revenue and expenditure." From a stray copy of the Independent I obtain these facts, and from another stray copy of that journal, of 3rd April, 1847, I learn that the war at the Hutt and on the Coast of this part of the Colony had terminated, and that the chief Rauparaha was a captive on board a man-of-war. At a public dinner given to Governor Grey at Nelson, at the end of March of that year, the chairman, the Hon. C. A. Dillon, on proposing his Excellency's health, drew a vivid picture of the wretched state of the Colony, when his Excellency arrived here, and contrasted it with the then happy aspect of public affairs. He observed that his Excellency was the first Governor of the Colony who possessed the full confidence and esteem of the people, which arose from a strong sense of his Excellency's justice and wisdom. But I must not pursue this subject further.

In the preceding chapter I referred to the hostility of the Southern Cross to Governor Grey on account of his opposition to the monstrous land claims of some of the Church Missionaries and other northern land-

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sharks, and it is my intention now to enter into farther particulars. On the 25th June, 1846, or about eight months after his arrival in the Colony, Governor Grey addressed a private dispatch to the Hon. W. E. Gladstone on the subject of these "claims to large tracts of land," when he said: "The total number of individuals in whose favor these tracts of land are claimed may be stated at from forty to fifty. For the reasons stated in my public Despatches, I feel myself satisfied that these claims are not based on substantial justice to the aborigines, or to the large majority of British settlers in this country. Her Majesty's Government may also rest satisfied that these individuals cannot be put in possession of these tracts of land without a large expenditure of British blood and money." But it is the conclusion of the letter to which I wish more particularly to direct. the reader's attention. He says: "The individuals interested in these land claims form a very powerful party. They include amongst them those connected with the public press, several members of the Church Missionary Society, and the numerous families of those gentlemen, various gentlemen holding important offices in the public service (and who are therefore acquainted with every movement of Government), and their friends and relatives. It is true that this party is confined principally to the north of the island; they still, however, exercise a very important influence here, and the Government, if it does not yield to their wishes, must anticipate a violent and stormy opposition." This anticipation was not long in being realised. Though this despatch was marked "private," a copy of it was communicated to the President of the Church Missionary Society by Earl Grey, for his private information, and soon after it found its way to New Zealand and was printed in the columns of the Southern Cross, This was the famous "Blood and Treasure Despatch," to which I referred in the preceding chapter. It will be seen there was nothing so very dreadful in it after all. That the charges made by the Governor against these land claimants, including some of the leading members of the Church Missionary Society, were true will be seen from the following extracts from a letter written to the latter by Bishop Selwyn, in which he gives the following quotation from a letter he had himself addressed to the Church Missionary Society more than two years before Governor Grey's arrival in the Colony:. "'The purchases of lands by the Missionaries have had a most injurious effect upon the minds of the natives and the English settlers. Many years of self-denial and disinterestedness on the part of every member of the Mission will be necessary to do away the impression which has, been made.' Mr Fairburn's claim of 40,000 acres, Mr Taylor's of 50,000, Mr Clarke's, Mr Hamlin's, Mr H. Williams's, and others, appearing publicly in the Gazette have created a feeling among the English settlers, of which the Missionaries, living apart from the settlers, are not sufficiently aware, and probably their own natives do not express their opinions to them as freely as they do to me. I cannot attempt to estimate the amount of evil which has been thus caused, and can only pray that God may give us grace for the future to abstain from laying such stumbling blocks in the way of our people." The Bishop, after pointing out that the Church Missionary Society had expressed its disapproval of these Missionary land transactions, goes on to remark: "In the same spirit the Bishop of Australia assured you in 1840, that it was the universal feeling among unprejudiced persons that no individual engaging in the duties of a missionary for the conversion of the heathen can avail himself of the opportunity thereby afforded; to ob-

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tain possession of their lands for his own benefit, without subjecting himself, his motives, and the cause which he has engaged in, to the most injurious suspicions. To the opinions of the Society, and of the Bishop of Australia, I am obliged reluctantly to add the testimony of my own experience, that the land purchases of missionaries have awakened the jealousy of the colonists; have created a feeling highly prejudicial to the mission; have affected the character of the Society; have "in some cases alienated the affections of natives from their missionary," and have subjected us all to the most injurious suspicion. "All this I will undertake to prove" if it ever should be necessary, but I earnestly desire to be spared the painful duty by your quiet acquiescence in the Governor's proposals." Some of the missionaries did, and others did not, quietly acquiesce in those proposals, and the consequence was that one was dismissed and three others were either superannuated or otherwise disposed of. I do not give the above extracts for the purpose of reviving a forgotten dispute, but for the purpose of showing how it chanced that at public meetings, and in public newspapers in Auckland, Governor Grey was so fearfully denounced, as well as why even his veracity was called in question. Governor Grey was no more liked by the Auckland land sharks of that day, than Sir George Grey is liked by the land monopolists of the present day, and on both occasions similar courses have been resorted to to traduce his character and weaken his influence.

Next to the northern land claimants the most powerful opponents of Sir George Grey, on his arrival in Wellington in 1851, were the members of the Settlers' Constitutional Association, who held their meetings in an upper room at Barrett's Hotel. Of this Association Dr Featherston was the Hon. Secretary, and Dr Dorset the nominal Chairman. It was in no sense of the term a representative body; it never had the confidence of the working settlers; and its proceedings were opposed from the first by a large majority of the more influential citizens of Wellington. Of this Association Dr Featherston was the life and soul, and the Independent the acknowledged organ. Amongst its more active members were many disappointed, or ambitious office-seekers, many of whom, sooner or later, obtained office under the Provincial Government. For example, Dr Featherston became Superintendent of the Province; Mr Clifford, Speaker of the Provincial Council; Mr Fitzherbert, Provincial Secretary; Mr Fox (on his return to the Colony) Provincial Treasurer; Dr Dorset, Coroner and Provincial Surgeon; Mr Brandon, Provincial Solicitor; Mr Revans, Chairman of Committees; Mr Kelham, and subsequently Mr W. Dorset, Provincial Auditor; Mr John Wallace, Government Clerk; and Mr J. H. Marriott, Sergeant-at-Arms. Most of these men did all they could to injure the reputation of Governor Grey both here and at home, and sought by letters to the Colonial Office and leading members of Parliament to procure his recall from the Governorship of the Colony. After Mr Fox's departure, all the resolutions passed by the Association, and all the letters signed "John Dorset," were drafted and written by Dr Featherston; for the Chairman of the Association, though a very popular and goodnatured, was a very illiterate man, who never wrote a political letter in his life, and was totally innocent of having ever given birth to any political ideas. When resolutions were to be sent to the Colonial Office or to members of Parliament care was taken that they should either be proposed or seconded by 'Captain' Rhodes or some J.P., in order to make it appear, as Mr Ormond recently represented, that the Asso-

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ciation was composed of the leading men and most respected residents in the southern settlements. I record these facts for the purpose of divesting those letters and resolutions condemnatory of Sir George Grey of any weight to which they are not fairly entitled. It was the bitter hostility of these men, and the underhand plottings of Lieutenant-Governor Eyre, that Sir George Grey had to meet and circumvent on his arrival in Wellington in 1851 to open the General Legislative Council. It was necessary that I should say this much in order for the reader to better understand what follows.

This General Legislative Council whose proceedings I was engaged to report, comprised His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief; His Excellency Lieutenant-Governor Eyre; Lieutenant-Colonel McCleverty, Commander of the Forces; Mr Swainson, Attorney-General; Dr. Sinclair, Colonial Secretary; Hon. W. H. Petre, Provincial Treasurer; Mr Daniel Wakefield, Provincial Attorney-General; Mr Domett, Civil Secretary; Mr Carkeek, Collector of Customs; Mr Dillon Bell, Commissioner of Crown Lands, and the following nominees, viz., Mr Hickson, Wellington; the Hon. C. Dillon, and Mr Cautly, Nelson; Mr Cutfield, Taranaki, and Captain Smith, Wairarapa. His Excellency the Governor in-Chief presided. The following account relative to the delivery of his "Financial Statement" was published in the Wairarapa Standard in 1875, prior to Sir George Grey taking his seat in the House of Representatives for Auckland City West, for the purpose of indicating that Sir George might prove as great a debater as he was a dispatch writer: "The reporter for the Independent, feeling certain a copy of this lucid statement would be furnished to the press on application, failed to take any notes of it during its delivery, though he listened with breathless interest to it from its commencement to its close.

On applying at the Spectator office for a copy of the speech he was told that no copy could be furnished, and that he ought to have taken notes at the time of what was said. The only recourse left to him was to apply personally to Sir George Grey, when he was politely informed by the latter that he had not spoken from notes, but if the reporter would supply him with the several topics in the order in which he had referred to them, he would connect them together with any necessary remarks that he should find to have been omitted. There was therefore nothing left for the reporter to do but to go home and endeavor to write out the speech as well as he could from memory, which he could not have hoped to accomplish had it been so voluminous and elaborate a production as those which have since been delivered. When he had performed this task, he hastened to Government House, and placed his notes in the hands of Mr Cooper, the Assistant Secretary. The reporter had not waited long when he was sent for by His Excellency, and was immediately after ushered into his presence. After congratulating him on the general accuracy of the report, Sir George pointed out one or two omissions which he said he had taken the liberty to supply, and at the same time he told him that if at any time he felt at a loss, or stood in need of information, in the discharge of his duties, if he would apply to him he would be only too happy to render him all the aid in his power. The reporter thanked him and withdrew; and subsequently had the satisfaction of seeing the speech which had been reported under the above circumstances reprinted in all the Colonial and in several of the London newspapers. The circumstance made a deep impression on the writer's mind, and though it occurred nearly a quarter of a century ago he remembers it as vividly as if it had only happened yesterday."

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CHAPTER IV.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE GENERAL LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

The Bank. of Issue. – -The. N. Z. Company's Land Claimants. – The Provincial Council's Ordinance. – The Pasturage Regulations. – The Hundred Ordinance. – The Auckland Charter. – A Scene in the Council.

IT is not my intention to dwell on the important measures discussed and passed by the General Legislative Council. Some of these were of as great public interest, and many of them quite as liberal in their provisions, as any which have since been discussed and passed by the General Assembly. One of these was an Ordinance to prohibit private banks from issuing paper money; this privilege being very properly restricted to the Government Bank of Issue which had been established by Sir George Grey, and which three years after was stupidly abolished by the General Assembly in the interests of the moneyocracy; though it was proved, upon evidence, to be a very beneficial and profitable institution to the Colony. Another important measure was called the New Zealand Company's Land Claimants' Ordinance, passed for the purpose of authorising the issue of Government Scrip in satisfaction of the claims of the Company's Land Purchasers or their assigns. A third measure was the Provincial Councils Ordinance, which excited no end of discussion at the time, and which was in the following year superseded by the passing of the Constitution Act. The measures to which I intend here more particularly to refer are the Pasturage Regulations; a Crown Lands Ordinance, amending and extending the provisions of a New Ulster Ordinance (commonly known as the Hundred Ordinance) to the whole of New Zealand, with the exception of what was known as the Canterbury Block; and a Charter of Incorporation for the town and suburbs of Auckland, As the second of these will be repeatedly referred to in the course of these pages, in connection with Sir George Grey's Pasturage and Land Regulations, it will be necessary here to refer to some of the more important of its provisions.

THE PASTURAGE REGULATIONS.

Before doing so, however, I deem it necessary to state in substance, and from recollection, the remarks made by his Excellency on introducing his Pasturage Regulations, as those remarks have never before been published. He said, that instead of dividing the Colony, for depasturing purposes, into settled, intermediate, and unsettled districts, as had been done in New South Wales, when the Port Philip district, afterwards erected into the Colony of Victoria, was comprised within its limits; in which districts pastoral leases on distinctive terms; were granted for one, seven, and fourteen years respectively; he thought it better to have one uniform system of regulations for the whole Colony; and, instead of leases, to grant depasturage licenses only, with the proviso that when the land was required for settlement the license should at once, ipso facto; cease and determine. It was, consequently, distinctly stipulated in the license that it should remain in force for fourteen years, "subject nevertheless to be sooner determined pursuant to the provisions of the Regulations under which this license is issued." And on turning to those Regulations I find that the occupier of a run would be entitled to a license to depasture stock upon it subject to the following among other conditions: "If at any time during the currency of such license, the land comprised therein, or any part thereof, shall be included within the boundaries of any Hundred, the said license shall cease and determine as to so much of the land as shall be included within such

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boundaries, from and after the day of the date of the proclamation by which such Hundred shall be constituted."

The Pasturage Regulations created an animated discussion, and during the time the Stranger's Gallery was filled by persons who took an interest in the subject. Mr Domett, and less warmly Mr Dillon Bell, stood up manfully for the interests of men of small means, and contended that it would be better for the colony that the country were occupied by a large number of small, than by a small number of large, stockowners. On the other side, Mr Cautly maintained that it would he better for the colony to be parcelled out among a small number of large Stock owners who would introduce capital and well-bred stock into the country, and thus tend to promote its wealth and ultimate prosperity. Sir George Grey reminded both that the squatters were mere gipsies – that was the term he used – who had no permanent interest in the land they occupied, and when that was wanted for settlement they would be required to go further afield. But his views will be found more clearly stated by himself in a letter to Lieut-Governor Wynyard when transmitting to him the Hundred Ordinance, as it passed the General Legislative Council, to the provisions of which, as well as to be extract from His Excellency's letter, I wish now to direct the attention of my readers.

THE HUNDRED ORDINANCE.

I have already said that the Crown Lands Ordinance of New Ulster was extended to New Munster by an Ordinance passed in the session to which I am now referring. Under the New Ulster Ordinance, no person could occupy Crown Lands within the limits of a Hundred without a license, for which an annual fee of 10s 6d was to be paid. A list of the persons thus licensed was to be published in the Gazette, and the persons comprised in such list were to have the exclusive right of pasturage; these persons to elect a board of wardens, not less than three, in whom were to be vested the regulation and apportionment of the right of pasturage for the year. Then comes the following important clause, including its proviso, which is of still more importance.

"It shall be lawful for the wardens at any time within two calendar months after their election, to compute the quantity of cattle capable of being depastured on the Waste Lands of the Crown within the Hundred, to determine the description of cattle to be depastured thereon, and to apportion the number of great cattle and small cattle which may be depastured for the then current year by each person holding such license as aforesaid; regard being had to the quantity of land occupied by each such person, or to the price or sum per acre which may have been paid into the public Treasury, or to such other general rule as the wardens may deem better suited to the condition of the Hundred: Provided always, that it shall be lawful for such wardens to allow to unlicensed owners of land within any such Hundred the right of depasturing cattle on any such Waste Lands in proportion to the quantity of unenclosed land within the hundred belonging to such unlicensed person."

It is necessary to bear in mind that the holder of a license had power to transfer his license to any other person being an occupier of freehold land. Thus every occupier of a freehold within a Hundred, whether a cattle owner or not, would be enabled to reap some benefit from the public lands, while the large cattle owner would not be prohibited from depasturing a greater quantity of cattle than the number for which he was licensed, provided he could induce other holders of licenses, not being cattle owners, to transfer their licenses to him. The operation of

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the bye laws made by the wardens, was, by the amended law extended and made applicable to unlicensed persons, and to the lands of all persons situate within the limits of the Hundred. It will thus be seen that as soon as a district had been proclaimed a Hundred the occupiers of freeholds within it had full powers to determine the description, and to apportion the number of cattle, to be depastured on the public lands; that the wardens had power to make bye laws, to impose fines, and to impound cattle; and that, for the purpose of providing the means for carrying into effect these powers, and for defraying the expenses incident thereto, they were empowered to levy an assessment on cattle, not exceeding five shillings for every head of great cattle, and one shilling for every head of small cattle. Moreover, the license fee of 10s 6d paid to the commissioner was forthwith to be paid over to the wardens, and every provision was made to enable the inhabitants of the Hundred to regulate the depasturing of cattle on the unsold and unfenced lands within its limits. What was of more importance, the license for a run or portion of a run which was declared to be within the boundaries of the Hundred, under Sir George Grey's Pasturage Regulations, ceased and determined; while under the Royal instructions one-third of the gross proceeds from land sales within the Hundred were to be banded over to the Wardens to be appropriated to such purposes of public utility as they might determine. In transmitting the Amended Ordinance to Lieut-Governor Wynyard His Excellency Sir George Grey, wrote, "You are aware that under the authority of Proclamations which have been already issued the country in the vicinity of Auckland has been divided into Hundreds, the inhabitants of which have had conferred upon them the power of electing Wardens, in whose hands has been vested the power of making all requisite regulations connected with the depasturing of stock on the unsold lands within the limits of the Hundreds, of improving the common lands, and of carrying on certain public works and improvements. To enable the Wardens to effect these objects, all sums of money raised from depasturing licenses, or from the assessments on stock depastured within the limits of the Hundreds, and one-third of the gross proceeds of all Crown lands within the limits of the Hundreds which may be sold by the Crown, are to be placed at their disposal. This system of dividing the country, so soon as it becomes tolerably populous into hundreds, has hitherto – in so far as it has been tried – worked well; and I propose that it should be constantly extended over the agricultural districts, as the increase of population in any particular locality renders it advisable to proclaim a Hundred or Hundreds in that district. Indeed, I confidentially expect that within a few years, the inhabitants of New Zealand will regard this right of being formed into small Municipalities for the management of the waste lands in their district, and for the expenditure of so considerable a portion of the land fund raised in it, as one of their most valuable and important privileges; and that it will be found that the incorporation for these purposes of all the landed proprietors in the Colony will create throughout the entire country bodies of considerable political influence, who will readily be able to resist any attempts (should such ever be made) on the part of the large stockholders to acquire such rights over the Crown lands as might be injurious to the interests or future prospects of the less wealthy portions of the community." These confident expectations of Sir George Grey were not realised; but the whole extract, and particularly the last sentence, is not less worthy of being recorded on that account. The time will come

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when questions of this kind will force themselves on the public attention, and they will then enquire how the public lands of the Colony came to be appropriated.

The Auckland Charter.

During the sitting of the Legislature, Sir George Grey laid on the Council table a Charter of Incorporation he had granted to the Borough of Auckland, and also the letter to Lieutenant-Governor Wynyard which accompanied it. He subsequently offered to grant a somewhat similar charter to the Hutt, but it declined, under false representations, to take advantage of the offer. In his letter to the Lieutenant-Governor after explaining at great length the provisions of the Auckland Charter, and shewing what large powers and revenues would be conferred on the Corporation, Sir G. Grey goes on to observe that it is not the object of the Charter to confer upon any particular class, by means of a council to be chosen by that class, the power of governing the borough; and he points out that the Charter recognises that with a view to the efficient management of all local institutions, works, and endowments, and to the good order, health, and. convenience of the people, the inhabitants of the district should be constituted a body corporate. Further on he observes: –

"It is now only necessary that I should add that the Burgesses of the Borough of Auckland being by the enclosed Charter, and the other several provisions which have been for that purpose made, charged with the administration of many valuable trusts, and with the management of the lands set apart for their support, being also endowed with a portion of the public funds, and being empowered to take all necessary measures for improving the means of internal communication within the Borough; for facilitating and encouraging its trade and commerce; for providing for the good order, health and convenience of its inhabitants; and for promoting the education of its youth; possessing also a large share in the administration of justice, in the persons of its Mayor and Aldermen, and its power of making bye laws for the holding of Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the Borough, by the Justices of the Peace thereof; and being further empowered to raise the funds necessary to effect these important objects, the Council of the Borough will for the future, be in a great measure responsible for the progress and prosperity of the district."

A SCENE IN THE COUNCIL.

But the measure which excited the greatest outside interest was undoubtedly the Provincial Councils Ordinance, to which it was reported Lieutenant-Governor Eyre intended to move an amendment to the effect that it be read that day six months; but for which motion, when the time arrived, he substituted an ill-delivered speech, which I had every reason at the time to suspect had been written for him, in part at least, by Dr Featherston. I try as much as possible to avoid in these recollections to introduce any personal matters connected with myself, but on this occasion I must do so, for the purpose of showing what dodges the Opposition to Sir G. Grey at that time had recourse to, and to what mental torture a man having no resources but his brains may be subjected, in a country in which only money and muscle have any marketable value. Though not a short-hand reporter, I had reported satisfactorily, partly from long-hand notes and partly from memory, the proceedings of several public bodies, and the speeches made at more than one public demonstration prior to my arrival in the Colony. Subsequently I reported the speeches of Mr Gibbon Wakefield, Mr Fox, the Hon. John Johnston, and others, and was complimented by them on the accuracy

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of my reports. Though the Maori names that were frequently mentioned in the course of the discussions were a source to me of much trouble and annoyance, I had managed, up to the time of the second reading of this Provincial Councils Bill, to give a brief record of the debates without being found fault with. Perhaps I should have escaped on that day without censure, had I been informed previously that Mr Eyre would furnish a report of his own speech, or that I should be required to take fuller notes than usual of his remarks. Though it has been twenty-six years ago, the whole scene stands as vividly before me as if I had only witnessed it a few days since. After some ordinary business had been disposed of, the Provincial Councils Bill came on for discussion. Lieutenant-Governor Eyre, who sat at the side of the Council table, on the right hand of the Governor-in-Chief, slowly rose, and taking a roll of paper from his pocket and placing it before him, he began, in a low and scarcely audible voice, to deliver his views regarding the measure under discussion. All the while he looked down his nose, and stuttered and stammered as I had heard some lordling do on an English hustings, when he had lost the thread of his argument. The moment he concluded, up rose Sir George Grey, and in a more withering speech than I had ever before heard delivered – and I had heard O'Connell at a public meeting, and Roebuck in the House of Commons – I expected every moment to see the "ike-penny Governor," as the Maories called him, subside into his boots, such was the torrent of eloquence and invective with which he was overwhelmed. The Lieutenant-Governor afterwards appeared at the Council table, but he was never after allowed to take any part in the administration of the Government of the country. On the day following this scene, I had just finished my report of the proceedings of the preceding day, and was taking the "copy" to the Independent office, when I was met by Dr Featherston, who desired to see my report, and we both went into Bannatyne's office opposite for that purpose. Judge then his surprise ana indignation when he found that I had devoted a very small space to Eyre and a very large space to Grey, much larger, as I subsequently found, than had been devoted to the latter in the columns of his own organ. I ought to have known, but I didn't till then, that such a proceeding on my part was unpardonable. The report was trampled in the gutter, and I was left to my own devices. In a few days after I was again earnestly requested to resume my duties; but in the meantime I found that the speech of the Lieutenant-Governor had been printed in pamphlet form, re-printed in a supplement, and dispatched by hundreds in a vessel which had put in at Wellington from Sydney, bound for England; the supplement also purporting to give a report of the speech of Sir George Grey, but in which all the more forcible and eloquent of his remarks were caricatured, or viley distorted, though in such a manner as to lead the reader to suppose that such a speech might really nave been delivered. The supplement also contained a series of resolutions which were said to have been passed by the Constitutional Association, denouncing, as usual, the Governor, and holding up the conduct of the Lieutenant-Governor to the forhearance of the Colonial Office, and the admiration of future ages. And this was the way public opinion was misrepresented, or manufactured, for home consumption at Barrett's hotel. The circumstance of a chance vessel going to England furnished too fine an opportunity to the Opposition for them not to avail themselves of it. Of course it was represented that the public were in ecstacies at the conduct of the Lieutenant-Governor, and

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more than ever indignant with the proceedings of the Governor-in-Chief.

CHAPTER V.

Exciting Meeting of the Constitutional Association. – Retirement of Dr Featherston from the Independent. – Presentation to him of a Service of Plate. – Reduction in price of Land. – Sir G. Grey's Dispatch recommending Constitution for New Zealand.

BEFORE the Legislative Council terminated its sittings, a meeting of the Settler's Constitutional Association was convened for the purpose of expressing approval of the Pasturage Regulations then before the Council. This was the first time that Association expressed approval of anything Sir George Grey had said or done, and the circumstance was probably in Dr Featherston's mind when, some years after, he denied that he had ever opposed Sir George Grey, except on the question of his witholding Representative institutions from the Colony. Be this as it may, at that meeting Dr Featherston stood up and spoke in the highest terms of the liberality of the Regulations in question. He was followed by Mr Revans, who said however, he might differ politically from Sir George Grey he could bear his testimony to the fact that there was no man in the Southern Seas who so well understood the pastoral question as the Governor-in-Chief. This brought up Mr Fitzherbert, who ventured to differ with what had been advanced by Dr Featherston and Mr Revans. He considered the taking possession of the lands of the province under these boasted Regulations would be unjust to the land purchaser and detrimental to colonization. Let the squatter, he said, be the pioneer of settlement, but when the land he occupied was wanted for the latter purpose he must move further afield. There was no provision, he said, in those Regulations to meet such a contingency – to supply so grave a necessity – and therefore in spite of all the howling of all the runholders in the room he would not vote for a resolution that expressed approval of them. He would not give his sanction to all the plains and valleys in the country being occupied under depasturing licenses. Let the said squatters occupy the hills, and let the plains and valleys be reserved for an agricultural population. At the conclusion of these remarks, which were frequently interrupted, a scene of confusion ensued, which Dr Featherston himself, though powerfully backed by Captain Rhodes, found it difficult to allay. The former said, in effect, that though the Regulations themselves did not provide any remedy against the evil feared, the Hundred Ordinance did, and the two ought to be read together. So soon, he said as any runs were required for sale and settlement they would be constituted into Hundreds, when the licenses for any land comprised within the boundaries of those Hundreds, would cease and determine. I call attention to this meeting because it shews that the two men who afterwards had the administration of the Waste Lands of the Province, the one as Superintendent and the other as Crown Lands Commissioner, were well aware that Sir George Grey's present Pasturage and subsequent Land Regulations and the Hundred Ordinance were required to be read together.

Soon after the close of the General Legislative Council. I became permanently connected with the Independent Office, as general and shipping reporter, sub-editor, &c. Dr Featherston still continuing, until about May the following year, to write the leading articles, when he suddenly announced to the proprietors that he had ceased to be a contributor to the Independent. What were his reasons for taking this course were at the time variously conjectured; but I can state of my

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own knowledge that he never after contributed to its leading columns, though for several years he was generally suspected of occasionally doing so. The reasons which I was requested by the proprietary to publicly assign were of a private or professional nature; but I always suspected that the ungrateful treatment he had experienced at the hands of those who had been principally benefited by his exertions in securing additional compensation to the resident land purchasers from the New Zealand Company, coupled with the fact that it had come to his knowledge, through Colonel McCleverty, as member of the Executive Council, that Sir George Grey had recommended a Representative Constitution for the Colony more liberal by far than any the settlers themselves had ever ventured to demand, had a great deal to do with his resignation of the editorial chair. This I know, that he imparted this information to me shortly after his retirement in the very words given above.

Some time before my arrival in the Colony Dr Featherston had succeeded in extorting the above additional compensation from the New Zealand Company on behalf of its land purchasers, and the holders of its land orders, resident in the Colony. For his exertions on that occasion it was resolved to present him with a service of plate, which was ordered from England and consisted of two large silver salvers appropriately inscribed. It was publicly notified that this service of plate would be presented to him at two o'clock on a particular afternoon at Barrett's Hotel. I attended in my capacity of reporter, and at the hour appointed there was scarcely anyone present except James Smith, Major Baker, Dr Featherston and myself. The first named gentleman volunteered to go and fetch Mr Hickson, who had been Chairman of the Compensation Committee; but for some reason or other he declined to be present, and eventually Major Baker was called to the Chair, and in a few complimentary terms presented the plate to Dr Featherston. The latter, in returning thanks, took advantage of the occasion to shew the benefits which the issue of the Compensation Scrip had not only conferred on its recipients, but on the Colony also by virtually reducing the price of land, and placing its acquisition within the easy reach of all classes. The small attendance could in part be accounted for by the inconvenient hour chosen for the presentation, as a large audience never could be got together at that hour of the day, but for all that I had reason to suspect it had a painful effect on his mind. That small attendance reflected no discredit upon Dr Featherston, though it did upon those who had been enormously benefitted through his able exertions on their behalf.

The above allusion to the reduction in the price of Crown lands, then 20s per acre, served me for the key-note of my leaders in the Independent; but with the reduction in the price of land I also advocated a reduction in the size of the sections lo be offered for sale, in order that the working settlers might be able to secure the great object of their ambition in emigrating to New Zealand. On the 4th March of the following year (1853) Sir George Grey issued his celebrated Cheap Land Regulations of which I shall have more to say bye-and-by. In 1851, though the fact was not generally known in the Colony until twelve or eighteen months after, Sir George Grey had sent home an able dispatch in which he sketched a form of Government for New Zealand. In that dispatch he acknowledged that at first he supposed the Provincial Councils would merge into a kind of municipal councils; "but," he went on to observe, "the rapid growth of these settlements in wealth and prosperity, and the turn events are taking now lead me to think they

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will always remain distinct and separate Provinces." This, it should be observed, was in 1851, more than twelve months before the Constitution Act was passed, and that, in his opinion, the progress of the country, and its growth in population and wealth were reasons for the retention and not for the abolition of the provincial system he had recommended.

In that despatch he informed Earl Grey that he had made provisions for the division of the country into Hundreds, and that those Hundreds were intended by him to be united into larger municipalities with extended powers, while the latter themselves were intended to constitute large subdivisions of the several provinces, and not to be substitutes for them. In other words he proposed a system of County, as well as of Provincial and Municipal Government, of which the several Hundreds should constitute wards. What Sir George Grey proposed in the despatch above referred to was that there should be a General Legislature consisting of two chambers both of which to be elective; at elected Superintendent and Provincial Council for each of the five provinces into which he proposed the colony should be divided: and Municipal Institutions, not in substitution of, but in addition to the Provincial Councils. These Municipal Institutions, he proposed, should be of three kinds, one of these being a system of small municipalities for the local Government of hundreds, and another being the constitution of municipalities of the nature of those existing in Great Britain, but with more extended powers. "These," said he, would embrace several hundreds, which, however, should still preserve their own privileges as hundreds, and elect their own wardens; although for a higher and more extended class of municipal duties they would be adopted as wards into the larger corporation or county. Such were the proposals of Sir George Grey, in 1851, and had they been carried out by those who came after him, the outlying districts of the several Provinces would not only have had secured to them one-third of the gross proceeds of the land sales; not only would they have enjoyed the fullest powers of local, county, and provincial government; but they would have been the means of effectually preventing that land monopoly and land speculation which were afterwards so rife, and which nothing probably but a land tax will be found adequate to cure. But had Sir George Grey's proposals been faithfully carried out, the Colony would have been in a very different position, politically, socially, and materially to what it is now. It would have been in the enjoyment of a system of real local and representative government. Neither colonial nor provincial centralisation would have been possible; and none of the other evils which have sprung from what is known as provincialism and centralism could have been inflicted on the country. It is well that these facts should be borne in mind, and it is well that I should be able to give them publicity, at a time when the character of a great man, the political equality which we have hitherto enjoyed, and the constitutional history of the Colony, are all alike being deliberately tampered with by reckless men for the worst of purposes.

It may surprise some of my readers, who knew how intimate my official and political relations with Dr Featherston subsequently were, that I should speak as I have done with regard to his conduct towards Sir George Grey during his first administration of the Government of the Colony; but their surprise will be less when they read how Dr Featherston himself declared, on Sir George's return to the Colony, "that he he was the greatest benefactor the Colony ever had." The truth, however, is

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that before the Constitution Act was proclaimed in 1853 no political or official relations had existed between us; while then I had no idea, nor had I indeed for some time after, that his great object in administering the Waste Lands would be to secure a revenue from their sale, and to protect the supposed interests of the runholders against the real interests of the people at large. His speech at the meeting of the Constitutional Association, referred to at the commencement of this chapter, and more particularly his speech on opening the first session of the Wellington Provincial Council, led me to expect that he would have adopted a totally opposite course. But our views on Colonial politics, and more especially on the subject of Provincial Institutions, were always in unison, as they were on the question of the reduction in the price of land, and – at the commencement of his Provincial administration – on the necessity of a land tax to check land speculation and monopoly. But these matters relate to a much later period than that to which I have been referring.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ARRIVAL OF MR GIBBON WAKEFIELD.

The Abandonment of the Auckland Isles. – Lieutenant-Governor Enderby. – Arrival of Judge Stephen. – First Press Prosecution. A Lawyer fined for giving bad advice. – Lunatic Asylum, – Reclaimed Land. – Australian Gold Discoveries. – Arrival of Mr Wakefield.

BEFORE the Constitution Act was brought into practical operation Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield, "the founder of the Colony," and the author of the "sufficient price" land system arrived at Wellington. But prior to that event there had been other occurrences of more or less historic interest. Lieutenant-Governor Enderby, with the South Sea Whaling Company's Commissioners and whaling fleet, arrived in the Schooner Black Dog from the Auckland Islands, both the settlement and enterprise there having proved a miserable failure. Just before this Judge Chapman had retired from the New Zealand Bench to take the appointment of Colonial Secretary of Van Dieman's Land, which he had received from Home; and Judge Stephen, who had a short time previously been appointed, by a freak of the Colonial Office, Judge at Otago, where there was little or nothing for him to do, came up to Wellington to take the seat vacated by Mr Justice Chapman. Before leaving Port Chalmers for Wellington Judge Stephen committed an assault on a settler there, and excused himself for having done so on the ground that he could not wait to obtain redress by "the slow and tardy process of the law." Such an excuse for committing a breach of the peace from the lips of a judge may appear incredible, and, though well authenticated, it would probably have escaped the criticism of the press had it not been for an incident which is worth recording, not only because it illustrates a state of affairs which has long since happily passed away, but because it gave rise to the first press prosecution which had then taken place in New Zealand.

In those days the largest drapers shop on Lambton Quay was kept by Mr Samuel Robinson. Now it so happened that he, among others, had been summoned to serve on the petty jury at the sittings of the Supreme Court, and at the same time Mr Charles Clifford, one of the most influential members of the Constitutional Association, was summoned to serve on the grand jury. On their names being called over both were found to be absent, and each of them, as a consequence, was fined £5. Subsequently, however, the fine in Mr Clifford's case was remitted, on the former explaining that he had gone

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up the coast and had been prevented from returning in time. Mr Robinson felt "riled" at the different treatment meted out by the judge to the shopkeeper and squatter, and, as was not uncommon in those days, he gave vent to his feelings through the correspondence columns of the Independent. In the letter he sent to that journal he referred to the words the Judge had made use of in Otago in justification for his having committed a breach of the peace. For this offence Mr Robinson, who had signed the letter with his own name – and which for that reason, contrary to my earnest advice, had been printed without any alterations or omissions – and Mr McKenzie, one of the proprietors of the Independent, were summoned for contempt of Court, though no Court had been sitting at the time, nor had it been for some time previous. While the case was pending, Dr Evens, one of the first settlers at Port Nicholson, but who had been long absent from the Colony, returned to Wellington from London, and appeared in Court as counsel for Mr McKenzie, Mr King having been previously retained by Mr Robinson. In the meantime great excitement prevailed; public meetings were held, and trial by jury, and the liberty of the press, were both loudly if not ably advocated. The upshot was, that Mr King was fined £20 for giving his client bad advice, his client was mulct in a similar penalty, while both Mr McKenzie and Mr Robinson were imprisoned until they had answered certain interrogatories to the satisfaction of the Court. This having been expeditiously accomplished they were both released from confinement. Dr Evans, who had been an able contributor to one of the London weekly papers during his residence in London, long kept up a wordy war against the Judge and his illegal proceedings in the leading columns of the Independent, and he never relinquished his hold over those columns until some time after Mr Gibbon Wakefield's arrival in the Colony. It is worthy of remark that all the time this agitation lasted the leading members of the Constitutional Association maintained an ominous silence, though there is reason to believe that more than one of them were aware that Judge Stephen was insane at the time, though the fact never leaked out until after his death, which took place some two or three years later.

There was one beneficial result from this extraordinary case. On finding on my visit to the gaol that there were several lunatics confined I called public attention to the fact, and threatened to direct the attention of the people of England to it through the columns of the Times. This induced Sir George Grey, who until the preceding year had been a comparative stranger in Wellington, and who had had so many other public affairs to attend to, to take immediate action in the matter; but the evil was not remedied until after Dr Featherston had been installed Superintendent, when the negotiations for the purchase of premises at Karori for a Lunatic Asylum, which had been commenced by Sir George Grey, were successfully completed by the Provincial Government.

It was about this time, too, that Sir George Grey commenced the reclamation of land on Lambton Harbor, opposite the present office of the New Zealand Times. A portion of this land was sold by auction to cover the cost of the undertaking, and a portion was reserved – that portion nearest the head of the bay – for an endowment for a college and grammar school.

But by far the most important event which had occurred about this period was the discovery of gold first at Bathurst, in New South Wales, and soon after at Mount Alexander in the then new colony of Victoria. The excitement in the whole of New Zealand was intense. Merchants and

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capitalists became alarmed lest the colony should be depopulated, and the Government was invoked to bring the Passenger Act into operation, with the view of putting a check on the working classes leaving the colony. In vain had I urged in the leading columns of the Independent that "GOLD WAS THE GREAT COLONISER," and that New Zealand could not fail to participate to the fullest extent in all the advantages those discoveries would confer, without being subjected, except in a limited degree, to the evils they might temporary produce. But it was all to no purpose. Subsequently it was my task, through the columns of the Advertiser, to try to dissipate a similar and less excusable scare on the part of the Wellington public when gold was discovered in Otago, but in neither case did I find that leading articles had any very appreciable effect. Even now much of the increase in the population, wealth and progress which is traceable to those gold discoveries is blindly ascribed to other agencies; just as we find English Political Economists ascribing to the works of Adam Smith what was due to the inventions of Awkwright and Watt; or just as we find the Constitution Act ascribed to the exertions of the Settler's Constitutional Association instead of to the genius and patriotism of Sir George Grey. Nothing could more convince me of the localisation of the functions of the brain, and that the faculty of memory is distinctly associated with each function, than the difficulty I have had in the course of this narrative in remembering dates. The truth here referred to has been long insisted upon by phrenologists, and is now I find being recognised by the more eminent physiologists and psycohologists; for if this were not the case, how can the circumstance be accounted for that while I have a vivid recollection of places and events my memory for dates and figures should be found to be so very defective. I can consequently only conclude that Mr Gibbon Wakefield arrived in the Colony not earlier than May, 1853, from the circumstance that the numerously signed requisition to Dr Featherston asking him to be a candidate for the Superintendency had been publicly presented to him before Mr Wakefield's arrival; and that, therefore, though too late to be a candidate himself for that office, he had ample time to canvass the Hutt district as a candidate for the Provincial Council, the elections for which came off early in August. Surely the exact date of his arrival in the Colony is more worthy of being recorded in almanacs than many less important events; but it would appear that his very existence would now be forgotten, if not for the spasmodic efforts made to revive his memory by his only and unfortunate son Jerningham. and with it his exploded "sufficient price" system.

On the morning after the arrival in the harbor of the ship Minerva with Mr Gibbon Wakefield on board, I had occasion to call on business at the residence of Mr Clifford who had come up in her from Lyttelton. After transacting the business which had taken me to his house, Mr Clifford informed me that Mr Gibbon Wakefield had arrived, and was waiting on board to see whether he would be accorded a public reception. He said "I am now going to consult with Dr Featherston as to what form the reception shall take, whether a public demonstration on landing, an address of welcome, or some other public recognition of his services as the founder of the Colony." We were then walking together over Thorndon Flat, he to the then residence of Dr Featherston, I towards my then residence on the Beach. Shortly after an address was hawked about for signature, welcoming Mr Gibbon Wakefield to Wellington as the founder of the Colony, and containing a well

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merited and grateful acknowledgment of the many eminent and valuable services he had rendered to the settlers of New Zealand. The first name on the address was that of I. E. Featherston, by whom doubtless the address itself had been written. He was subsequently officially reminded of the fact by Acting-Governor Wynyard; but the fact I am at present concerned with is, that Mr Wakefield would have been allowed to land, unhonored and unrecognised, on the shores of the first and principal settlement in New Zealand which he had been principally instrumental in founding, had he not himself insisted that some recognition should be vouchsafed to him. As it was the thing was done as quietly and with as bad a grace as possible. Dr Featherston well knew, if Mr Clifford did not, that in welcoming Gibbon Wakefield, he was welcoming a man who would, if his health were spared to him, prove a formidable rival.

CHAPTER VII.

THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE CONSTITUTION ACT.

N. Z. Mail on Provincial Institutions. – Mr Fox on the Constitution Act. – Alterations made on his recommendation. – Mr Gladstone on Provincial Councils. – On an elected Upper House. – Sir George Grey the author of the Act. His recommendations as to the Waste Lands. Responsible Government a costly sham.

AS a great deal of misapprehension prevails relative to the parties to whom the colony was indebted for the most liberal constitution that at that time had ever been granted by the British Crown, I intend to devote the present chapter to the elucidation of the subject. Before doing so, however, I will give an extract from a leading article which appeared in the New Zealand Mail in 1871, of which journal I was then the editor, with the object of shewing that the views I then entertained with regard to the authorship of the Constitution, which was, be it noted, some years before Sir George Grey's reappearance in the public arena were the same as I hold now. After stating that falsehoods, by dint of constant repetition, sometimes get so deeply imbedded in the human mind that it will take centuries to dislodge them, I go on to observe: – "At last, however, the disinterment of some buried document, or the deciphering of some musty records, render it clear that what had been so long and generally credited had no better foundation than some impudent forgery or baseless report, that had escaped, for some reason or other, contemporary examination and exposure. There seems to be some danger that the same thing will occur in our day relative to the persons to whom we owe provincial institutions. We are of opinion that it would be no difficult matter to show that the assertion, made by Mr Fitzherbert, "that they were won after a hard struggle, protracted over many years," was not strictly accurate. If this had been the case they would most certainly have been more highly prized. The error has arisen in confounding two distinct things, which are not necessarily connected together. It was representative government which was demanded by the Constitutional Association; but provincial institutions were obtained for the Colony by Sir George Grey, in opposition to the expressed wishes of the very men who have since obtained the whole credit for their introduction. A reference to his despatches to Earl Grey on the form of government best suited to New Zealand, and to a file of the Wellington Independent for 1851, when the Provincial Councils Ordinance was before the then General Legislature, will prove the truth of this statement. Let credit be given where credit is due. The gentlemen, who were subsequently known as the three F.'s, opposed alike the author of the Constitution Act, and the

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provincial institutions he recommended for the Colony. It was not until they had secured power under them that they were able to appreciate their merits. The public are not always just, because they are seldom afforded the means of forming correct opinions as regards public men or public events. It must, however, be admitted that if they were not so willing to be deceived, deception would be more difficult, and less general, than is the case at present. They look only at results, and do not trouble themselves about the successive steps that have to be taken before those results can be arrived at. They seldom think of the exertions and merits of those who clear the bush, plough the land, and sow the seed; and honor those only who perform the far easier and more grateful task of gathering in the harvest. So with public men and popular measures. It is those who secure them, not those who have prepared the public mind for their advent, who are regarded. The "hard struggle" to which Mr Fitzherbert referred was a struggle between those who upheld, in the then state of the Colony, the principle of nomination, and those who supported the principle of popular election. Amidst the din and clamor made by the contending parties, the term "provincial institutions" was never once heard; and denunciations of nomineeism, ridicule of the nominees, and never-ending praises of the representative system, furnished the stock-in-trade of the popular party. The term "provincialism" was first coined by Mr Sewell in a letter he addressed to the Duke of Newcastle in 1853, which was some time after the Constitution Act had been partly brought into operation. And it may perhaps be looked upon as a noteworthy fact, that those who so strongly denounced nomineeism, and so stoutly upheld the principle of popular election, have never once raised their voices against the one since they attained political power by means of the other. A combination of fortunate circumstances favored the inauguration of the provincial system of government, and at the same time constituted the causes which prolonged the hostility and jealousy which their good fortune had provoked. The manner the Constitution Act was brought into operation, the delay which took place in summoning the General Assembly, the presence at Auckland of a merely ad interim administration, the arrival of successful and unsuccessful gold seekers in the Colony, the enormous rise which took place at the time in timber and all New Zealand produce, and so far as this Province was concerned, the purchase of, and opening for settlement, the large and level district of Wairarapa, all tended to give strength and prominence to provincial institutions, and eclat and funds to those who exercised authority under them."

It will be noticed in the above extract that I refer to some remarks made by Mr Fitzherbert when assenting to become a candidate for the Superintendency, in which he stated that provincial institutions were won after a hard struggle protracted over many years, which I shew was not the case. In the following extract from a letter written by Mr Fox to the Chairman of the Constitutional Association, and dated Parthenon Club. June 22, 1852, less excusable mistatements are made. He says: – "I sincerely congratulate my fellow-colonists on having obtained so large an instalment of the powers of self-government. The result is due to their own steady and persevering adherence to the great principles of freedom; to their undeviating resistance to the attempt of Governor Grey to put them off with half measures, and to corrupt their independence by the lavish distribution of patronage. If he succeeded with some who were once the champions of your liberties, it is satisfactory to

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reflect that the great bulk of the colonists of all classes have stood firmly by one another, and never flinched, in what, I hope, will prove to have been the very last struggle with organised and legalised despotism in the British dominions."

Both Mr Fox and Mr Gibbon Wakefield took to themselves great credit for having long and anxiously watched the Constitutional Bill during its passage through Parliament, and of having been the means of effecting many and great improvements in it. Whereas all the former did was to get Taranaki made a separate province, and all the second did, which many will now think also a doubtful improvement, was to back up Mr Gladstone in getting the Superintendents elected by the people instead of being nominated by the Crown, as proposed by the Tory Government in opposition to the recommendation of Sir George Grey. In supporting the second reading of the Bill Mr Gladstone said: – "With fairness, and without any unjust insinuation, he thought it creditable to the Government, not because it went back to the system of the Rhode Island Charter, but because it showed an intention to approximate to that system, and because it conceded a larger measure of freedom than had hitherto been granted to the colonies. In stating what he considered to be the distinguishing merits of the bill, he was obliged in the first place, to state that he differed from his honorable friend (Sir William Molesworth) who complained of the bill because it recognised the existence of local settlements, and who proposed that they should be abrogated, and that power should be given to the Central Legislature to dispose of them as it should deem fitting. On the contrary he (Mr Gladstone) thought that the recognition of these local settlements was one of the greatest virtues and merits of the measure. When he saw how much the strength of the American Union depended upon the independence of the different States, he was not ashamed to say that this recognition of small communities was, in his view, one of the fundamental merits of this bill, and was a point which appeared to him to be an advance over their previous measures of colonial legislation.

In referring to the Nominee Chamber Mr Gladstone said: – "In this respect the right hon. baronet's plan had degenerated from that of his predecessor in office. It was, he believed, the intention of Lord Grey (as recommended by Sir George Grey) that the Legislative Council of New Zealand should be composed of persons elected by the local Legislatures of the separate districts. Whence did his Lordship derive that idea? From the United States; and in turning to that quarter he resorted to the best fountain of instruction to which he could have recourse. If there was one thing in the Constitution of the United States which more than all others entitled the great authors of that astonishing work to the gratitude of their countrymen and to fame as wide and lasting as the world, it was the system adopted for the election of the Senate by introducing the principle of election, not according to the numbers of population, but by separate States, thereby counterbalancing the principle of purely popular election." Mr Gladstone did not succeed in getting the Legislative Council made elective, but he did succeed in getting the office of Superintendent made elective, and in excising from the Bill the stipulation that the salary of Superintendent should be £500 a year, Mr Fox having assured him that many colonists would be found to accept the office for the honor and glory of the thing.

The fact is, that a draft of a Constitution Act had been drawn up by Earl Grey prior to February, 1852, from a dispatch of Sir George Grey

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sent to him the preceding year; but before it could be submitted to the House the Ministry, of which Earl Grey was a member, had to resign office, and the Derby Ministry of that year was installed in its stead, with Sir John Pakington as Secretary for the Colonies. That gentleman got a Bill drafted on the basis of that of Earl Grey, in which he made sundry alterations in the direction of the abridgment of popular liberties. One or two of these alterations were rejected by Parliament, which made one or two alterations itself, one of those being the establishment of six instead of five Provinces. Another alteration made in Sir George Grey's proposals was the handing over to the General Assembly, consisting of two Chambers, one of which would necessarily be composed of large stock owners and pastoral tenants of the Crown, the entire control of the Waste Lands. This concession was hailed at the time by the Colonial reformers in the House of Commons, and by Colonists then resident in London, with the liveliest feelings of satisfaction and gratitude – the latter being of that kind which is said to consist of a keen sense of favors or benefits to come. Sir George Grey proposed that great powers over the Crown Lands and the revenue derived from them should be vested in the Governor, "who," he said, "should alone be entrusted with the power of issuing orders regarding the temporary occupation of Crown lands for depasturing purposes." He thought, also, that the distribution of the Crown land revenue should be made under the direction of the Governor-in-Chief. Of course there would be no advantage in him having these powers if he could only exercise them by and with the advice and consent of a misnamed Responsible Ministry; but such a costly sham formed no part of his recommendations. From the foregoing it will be gathered who was the principal author of the Constitution Act – "an Act," to quote the language of Mr Gladstone, "which conceded a larger measure of freedom than had been hitherto granted to the Colonies."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY'S EMIGRANTS.

The Company's Laborers. – The "Sufficient Price" System. – Destitution and Insubordination at Nelson and New Plymouth. – The Company's Treatment of its Laborers. – The Australian Cold Discoveries. – Native leaseholders.

IN the present and two following chapters I intend to say something of the material condition of the Company's laborers in the earlier days of the Colony, and of the subsequent establishment of many of them and their children as small farm settlers in the Wairarapa. I shall then return to the political history of the Province of Wellington, and, incidently, that of the Colony also, including in it the civil and waste lands administration of Dr Featherston during bis first term of office

It must be understood that it was not the intention of the New Zealand Company that the laborers sent out under its auspices should either occupy or acquire laud on their own account; and to prevent the latter from being accomplished such "a sufficient price" was put upon it as the Company thought would, for some time at least, prevent such acquisition. How the system would have worked had the greater portion of the Company's land purchasers, by whose funds a large body of laborers were sent out, themselves have emigrated to New Zealand, I shall not undertake to determine. That it broke down, so far as the settlements of Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth were concerned had to be openly, avowed by the Company's agents, and that it would also have broken down in

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Otago and Canterbury, had it not been for the Australian and New Zealand gold discoveries, I have not myself the slightest doubt. Be this as it may, it was soon discovered that more laborers had been sent out than there was capital to employ them, and consequently even Colonel Wakefield, the Company's Principal Agent had to admit that, owing to the deficiency of settlers possessing capital there would shortly be no means to employ the laboring population, and consequently every facility and encouragement should be afforded to the occupation of land by agricultural workmen, on their own account, by the direction of roads through sections rented by them, on which they could employ their spare time. The object of both the Company and its land purchasers was to prevent the laborers sent out from either owning land or occupying it on their own account. It was not long, however, after the arrival of the early settlers at Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth before this scheme of preventing the laboring classes from becoming at least the occupiers of land on their own account had to be considerably modified "It has already become necessary" – says Mr Fox in a letter addressed to Colonel Wakefield under date November 1st, 1843 – "it has already become necessary to depart very far from the principles upon which the colonisation of New Zealand was undertaken, and recent events have rendered it still more difficult to carry out any system preconceived at home for the regulation of the affairs of the settlement." In fact, as both Colonel Wakefield and Mr Fox admitted, more labor had been introduced than there was capital to employ it, and consequently great distress prevailed amongst the laboring classes of Wellington, Nelson, and New Plymouth. Those who sneer at the claims of the "early settlers" would do well to reflect on this admission of Mr Fox: – "The prospects held out to them on leaving heme have unfortunately not been realised, and probably few of them contemplated the possibility of their being obliged to resort to navigators' work as their resource. To mechanics and the better class of agricultural laborers who expected ample employment in their own occupations, and an early advancement to a superior station, this result must be one of considerable disappointment." The following description of the state of the Nelson settlement from the same pen would be found more or less applicable to that of Wellington also. He says: – "It is impossible not to perceive that with the disproportionate amount of private capital and labor in this settlement, the termination of the expenditure of the public works fund must be attended with serious consequences, unless the laborers are in the meantime rendered in some degree independant by the occupation and cultivation of land. The private capitalists complain a little of the public works affording a temptation to laborers to leave their service; but unless they can hold out the prospect of being themselves able to employ all the labor in the settlement when the public works fund is expended (of which there is no chance) I think it would be a short-sighted policy to deprive the laborers of the opportunity of rendering themselves in some degree independent. In the meantime, though the rate of wages is kept rather high, private employers paying eighteen shillings a week for an entire week's work, I have not found that any difficulty exists in their obtaining laborers at that rate."

INSUBORDINATION AT NELSON AND NEW PLYMOUTH.

In another letter by Mr Fox, giving notes of an interview with Major Richmond, the Government Agent, the social and material condition of the "Company's laborers" may be pretty

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accurately ascertained: – "Conversation then ensued relative to the maintenance of an increased police force; and it was pointed out to Major Richmond that, 'independently of the danger apprehended from the natives, the laboring class was entirely beyond control; and they had recently set law at defiance, presented loaded fire arms at the Police Magistrate and constables, and were only kept quiet by being permitted to do as they pleased.' Major Richmond asked 'if the Company were not bound to employ them?' Mr Fox replied, however that might be, the Company had a right to expect a return of labor for the fund expended upon them; at present, little or no return was obtained; that the course which had of late been pursued with regard to the laboring class could be justified by no honest man, except under an absolute impossibility to pursue any other course; and that experience had shown that any attempt to tighten the reins would induce riot, breaking open of the stores, loss of life, in short the ruin of the settlement." Turning to the settlement of New Plymouth no improvement in the social and material condition of "the Company's laborers" is observable. Mr Wicksteed, the Company's Agent, under date October 31st, 1843, says he was engaged in a perpetual conflict with a large number of emigrants arising out of his endeavors to reduce the Company's expenditure. He then makes the following damning admission: – "You are aware that the emigrants to this settlement hold what they call "embarkation orders," being a sort of handbill, signed "Thomas Woolcombe," in which is it is distinctly stated, that the Company's agent "will at all times, give them employment in the service of the Company if from any cause they should be unable to obtain it elsewhere." Being unable to give any other interpretation to this promise than the words quoted seemed to imply; and yet bearing in mind that the Court of Directors view their engagement in a different light, I endeavored to evade it by sending the applicants for employment a long distance from home, making no allowance for time spent in the journey, or for time lost in bad weather. The necessities of the men and their families were such as compelled them to submit for several weeks to these conditions; but many came home sick, and claimed the promised medical aid; and others commenced the trade of pig and sheep stealing; not having yet had time to raise potatoes for themselves. It then appeared to me that the parties were really "destitute," and I endeavored to find employment for them from the landholders, by paying their wages in part. This arrangement has been so far successful as to produce a large addition to the land under crop; and when the period of harvest arrives, the landowners, I suppose, will be obliged to take nearly all the laborers off my hands, at a rate of wages which will prevent destitution." Such was the result of the boasted "sufficient price system," under which a larger number of laborers were imported than there were means to employ them, and by means of which it was the avowed object of the Company "to prevent laborers becoming landholders too soon." No improvement was effected in the material and social condition of the Company's immigrants until after the arrival of Captain Grey, as Governor of the colony, Nov. 18, 1845; when confidence was soon restored, and when a large number of 100 acre sections at the Hutt, Karori, Porirua &c, were subdivided and let or leased to the laborers either with or without purchasing clauses. These they continued to occupy at a heavy rental and with more or less success, until the discovery of gold in New South Wales and Victoria so enormously raised the price of timber and farm produce, as to place these leaseholders

above the reach of want. A considerable number of these 'Company's laborers," and subsequent occupiers of small sections at the Hutt, Karori, and other districts in the neighborhood of Wellington, subsequently constituted the bulk of the more successful Small Farm settlers of the Wairarapa.

THE WAIRARAPA NATIVE LEASEHOLDER.

So long ago as September, 1843, at a meeting held at Wellington it was resolved "that the settlers of Port Nicholson require immediately an extensive district in which to depasture their increasing flocks and herds; and that the Company's principal agent be requested to adopt forthwith the measures necessary to render approachable and to open for sale the district of the Wydrop." In transmitting this resolution to the Court of Directors Colonel Wakefield wrote: "I have before brought under the notice of the Court of Directors the importance of opening the Wairarapa valley by means of a road up that of the Hutt. A very respectable deputation from the settlers have again urged upon me the want of room for depasturing flocks and herds in this wooded district, and the great advantages to the settlement to be ensured by laying open for sale a large block in the above-mentioned open, grassy plains. Numerous applications for the purchase of land, and for licenses for depasturing cattle there, have been made to me, and I have no doubt that either by means of an inland settlement formed upon a similar system as this, with a small town, or by selling the land here and in England simultaneously, the resources of the Company might be very sensibly increased. Nothing, however, can be effected towards this end unless a communication to the district be made." No step, however, having been taken in this direction a number of settlers, in open defiance of the law, and of repeated proclamations of the Government, went to the Wairarapa and occupied extensive portions of it, with their flocks and herds, under native leases. The following were the names of the principal Wairarapa settlers at, or soon after, the time I mention: – Messrs Bidwill, Borlase, Burling, Cameron Bros., Collins, Donald, Gillies, Guthrie, Hume, Kelly, Langdon McMaster, Matthews, Morrison, Northwood, Pharazyn, Revans, Russell, Captain Smith, Strang, Sutherland, Tully, Waterson, and Wilson. Besides these, there were Mr Barton, of the Upper Hutt, and Mr Riddiford, of the Lower Hutt, who held native leases of runs on the East Coast; but they, as well as two or three Wellington settlers who held native leases also, chiefly on the East Coast, could not be considered residents of the Wairarapa. The whole of the Wairarapa, including the East Coast, was occupied by at most not more than thirty stockowners, at the time of the final surrender of their charter by the New Zealand Company, which took place in July, 1850. We will now briefly see how a change in this state of things was effected.

[Pages 31-53]

CHAPTER IX.

THE PURCHASE OF THE WAIRARAPA.

Cheap Land and Small Farms. – Compensation Agitation at the Hutt. – Dinner and Ball to Sir George Grey. – McLean's successful Negociations. – Cheap Land Proclamation. – Small Farm Association. – Pre-emptive Right to the Squatters.

A MISTAKE would be made if cheap land and small farms were to be treated as synonymous terms; yet this mistake was made by Dr Featherston in 1852 when, in referring to some articles which I had written in the leading columns of the Independent advocating not only a reduction in the price of land but a reduction in the size of the sections offered for

History and politics.

sale, he asserted he had repeatedly done so when he was a regular contributor to that journal. But what he advocated was a reduction in the price of the sections; what I advocated was a reduction in their size also. Mr Justice Chapman had the preceding year taken up the question in a lecture which he delivered in the Wellington Athenaeum on Peasant Proprietorship. In the course of his remarks he referred to the success which had been attained by some of the small farm occupiers of Karori and the Hutt, and expressed the hope that the day would not be distant when the valley of the Wairarapa would be dotted over with the smiling homesteads of a numerous body of hardy peasant proprietors. Mr Joseph Masters, who had seen the difficulties placed in the way of working settlers acquiring land in Van Dieman's Land, advocated the setting aside a block of land for men of small means in some letters which he got published in the Independent.

Much about the same time an agitation was got up by the settlers of the Hutt in favor of obtaining compensation in land for the losses they had sustained through the laches of the New Zealand Company. The Resident Land Purchasers had done so mainly through the exertions of Dr Featherston, and why should not their leaseholders do so mainly through the exertions of Mr Renall? Those lessees of land, chiefly owned by absentees, and for which they had been paying from 5s to 20s per acre per annum, considered they had just as good a claim to compensation – they who had borne the heat and burden of the day – as those absentees, or for the matter of that as the resident land purchasers, including with them the lucky holders of New Zealand Company's Land Orders. A public meeting was held on the subject, and a deputation, consisting of Messrs Ludlam, Renall, Jackson, Tocker, and Scott, waited upon Sir George Grey, who promised to afford them all the aid in his power. But the fact was, there was then no land available; and, besides, Sir George Grey had no power to give it away if there had been. The agitation, however, was continued, which increased to a fever heat after the arrival of Mr Gibbon Wakefield; but before that event a public dinner and ball was given to Sir George Grey at the Hutt which was largely attended, and carried out most enthusiastically. The whole is described by an eye-witness as having been a most brilliant affair. The next morning a deputation by appointment waited on His Excellency at the residence of Mr Ludlam, when he offered a block of land at the Pakuratahi for their use, which was however respectfully declined, the deputation preferring to wait and see what would be the result of Mr McLean's mission to the Wairarapa – that district having been described in glowing colors by Mr Tocker. Soon after this a meeting of Hutt settlers was called at the Hutt Bridge by Messrs Masters, Allen, and Carter, from Wellington, the result of which was that Mr Masters, as representing Wellington, and Mr H. H. Jackson, as representative of the Hutt settlers, were appointed to visit the Wairarapa and select a suitable block or blocks for a small farm settlement. We cannot enter into the full particulars of their journey nor of the hardships and difficulties they met with on the way. It was soon after that the negociations for the purchase of large blocks of land in the Wairarapa, which had previously been personally successfully initiated by Sir George Grey, were brought to a successful termination by Mr McLean, his Principal Land Purchase Commissioner. It was on the 4th March this year (1853) Sir George Grey reduced the price of rural land, outside Hundreds, from 20s to 10s an acre. Though large quantities of land had been purchased by compensation and other

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

scrip in the Rangitikei, Turakina, and Wanganui districts, at an actual cost to the holders of such scrip of not more than 7s 6d, and, in some cases, not more than 3s 6d an acre, some eight-tenths of the land in the Province was owned by absentees. This fact, when considered in connection with the success which followed the virtual reduction in the price of land in the districts above named, was, independently of any powers and instructions he had received from England, sufficient to justify the course which Sir George Grey adopted. Public opinion was strongly in its favor, and years previously one of the agents of the New Zealand Company had actually recommended the allowance of a large discount for cash, or the sale of land on credit. If it is now seen that the reduction in the price, unaccompanied by the exercise of those safeguards which Sir George Grey had wisely provided, led to the monopoly of the public estate, it is certain that the reduction at the time was hailed with the liveliest feeling of satisfaction throughout the Province, except only by the interested believers in the Wakefield system.

It was not long after the issue of this Proclamation the Small Farm Association was founded, and the negotiations for the purchase of several blocks of land in the Wairarapa were completed; but before that land could be declared open for sale the Constitution Act had been brought into operation, and Dr Featherston had been gazetted Superintendent of the Province of Wellington from the 1st August, 1853. Early in the following month Mr Domett, Civil Secretary, informed him by direction of His Excellency, Sir George Grey, that the boundaries of the recent purchased blocks in the Wairarapa would be laid down as quickly as practicable, and in the meantime His Honor was requested, in conjunction with the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Mr Dillon Bell, to determine what reserves for towns, villages, and public purposes were required in the district. At the same time he was informed that the native lease holders in the Valley would be treated by the Government as tenants of the Crown, and, as such, would be allowed the right of purchasing their homesteads in accordance with the regulations in force, to the extent of 80 acres. The Provincial Government was also invited to recommend the mode in which the lands in that district should be disposed of. In reply the Superintendent recommended: – (1) That for the present all the land should be reserved as a Hundred, which extended from Burling's at the foot of the Rimutaka, to the Waingawa river, "in order to give the promoters of the Small Farm scheme an opportunity of carrying it out," and (2) that the pre-emptive right of the holders of native leases in the Wairarapa should be extended from 80 to 640 acres. It will be observed (1) that the Superintendant recommended that a certain extent of land should be reserved as a Hundred for the objects stated; and (2) that he did not recommend any reserves as sites for towns, villages, or public purposes. On the contrary, he recommended that the other portions of the valley, which had become the property of the Crown, should be open for sale on a day to be fixed, after due notice, by the Commissioner. It is worthy of remark that had the reserve he recommended to be constituted a Hundred, "in order to give the promoters of the Small Farm scheme an opportunity of carrying it out," been so constituted, none of the land, under the regulations in force, could have been sold to the members of the Small Farm Association except by auction at an upset price of 20s per acre. This difficulty, however, had not escaped the consideration of Sir G. Grey. It was therefore arranged that the block or blocks reserved for

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

the Small Farm Association should not, in the first instance be proclaimed Hundreds; but should be sold to the members of the Association in 40 acre sections, as rural land, at 10s an acre. The blocks the Association might set aside for the sites of townships were to be treated in the same manner, the Association buying the land as rural land, and then surveying it off into town acres. After this was done the two settlements were to be proclaimed Hundreds, and have all the rights, powers, privileges, and revenues which the "Hundred Ordinance" would confer upon them. These arrangements were of course highly approved by the members of the Association, and had they been wisely and honestly carried out the settlers would have enjoyed larger local powers, privileges, and revenues, through elected Boards of Wardens, than they have ever yet attained. Unfortunately before the town sites had been purchased from the Crown Sir George Grey had left the Colony, and consequently the Hundred Ordinance was never brought into operation.

CHAPTER X.

THE WAIRARAPA SMALL FARM SETTLEMENTS.

Greytown. – Masterton. – Featherston, – Carterton.

THE two settlements founded by the Small Farm Association were those of Greytown and Masterton, the one named after Sir George Grey and the other after Mr Masters. But I will include in the present chapter a brief account of Featherston and Carterton also. If the same judgment had been displayed in laying off these townships as was afterwards displayed by Mr Landis in founding Vineland how much greater would have been their progress. Though a Committee, consisting of Messrs Jackson, Tucker, Masters, and Chew, was appointed by the Association to select sites for the future townships, it appears that no attention was paid to their recommendations. The only thing thought about was that they should not encroach on any runs, and should be on the main road to the Ahuriri.

GREYTOWN.

Greytown was the first of the Association's townships. The only condition to be insisted upon was that the member who did not reside on his section, or expend £30 in improvements within twelve months, was to forfeit his town acre. There was nothing to prevent the Committee insisting on the fulfilment of this condition: but except in five cases, not even an attempt was made by them to do so. The fact was, that a number of Greytown residents, or subsequent laud purchasers within the block, had bought, for a mere trifle, a considerable number of these justly forfeited acres, and, consequently, they were directly interested in upsetting a condition which ought to have been rigidly insisted upon. From 20s to £5 was the price given for these acres, though even at the time they were bought, if the sellers had had a good title, the purchasers would have had to give in every case double and in many cases twenty times the sum at which, under the circumstances, they were enabled to buy them. Had these forfeited acres been reserved as an endowment for the township, Greytown from those reserves might have secured, for years past, a revenue of little short of £100 per annum. The town of Greytown, as also that of Masterton, originally consisted of 120 acres. Of these 89 were sold prior to 1860; 15 were then unsold, 2 acres had been sold to religious bodies, and 14 town acres were reserved for public purposes. And here perhaps I should mention, while on the subject of these reserves, the circumstances under which 48 acres on the eastern side of Greytown,

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

commonly known as the "town belt," were obtained from the Government. We have mentioned above that the land on the western side of the town was, at the time the latter was laid off, intended to be surveyed into 40 acre sections. This the natives objected to on the ground that the land on the eastern side had not been purchased from them by McLean. This objection he subsequently allowed, and thus admitted their right to the whole of the land on the eastern side of a trunk road which had not been even laid off, and which, moreover, consisted of dense bush at the time the block was purchased and its boundaries roughly defined. To get over the difficulty, several of the town acres claimed by the natives being already occupied, Mr McLean agreed to purchase a strip of land from them measuring 10 chains from the centre of the main road, and comprising 48 acres in addition to the 120 town acres which had been already laid off and partly selected. These 48 acres consequently, in addition to the 120 acres which had been originally laid off for the town, became part of Greytown. Forty of these acres were paid for at the time the 120 acres were paid for, viz. on the 29th March, 1856, or two years after Greytown was founded. The money for the remaining eight acres was advanced by Mr Carter, who had then been constituted the trustee for the lands comprised within the Greytown and Masterton townships, and was paid by him into the Land Office on the 80th of June, 1858. We have been more particular in entering into these details because the question has been asked, what right has Masterton to half the rental of a reserve which had been granted virtually to Greytown by the Government as some compensation for the injury it had sustained by being shorn of half its dimensions through McLean's recognition of the claim set up by the Natives. It was not, however, Greytown alone that was injured by the recognition of this claim. More than half the members of the Association who had selected their town acres in Greytown in preference to Masterton, and who intended to select their 40 acre sections on the eastern side of the township, were prevented from doing so. To remedy as far as possible the injury they had sustained a number of forty-acre sections were laid off in Morrison's Bush, with a deep swamp frontage to the Moroa Plain. These were thrown open for their selection, those declining being permitted to select instead fifty acres on the Taratahi Plain, the extra ten acres being allowed them for the injury they had sustained by being prevented from taking up their land in the vicinity of the town in which their town acres were situate. A few settlers preferred Morrison's Bush to going further afield, but the majority of them took up their sections on the Taratahi; which, consequently, is virtually part and parcel of the Greytown Small Farm Settlement. Though Greytown, therefore, has long been one of the most populous and most prosperous of the up country townships in the Province of Wellington, it had, it will be seen, many drawbacks from the first to contend with, not the least of which has been its virtual non representation both in the Provincial Council and the General Assembly. Had Sir George Grey remained in the Colony he would have paid the 10s an acre, the price the natives then asked for the land they claimed in the Greytown block, and he would besides, as he promised, have brought the Hundred Ordinance into operation.

MASTERTON.

The site selected for this township was a more happy one than that which had been selected for Greytown, and, besides, it was better laid off in the first instance; but it labored under the serious disadvantage of being

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some sixteen miles further from a seaport and market. The carriage of goods from Wellington was as high as £20 per ton; and though in a few years the cost of carriage was considerably reduced, owing to the completion of the Rimutaka road, and the opening of that through the Three Mile Bush, the charge, which had for some time remained at £12. was still further reduced. Many of the Masterton settlers, having previously been occupants of land on their own account in the districts in the neighborhood of Wellington, took with them to Masterton their horses, cattle, carts, and farm implements, which of course enabled them to commence farming operations with much more advantage than those who had little ready money, and no stock of any kind. Still even these had to submit to many hardships and privations, owing chiefly to the absence of a local market, the bad state of the roads, and the distance of the settlement from Wellington. At the beginning of the year 1860, or a little over five years after its foundation, there had been sold at Masterton by the Association 83 town acres, and two reserve acres for religious bodies, leaving 19 town acres unsold, and 16 town acres reserved from sale. About the year 1857, Mr Masters and Mr Tankersley having introduced sheep into the settlement, though the latter had been a violent opponent of the sheep owners, and had made no provision either at Greytown or Masterton for any extent of land either for commonage or grazing purposes, both being indispensable for the success of up-country townships, the settlers felt themselves aggrieved, and held public meetings to consider the best means that could be adopted to remedy this real or imaginary evil; when it was unanimously resolved to request the Superintendent to get the settlement proclaimed a Hundred, under the impression that the two runholders in the immediate vicinity of Masterton would be obliged to surrender a portion of their runs, which would then be available for commonage under a Board of Wardens, who would have the power to determine the description of cattle to be depastured, as well as other useful and necessary functions. Instead, however, of the Hundred Ordinance being brought into operation, a portion of the settlement was simply designated a Hundred, under an Act of the General Assembly; while the boundaries of the settlement, as set forth in the Proclamation, instead of being extended so as to embrace a fifth of the Te Ore Ore and Manaia runs, so that settlement might be encouraged, and the district consequently peopled and stocked, agreeably with the spirit and intentions of the Hundred Ordinance, as well as with both the letter and spirit of the 5th clause of the Provincial Governments' own Land Regulations, those boundaries were absolutely contracted, on grounds which will not bear the slightest examination, in order to prevent any portion of Mr Collins' run from falling within the limits of the proposed Hundred. The boundaries of the township being thus contracted, nearly the whole of the Crown Lands in the vicinity of Masterton were purposely excluded from the operation of the Hundred Ordinance, and thus the Ordinance itself was rendered a dead letter, and was never brought into operation. Such was the treatment, such the encouragement the Small Farm settlements received at the hands of the Provincial authorities.

FEATHERSTON

I have already stated that when Sir George Grey, on the 14th September, 1853, invited the newly elected Superintendent of the Province of Wellington to point out what land in the then recently acquired blocks in the Wairarapa should be reserved as sites for towns, villages, and pub-

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

lic purposes, Dr Featherston not only did not recommend the reservation of any land for such desirable and necessary objects, but, on the contrary, recommended that the whole of it, except the sites for the two Small Farm settlements, should be opened for sale at 10s an acre. Some time after this, however, he reserved for the site of a township, a portion of the unalienated land lying between the Rimutaka and the Tauherenikau river, including a small part of what was then known as Bidwill's Run, as a site for a township. This was subsequently surveyed at considerable cost, by Captain Smith, and laid off in town, suburban, and rural sections. This township at the suggestion of the writer, in the leading columns of the Independent, was ultimately named Featherston, after his Honor the Superintendent; the streets being named after the names of the members of the Provincial Council. Owing, however, in part to the high price put on the town and suburban sections, and in part to the absence of any inducement for settlement within the boundaries of the township very few sections were sold and hardly any of them were occupied, until some years later, when, on the motion of Mr Ludlam, the price, was lowered to a sum as much below, as it had formerly been above their real market value. When the cost of survey and other expenses were deducted the net profit to the Government on the sale of these suburban sections was not a twentieth part so much as would have been realised had more patience been exhibited, and wiser arrangements adopted. As it was, the town of Featherston at first made slower progress than even that of Carterton, which was some two years younger; but the suburban and rural land having been taken up by energetic hardworking men, who had learned the business of farming at the Hutt and the Wellington country districts, the town itself began to grow, and is now perhaps one of the most flourishing in the Wairarapa.

CARTERTON.

This township was founded in 1857, in the midst of a dense forest, then known as the "Three Mile Bush," and was named after Mr Carter, one of the Committee of the Small Farm Association, and then the representative of the Wairarapa, both in the Provincial Council and General Assembly. A Committee of the Provincial Council, on the motion of Mr W. Allen, having been appointed early in 1857 to report on the promotion of immigration, that Committee recommended that 25 per cent of the whole amount of the passage money should be remitted to the immigrant upon the payment at maturity of his promissory note, that the remission should be made in land; and that an amount of available surveyed land should be reserved for the purpose. Accordingly a portion of land on the eastern side of the main trunk road, then being constructed through the Three Mile Bush, was surveyed into ten-acre sections, and set aside for the object recommended by the Immigration Committee. About this time a large number of immigrants were being brought out under the "Black Ball Contract," who gave promissory notes for the payment in full of their passage money, and had land orders given them on those notes being paid. Many of these immigrants were employed ia making the road from Greytown to the Taratahi, and thence to Masterton. A considerable number of them located themselves on the sections above referred to, but it was not until some time after that any extensive signs of industry and progress were visible. It will thus be seen that while Greytown and Masterton, and afterwards Featherston, were occupied principally by old settlers from the neighborhood of Wellington, Carterton consisted almost exclusively of

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

new comers. Their success has been the result of their own energies; but it was the possession of land of their own which gave strength and direction to those energies and placed them in that position of independence which they now occupy. But what shall we say of the conduct of the Provincial Government, who, after making a trunk road through the Three Mile Bush, and locating those immigrants on the land on the one side of it, allowed the whole of the lands on the other side of that road to be swept up by Messrs Clifford and Carlyon by means of Absentee Scrip, which consequently brought not a penny to the Provincial Treasury? If that land had been reserved from sale it would easily have realised from 30s to £3 per acre. And it was thus the public lands were administered! No rights of commonage, either here or elsewhere, were secured to the settlers, as they were not desired to become "small stockowners," but were intended merely to be "a nursery of laborers."

CHAPTER XI.

INAUGURATION OF THE SUPERINTENDENCY OF DR FEATHERSTON.

Election of Dr Featherston. – -Electoral Districts. – -Mr Wakefield at the Hutt. – The Compensation Question. – The Provincial Elections. – Names of candidates returned. – Delay in summoning the Provincial Council. – Popular character of Superintendent's policy and proposals.

HAVING given the foregoing sketch of the origin of the Small Farm Settlements in the Wairarapa, it will now be necessary that I should go back for the purpose of recording some events in 1853. This was the year when the Constitution Act was brought into operation; when the Cheap Land Regulations were proclaimed; when Mr Gibbon Wakefield arrived in Wellington; when Dr Featherston was first gazetted Superintendent; and when the first Wellington Provincial Council was elected. This, therefore, it will be gathered, was not an uneventful year. The receipt of the Constitution Act was proclaimed on the 17th January; the colony was divided into six provinces, viz.: Auckland, Taranaki, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago on the 28th February; and the Provinces were by proclamation divided into electoral districts, and the number of members apportioned to each on the 5th March, 1853. The election for the Superintendency took place on July, when Dr Featherston was returned, unopposed, Superintendent of the Province. He took office on August 1st, and received all the co-operation possible from Sir George Grey. In the present and succeeding chapters, I propose to give a brief historical sketch of the affairs of the Province of Wellington under Dr. Featherston's first administration; but before doing so it will be necessary that I should refer to the elections which took place, first for the Provincial Council, and subsequently for the General Assembly, in the several electoral districts of the Province. There were then five electoral districts, and the following were the number of members apportioned to each in the Provincial Council and House of Representatives: –

Electoral Districts. | M.P.C. | M.H.R.
1. Wellington City | 7 | 8
2. Wellington country | 8 | 1
3. Hutt | 4 | 2
4. Wairarapa and Hawkes' Bay | 2 | 1
5. Wanganui and Rangitikei | 2 | 1
Total | 18 | 8

Before giving the names of the successful candidates at this election, it will be necessary to say something of the excitement created at the Hutt, and the consternation exhibited in the constitutional camp at Wellington, by the appearance of Mr Gibbon Wakefield in the political

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arena. I have already spoken of the cool reception accorded to him at Wellington on his arrival; however, a far more cordial and enthusiastic one awaited him at the Hutt. On his arrival there he immediately threw himself, body and soul, into the arms of the party that were agitating for compensation, and from his knowledge of the whole question he was enabled to throw such a stream of light on the compensation question as not a little astonished the holders of compensation scrip, more than puzzled the wise heads of the disciples of his art of colonisation, while it proved a source of no ordinary gratification to the numerous struggling settlers who held stringent leases of subdivided sections belonging to absentee and resident land purchasers, who found it no easy matter to pay their rent and make both ends meet, and who longed to be the occupants of a piece of land they could truly call their own. Mr Gibbon Wakefield well understood this feeling; indeed no one better; and hence the reason why he advocated such a sufficient price being charged for the waste lands as would prevent "too soon" this feeling from being gratified. Such propositions, coming from him, were so new and so startling "that they were enough," as Dr Evans publicly confessed, "to take one's breath away." He convinced his newly found friends at the Hutt that they were quite as much entitled to compensation as Dr Featherston's friends, the resident land purchasers, who had been so lucky as to obtain it, and who, while they were themselves basking in the sunshine, or acquiring large estates at Rangitikei, left their loss fortunate neighbors out in the cold. He shewed them how many of those who had received compensation had done so not as original but as derivative purchasers of New Zealand Company's Land Orders who had bought them at the price of an old song from the poor fellows who long before had had to leave the Colony in disgust in consequence of the inability of the Company to fulfil its engagements by putting them in quiet and undisturbed possession of their land. All this was new to the Hutt settlers, whose wants and wishes appeared about to be gratified. Mr Wakefield went further than this. If a block of land could be obtained large enough for the purpose he would hand over the whole of his own scrip towards its purchase, on which a township to be called Wakefield could be established, in the midst of which be would himself reside, and sections of which the settlers could purchase on a system of deferred payments. He promised, if elected, to bring the claims of the Company's emigrants before the General Assembly, and to secure for them such an amount of compensation as a Royal Commission might award. Consequently such was his popularity that at the election, which took place early in August, the Constitutional party were nowhere at the Hutt, Messrs Wakefield, Renall, Ludlam, and G. Hart being returned by a majority of five to one over their opponents. At Wellington the Constitutional party met with more success; but even there Mr G. Moore, one of Sir G. Grey's nominees, was returned by a larger number of votes than three of the members of the Constitutional Association were able to secure. Mr Kelham was rejected; while Mr Fawsett, who had been put forward by the Constitutional party, in order to get Odd Fellows' and working men's votes, stood nearly at the bottom of the poll. In the country district Mr Brown succeeded in defeating Mr Schultze, one of the most active and selfish members of the Constitutional Association; while Mr Harrison, the clerk of the old Nominee Council, and Mr Dillon Bell, an official member of the late Legislative Council, were returned without opposition as members for Wanganui and Hawkes' Bay respectively. The con-

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sequence was the Opposition numbered as many members as the Government, and on all important divisions the question was decided in favor of the latter by the casting vote of Mr Speaker Clifford,

The names of the members for the several electoral districts in the first session of the first Provincial Council were: – Wellington City, Clifford, Dorset, Fitzherbert, Moore, Lyon, Wallace, and Bethune; Wellington country, Brandon, Browne, and Waitte; Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay, Revans and Bell; and Wanganui, Daniel and Watt; Harrison having resigned on accepting the office of Clerk of the Council. The names of the members for Wellington Province in the first House of Representatives wore, Wellington city, Clifford, Kelham, and R. Hart; Hutt, G. Wakefield and A. Ludlam; Wellington Country, Brandon; Wairarapa, Revans; and Wanganui, Dr Featherston; all of whom, if I remember rightly, were returned unopposed; the previous elections for the Provincial Council having shewn that opposition would be useless. This was probably the reason why Mr Fitzherbert retired from the candidature for the City of Wellington, though the assigned reason was the news of the unexpected death of a brother in London. Had a contest taken place one or other of the Constitutional candidates would have been defeated. The result was that out of the eight candidates returned, four were supporters and three were opponents of Dr Featherston.

Though Dr Featherston had taken office on the 1st August, and though the elections for the members of the Provincial Council had taken place in the course of that month, the Council itself was not summoned to meet for the dispatch of business until the 28th October; a significant fact, which on account of the light it throws on some of the subsequent proceedings of the Superintendent deserves to be recorded.

The Superintendent opened the Council in a speech of more than usual excellence, which subsequent events showed was much more popular in its tone than would have been the case had not Mr Wakefield been present. I and others were regularly taken in by it. I had not myself been previously a very cordial admirer of the Constitutional party, but from the moment I heard the Superintendent's speech I not only voluntarily but enthusiastically enlisted under its banner. He declared that he was desirous (1) to carry out the Constitution according to its spirit; (2) to extinguish the native title as rapidly as possible; (3) to render the lands available by means of public works; and (4) to promote and establish a continuous stream of immigrant labor. He announced that the measures which would be introduced had been framed with the object of securing to the Executive all the powers necessary for the efficient administration of affairs, and of making the Provincial (in all provincial matters) entirely independent of the General Government. He professed his cordial concurrence in the objects of the Small Farm Association, and pointed out that though the future settlement of the waste lands was a matter of great importance yet it would be unwise to leave out of consideration the lands already conceded to individuals who neither occupied themselves nor would permit their actual occupation by others. But the passage which made the most lasting impression on my mind, and which embodied, as I knew, the views of nine-tenths of the electoral body was the following: – "The injurious effects of large tracts of country remaining unoccupied and waste – in separating and dispersing the settlers in preventing the formation of roads – and in thus increasing the cost and

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diminishing the amount of production – have been so long forced upon our attention that it is scarcely necessary for me to urge you not to allow this session to pass over without some attempt to paliate if not to remove such serious impediments to the progress of settlement." The remedy he recommended singularly enough was precisely the same as that which the Berry Ministry of Victoria, twenty-four years later recommended for Victoria; viz a general land tax. The imposition of such a tax he said was necessary not merely to raise funds for local improvements, but also to compel non-occupiers to contribute their fair proportions, to induce them either to settle and improve their lands, or sell them at their market value, and at the same time to discourage and prevent any undue acquisition of land by mere speculators in future. The money thus raised to be paid over to the District Boards for the uses of their respective districts.

Not only such a policy secured my adherence then but it would secure my adherence now, were there likely to be a Ministry that would honestly carry it in effect. It was not alone however, the Superintendent's proposals as regarded the imposition of a land tax that secured my approval; a much required Fencing Act which his opponents condemned "as little less than confiscatory" likewise did so. Indeed the more these measures were denounced by the Opposition the closer they attached me to the policy of the Superintendent. I of course did not know then that it was his intention to exempt freehold land in runholding districts from the operation of those measures; nor was I then aware he would sacrifice the general interests of the Province for the supposed interest of one small but influential section of the community.

The Superintendent announced that he should carry out his Government on the principle of Ministerial responsibility, and advocated the raising of a loan of £25,000, afterwards increased to £50,000 for immigration and public works. Though no less than 43,535 acres had been sold during the preceding six months, 33,249 had been paid for in scrip chiefly for land in the Rangitikei and Wanganui district and consequently only 10,185 acres had been sold for cash. He estimated the revenue for the current year at £18,000, and he expressed a hope that the expenses of the Civil Government would not exceed £9500 leaving £8500 available for public works. Such was the policy, such the proposals of Dr Featherston on first assuming the office of Superintendent of the Province.

CHAPTER XII.

PROVINCIALISM RUN MAD.

Superintendent's salary. – Financial Arrangements of Sir George Grey. – His departure from the colony. – His great popularity. – Opening Second Session of Provincial Council. – Superintendent's speech. – His ultra-Provincial views. – Destruction of the Council Chamber by the earthquake of '55. – A miniature Lord John Russell. – Council without house or home.

THERE has never been in the history of the colony so interesting a session of a legislature, whether General or provincial, as that of the first session of the Wellington Provincial Council. This arose in part from Mr Gibbon Wakefield being one of the most active of its members, and in part to the circumstance of parties being so equally divided. Had the same condition of things continued during subsequent sessions the Province of Wellington by this time would have occupied no inconsiderable space in colonial history. Dr Featherston commenced his government with a single clerk, and proposed that his own salary should not exceed £500 per annum. This was increased by the Council to £600; but when on

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the motion of Mr Watt it was resolved that he should have forage allowance for two horses, the two members of His Honor's Executive – -Fitzherbert and Brandon – had reluctantly to vote against the proposal. The financial arrangements made by Sir George Grey, pending the meeting of the General Assembly, were of the most liberal character, and under these the Collector of Customs had been directed to pay over to the Provincial Treasurer two-thirds of the net Customs receipts, while the whole of the net land receipts were to be thus handed over, after certain deductions had been made to defray the cost of surveys, native land purchasers, N. Z. Company's fourth, &c, &c. The Superintendent expressed his sense of the justice and fairness of these arrangements, and placed on official record this important statement – that he did not anticipate, under any circumstances, less than two-thirds of its ordinary revenue will ever be handed over to the Province. How greatly he was mistaken on this point the very first session of the General Assembly rendered manifest.

Prior to the opening of the first session of the Wellington Provincial Council Sir George Grey left Wellington, though he did not finally leave the colony till the end of the year. Before his departure from Wellington native addresses poured in upon him from all parts of the North Island, expressive of the regret of the writers at his contemplated departure from New Zealand. The merchants, mechanics, tradesmen and artizans of Wellington vied with each other in doing him honor. The latter presented him with a large gold medal expressive of their esteem, and the former subscribed a handsome sum with which to present him with a suitable testimonial as a mark of their appreciation of his worth. I have already referred to the dinner and ball that had been given to him previously at the Hutt, and I may now mention a fact within my own personal knowledge shewing how very popular he was among the country settlers, and which has never before been published. I have previously said that a requisition asking Dr Featherston to allow himself to be nominated for the Superintendency, which had been numerously signed, had been publicly presented to him before Mr Gibbon Wakefield's arrival at Wellington. The signatures to this requisition had been principally obtained by myself, having been engaged to procure them by Dr Dorset, the Chairman of the Constitutional Association. On visiting the Hutt, Porirua, and other districts around Wellington, it was of course necessary that I should explain the nature of the requisition they were asked to sign. This I did by telling them that it was a paper asking Dr Featherston to stand as a candidate for Governor under the new Constitution; when in not one but in almost every instance I met with a refusal, until I had first assured them that their doing so would not effect the position of Sir George Grey, the Governor-in-Chief. I shall not refer here to the state of the colony on his arrival, and the state it was in on his leaving it eight years subsequently, as both of these facts are well known to the public; but before concluding these pages I do intend to refer to the manner his return was welcomed after eight years absence, even by those who had been the bitterest of bis opponents during his first Governorship of the colony, as these facts are not so well known as they ought to be, and constitute one of the most remarkable and interesting episodes in the history of "the greatest benefactor the colony ever had."

In opening the second session of the Provincial Council the Superintendent referred to the abortive sessions of the General Assembly which had during the year 1854 been held at Auckland, under a merely Acting-

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Governor, who was himself the Superintendent of a Province. He pointed out the injury that had been done by the scramble for the public money which had taken place at Auckland by a Legislature unchecked by public opinion, and he urged that those proceedings indicated the necessity of the Constitution being carried out in more strict accordance with the letter and spirit of the Act itself, and the intentions of its framers, by rendering the Provincial – in all Provincial matters – entirely independent of the General Government. "For," said he, "without referring to the alteration in the relative importance of the distinct, different, and widely separated settlements which exist in the Colony – if regard be had to the intentions of the authors of the Constitution – to the common origin of the two Legislatures – to the general power of legislation conferred upon both – or to the terms in which it is conveyed; to the provisions protecting the powers of the Provincial Councils – or to the fair purport and construction of the terms conferring the over-riding jurisdiction – the conclusion to my mind is irresistible, that Parliament intended to establish two independent and separate Governments – independent each in its own sphere of action – one for local purposes over each Province – the other for general purposes over the whole Colony; and the Constitution Act can only be successfully carried out on a system of Federal Union – the action of the Central Legislature being restricted to the few matters of federal concern, all of which are enumerated amongst the thirteen articles excepted from the Provincial Councils." To show the loss of income to the Province owing to the increase of salaries voted by the Assembly, he mentioned that instead of three-fourths the Province would only have one-half of the Customs revenue. "Such," said he, "is the result of a centralising policy in a financial point of view." These views were held by Dr Featherston during the whole time he held the office of Superintendent of the Province of Wellington.

Tho second session of the Council was opened on the 21st of December, 1854, in Sir George Grey's old Council Chamber, formerly the Masonic lodge room of Barrett's old hotel, and in one short month after the Council Chamber was a heap of ruins, having been levelled to the ground by the great earthquake which occurred in the evening of the 23rd January, 1855. It is fortunate that it occurred at a time when the Council was not sitting or otherwise a great loss of life might have ensued. The Superintendent applied to Mr Hamley, Deputy Ordnance storekeeper, for the use of Government House for a Council Chamber, as it had been left in his charge by Sir George Grey on his leaving Wellington. On the same day Mr Hamley replied that no appropriation of the premises could be made until a survey had been made upon them. At a meeting of the Council on the same day, Mr Fitzherbert, the Provincial Secretary, called attention to the conduct of Mr Hamley, and on going to German Brown's for his horse, he was summoned to the door by Colonel McCleverty who was on horseback. The following is Mr Fitzherbert's graphic version of what passed: – I immediately responded to the call, and was perfectly astonished to see the Colonel in a towering passion, livid with rage. He burst upon me with, "I am just told, sir, (I think he said by Mr Stokes, but on that point I am not positive), that you have made charges against me in Council about want of humanity. Shameful, sir, shameful! Is it true? What have you to say, sir?" I replied, "It is true that I publicly complained of your conduct. I considered that I was justified in making the remarks I did, and shall repeat them, if neces-

sary. But let me tell you, sir, I will pot be questioned by you or any other man as to my freedom of speech in Council. I will not be intimidated by you or any other body from doing my duty as a representative of the people." Colonel McCleverty now flourished his whip in a violent manner. Somewhat, so far as my military reminiscences carry me, as if he were performing the manoevre of "Charge, Infantry," for he changed attitude with extraordinary rapidity. This moment he postured his right nether portion on the left flap of his saddle; the next moment he dexterously shifted his left nether portion to the right flap; all the time performing corresponding semi-circular motions with his whip. I kept my eye steadily on the figure, with my own whip slightly elevated so as to be prepared for any over act, but still not so as to frighten the Colonel. They were, however, only flourishes, and the Colonel just then appeared to me as though he were abstracted, and addressing imaginary soldiers. He suddenly roused himself and shouted, "Don't speak to me, sir! Never speak to me again, sir." I retorted, "I never asked to speak to you; it was you who wished to speak to me." I bawled out the latter part of this sentence, for he had already wheeled round his black charger and placed a waggon between us. No sooner had my words reached him than be seemed irritated by the retort, and turned round his head, and literally screamed but in a fury, "You, sir! you, of all men! you, of all men! you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You ought lo be transported; you ran away from the earthquakes last time: you ought to have been convicted of felony." I am not absolutely certain to the word transported. I am quite positive with regard to the other expressions.

It appears that the gallant Colonel then galloped off. On the following day Mr Fitzherbert called attention to this gross breach of privilege in his place in the Provincial Legislature; and asked what would the House of Commons – what would England say if Lord John Russell had been treated as he had been treated, on account of what he had said in Parliament, by the Commander-in Chief. A committee was forthwith appointed; a report was hastily brought up: and the indignity to which the Secretary of State for the Province of Wellington had been subjected by Colonel McCleverty was duly set forth in an elaborate State Paper drawn up by Mr Fox and transmitted forthwith to the Secretary of State for War. With what result no sane man at the time could have any difficulty to conjecture. The fact is that a species of mental giddiness was the consequence of this sudden elevation, as shewn by the above incident, which is worth relating, if only to shew what Provincial officers thought of themselves at the period under notice. Mr Fitzherbert's graphic description ought, at all events, to be rescued from that oblivion to which it might otherwise have been destined. During that and the following session the Provincial Council might be described without house or home; that Legislature never having secured quite so much consideration on the part of the "elected head of the Province," as such a distinguished champion of Representative Institutions might reasonably have been expected to have afforded it.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SUPERINTENDENT'S ADMINISTRATION OF THE WASTE LANDS.

The Retirement of Mr Wakefield and the advent of Mr Fox – The Treasury accounts. – Want of Surveys. – Non-reservation of agricultural land. – New Pasturage Regulations.

THE second session of the Council was chiefly noticeable by the absence of Mr Gibbon Wakefield, and the

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presence of Mr Fox. This was thought fortunate at the time for the Government of Dr Featherston, but I doubt whether it proved so for the province. A Government consisting of such men as Featherston, Fitzherbert, and Fox, must necessarily, in the absence of such a man as Mr Wakefield from the Opposition benches, have it all pretty much its own way. And this was what actually happened. Besides Mr Wakefield, who was absent from ill health from which he never afterwards recovered, the Opposition lost also the services of Mr Brown, who had gone to England where he died; but who had in the first session been a thorn in the side of the Government, more particularly on the Audit question. Mr Bromley, a Government supporter, was elected in his stead. Mr Fox filled the seat for Wellington vacated by Mr Bethune, who also went to England, where he also soon afterwards died. Mr George Moore, a consistent Government opponent during the first session, also resigned his seat, which was filled by Mr Hickson, one of Sir George Grey's nominees. Mr Schultz filled the seat of Mr Robert Waitte, who had left Wellington for Canterbury. Perhaps on the whole the Council during the second session was as able, though more subservant than it had been the preceding session; but nothing could compensate it for the forced absence of Mr Gibbon Wakefield. Before the next session he resigned his seat, and his son Jerningham was elected in his stead.

Mr Hickson, who had been appointed Chairman of the Finance Committee, brought up a report strongly condemning the way the Treasury accounts were kept, and stating that in the opinion of the Committee it was absolutely indispensable, to prevent the accounts getting into a state of inextricable confusion, that a totally different system of keeping them should be at once adopted. It appeared that only one account for all the public works had been kept, instead of each one being entered under a specific heading. It was also found that in several instances larger sums of money had been spent on certain works or services than had been voted by the Council, and yet that no application to the Council had been made for its sanction of such expenditure. Finally they recommended that the Treasurer should post his books daily, which had evidently not then been the practice. A Board of Audit had previously been appointed by the Superintendent, consisting of Messrs Bell, Carkeek, and Kelham and the way they had previously overhauled those Treasury accounts would have astonished Mr Hickson had he been conversant with the facts. There was nobody to blame for this, but the Provincial Treasurers themselves, Mr Fitzherbert and Mr Fox, whose ignorance of both official and mercantile book keeping was rendered at that time glaringly manifest. This cras ignorance, indeed, was only surpassed by the exceedingly slovenly manner in which first one and then the other of those officers performed the duties of that important department.

WANT OF SURVEYS

But I find it will be impossible to give a detailed history of Dr Featherston's civil administration during even his first term of office, and I shall therefore have to confine myself chiefly to his administration of the Waste Lands up to the year 1856, for though they were not nominally under his control until after the famous session of the General Assembly held in that year, they were so to all intents and purposes from the date of his taking office. And I may here mention, as bearing on the subject, that though in the first session of the Provincial Council, and so long ago as the 5th of January, 1851, the necessity for an increased

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survey staff was brought officially under the attention of the Superintendent, not the slightest notice was taken of the matter either then or for years after. On the motion of Mr Dillon Bell, the then Commissioner of Crown Lands, which he supported in a most powerful speech, the Council resolved: "That this House – having regard to the increasing demand for land in the districts originally acquired from the natives in this Province, and in the large additional territory recently acquired at Wairarapa and East Coast, and considering further the urgent necessity that exists for prosecuting efficient surveys, as the only means of really opening the land to selection and settlement – is of opinion that steps should be at once taken by the Provincial Government to organise an efficient surveying staff in the Province." The survey of the public lands would have opened them up for settlement and hence one reason for their backward condition. In 1862 no less than 50,000 acres of 5s land had been actually sold without having been surveyed.

NO RESERVES MADE.

It will have been already gathered that any success which was achieved by the Small Farm Settlements in the Wairarapa was not owing to the care, wisdom, and foresight manifested towards them by the Provincial Government. Professedly, the Superintendent felt great interest in their success; practically, however, to quote the language of Burke, having reference to the North American settlements, "they were suffered to take their own way to perfection." No rights of commonage were conferred upon them, no local revenues or powers were secured to them, and had it not been for the construction of the Great North Eastern Trunk Road, and the local expenditure thereby occasioned, it is questionable whether they would have made any progress. With the professed object of preventing the encroachment of an agricultural population on the pastoral runs, Mr Ludlam, in the very first session of the Provincial Council, moved and carried an address to the Superintendent, recommending the Government "to set apart in each separate district purchased from the natives a block of the best land, in the best position, as an encouragement for the agricultural population to settle." In reply, the Superintendent assured the Council that he would carry out its recommendation; though in no instance was either the letter or spirit of this recommendation complied with. The sale of the land, or its occupation as sheep runs, not its reservation for agricultural settlement, was the great object of the Government and its influential supporters. No reserves, for example, were made for towns, villages, agricultural, or Small Farm Settlements, either in the Lower Valley, or any other portion of the extensive and open plains of the Wairarapa, except in the case of the site for the township of Featherston, already referred to. Early in 1856 Captain Smith, then engaged in a trigonometrical survey in that part of the Province, strongly recommended the Superintendent to reserve the Whareama block for a Small Farm Settlement, having no doubt a personal interest in diverting the stream of settlement in that direction, rather than to the rich plains bordering on the Ruamahunga; but not the slightest notice was taken at the time of that recommendation; and when some years after a motion was made in the Provincial Council for the production of the Captain's report, the Government made some excuse about it having been lost or mislaid, and stated that in any case it was then too late to make any reservation of the kind, as the larger and better portion of the block had already been purchased. It was thus the settlement of the people on the land was encouraged by the

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Wellington Provincial government! In what way the settlement of the Pastoral Runs, as they were miscalled, was in effect absolutely prohibited, will be discovered in the sequel.

Though in the second session of the General Assembly held in 1854 an Act was passed to enable the Provincial Councils to legislate upon the Waste Lands, in violation of both the letter and spirit of the Constitution Act, the Superintendent of Wellington declined to take advantage of its provisions, deeming it, as he said, unwise in any way to alter Sir George Grey's regulations. Indeed both the Constitution and the Regulations were more in harmony with the views then held by Dr Featherston, than they were with those by whom they were sought to be set aside. In opening the second session of the Provincial Council he expressly stated that under the then exceptional circumstances of the case, he could not see that the General Government could divest itself of the control over the Waste Lands, nor did he conceive that it would be for the interests of the Province of Wellington to disturb the existing arrangements, under which the purchase of native lands was made a first charge on the general land revenue of the Colony. This important point requires to be borne in mind, on account of its bearing on the Financial Arrangements of 1856, and the action which Dr Featherston then took regarding them. As, however, he had prior to the Constitution Act made himself the self-constituted champion and guardian of the interests of the resident land purchasers from the New Zealand Company; so, after the passing of that Act, he took the interests of the runholders into his special keeping; consequently, though he objected to taking the administration of the Waste Lands, he made no scruple in recommending for the Governor's sanction, new regulations for the licensed occupation of the public lands in lieu of those which had been proclaimed in 1851 by Sir George Grey, and under which the whole or nearly the whole of the open Crown lands of the Province were already held under depasturing license. The principal alterations were (1) The substitution of an acreage rent for the assessment on stock; (2) the furnishing by the runholder to the Commissioner of Crown Lands a certificate of the approximate accuracy of the computation of the acreage of the run; (3) the placing within twelve months after the issue of the license, one breeding ewe for every 20 acres or one cow for every 120 acres. "And," said the regulations. "he shall be required to keep up at least that number of breeding stock up on the run during the whole period of his occupancy." It will be observed that under the above regulations the run-holder had a direct interest in under estimating the quantity of the land he held within the given boundaries and consequently it will not be so surprising as it might otherwise have been to hear that on one run in the Wairarapa approximately computed to comprise 6,000 acres, 13,000 acres were subsequently sold, and then a considerable portion of the run remained unpurchased. Even Dr Featherston's own run, approximately computed to contain 20,000 acres, was subsequently computed to contain some 42,000 acres, though a rental was never paid on more than 28,000 acres. The rental for the first four years of occupation was fixed at a farthing an acre; for the next five years at a half penny an acre; and for the remaining five years at one penny per acre per annum! Now, low as this rental was, being just one-half that which Dr Featherston himself had originally proposed, it will be seen that by under computing the extent of the acreage not probably more than one half the legal rental was ever, in many cases, paid into the Treasury. The great objection, how-

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ever was not so much the low rental of the runs, when the supposed insecurity of tenure was considered, as to the non-exclusion of the really agricultural land from them, and to the non-operation of the Fencing and Highway Acts with their boundaries. Even the runholders themselves admitted that the rental was too low, and offered to pay a higher one provided that their licenses were converted into leases; to which there was in truth less objection than there was to the system that was then adopted.

CHAPTER XIV;

Provincial Waste Lands Administration.

Enlargement of the Provincial Council. – E. J. Wakefield's land resolutions. – General Election 1857. – Waste Lands Committee. – Land sales not settlements.

IF any pretensions had been made to preserve some kind of chronological order in these random recollections it would be now necessary to break the thread of my narrative of the Waste Lands Administration of the Province for the purpose of giving an account of the financial arrangements made during the session of the General Assembly, which was held at Auckland in 1856; but, under the circumstanced, I think it will be better to complete what I have to say on the subject of the Provincial administration of the Waste Lands, before giving my history of the Financial Compact of 1856, though that compact was made before the opening of the Provincial Council, when the demand for a reform in the land laws and administration was first clearly enunciated.

THE GENERAL ELECTION 1857.

Before the fourth session of the Wellington Provincial Council was opened that Council had been increased from 18 to 30 members, of which increase five, or nearly one half were apportioned to the city of Wellington. At the elections rendered necessary by the enlargement of the Council there was not wanting indications of the growing unpopularity of the Provincial Executive. At the beginning of the session Mr E. J. Wakefield tabled two series Of resolutions; one having reference to a reform in the Executive, and the other to a reform in the Waste Lands regulations and administration. Those relating to the latter set forth that under the existing regulations the licensed occupiers of the public lands do not contribute to the public burdens in proportion to the advantages conferred upon them; that several of the Provincial laws exempt them from burdens and duties imposed upon others, and these exemptions have restricted the sale of land in such exempted districts, except to the licensed occupier of the surrounding country; that the exclusive privileges thus conferred on a small but wealthy and influential class tend materially to discourage the acquirement and cultivation of freeholds; and that the laws which exempt the pastoral occupier from the due fulfilment of his relations towards any adjoining freeholder ought to be repealed. These resolutions, created a long and animated discussion, both in the Council and outside; and though rejected at the time, so strong had the popular feeling set in against the Provincial administration of the public lands that everybody besides Dr Featherston and his Executive foresaw that at the ensuing general election, which would take place before the end of the year (1857), a radical reform in the system would be demanded. And so it turned out, for so strong was the feeling in favor of such a reform that Dr Featherston himself failed to obtain a majority at the City of Wellington, Greytown, and the Lower Hutt, and secured his re-election by the votes of the electors

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of Wanganui and Hawke's Bay; the latter district at that time constituting a part of the Province. At the election of the members of the Provincial Council the verdict of the Province against the Provincial Government was still more emphatic, twenty-two out of thirty members having been returned pledged to support a radical reform in the administration of the public lands. This success was obtained in a great measure by the alliance of Messrs Hunter and Stokes with the Wakefield party, the first representing the runholding interest, and the latter advocating the sale of the public lands on a system of deferred payments as an inducement for an agricultural population to settle upon them. Though I had in the leading columns of the Independent frequently boldly declared that the squatting interest was too strong in the Provincial Council, and had stood forward then, as now, as the warm supporter of Sir George Grey's Land Laws and Regulations, and as the uncompromising opponent of the sinister interests of absentees and land monopolists, I had no faith in a party of which Messrs Wakefield and Stokes were leading members, believing that no land reform worth having would be obtained through their joint instrumentality. And the sequel showed that I was right; for no such reform was so much as attempted, as will presently be shown.

CONFLICTING RECOMMENDATIONS.

Soon after the meeting of the newly elected Council in March, 1858, Mr Hunter obtained the appointment of a Select Committee to enquire and report on the Pasturage Regulations, and the other laws relating to that subject, with a view of remedying the injustice then complained of by both runholders and intending freeholders. The injustice the large runholders complained of was the insecure nature of their tenure; and the injustice intending freeholders complained of was, that though the land on runs was nominally open for sale, practically it was not so, as no one would buy a small section of land on a run, for either agricultural or grazing purposes, if he had to be put to the whole expense of fencing it against the trespass of the runholder's cattle. A series of questions, embracing the principal points in dispute, were prepared by the Committee; and answers to these, of the most conflicting character, were given by twenty eight witnesses. While the advocates of the rights of men of small means contended that the non-operation of the Fencing and Highway Acts afforded the runholders more than sufficient protection against the intending freeholder, the runholders examined wanted to change their licenses for leases, and objected to the Fencing Act being brought into operation on account of the insecurity of their tenure. They also objected, to the freehold purchaser within their boundaries being permitted to depasture stock on the run in proportion to the extent of the land he had purchased, estimated according to its carrying capabilities; though had he been allowed that privilege he would virtually have paid at the rate, for grazing purposes, of one shilling per acre per annum for land of a similar character to and adjoining that which the runholder was occupying at a rental of only one farthing per acre per annum. They had equally as strong an objection to the Highway's Act being brought into operation, also on the ground of the insecurity of their tenure; and also for the avowed reason that a public road through a run, instead of being an advantage, would be a serious injury to the runholder. As I had predicted, therefore, the labors of the Committee ended in smoke. I felt at the time, and subsequent events confirmed my impression, that it was less a reform, in the land laws than the ousting of

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the then Government which was the chief object of the alliance above referred to. Be this as it may, no recommendation could be agreed upon by members holding such opposite views, and upon evidence of such a very conflicting character; and consequently no radical reform, or any reform at all, was effected in the administration of the public lands, though it had been so loudly demanded by the people. In the meantime a system of "spotting," or buying what was called the "eyes of the runs," was very generally and successfully adopted; while 5s land sales were effected in such a manner as rendered it worse than useless (except for purposes of extortion) for any one besides the licensed occupier trying to become the purchaser. Under an additional land regulation of the Provincial Government, framed in 1855 in the pretended interest of the public, it was provided "that no allotment, the upset price whereof shall be 5s per acre, shall exceed 640 acres." As the allotments put up for sale seldom, if ever, exceeded half that amount, an allotment so small, and so situate, would, necessarily for grazing purposes, be absolutely worthless except to the runholder who was already in possession.

SALES NOT SETTLEMENTS.

The Superintendent, backed by a small but influential party, set his face from the first against the reservation of land from sale, against giving the runholder a lease in exchange for his license, and against the disposal of the land on a system of deferred payments. He adduced many arguments in support of his own views; but as the adoption of any of the three above courses would necessarily have a tendency to seriously diminish for a time that portion of the Provincial revenue derived from land sales, we have a right to conclude that this was the strongest reason he had for discountenancing all such proposals. The sale, not the settlement, of the public estate was in his eyes the one thing needful. This was rendered still more clear when he proposed, in an address to the Provincial Council on the 30th August, 1859, to make further amendments in the Land Regulations, in order to facilitate the purchase of non-agricultural land. He said, in effect, "as there are three million acres in this Province which never will be bought at 10s, and which are now locked up against purchase, it is proposed to proclaim all lands, which may from time to time be certified by the Commissioner as not worth 10s an acre as five shilling land; to place, in fact, such land, as far as its sale is concerned, on precisely the same footing as 10s land, so that any party may purchase the block, or any part of it, without it being put up to auction." He said he believed that the Government under such a system would be able to sell from 100,000 to 200,000 acres of 5s land a year; and this shews that it was revenue, and not the future interests of the country, that was chiefly in his mind's eye. A circular letter, however, arriving soon after from Auckland, stating that the Governor would not be advised to assent to any alteration in the existing Land Regulations of the Province, put an end to this sweeping proposal, which, consequently, had to be abandoned.

CHAPTER XV.

PROVINCIAL LAND LEGISLATION.

Repeal of the Hundred Ordinance. – Hon. Colonel Russell's remarks on the effects of Provincial Land Legislation. – My comments thereon. – A Real v. a Sham Aristocracy. – What would have been the results of an opposite policy.

It will be seen that it was owing, not to Sir George Grey's Land Regulations, but to the Waste Lands administration and legislation of the Provincial Government that settle-

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

ment was discouraged and land monopoly promoted. The sale of 5s land in such small allotments, prevented any one buying any for the purpose of grazing farms, and, consequently, they fell into the hands of the licensed occupier. At the same time the Impounding Act, by permitting the impounding of cattle on unfenced land, prevented any 10s land on a run being purchased for grazing purposes, except also by the licensed occupier. The Hundred Ordinance of Sir George Grey, which would have furnished the key for unlocking the lands which were suitable for agricultural settlement, was never once proclaimed, and shortly after was repealed altogether, without any of the outside public knowing anything about the matter. Having found, after a Crown Lands Bill had passed its third reading in the House of Representatives, that under the third clause of that Bill the Hundred Ordinance would be repealed, I addressed the following letter to Sir G. Grey, then for a second time Governor of the Colony: –

"Wellington,
"September 12, 1862.

"SIR, – I have the honor to call your Excellency's serious attention to Clause III of the Crown Lands Bill of this session. I was not aware until this moment, nor are the public now aware, that there was any such clause in this Bill. If the Ordinances referred to in this clause are repealed it appears to me that either the runholding districts will be effectually closed against settlement, or that the settlers therein will be deprived of those means of self-government and protection which your Excellency provided when formerly Governor of this Colony. The time is too short to allow me to adopt any other mode of dealing with this matter save that of writing to your Excellency direct on the subject, which I trust will be held by your Excellency a sufficient excuse for my doing so.

"I have, &c,
"RICHARD WAKELIN,
"Editor of the Advertiser and a Wairarapa Freeholder."

I fully expected, from the interest Sir George Grey formerly took in the subject, that he would have prevented the repeal of a law which conferred so many advantages on those districts which felt disposed to take advantage of its provisions; but he satisfied himself by adopting the constitutional course of referring the letter to his advisers, and thus one of the best measures ever passed in the Colony was suddenly repealed without those most interested knowing anything about the matter until the mischief had been accomplished! The facts here stated will astonish our grandchildren, and it is for that reason I now place them upon permanent record. They will ascertain how it was that no later than the year 1877 there were scarcely any but bush lands available for settlement in any part of the Colony; and how it was that a kind of bastard landed aristocracy got itself established.

Before concluding this subject I solicit the reader's serious attention to the following remarks I made in the leading columns of the Wellington Independent no longer ago than the 3Oth September, 1871. They were called forth by some observations made by the Hon. Colonel Russell in the Legislative Council, to the effect "that though the tendency of Colonies in general was towards democracy, the democratic action of this Colony had, however unintentionally, produced an aristocratic effect; seeing that by provincial land legislation a body of large land owners had been created, who certainly had become such by no wish of their own." Upon this I observe: – "We are told, in the first place, that while the tendency of colonies in general is towards democ-

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racy, the democratic action in this Colony had produced an aristocratic effect. It would have been well if he had at the same time told us the meaning he attached to those terms. If the acquisition, at a nominal sum, of large tracts of country, without the means of putting them under cultivation, is an aristocratic effect, it is not confined to New Zealand, but is common to Colonies generally. On the other hand, the tendency towards democracy, to which Colonel Russell alludes, is not confined to Colonies, but is more strikingly observable in the oldest and proudest countries of Europe. It appears to be the necessary effect and characteristic of the progress of physical knowledge, the extension of mechanical discoveries, and the consequent advancement of civilisation. What does the ex-Minister mean by saying that the tendency of Colonies is towards democracy? What does he mean by the term "democracy;" and what does he mean by an aristocratic effect? We, fortunately, for our inquiry, need not go far, or seek long for an explanation. He means that there is in Colonies a natural tendency towards the division of landed property, and of political power amongst the people at large. He means by the term democracy the possession of such property and power by the people; and he means by an aristocratic effect, the acquisition of large landed estates by a privileged few, who are thus enabled to monopolise political power, to disperse settlers, to make inland transport difficult, to prevent cultivation, and consequently to obstruct the colonisation of the country. That this is the ex-Minister's meaning is placed beyond a doubt by his remarkable and significant admission of a truth which his class have all along persistently, indignantly, and unscrupulously asserted had no existence – that provincial land legislation, instead of opening the country for settlement, aiding in the formation of a yeomanry class, or locating on the public lands a large and hardy body of peasant proprietors, had been the means of retarding colonisation, by the creation of a body of large landowners, who had become such by no wish of their own; but who, if legislation does not intervene, will constitute the future aristocracy of New Zealand. Those observations and admissions of one of our nominee legislators open to view a subject of much public interest, and more particularly so at the present time, when constitutional changes are going to be introduced, when the work of colonisation is being resumed and when railroads, costing vast sums of money, are about to be constructed.

It is not our intention here to discuss the relative merits and demerits of democracies and aristocracies; but we may as well remind Colonel Russell that, according to De Tocqueville, there is a secret tendency in democratic institutions to rentier the exertions of the citizen subservient to the happiness of the community; whilst in aristocratic institutions there is a secret propensity which, notwithstanding the talents and the virtues of those who conduct the Government, leads them to contribute to the evils which oppress their fellow creatures. We may also remind him of a fact, which he appears to have conveniently ignored, that though the possession of large landed estates and of exclusive political privileges in former times was necessary for the creation and conservation of an upper, educated, and leisure class, the progress of manufactures, commerce, mechanical inventions, and physical science, has rendered such invidious possessions no longer necessary for its developement and maintenance. We merely point out the change which has taken place since the days of feudalism, when "the tenure of property was the fulfilment of duty," for we are not disposed to deny that the existence of a leisure class is advantageous to

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

society. In any case, there is no aristocracy, in the common acceptation of the term, in New Zealand. The possession of large landed estates is not an indication here, as in England, of superior birth, wealth, and education; but, on the contrary, it has frequently happened that the men employed on large landed estates are superior in most, if not in all respects to their masters. In England such estates are subject to large local, county and national burdens, from which such estates here are exempt; and, instead of only affording employment for three or four shepherds and overseers, they sustain a large body of tenant farmers, country mechanics, and agricultural laborers. It may be perhaps well that the members of our Upper House should also be reminded that they were not recognised in England as members of the upper, but of the middle class, and that had they remained at home they would in the eyes of an English nobleman have constituted a part and parcel of the English democracy. The possession of large landed estates by men chiefly without capital, will not be the means of creating, as Colonel Russell seems to think, a real aristocracy. That is not a work of art, but a living thing. Like the English constitution, it is the result of growth, and not a mere parchment or mechanical contrivance. The members of this aristocracy are ordained and stamped nobles by the sovereign hand of nature, and could no more be made by provincial land legislation than they could be turned out to order from an Imperial Patent Office, or any other more human workshop. But though the possession of large landed estates will not be the means of creating a real landed aristocracy, it will be, and has already been, the means of obstructing the progress and settlement of the country. The subdivision of these landed estates will be effected, not as Colonel Russell fears, by the passing of Intestate Estate Bill, but by making "the tenure of property the fulfilment of duty," which, as Mr Disraeli says, was the basis of the feudal system, and is now the essence of good government.

It will be further observed that while Colonel Russell truly ascribes to provincial land legislation the creation of a body of large landowners he also asserts that they had become such by no wish of their own. In many instances no doubt this was the case. They would, for their own parts, have been quite satisfied to occupy large tracts of country at a pepper corn rental until such time as they had accumulated a fortune, when they would be able either to purchase the freehold, or leave the country, as the Duppas, Petres, Cliffords, and others have done. But as they had no security of tenure, they were constrained, in self-defence, to buy the fee simple, with borrowed funds; and a serious reduction in the price of both stock and wool taking place, it was not long before they were painfully reminded that they were but the nominal owners of the land they occupied. This, we venture to submit, is not such a happy state of things as Colonel Russell would desire us to believe. Had provincial land legislation taken an opposite direction, a large number of sturdy pioneer settlers who were heroes compared with most of those by whom they will be supplanted, would now have been independent yeomen, who, after having bravely borne the heat and burden of the day, would feei an inward and assured confidence that they had done something towards laying the foundations of not only their adopted country's, but of their children's fortunes.

[Pages 54-68]

HISTORY and POLITICS

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS OF 1856

Five important facts to be remembered. – N. Z. Company's debt. – Lord John Russell's despatch. – Financial proposals of Mr Fox. – Sewell's Financial Resolutions. – Reasons why they were carried. – The transaction a gigantic swindle.

I NOW return from the consideration of Waste Lands administration in the Province of Wellington to a subject of no less importance, namely, the proceedings of the General Assembly in the session held in 1856, when what has since been known as the "Financial Compact" was adopted, and the Colonial Land Revenue was Provincialised. For the right understanding of this important question it is necessary that the following facts should be kept constantly in view. (1). That while at the date of this arrangement the native title to nearly the whole of the native lands in the Middle Island had been extinguished; that title had not been extinguished over more than a small portion of the lands in the North Island. (2;. That, under these circumstances, it had been wisely and equitably provided by the Constitution Act that the cost of the extinguishment of native title should be defrayed out of the general land fund and not out of that of the particular Province in which the land was purchased. (3). That under the Constitution Act the land receipts, equally with the customs duties, were Colonial revenue, and as such subject to the appropriation of the General Assembly. (4). That up to the date of this arrangement the Middle Island out of its customs revenue only contributed two-ninths, while the North Island contributed seven-ninths of the cost of the General Government. (5). That the Crown Lands were handed over to the General Assembly subject to the payment of a debt said to be due to the New Zealand Company amounting to £668,000, and for the payment of which one-fourth of the gross proceeds of all land sales were to be impounded until the principal and interest of that sum had been paid. Unless the whole of these facts are constantly borne in mind, and more especially that one relating to the question of native title, a right understanding of the important changes effected by the financial arrangements I am going now to refer to will never be arrived at. It will also be necessary to remember that up to that time the Colony had been in a state of profound peace for ten years past; that then no Native Land League had been formed, and no Native Lands Act had been passed; that gold had not been discovered in Otago; and that a debt of half a million was looked upon then with more astonishment and dismay than a debt of twenty millions is now. It is also not unworthy of notice, as shewing why such men as Sewell, Fitzgerald, and Co. were so anxious to impose the whole cost of the General Government on the customs duties alone, that at the date of this arrangement (I shall use a more truthful and expressive term by-and-bye) the customs revenue of the Province of Wellington alone exceeded that of the three Provinces of the Middle Island put together! After these necessary preliminary remarks I can with more confidence proceed to narrate how one of the most gigantic swindles in modern history was accomplished.

Five years before the Constitution Act was introduced, an Act had been passed to promote colonisation in New Zealand, and to authorise a loan to the New Zealand Company. By virtue of that Act, and of a notice given on the 4th of July, 1850, by the New Zealand Company in pursuance of such Act, the sum of £268,370, with interest, became charged upon and payable to that company out of the proceeds of the sales of the demesne lands of the Crown in New

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Zealand. It was consequently enacted by the 74th clause of the Constitution Act, that upon nil sales of waste lands in New Zealand, one-fourth part of the gross proceeds should be paid to the New Zealand Company until their debt was discharged. The Constitution Act was passed in 1852, and in 1855 the representatives of the company made a proposal to Lord John Russell, the then Colonial Minister, that they would accept £200,000 if paid on or before the 5th April, 1857, and allow all moneys in their hands at that date in excess of the interest, to be applicable by way of reduction. The proposal Lord John transmitted in a despatch to Governor Browne which he received, while on a visit to Wellington, soon after his arrival in the Colony. This despatch in the original was shewn to Dr Featherston, and I took a hasty copy of it at his request within an hour after its receipt; but with strict injunctions of course not to divulge the nature of its contents. Lord John in this despatch recommended the Colonial Government to accept the proposal, and to enable it to do so, he offered the Imperial Government guarantee to a loan for the amount required. When this proposal of the Company, and offer of the Imperial Government became known in the Colony, much satisfaction was naturally expressed, as the payment of this debt was felt to be a serious burden on the Colony. It was, moreover, generally admitted that the province of Auckland, which had not benefitted by the Company's colonising operations, ought not to be called upon to pay anything towards liquidating their debt. That was the state of matters when the General Assembly met at Auckland in 1856.

Mr Fox, with the other Wellington members, and Mr Macandrew, Captain Cargill and his son, from Otago, sailed from Wellington I think in the steamer Nelson for Auckland on the 5th April, and on the 14th May Mr Fox, having previously secured the support of a majority of the Auckland members, proposed a resolution which embodied the following financial proposals: – "That no less than two-thirds of the net Customs receipts ought to be secured by appropriation to the Provinces; that the appropriations of the General Assembly ought to be limited as much as possible consistently with the efficient exercise of the legitimate functions of the General Government, and that thereupon that Government should receive a contribution of two shillings and sixpence per acre, and no more, on all lands within the Colony." This resolution of Mr Fox's, strongly Provincial in its character, was carried on a division by a majority of one, when Mr Fox took took office. But in a few days after, Mr Travers in the meantime arriving from Nelson, Mr Stafford, on the 28th May, successfully moved a vote of want of confidence in Mr Fox's administration on account of its financial policy, and on the following day Mr Fox resigned, and his place was supplied by Mr Stafford, with whom were allied Messrs Sewell, Richmond and Whitaker. On the 21st June a series of resolutions were submitted to the House by Mr Sewell, the Colonial Treasurer, embodying the following propositions: – That a loan not exceeding £500,000 should be raised in London on the security of the general and territorial revenue of the Colony; that £200,000 of this loan should be devoted to the paying off of the New Zealand Company's debt, the interest and sinking fund of which to be paid by the three Provinces of the Middle Island; that £200,000 be devoted to the extinguishment of native title in the North Island, the interest and sinking fund of £180,000 of which to be borne by the two principal North Island Provinces respectively, the other £20,000 being handed over to New Plymouth for the above purpose without charge, a guarantee being also given that that

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

favored Province should be paid out of the general revenue a sum sufficient to make its gross land fund amount to not less than £2,200 in any one year. It was also resolved that the administration of the Waste Lands of each Province should in future be transferred to the Provincial Governments thereof, the land revenue, subject to the above charges, being made Provincial revenue, to be appropriated to such purposes as the Provincial Council should think fit. There voted for those resolutions: –

Ayes 19.
Mr Sewell
Mr Stafford
Mr Hall
Mr Domett
Major Greenwood
Mr Campbell
Mr Lee
Mr Cuff
Mr Travers
Mr Williamson
Mr East
Mr Wells
Mr Taylor
Mr Curtis
Mr Merriman
Mr Ludlam
Mr Carleton
Mr Brittan
Mr Richmond

Noes 10.
Captain Cargill
Mr Cargill
Mr Fitzherbert
Mr Fox
Mr Featherston
Mr Daldy
Mr Henderson
Mr Macandrew
Mr V. Smith
Mr D. Ward

It will be seen by the above division list that the whole of the members for Nelson and Canterbury voted for the resolutions, the members for the former having been brought up like a flock of sheep by Sewell, who offered them the seat of Government. It should also be remembered that the little town and suburbs of New Plymouth then sent to the Assembly as many members as the Province of Otago, and three times as many as the Wairarapa and Hawkes' Bay districts put together. It was also bribed with the offer of a free gift of £20,000 out of the proposed loan. At the same time the Province of Auckland was not only retrospectively as well as prospectively relieved from the N. Z. Company's debt, thus entitling it to a refund of the handsome sum of £40,000, but by voting for the iniquitous arrangement it helped to keep a Ministry in power pledged to maintain the seat of Government at Auckland. Those are the reasons which caused this arrangement of 1856 to be assented to by a majority of the House of Representatives against the indignant protests of the members for Wellington. This, then, was how the Southern provinces became possessed of their land revenue. Sewell and Stafford were supported by the votes of the whole of the members of the Provinces of Canterbury and Nelson, as well as by a large majority of those of Auckland, who naturally objected to paying anything to the New Zealand Company, and who were also naturally afraid of a Wellington Ministry being reinstated in power. The resolutions were not supported by the Otago members simply because they were pledged to support Mr Fox; and they were vigorously opposed by most of the Wellington members, who afterwards sent a written protest to the Queen against the whole arrangement. It will thus be seen that under the above resolutions the Middle Island, on condition of paying off the debt due to the New Zealand Company, for the half of which it was legally, and for the whole justly, liable, was in future to have the whole of its enormous land fund at its own disposal, while the cost of extinguishing Native title in the North Island, which had been previously a first charge on the land fund of the colony, was saddled on the land fund of the provinces of the North Island alone. Is not the term swindle too mild a term to apply to such a transaction as this?

HISTORY AND POLITICS.

CHAPTER XVII

HOW THE SWINDLE WAS ACCOMPLISHED.

Localisation of the Net Land Revenue. – The United States Congress views on the subject. – Horace Greeley's graphic description of a more excusable transaction. – Opposition of Wellington to the scheme. – Myself and the three F.'s. – Independent on Sewell's policy. – The object of the Middle Island members.

I HAVE not yet done with this iniquitous compact. It has been urged by its supporters that the right principle is to expend the net proceeds arising from the sale of the Waste Lands in the districts in which they have arisen. Yet, even in that case, it is clear that as the native title had only been extinguished over a small portion of the North Island, the fund for the purchase of the remainder ought to be provided out of the general land revenue, and not out of that of any particular province. Such a provision – a provision embodied in the Constitution Act – would not have prevented the remainder of the land revenue being localised, or from being expended in the districts from which it had been derived. This fact, however has been persistently ignored by the southern supporters of the financial swindle of 1856. In 1824, or only thirty-two years before the date of that iniquitous transaction, a somewhat similar attempt had been made in Congress by the Western States to get hold of the receipts from the sales of the public lands within their boundaries. A certain percentage was granted them for the construction of roads; but a majority in Congress up to 1850 resolutely opposed any attempt made to divert the land revenue into the State Exchequer. This process, which is here called by the attractive term of "localising the land revenue," found no favor in the United States Congress. In 1849 a measure was brought into Congress, the objects of which, and the results of which, are thus humorously and graphically described by the late lamented Mr Horace Greeley in his "Recollections of a Busy Life": –

"I was placed by the Speaker on the Committee on Public Lands, whereof Judge Collamer, of Vermont, was Chairman, and which was mainly composed of worthy, upright men, intent on standing up for public right against private greed. Various fair-seeming Bills and claims came before us, some of which had passed the Senate, yet which we put our heel on as barefaced robberies. At length there came along a meek, innocent-looking stranger, by whom we were nicely taken in and thoroughly done for. It was a Bill to cede to the several New States (so called) such portions of the unsold public lands within their limits respectively as were submerged or sodden, and thus rendered useless and pestilential; that is swamps, marshes, bogs, fens, &c These lands, we were told, were not merely worthless while undrained, they bred fever, ague, and all manner of zymotic diseases, shortening the lives of pioneers, and rendering good lands adjacent unhealthy and worthless. But cede these swamp lands to the States including them respectively, on condition that they should sell them and devote the proceeds to draining and improving them, and everything would be lovely; the neighboring dry lands would sell readily, and the Treasury be generously replenished. There was never a cat rolled whiter in meal, and I, for one, was completely duped. As I recollect, the Bill did not pass that session, but we reported strongly in its favor, anei that report, doubtless, aided to carry the measure through the next Congress. The consequence was, a reckless and fraudulent transfer to certain States of millions on millions of choice public lands, whole sections of which had not muck enough on their surface to accommodate a fair sized frog, while the appropriation of the proc-

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ceeds to draining proved a farce and a sham. The lands went, all of them that had standing water enough on a square mile of their surface to float a duck in March, with a good deal more beside, while never a shake of an ague has any pioneer been spared by reason of all the drainage done under this precious Act." From the tone of this extract it will be seen how jealously Congress had heretofore guarded, the public lands from State intermeddling and private greed, and to what devices the New States had recourse before they could succeed even in getting the swampy portions of them into their clutches.

It having been repeatedly stated in the leading columns of the Southern press, and more especially by the Lyttelton Times and the Otago Guardian, that the North actually chuckled at the bargain it had made, I took occasion in the Standard to call in question the truth of such statements and observed: – "What we complain of is, the barefaced statement that the financial compact of 1856 was deemed at the time an advantageous bargain for the North, its representatives considering that they had done rather a smart stroke of business on behalf of their constituents. 'They were, at all events,' says the Times, 'fully satisfied with the bargain, for the tone of their remarks and those of the Northern papers at the time indicated a sort of silent chuckle over the South.' As the writer was editor of one of the Northern papers at the time he can assert fearlessly that the above statement is not true with regard to the whole of the Northern papers. And so far from the whole of the Northern members agreeing with the iniquitous proposal, as would be inferred from the remarks of our Lyttelton contemporary, the whole of the leading members of this Province, including the Speaker of the House of Representatives himself, protested against it, and did everything in their power to prevent it from receiving the sanction of the Crown. In truth the Financial Resolutions referred to were not supported by the House, but by the supporters of the then Ministry, the two most prominent members of which, Messrs Sewell and Stafford,, were representatives of Middle Island constituencies. But even if the whole House had given its sanction to the arrangement, it was competent for any succeeding Parliament to set it aside; and though Ministerial exigencies have hitherto prevented any prospect of this being accomplished the compact was virtually violated: – First, by reason of the land league and native war, which put an end to North Island land purchases; and, secondly, by reason of the Native Lands Act which was passed six years after, when direct purchases from the natives by private parties, instead of, through the Government, were legalised, and the land revenues of the North Island consequently to a great extent annihilated. In any case after 1870, when Railways, Public Works and Immigration were undertaken by the General Government, those financial arrangements ought to have been no longer acted upon, and the territorial receipts equally with the customs duties ought to have been again treated as colonial revenue; though a certain percentage or the surplus, if necessary might have been handed over to the Provinces, then to be subjected to the appropriation of their respective Provincial Councils. This would have not only been in strict accordance with the Constitution, but also with the practice which prevails in the other Colonies as well as in the United States." And in referring to those remarks, and to the misstatements which called them forth, the New Zealand Times took occasion to observe: "Though we have at present retrained from exposing the gross perversion of facts by the Southern papers, our contemporary the Wairarapa Standard – than whom there is none more competent

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to deal with the subject – has gone into the question at length."

In the Independent of May 10, 1856 when the three F's were absent in Auckland, I refer to the charges that were repeatedly made that the principal articles in that journal were either written by them, or under their immediate direction, and observe: – "If in advocating and defending popular rights and liberties we have found it necessary to support the policy and defend the conduct of the Provincial Executive against the unjust assault of their enemies, this was surely no fault of theirs, or ours. We can readily understand that they can have no satisfaction in having our articles ascribed to their pens, and in being held responsible for our opinions; but the gain, however, is not all ours; there has been a mutuality between us. If our articles have acquired the credit of having been written by such master minds, they may, from this cause, have acquired a popularity to which neither their measures nor administration are justly entitled. What those gentlemen lose in literary reputation, or political position, is returned to them in the shape of a larger measure of popular support and approval than they would have otherwise acquired or deserved." I made those remarks in order to prevent my comments on the speech which had just previously been made by Mr Sewell in his place in the General Assembly, then sitting at Auckland, from being supposed to be inspired by the three F's. I then remark: – "We look upon the policy enunciated in the speech of Mr Sewell as the most damnable that could ever have been propounded. Under the pretence of securing the unity of the colony by the establishment of a strong Central Government, his evident aim and object is to divide the colony in twain, to destroy the great Charter of our liberties, and to sacrifice the northern to the advancement of the Middle Island. This has long been a favorite project of his. It was first broached by him in "a private and confidential" letter which was printed, we believe, at the Nelson Press three years ago, and circulated amongst those who were supposed to be either favorable to the writer's views, or desirous of destroying our Democratic Constitution. Instead of endeavoring to adjust and reconcile the differences between the Northern and Southern divisions of the colony, it is evidently his aim and intention, if possible, to render them in future irreconcilable. While professing to be desirous of making a great effort to secure the unity of the colony, he propounds a policy and advocates measures, which would render such a desideratum wholly impracticable. It is not union but division which he has in view. Separation, he would have us to believe, was inevitable, and he sets to work in right earnest to bring about the event predicted. He asserts that without we establish a peripatetic Government, it would be impossible to govern the Colony under our present Constitution. His aim, therefore, is not only to divide the colony, but to destroy our Constitution. "Even," says he, "should we be compelled ultimately to resort to so extreme an organic change as separation, we should not till the experiment has been fairly tried of the other alternative." But as if determined that the "other alternative" should not have a fair trial, and to make preparation for a division. at the earliest possible date, he would at once fix the southern capital in the Middle Island, where, in case of separation, it may be permanently established. "There," says he, "and at Auckland the Governor will have his residence, and at these two points the different departments of Government should be placed." It should be borne in mind that the speech referred to in the above extract was made only a short time before his financial resolution were proposed,

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and it will probably explain how it was that the whole of the Nelson members voted for them. In a subsequent article, under date June 25, before the financial resolutions had been proposed at Auckland, I refer to the circumstance of Mr J. E. Fitzgerald being on his way to Auckland to take his seat for Lyttelton in the House of Representatives, and regret the circumstance, because it was well known that Mr Fitzgerald had specially gone to lend his aid in blotting out that admirable provision of the Constitution Act, which made the cost of extinguishing native title a first charge on the general land revenue, for the avowed purpose of relieving the Middle Island from contributing its fair proportion towards the purchase of native lands, and of saddling the whole cost of the General Government on the Customs duties alone, of which Wellington paid more than the whole of the Provinces of the Middle Island put together. From this it will be gathered who were the real instigators and authors of the Financial Swindle of 1856, and for whose benefit it was perpetrated.

CHAPTER XVIII.

RESIGNATION AND RE-ELECTION OF DR FEATHERSTON.

Dr Welch's candidature for the Superintendency, – Subsequently elected Clerk to the Provincial Council. – My published views on the Waste Lands Question. – Dr Featherston's resignation. – The £5000 transfer. – Its illegality and retransfer. – Election of Dr Featherston over Mr St Hill.

I HAVE already related what way the result of the Provincial elections for Superintendent and Provincial Council which took place at the close of the year 1857; but I did not then enter into further particulars, because I did not wish to interrupt the course of my narrative with reference to the Provincial Administration of the Waste Lands. As, however, the results of those elections were remarkable in several respects, I feel it is necessary that I should now refer to them in the briefest possible manner; for to enter into all the details would fill a volume. I have already intimated that at the elections which had taken place the preceding year there were sufficient indications, except to Dr Featherston himself and the blindest of his followers, that a reform in Provincial administration could not prudently be withheld; but few expected, not even the leaders of the reform party, that so strong a feeling existed on the subject as afterwards proved to be the case. On the day appointed for the election, and after Dr Featherston had been duly proposed, Mr E. J. Wakefield came forward and proposed Robert Porter Welch as a candidate, in opposition to Dr Featherston; and though Mr Wakefield himself was proposed, he did not think it prudent to contest the election. In Wellington a large number of electors declined to vote for either candidate; but they were not so squeamish at the Hutt, where Dr Welch actually obtained a large majority. The result of the election sufficiently indicated to both the friends and opponents of Dr Featherston that had a more eligible candidate than Dr Welch been proposed he would probably have been elected.

The sixth session of the Council was opened on March 15th, 1858, when Mr Ludlam was elected Speaker without opposition; but when the aforesaid Dr Welch sunk from the position of a popular candidate for the Superintendency of the Province to the position of a candidate for the office of Clerk to the Council, there can be no doubt it had a damaging effect both upon himself and his party; he was, however, elected on a division by the votes of 16 against 9. And here I may mention that though at the Superintendency election I was a personal and political friend of Dr Featherston, I was a warm advocate of a reform in the administration

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of the laws and regulations affecting the public lands. But so sure was Mr Fitzherbert of Dr Featherston's triumphant return that he refused to sanction the printing of an address I sent to him with that object, and which I had written to the electors with a the view of shewing that a reform was more likely to be accomplished by Dr Featherston than by the radical party. He found out after that I had a better knowledge of public opinion than he had. In the meantime, however, though I could ill afford it, I got the address printed at my own expense. In that address I stated that "I was opposed to the system under which large tracts of the public domain were locked up from settlement; for though they were nominally open for sale, I knew that practically they were not so, and apparently it was not intended that they should be. I told the electors that I was well aware that –

Howe'r profusely o'er this favored land,
The richest gifts are spread by Nature's hand,
It all availeth not while partial laws
And sep'rate interests mar the Common Cause.

I also privately told Dr Featherston, not after, but before the elections, that unless he was prepared to make large concessions in favor of small farms, free grants, and commonage rights, the cry for land on deferred payments would become irresistible. What I said was not noticed, at the time, but it was noticed after the mischief I feared had been accomplished. I would not have entered into these particulars if they did not throw some light on subsequent events to which I shall have immediate occasion to refer.

Three of the members of the Executive Council having failed to obtain seats in the Provincial Council, they, with a very bad grace, sent in their resignations to the Superintendent, when Mr E. J. Wakefield was invited to form a new Executive in their stead. He was, however, not able to do this under the existing Executive Act, because Mr John King, who was, as will shortly appear, solicitor to the Union Rank, refused to become one of his Honor's advisers, on the ground that he had an action pending against him for libel, the Superintendent having accused him on the hustings of having, in conjunction with William Allen, been the despoilers of dead men's estates, and the robbers of the widow and orphan. To get over this difficulty Mr Borlase introduced a new Executive Bill, which was carried on a division by 21 votes against 6, when it passed through all its stages and was transmitted to the Superintendent for his assent.

On the following day, Dr Featherston, without consulting any one resolved to send in his resignation, with the intention of immediately proceeding to England; but, instead of sending a message to the Council to that effect, he went in person to the Council Chamber, and after announcing he could not give his assent to the Executive Bill on behalf of the Governor, on the ground, chiefly, that a Provincial Secretary, supported by a majority of the Council, and uncontrolled by the check of any other heads of departments, would, in practice, be the Executive Government, reducing the Superintendent to a mere registrar of his edicts, a position which he declined to fill. He had therefore, he told the Council, determined to resign the office of Superintendent, and would, by the first opportunity, forward his resignation to the Governor. Having delivered this address to the Council, he immediately mounted his horse and proceeded to the Wairarapa. Arriving at Greytown he put his horse up at the Rising Sun, and then walked down the street until he reached my residence, when he asked me to put on my hat and take a walk with him towards Carterton. I accordingly did so; both of us getting

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across the Waiohine dry footed by means of a tree which had fallen across the stream, for the Black Bridge had not then been erected. He told me how he had gone to the Council, and how he had not spoken to any one as to his intentions lest they should try to persuade him not to carry them into effect. Our walk there and back must have occupied several hours as the distance would not be much less than ten miles. What he said, and what I advised during our walk, is now nothing to the purpose; suffice it to say that he did not carry out his original intention of proceeding to England, but after a time he again assented to be nominated a candidate for the Superintendency, having received a numerously signed requisition to that effect. In justice to myself, however, I must here state that Dr Featherston well knew my opinions on the subject of Waste Land administration, and as I thought evinced a disposition to fall in with them. For this, as well as for numerous other reasons, I regretted the hasty step he had taken in resigning his office, as I felt sure that opinion would turn in his favor the moment it was found he would support reforms more necessary, more advantageous to the future interests of the Province, and more likely to be carried, than those advocated by the Radical Reform party. I had at that time every confidence in Dr Featherston, and none whatever in his opponents. The mistake he made was in persisting in representing, then and afterwards, that his return was an endorsement of his policy, instead of being, as it was, a mark of their confidence in him personally, and a proof of the absence of any confidence in his opponents – not in their policy, as he wished it to appear, but in themselves individually. It was not then known, what was afterwards made abundantly manifest, that Dr Featherston's disposition was too arbitrary to permit him willingly to carry out a system of Responsible Government, except with colleagues whose views coincided with his own, or with advisers, such as Borlase and Hickson, whom, he could himself advise and control.

It was not until Dr Featherston returned to Wellington on the 5th. April that he forwarded his resignation to the Governor. Its acceptance was gazetted the same month, but the fact was not generally known in Wellington until the 22nd of May, when writ to supply the vacancy was received by the Returning Officer. In the meantime Dr Featherston, who had expected that he would hold office until the election of his successor, had appointed Mr Fitzherbert as Deputy-Superintendent, who was also, it will be well to bear in mind, the Receiver of the Land Revenue; but this appointment was subsequently set aside by the Supreme Court, as under an Act of the General Assembly the Speaker of the Provincial Council was empowered to act as Superintendent. On receiving intimation that Dr Featherston's resignation had been accepted by the Governor, he and his executive advisers at once determined, "that they would not permit," to quote Mr Fox's own version of the transaction, "to be spent one farthing of the public money till they were satisfied that some person existed duly authorised to issue warrants for its expenditure under the Constitution Act. At that date there was a considerable balance amounting to more than six thousand pounds to the credit of the Province at the Union Bank. The law adviser of that Bank was known to us to be Mr John King, who was supposed to act in a similar capacity to what is termed the Radical party in this House, and who had in his place in the House both expressed his opinion that the Speaker of this Council was Deputy Superintendent in law; and had concurred in a resolution calling on that officer to make provision for the public service or to that effect. We entirely dis-

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sented from that opinion of Mr King's, and disapproved of the course proposed by that resolution, and thinking it was probable that a Bank guided by Mr King's advice in the matter, might interpose no great difficulty in the way of Mr Speaker or some other person not legally entitled to it getting possession of the money lying at the Union Bank, and spending it without due authority of law, we conceived it to be our duty to remove the bulk of the public funds to a bank whose manager was not bound to take the opinion of Mr King as his Law Adviser."

That a sum of £5,000 should be drawn out of the Provincial Treasury and lodged in another Bank by an out-going Government, to the credit of that Receiver of the Land Revenue who had been illegally appointed Deputy Superintendent, for the avowed purpose of preventing the incoming Government having a farthing of the public money wherewith to carry on the public service, will scarcely be believed in after-times, but this nevertheless was the fact. The Speaker was instructed by resolution to take legal steps for the prosecution of Dr Featherston and his colleagues for conspiracy, and also to recover the sum which had been illegally abstracted from the Provincial Treasury. As, however, the money was restored to the Treasury, and as Mr Ludlam and his Executive were allowed quiet possession of the Provincial Government offices, no further action was taken in the matter. Mr St. Hill, a most estimable Government officer, was unanimously chosen by the Reform party as their candidate for the Superintendency; but was defeated in several of the electoral districts, and consequently for the third time Dr Featherston was gazetted Superintendent of the Province.

CHAPTER XIX.

GOVERNMENT BY PARTY WITH A VENGEANCE.

Unopposed election of the Leaders of the Reform Party. – The disruption of the Province. – The Land Fund Appropriation Act. – The discreditable conduct of the Stafford Ministry. – The Financial discussions of the Session held in 1860. – Which the worst: the Stafford Ministry or the Featherston Government?

DR FEATHERSTON was declared duly elected Superintendent on the 30th July, 1858, and on the 3rd September be prorogued the Provincial Council, which had held occasional sittings during the time the contest for the Superintendency had been going on. The Council was prorogued without ay Appropriation Act having been passed, as it had declined to consider the estimates until the vacancies in the Provincial Council had been filled up which had been caused by the acceptance of office of Messrs Wakefield, Hunter, and Borlase in the Speaker's Executive Council. Ultimately the two former were elected without opposition, a fact which the Featherston party could not conveniently or successfully ignore. It was not until the 30th August of the following year that the Council was again convened, and then without any practical result.

It will be necessary to be borne in mind that while the above proceedings were taking place at Wellington a most important session of the General Assembly was being held at Auckland, at which not a single member of the Province of Wellington was present, with the exception of Mr Speaker Clifford. It was during this session that the New Provinces Act was passed, and the disruption of the Province of Wellington conveniently consummated. In the personally vindicative quarrel between the Superintendent and the leaders of the Opposition in the Provincial Council some injury would necessarily be

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inflicted upon the cause of Constitutional Government as well as on the material interests of the Province; but nobody could justly accuse either of having any deliberate intention to do one or the other. This, however, cannot be said with regard to the proceedings of the Ministry at Auckland. All the efforts made by the Superintendent to push forward native land purchases in the Forty Mile Bush, Manawatu, Hawke's Bay, and other parts of the then Province, were deliberately thwarted by that Ministry. Looking back at those times – and looking back, I may remark, makes a different impression on the mental retina than the act of looking forward – I am not now surprised, after the treatment Dr Featherston met with at the hands of Stafford, Sewell, Richmond, and Whitaker, at the action he took relative to the Waitara question in the session held in 1860, the first session which had taken place after the Land Revenue Appropriation Act of 1858 had, in the congenial company of the New Provinces Act, got placed by means of a fluke, on the New Zealand Statute Book.

That Act was intended to give legal effect to the financial swindle of 1856, and under it is was provided: – 1. That all land revenue shall belong to the several Provinces, and be subject to appropriation by their respective Provincial Councils. 2. That one-sixth part of the land revenue in the Provinces of Auckland, New Plymouth, and Wellington shall be employed in extinguishing the native title over lands situated in each. But it will be seen that this second clause is in direct opposition to the first, and also to the compromise which had been arrived at in 1856. What was still more indefensable, as well being a violation of all Constitutional principles, this second clause was made retrospective, and under it the Wellington Province was made to refund one-sixth of its territorial revenue for 1858; or in other words the Ministry of that day, without giving the slightest notice of their intention – without the slightest regard to any financial arrangements into which the Provincial Government might have entered – proceeded to impound one-third of the land receipts until a sum of over £6,000 had been refunded. These proceedings were conducted under the provisions of an Act passed during a session when the transmission of the writs for the election of the Wellington members had been so timed, as regarded the dates of their return, as to result in the failure of the elections, and the absence from the Assembly of six of the Wellington representatives till at least the very close of the session; and when the illegal return of a member for Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa had been so managed that the latter district actually knew nothing of the election until it was over, while the pretended representative was allowed to take his seat in the House without any remonstrance. It will hardly be credited that such proceedings took place under what has been called "Responsible Government;" and yet it was during this session that the financial resolutions of 1856 were legalised. The high-handed and illegal proceedings of the Superintendent at Wellington about the same period were almost unavoidable under the circumstances; but they sink into insignificance compared with those which were taken at Auckland by the Stafford Ministry against not only the Superintendent, but also the Province over which he presided. Indeed the illegal proceedings of the Superintendent in expending public money without the authority of an Appropriation Act would have been rendered unnecessary, and could easily have been prevented, had the Auckland Ministry advised the Governor to dissolve the Wellington Provincial Council.

And here I cannot do better than

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quote the following account by Dr Featherston of the financial discussions which took place in the House of Representatives in 1860, seeing that they have a direct bearing on this Land Revenue Appropriation Act, and the guaranteed loan of £500,000 which grew out of the offer conveyed to the Governor, in the despatch of Lord John Russell. At a public meeting at Wellington Dr Featherston said: – We shewed that by disposing of the £500,000 Loan by private bargain instead of throwing it open to public competition, they had lost £45,000 to the colony. We shewed that they had frittered away the £160,000 allocated to Land Purchases in the most scandalous manner; that of the £78,000 already spent some £30,000 had been swallowed up in the expenses of the Department and at the same rate some £70,000 of the £180,000 would go in the expenses of a most inefficient staff. We shewed by their absurd alterations in the tariff they had caused a loss to the Revenue of at least £20,000 a-year. We proved that they had increased the expenditure of the colony in five years from £65,000 to £145,000. We pointed out that the Ministry had illegally expended £38,000 and to cover this illegal expenditure had appropriated the Surplus Revenue to that amount which was due to the Provinces. We insisted that £38,000 should be forthwith paid to the Provinces, and that the illegal expenditure should be provided for by the issue of Exchequer Bills. The Finance Minister declared that not one farthing of the £38,000 should we ever get from him – he blustered and stormed and threatened to resign. After a debate of three nights we carried our resolution by a majority of 19 to 17. They did not resign but accepted our proposition, with this mental reservation, that they would pay us the balances out of our own money by allowing us only 2-8ths of the gross Customs Receipts. This we would not consent to, but insisted upon their guaranteeing to the Province, for the current year at least 3-8ths of the gross Customs Revenue. The next Financial measure was a Bill to repeal certain clauses in the Land Revenue Appropriation Act of 1858. In 1856 an arrangement was adopted under which the Northern Island was to pay for their own lands by means of certain loans, and the Middle Island was to take upon itself the New Zealand Company's Debt, in consideration of which the Land Revenue was to become purely Provincial Revenue, and was to be paid into the Provincial chest free of all deductions; but in 1858, the Ministers, taking advantage of the absence of the Wellington members, passed a law cribbing one-sixth of the land revenue of the Provinces of this Island. In the late session we protested against the measure and insisted upon having our land revenue freed from any such charge. We carried our Bill by a majority of 20 to 13. The effect of the Bill was to release one-sixth of your land revenue for the future. But we were not satisfied with this, we called upon them to disgorge the amount they had impounded during the last two years. We first moved an address to his Excellency, requesting him to recommend the House to make provision for this refund which amounted to some £25,000 of which £4000 belonged to Auckland, £9000 to Wellington, and about £12,000 to Hawke's Bay. We carried this by a majority of, I believe, 20 to 12. We then passed a Bill to give effect to this recommendation. This Bill we carried by a majority of 22 to 10; but it was rejected by the Lords. Our case seemed hopeless, but we saw that we had the Ministry at our mercy, for they had allowed business to accumulate to such an extent, that unless we agreed to suspend the Standing Orders they could not have passed either the Appropriation or

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the Loan Bills. There was no escape for them, we were in a position to dictate our own terms. And I confess that I was not myself disposed to show them any quarter, and at first I demanded that they should at once pay the Provinces the balances due to them amounting to £38,000 – that they should guarantee to them for the current year 3-8ths of the gross Customs, and that they should refund the £25,000 of the Land revenue. There is no doubt we might have forced them to accept these conditions, but after consulting with our Auckland, Canterbury, and Otago friends, it was not deemed advisable to push matters to extremities, and we ultimately agreed to the following compromise: 1st. That they should at once pay the Provinces the £38,000. 2nd. That they should guarantee them 3-8ths of the gross Customs for the current year. And 3rd. that the Land Fund due to the Provinces of this island should be replaced, (for I forgot to mention that it came out in the course of the debate, that Ministers instead of investing these sixth's as required by law had actually spent them) and be invested to await the decision of the next Assembly.

The discomfiture of the Stafford Ministry in 1860, and its utter downfall in the following year, would appear to teach that honesty was the best policy in public as in private life, and without some show of which no Ministry could long last; but unfortunately for this theory we have the fact staring us in the face that one of the members of that Ministry became a leading member of the Fox-Sewell-Peace Ministry of 1861-2, and another a leading member of the Whitaker-Fox War Ministry of 1863-4, while both of these Ministries were warmly supported by Dr Featherston as a member of the General Assembly and as Superintendent of the Province! Does not the very mention of these facts prove the truth of Mr Goldwin Smith's assertion, that in the Colonies party Government is a noxious absurdity and ruinous to the political character of the people? Were it not for these unprincipled combinations, which have been of constant occurrence from the first session to the last one, there would be grounds for thinking that there was a kind of retributive justice to be distinguished in the triumph of the Opposition, as above detailed by Dr Featherston in his account of the financial discussions which took place at Auckland in the session above referred to. Yet the tone he adopts, though perhaps justified under the circumstances, and considering the treatment he and the Province had received at the hands of the Stafford Ministry, from 1856 to 1860, is not one which will give the reader a very high opinion of either the statesmanlike qualities of the speaker, or the unmercenary character of his audience. There is not a single passage which appeals to the loftier aspirations, to the holier emotions of his hearers; not one which would give them an idea that they were engaged in the great work of moulding the institutions of an embryo nation. Every sentence breathes a determination to sacrifice the future to the interests of the present hour; as witness his gratification at the annihilation of the Native Laud Purchase Fund; and this, it will have been gathered, was also the spirit which pervaded his waste land administration of the Province. It will be a difficult matter for future generations to determine which was the most arbitrary and unprincipled – which the least regardful of constitutional principles, and precedents during the period above named – the Stafford Ministry or the Featherston Government.

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CHAPTER XX.

Enthusiastic reception of Sir George Grey at Wellington on his reappointment to the Governorship of the Colony.

IT is not my intention to continue my historical narrative further. It covers a period of ten years, from 1851 to 1861, and gives a very different coloring to many important events in the early history of the Colony, and of its Representative Institutions, to that in which they have heretofore been painted; and this is more especially true with regard to the Provincial administration of the Waste Lands, to the Financial Compact of 1856, to the true reading of Sir George Grey's Land Ordinances and Regulations, and to the real character of his first administration of the Government of the Colony. I have exposed the motives by which some of his detractors were actuated; and have rendered clear how great was his popularity, and how prosperous was the country, at the date of bis departure from its shores. It now only remains for me to show how enthusiastically he was welcomed back again after eight years' absence, by all classes and parties in the community, and by none more so than by the leading members of the too famous Constitutional Association, who in their blindness had once gone so far as to petition for the recall of the man they afterwards publicly avowed "was the greatest benefactor that the Colony ever possessed."

In a sub-leader in the New Zealand Advertiser of February 20, 1862, I refer to the report of a large meeting held at the Odd Fellows' Hall to adopt measures to give a public welcome to Sir George Grey; and in order to divest that meeting of any party significance I refer to the fact "that a congratulatory address to Sir George Grey, on his re-appointment to the Governorship of this Colony, was unanimously adopted by the Wellington public long before his arrival in Auckland, and that it is owing to the confidence so generally felt in his ability and patriotism, and to the approval by the majority of the people of his past wise and beneficent policy and administration, rather than to any success which has attended his efforts since his arrival, to restore the peace and prosperity which existed at the termination of his former Government of the Colony, that the desire to welcome his return to Wellington is so hearty, irrepressible, and universal."

I abridge the following report of the meeting from the same journal. Dr Featherston presided. He said: – As soon as they heard of His Excellency's re appointment, before his arrival at Auckland, and, while their representatives were absent from Wellington,, they had unanimously adopted an address to him – in which they expressed their sincere gratification at his re-appointment to the Government of this Colony – in which they stated it was with peculiar satisfaction they remembered how successful had been his policy in a former period of difficulty and depression – and in which they expressed their full persuasion that a similar success would again attend his efforts in restoring the blessings of peace to these Islands. If such were their feelings and opinions before hia Excellency's arrival at Auckland, surely the manner in which he set himself to work to unravel the tangled skein before him – to retrieve past disasters – to restore lost confidence – the events of the last three months must have confirmed still more their confidence in his Excellency – have raised still higher their admiration of his administrative abilities – and rendered it wholly unnecessary for him to urge them to adopt every measure in their power in order to give him a cordial and more enthusiastic reception than any Governor ever had before. (Loud applause.) He (Dr Featherston) had

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he believed, been present at the arrival of every Governor at Wellington, and the cordial reception they had given to the representative of the Crown proved that the people of Wellington did not want in loyalty and in attachment to their common country. If they received cordially other Governors, how much more warmly would they welcome the return of their present one – who left them eight years ago in the enjoyment of the blessings and advantages of peace and prosperity, and who had returned for the express purpose of restoring to them these invaluable benefits.

Mr Moore, in rising to move the first resolution, observed, that all who knew him would believe him when he said that it gave him the greatest possible pleasure to propose the resolution he held in his hand, and to assist in giving a unanimous reception to Sir George Grey, who, in the eloquent language of their Chairman, had been justly described as the greatest benefactor the Colony had ever possessed. (Cheers.) He (Mr Moore) had always been of that opinion, and he could not forbear expressing his gratification in finding thoso who in former times were politically opposed to His Excellency now uniting with his former supporters in heartily welcoming his return to Wellington, so that truth and right had in this instance received their due acknowledgments, and they always would sooner or later prevail. (Hear.) Mr Moore concluded by moving the adoption of an address to Sir George Grey to be presented to him on his arrival in Wellington. The address was written by Dr Featherston, and contained amongst others the following passage: – "Remembering the warm interest which, during your former administration, you ever took in the advancement of this Province, and the many and important benefits you then conferred upon us – we cannot refrain from availing ourselves of the opportunity afforded by your arrival amongst us to give you a hearty welcome, and to renew the expressions of our personal esteem and respect, and of our most fervent wishes for the success of the policy you have inaugurated, and for your own health and happiness." I will not weaken the force of this testimony, as to the beneficient character of Sir George Grey's first administration of the Government of this Colony, by adding one word of my own.

LEAVES FROM MY WRITINGS.

LEAVES FROM MY WRITINGS.

INTRODUCTORY.

I INTEND to give in the few remaining pages, in an abridged form, some of the leading articles which have appeared in one or other of the newspapers with which I have been connected in New Zealand, that are on subjects of permanent interest, or which, in my opinion, possess historic value. They will be chiefly selected from the New Zealand Advertiser and the Wairarapa Standard, because I happen to have imperfect files of those papers in my possession. There has scarcely been a paper published in Wellington, except the Argus and Times, to which I have not contributed leading articles, including the Spectator, the Morning as well as Evening Post, the Daily Advertiser, the Daily Telegraph, the Wairarapa Mercury, and the Wairarapa Journal; but the papers with which I was longest connected as editor were the Independent, the New Zealand Advertiser, and the Wairarapa Standard, all of which largely increased in circulation during the time they were under my editorial direction And I can say this was the case also with the various journals with which I was connected before my departure for New Zealand.

When necessary I shall accompany each article with such introductory or explanatory observations that I think may be required. It was my original intention to have inserted a number of political predictions I had from time to time hazarded, which have since been verified, but it having been intimated to me that this would not be in good taste, I have forborne doing so. I very much regret that I have not sufficient space at my disposal to refer more at length to the history of the abolition of the Provinces, and to Sir George Grey's re-appearance in the public arena; but I will take this opportunity of placing upon permanent record, my deliberate opinion that the time and the mode adopted for destroying Provincial Institutions reflect no credit on the Parliament, the Press, and the People of New Zealand; while the record of the manner in which Sir George Grey has been treated by all three will be looked upon by future generations as one of the blackest pages in the history of the Colony.

SIR GEORGE GREYS NATIVE INSTITUTIONS.

I have not thought it necessary to refer even incidentally to the Waitara war, nor to the causes which led the Duke of Newcastle to ask as a favor the resignation by Sir George Grey of his Governorship of the Cape, in order that he might resume the Governorship of New Zealand, as all such matters as those are well-known, and will not fail to occupy their future place in the history of the colony. Soon after his return to New Zealand, or about the beginning of the year 1862, Sir George Grey devised a scheme of institutions, under the designation of "a plan of government, for native districts." The Fox-Sewell Ministry, then in power, manifested an unconcealed determination to secure for themselves, at all hazards.

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and at any sacrifice of political consistency, a share of His Excellency's merited popularity, and they consequently wished to be deemed the authors of the scheme in question. To show the difference between the views of the Governor and his Ministers on this subject was the object of the following article which appeared in the N. Z. Advertiser of July 26, 1862. – If the Native policy we have heard so much about is His Excellency's policy, let him carry it into practical operation, and let the House vote the money required for the purpose, as demanded by the Duke of Newcastle. It would be better that he should retain the patronage the policy creates, than that the colony should accept the responsibility which the patronage implies. No Ministry, with the feeble checks which exist here against its abuse, should be clothed with the patronage this policy confers, and no Ministry, until the pending war is brought to an end, after "first producing in the native mind such a conviction of our strength as will render peace, not temporary and precarious, but well-grounded and lasting," should take either the responsibility or the burden of native affairs from the Imperial Government, to whom they at present right fully belong.

The reader is requested to notice, that what the Governor calls a plan of government for native districts, Ministers call a plan of government for the native race. That while he is anxious that all parts of this island should participate in the benefits of law and order, they wish to adapt the plan, in the first instance, to the present condition of the natives only. That while he proposes to create machinery by which the welfare of Her Majesty's subjects, both European and native, can be maintained in those districts where no such machinery exists, they propose, as far as possible, to use the rude native institutions already existing for this purpose. That, while he has in view the fostering and development of the resources of the interior, they wish, not so much to govern the natives, as to assist them to govern themselves. That, while he wishes to devise a system which, at this critical time, both natives and Europeans will gratefully accept, they will leave the important matter of land sales substantially in the hands of the runangas. That, while his great object is to establish European centres of civilisation in many parts of the Northern Island, they have only in view the native race. That, while he recommends institutions which he thinks are equally well suited for a native, a mixed, or a European population, those they recommend are only adapted for the residents of a Maori pah. Further, while the Governor would establish a medical officer in each district, as much for the sake of the Europeans as of the natives. Ministers – having only Maories in their eyes – attach but little importance to mere pharmaceutical ministrations among the natives. While they very properly consider that the best doctors for the Maori are the mill, the cow, and the butcher's shop, the Governor sees – what they had failed to do – that a medical man would help to draw them to the spot. The Governor looked to the civilising influences the residence of a medical man with his wife and family, would have on the habits of the natives, while they only think of the effects the prescriptions would have on their systems. While the object of the Governor is to afford to the outsettlers that protection and sense of security which is essential to enable them properly to occupy their farms, the Ministers have the interests of the native race only in view, or rather the patronage which the scheme will create.

LEAVES FROM MY WRITINGS.

SIR G. GREY AND THE CONFISCATION POLICY.

THE following article which appeared in the New Zealand Advertiser of December, 1861, immediately after the resignation of the Whitaker-Fox Ministry, possesses historic value. The sale of the confiscated lauds to speculators, was the object of the Ministry; their settlement that of Sir G. Grey: –

We have always understood that the policy of the Assembly, which the Whitaker Ministry was placed in office to carry out, was the suppression of the rebellion by force, and the establishment of military settlements on confiscated lands with the object of making in future all Maori rebellions impossible. That policy, said Sir George Grey, was based on that which he adopted in British Kaffraria, and he declared that he could devise no other plan by which the permanent peace of the Colony could be provided for. The confiscation of the lands of rebels, he told the Secretary for the Colonies, and subsequently, the Aborigines' Protection Society, "will deter other tribes from committing similar acts when they find that it is to be, not a question of mere fighting which they are to do as long as they like, and when they please to return to their homes as if nothing had taken place, but that such misconduct is followed by the forfeiture of large tracts of their territory." This was the policy of Sir George Grey and of the Assembly.

We have, nevertheless, the fact put on record, that the interests and safety of the Province of Taranaki were being neglected, that the troops might be retained in the North and extensive districts handed over to Auckland land speculators who had probably obtained their money by means of a large Commissariat expenditure. We do not say, nor do we believe, that Ministers were actuated by any such views; but we maintain that such were the natural fruits of their policy. The Whitaker Ministry, we have not the least doubt; desired to make the present the last of native rebellions, and to make the cost of its suppression fall upon those by whom it had been so wantonly provoked. But they hoped to secure these ends rather by the acquisition and sale of rebel lands than by the settlement and profitable occupation of such lands after they had been acquired.

To establish military settlements for points of defence, for inflicting some punishment on rebel natives, and with the view, to some extent, of reimbursing the cost of the war will be one of the objects of the present, as it was also of the late Ministry. This was and is also the object of his Excellency, and as with reference to Sir George Grey's "New Institutions" so with reference to this question of confiscation and military settlements, the plans of His Excellency appear to us more statesmanlike than those of his Ministers. In the former case Sir George Grey looked to the construction of roads and the settlement Of native districts for the solution of the native difficulty rather than to the development of the runanga scheme or the establishment of a theoretical scheme of Government for the native population. So now he appears to regard with more favor similar means to secure this end than he does the establishment of military settlements far removed from the bulk of the European population, and at an enormous distance from roads and markets. Not that he is unfavorable to the confiscation scheme, as we shall presently shew, but because be sees that it is only by the construction of roads and the beneficial occupation of the Waste Lands of the North Island by a European population that the prosperity and security of both races can be promoted. We know it has been industriously promulgated that Sir George

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Grey after the receipt of Mr Cardwell's despatch of the 26th April, altered his views with reference to the confiscation of the lands of rebel tribes; and so also we know it was equally as industriously promulgated by his enemies, during his former administration of the Government of the colony, that he was opposed to the establishment of Representative Institutions, but his published despatches on both questions show that he has been wrongfully accused. With reference to the latter question, at the very time he was being denounced by nearly the whole press of the colony as the deadly opponent of free institutions, he was recommending to Earl Grey a form of Government for New Zealand more liberal by far than had ever before been granted to a dependency; and with reference to the confiscation question, we find him stating on the 25th of May, in reply to the charge made by Ministers that he had altered his views on the subject, "that his views have never varied as to the propriety and necessity of confiscating large portions of the territory of the Waikato, Ngatimanaiapoto, and Ngatiruanui tribes; portions which in extent should be made, in as far as possible, to vary with the degree of guilt of the several tribes or sections of tribes. He has always felt strongly the necessity of such confiscation and has perhaps expressed himself strongly in regard to it." The confiscation of the lands of rebels for the establishment of English settlements, and as a punishment for rebellion Sir George Grey approved of; but he did not go so far as his late ministers in the policy of seizing native lands in a way that while it would put them in the hands of speculators, would not cause their settlement by a European population.

PROVINCIALISM. - A PREDICTION.

THE following was published in the New Zealand Advertiser of September 25th, 1862. It affords some explanation of the reason why Provincialism became unpopular: –

If it be determined to maintain the Provincial Councils and Governments, they should – to answer any good purpose – be, in all provincial matters, entirely independent of the General Legislature and Government. The power and jurisdiction of the latter should be confined to the few matters which are in their nature of federal concern. In this case the general expenditure might be reduced within half the dimensions to which it has now swelled; in the other, one half the expenditure caused by the maintenance of the Provincial Governments would be got rid of. We venture to predict that when the land revenues of both Islands become exhausted, and when additional taxation has to be resorted to in order to pay the interest on loans which had been stupidly raised and foolishly squandered, this question will assume an importance which it does not now possess, owing exclusively to the circumstance that a great portion of the provincial expenditure has been heretofore provided by the proceeds from the sale of the waste lands, which, by an unwise compact, have been treated as provincial rather than as general and local revenues.

So long as the powers of the Provincial Governments were beneficially exercised, and those of the General Government were restricted to matters exclusively of general concern, we were disposed to think highly of the provincial system which was established by the Constitution Act; the manner in which the country had been colonised, and its physical and geographical characteristics being very favorable to the developement and healthy operation of such a scheme.

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Viewed theoretically it possessed many advantages, which doubtless would have been its practical results had it been honestly worked, and had been permitted fair play. This, however, was not its fortune. In the Provinces men grasped at power to subserve the most selfish purposes, or to gratify a low ambition, and endeavored to this end to make a Provincial Council resemble the Imperial Parliament, and a Provincial Superintendent a little king, surrounded with his Responsible Ministers and miniature Lord John Russells. In the General Assembly the self-same performance was enacted, only it was on another and wider stage. To secure power, patronage, and pelf, appeared to be the principal objects of the leading actors in both theatres, and "centralism" and "provincialism" were the mere watchwords used by the contending parties to represent the same thing. Each party were provincialists when in power in the Provinces, and out of office in the General Assembly; and both were centralists when seats in the Central Government came within their reach; or the objects of their ambition.

In theory nothing, for a Colony like this, appeared better than the provincial system established by the Constitution – the general and local interests of the Provinces were both fully provided for by the establishment of a Superintendent and Council – the one representing the general interests of the Province, and the other the local interests of the separate districts of which it was composed. It ought, therefore, to have been the aim of those favorable to such a system to maintain the independence and free action of both, in order that through the Council the particular interests of each district might be represented and upheld, and that through the Superintendent the junction of particular local interests might not be permitted to operate to the injury of the general interests of the Province. In practice this system has proved a monstrous delusion; because the Superintendent possesses all power in his own hands, and the Council is nothing but a snare or sham. The real friends of this system ought, while maintaining the veto of the Superintendent inviolate, to have allowed him to exercise no patronage except by the advice and consent of the Council, who should have maintained their constitutional control over the public purse; and, while giving the head of the Province a liberal salary, they should have prevented him becoming the tenant of an estate which he was appointed to administer, and have restricted him from engaging in trade, or from becoming a Bank Director. The pretended friends of the provincial system in this Province pursued a course the very opposite to this; they allowed the Superintendent to become a large runholder and Bank Director, and placed all the revenues of the Province, and the patronage of the Government, at his disposal. They permitted him to expend the public money without any legal authority, upheld him in the course he adopted by refusing to convene the Legislature, and, when at last it was convened, they maintained he did right in acting in direct opposition to the wishes of the people, as conveyed through their representatives in the Council.

THE ALABAMA.

THERE is no article I have ever written which affords me so much satisfaction as this. It was published in the New Zealand Advertiser of 17th October, 1863, at a time when there was not a newspaper in New Zealand and not one in the Australian Colonies, that was not singing the praises of this now too famous cruiser. I stood alone in taking an opposite course and in defending in the teeth of public opinion the cause of justice

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and right. I solicit the attention of the readers of these pages to this fact, for there is nothing remarkable in the article itself viewed in the light subsequent events threw on the doings of the Alabama; the only thing remarkable about it is that it should have been published at a time when "the sympathies of most Englishmen were in her favor."

Tho Canterbury Press of the 12th instant expresses itself as not a little surprised at the views we expressed with reference to the enthusiastic reception given to the officers and men of the Confederate cruiser Alabama at the Cape, when we stated that we knew of no deeds of bravery they had done to entitle them to receive the honors of heroes, and that the capture of the Sea Bride – a Federal barque – within sight of a neutral port, could not be justified. The Press observes: –

"It is not worth while to show that the proceedings of the Alabama are legitimate, for we should suppose that hardly any reasonable person would dream of maintaining that they were otherwise. There is so much genuine romance about the Alabama and her proceedings that it is not wonderful the sympathies of most Englishmen should be entirely in her favor. She is in a state of continual jeopardy, and is the successful heroine of what must be allowed to be a very uneven combat. She is one vessel against a whole fleet, yet she is continually beating her opponents, not perhaps in hard fight, but in matters for the successful issue of which qualities of highest order are required. Her appearances are mysterious: she is here to-day and there to-morrow; her conduct has always been generous and courteous; no single piece of cruelty can be laid to her charge; she has done a good deal of damage, but this it was her unavoidable duty to do; she has done the damage, but she has done it without inflicting unnecessary pain. She is brave; she is wary; she is generous; she is mysterious; she is waging a most unequal light en behalf of her country; and, over and above all this, she has been gloriously successful. How is it possible but that we should wish her heartily good speed?"

We are quite willing to be classed amongst those unreasonable persons who doubt whether the capture of a merchant-ship belonging to a friendly nation in British waters was a legitimate proceeding; and we doubt, moreover, whether the Press would have thought so had the merchantman been a Confederate barque, and the man-of-war the San Jancinto. We rather fancy we should have heard a good deal about such an outrageous insult upon British authority; while the cries for vengeance would have been both loud and deep. We must confess that we can see nothing very romantic in the proceedings of the Alabama, nor because she is in continual jeopardy do we see why the sympathies of most Englishmen should be entirely in her favor. By the same rule every outlaw would be entitled to our sympathy, as he would be in continual jeopardy, and for this reason his proceedings would necessarily partake somewhat of the romantic. But we must not be surprised that the sympathies of the Press should be excited in favor of rebel slave-dealers, after its unmistakable exhibition of sympathy for rebel Maories, and rebels in general.

We are told twice in a half-dozen lines that the Alabama is mysterious, generous, and wary! We must be permitted to question her generosity, and we do not see why her mysterious and wary proceedings should entitle her officers to the honors of heroes. But, we are told, "she is waging an unequal fight on behalf of the freedom of her country, and, over and above all this, she has been gloriously successful." Now, to wage an unequal fight on behalf of the freedom of our country would entitle us to the

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honor and sympathy of mankind, whether successful or not; but we know that the only freedom the Alabama in fighting for is the freedom to do wrong, and we can see nothing glorious in the successful capture of peaceful and unarmed merchantmen, or in running away at the approach of danger. If the Alabama had attacked, fought, and beaten a Federal cruiser, superior to herself in size, speed, men, and armament, there would be some reason for bestowing honors on her officers and crew; while we should not trouble ourselves by examining too nicely into the merits of the cause in which she was engaged. But the Alabama has done nothing of the sort. She has been "gloriously successful" in escaping from vessels which would be able to compete with her, and in pouncing upon vessels "like a wolf on the fold," which she knew were not able to offer any resistance. The sympathies of ail right-minded Englishmen are instinctively enlisted on the side of the weak when contending with the strong; but if that is the position of the Confederates it has not yet been that of their famous cruiser. It has rather been the position of the vessels she has taken, plundered, and destroyed.

We have said the liberty the Alabama, is fighting for is the liberty to do wrong. We challenge the editor of the Press to disprove the accuracy of this statement. It is usual for the advocates of the Confederates to endeavor to make it appear that the Southern rebels, like those of Poland, Hungary, or Italy, are fighting for freedom and nationality, but they are really fighting for nothing of the sort. The only rebels they resemble are the Texans, who raised the standard of revolt against Mexico, because the Mexican Constitution forbade the establishment of slavery in any part of the Mexican dominions. It is usual also for English journals in the Southern interest to deny that the Federals desire the abolition of slavery; but though there may be some doubt whether they are really fighting for the extinction of slavery, there can be no doubt whatever that the Confederates are fighting for its extension. But admitting that the Confederates are right and the Federals wrong, we cannot see what heroic deeds have been done by the officers of the Alabama to justify the ovation given to them at the Cape.

PRIVATE EXECUTIONS.

The following article was published in the N. Z. Advertiser in February, 1862, immediately after the execution in Wellington Gaol of Color-Sergeant Collins for the murder of Ensign Alexander, at Wanganui. The incident related in the article of the man tried for murder, and afterwards convicted for highway robbery was one which came within my own knowledge. It occured at Middletown, Connecticut, in 1840. And here I may mention that the views expressed on this subject, as well as those I have expressed on most others, have been obtained not from books but from observation and reflection; for books at best only give second hand information, a view I have set forth in the article on the Steam Press: –

This is emphatically a squeamish age, and a great deal of mock sensibility prevails now, as it always did, among the novel-reading and romance-writing portion of the public. One of the latter fraternity could write an elegy on a dead ass and allow his mother to starve in a garret; and with regard to novel readers they have increased a thousand fold since the days of Sterne, and, as a consequence, sickly sentimentalism and sham sensibility have increased, we fear, at something like an equal raitio. We can understand those who object to the punishment of death being inflicted in any case, but not those who – while they uphold the punishment would have, it carried out in

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private. The most that can be said against public executions is that they have not so great a tendency, as was at one time thought, to prevent the commission of crime. It does not, for example, deter the pick-pocket from carrying on his nefarious calling; but does even a court of justice? He will ply his trade within the precincts of the one as in the sight of the other. If neither will prevent the commission of crime, neither certainly per se is the cause of its commission. If the sight of a person being executed will not prevent the embryo murderer from growing into a finished assassin, a private execution can certainly have no effect of that kind. Moreover, to put a man to death within the walls of a prison is repugnant to the feelings, the habits, and the character of Englishmen. There is something outlandish and Turkish about it. It savors too much of the spirit of the worst of despotisms. John Bull detests all secret and underhand proceedings; what is done, be likes to see done fair, openly, and above board. If it is right to put a man to death, let there be no secrecy and privacy about it; if death punishments are inexpedient or indefensible, they ought not to be inflicted; and are they not less likely to be abrogated by being kept out of sight than they would be if exposed to the public gaze? We cannot see any solid reasons against public executions that could not be advanced with more or less force against private ones; but we can see many good reasons why, if a man's life is to be taken from him, it should be done in the light of Heaven and in the presence of his peers. It is the general belief that there is something less henious and repulsive in the conduct of an open highwayman than that of a dark assassin; and, if a judicial murder must be consummated, we think that it will be the almost universal feeling amongst Englishmen – uncontaminated by the cant of the times – that it is better that it should be done in public than in private – openly than in secret.

The opponents of capital punishments quote statistical tables to demonstrate that such punishments are not only inexpedient but that they tend to produce those very crimes they are intended to restrain From a return laid on the table of the House of Commons the adversaries of death punishments endeavor to prove that, during a given period, when the law was most leniently administered there was a diminution in the number of capital crimes; and, that, during another given period, when the law was most vindictively administered, then were capital crimes on the increase. This return, however, in our opinion, does not prove anything of the kind. The large number of capital punishments, inflicted in a given period, was doubtless owing to the large number of capital crimes that had been committed within that period. It is not punishments, capital or otherwise, that will prevent crime, but where good government exists there it will be found that crimes are most rare. It is not so much the seventy as the certainty with which punishment follows crime that its repressing influence is most observable. And here we may observe that the punishment of death even for wilful murder is less certain than the infliction of any other punishment would prove. It is felt that an innocent man may be restored to liberty, but that when once dead he cannot be restored to life. Hence there is an extreme reluctance felt by a jury in returning a verdict involving the infliction of death. We will give a case in point. A man who waylaid a country storekeeper, on his way to town, and shot him through the heart for the purpose of robbing him of the money he was known to have in his possession was tried for wilful murder. The evidence was circumstantial

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and all but conclusive; but the jury returned a verdict of not guilty and he was set at liberty. Subsequently he was tried for the highway robbery, when he was at once convicted and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. It follows that had imprisonment for life, instead of the punishment of death, been the penalty of his crime, there would have been no hesitation on the part of the jury, in bringing him in guilty, whereas, under the circumstances, had he only murdered and not robbed the man, be would have got off scot free.

Mr Recorder Hill says, "I do not believe in the great deterring effect of punishment; I think it in overrated." And the late chaplain of Reading gaol – where the new prison discipline doctrines were enforced – says. "I believe that the mere dread of punishment, as threatened by any law, either human or divine, very seldom prevents crimes." We do not expect that murders would be more or less frequent if the punishment of death were abolished; but we do believe that were it abolished the murderer would have a less chance of going unpunished, and the fate of the victim and not that of the culprit – as is now frequently the case – would be more likely then to enlist the sympathies of the public. We are persuaded – as we on a former occasion observed – that our present treatment of criminals and mode of suppressing crime will be viewed by unborn, generations with as much horror and surprise as we now contemplate the cruel and irrational means employed by our ancestors for a similar purpose; and that the private strangulation of a prisoner, under a judicial sentence, will not be taken as an evidence of the religion, philosophy or humanity of the nineteenth century.

THE STEAM PRESS.

THIS article also appeared in the New Zealand Advertiser on November 10, 1864, and is as true new as it was then.

The steam press has made the present a reading age. We saw a complaint made in a periodical a short time ago to the effect that people read so much now-a-days that they had lost the ability to converse. If this were the only loss occasioned by this lazy habit, the injury would be but trifling. When people have nothing to say they had better say nothing. The inordinate passion for reading which is exhibited on all sides injures, in more senses than one, the eyesight. It prevents its victims not only from conversing freely but observing clearly. Their heads become the store-rooms for second-hand articles, even as those of their favorite authors are, but the retail shops for the like commodities. Since the commencement of the present century, books, newspapers, and readers have increased a thousandfold; but we are not aware that the century has been equally as prolific of great thinkers or of great men. As the distaff has given way to the spinning-jenny, so have men in this age of steam presses left off thinking for themselves. They obtain clothes for their minds, as their wives obtain their dresses, from some fashionable shop – the more puffed the more patronised. Formerly, both were homespun. Less fine, perhaps, but also less flimsy. With all its books and newspapers to boot, the century has produced no poet, philosopher, or statesman equal to those of the reign of Elizabeth – and no public men to be compared with those of the Commonwealth.

These truths will not be disputed; but thirty years ago we expected more valuable fruits from the establishment of National and British schools, penny magazines, and an unstamped press, than have been yet obtained by these means for the diffusion of useful knowledge. We then expected that before this time "village Hampdens" would be as

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plentiful as blackberries; and Miltons, also, who would be neither mute nor inglorious. The distance in this case certainly lent enchantment to the view. Not the slightest intellectual improvement has been observable. As regards political life and activity, the present will bear no comparison with the past. We never expected that the mere ability to read and a taste for reading would make men poets, patriots, or thinkers; but we did expect that they would not be so likely to be duped as in the days when a newspaper was a rarity and schools "few and far between." But how stands the case? Is not the world as full now as ever it was of quacks of all kinds, and does not the steam press enable them to drive a more thriving business than they were ever able to do before? The fact is the generality of men in all ages have never taken the trouble to think for themselves, but have invariably allowed others to think for them, and the multiplicity of newspapers and of books instead of diminishing has rather facilitated the practice.

The steam press may create readers and readers authors, as facilities for communication create traffic, but patriotism is not generated by the same process; and neither political enlightenment nor public spirit in this Colony has yet been created by its public press. The well known fact of the editor and proprietor of the leading daily journal of the Middle Island with difficulty finding a proposer and seconder to nominate him to a seat in the Colonial Parliament is a convincing proof, alike of the little influence possessed by the public press in creating or directing public opinion, and of the little influence public opinion exercises oyer our public men.

MY POLITICAL CREED.

THE following articles on Federation, the Upper House, the Land Question, and the Electoral Franchise contain my mature views on most important subjects which possesses more than a temporary interest. I do not expect that my views on those subjects will meet with general acceptance now, but the time will come when they will demand attention.

FEDERATION.

"SMALL Republics within a great nation – this is the saving formula." Thus spoke one of the greatest of modern orators, patriots, and statesman in the Spanish Cortes in 1871. The sentence embodies the political philosophy of the present day and the political practice of the not distant future. The speaker – Castelar – belongs to the Latin race, but the sentiment is wholly Teuton. One of the strongest arguments in favor of provincial institutions was that while they satisfied this bias of the race they constituted a most formidable barrier against insular separation. The demand for such separation in a country like New Zealand has before arisen and will again arise; and it will yet be found that it will not be by fusion but by federation that the two islands can be politically united. The physical features of the country and the natural bias of the race by which it is peopled will lead to the establishment of small republics, held together not by national but by federal ties. Without quoting from the well-known works of Mill, Hare, Freeman, and other modern English authors, let us hear what Guizot has to say. He points out as a general fact which is frequently met with in the history of human race, that interests, forces, and ideas labor to concentrate themselves and to become united; but that when their concentration has been once effected the government thus constituted, at the end of a certain time, becomes exhausted; new interests, new forces, and new ideas, which do not harmonise with each other, arise and come into action. A

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conflict then commences between the forces which tend to separation, and the authority which strives to maintain union. "This phenomenon," he observes, "occurs not only in the political history of societies, but also in every occupation in which the activity of man finds exercise." It is all very well to talk about the concentration and consolidation of the various divisions of great empires, but, with these conflicting forces in operation, it may be reasonably doubted whether any other but the federative principle will be able so to modify the action of each as to render the existence of both salutary and abiding.

Hepworth Dixon has remarks still more apposite than those of Guizot, though much to the same purpose He remarks that society is held together by the poise and balance of two radical powers in man, akin to those centrifugal and centripetal forces which compel the planets to revolve around the sun – the separating spirit of freedom, and the combining spirit of union. Always acting in different ways, these forces hold each other in check; that shaking masses into units; this drawing units into masses: and it is only in their nice adjustment to each other that a nation can enjoy political life in the midst of social peace. He then expresses the opinion that the danger in France lies in too much compression; and in America, prior to the Civil War, in too much separation of the social units. This is the consequence of the inherited genius, prejudices, and instincts of the Latin and Teutonic races; a point which no leading statesman or leading journalist should ignore. The Latin races, as the French, Austrians, and Italians, have a keener sense of union than the Gothic races, and the latter a keener love of liberty and independence; and it has yet to be seen whether any people of the Gothic race will be lastingly consolidated. In face of a common danger, as has been so recently witnessed in Europe and America, they will unite as closely together as any Latin race; but remove the danger, and the unity is sacrificed for freedom and independence. This is the direction public opinion is now taking in the United States, and this is the direction it will yet take in the German Empire.

We have a high German authority for the assertions above hazarded. Gervinus observes that all efforts which aim at the formation of great states, at one common government, and which at the same time endeavor to subject the minds of men to one form of religion, which proceed on the principle of uniformity and unity in state and church, belong specially to the Latin races. The Teutonic races, on the contrary, sustain the principles of national independence, and religious and political equality. He points out that while the Latin races in the middle ages exhausted their strength in striving after extensive dominions, as the French of our day, the Teutonic nations strove after self dependence, and self-government within their natural frontiers. "This bias," he observes, "towards the formation of small states was the life of the Teutonic nations; it gave them an industrial character, and produced an inclination towards peace." Hence, he further observes, the Teutonic nations have never seriously entertained the project of one great universal empire. Even the three Scandinavian Kingdoms have never submitted to be united though they appear to be born to it by situation, circumstances and origin. If this is so, the "fusing," and Procustian projects of the Atkinson Ministry will never be carried into effect; and if ever the New Zealand and Australian Colonies constitute one empire, it will be by the operation of the federative, rather than by that of the national principle, that the union will be effected. It is well that these characteristics of our race should be borne in mind when legislating for

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the future requirements of the population of a country like New Zealand.

THE LAND QUESTION.

THE principal reason why land in England can now only be bought except by those who can pay for it as a luxury, will be found in the political influence it gives to its possessors. Every inducement has been given for the accumulation of land, and no facilities have been afforded for its more equitable and general distribution. The existing land system is a modernised phase of the old feudal system, and for that reason is very unsuited for a country like New Zealand. For centuries past the owners of land in England had the entire and unchecked control of the Government of the country. Mr Pitt held that a land owner with £10,000 a year had a right to claim a peerage, if he were on the right side of politics. And Mr Lefevre asserts that at the present time, as illustrated by the creations of the past three years, a large landed estate, without any public service, or great personal merit, is considered a sufficient claim for this hereditary honor. Add to this that no person could become a member for an English county, without the possession of a large landed estate, and we have another reason to explain why the land in England is in the hands of the few. These facts have a significance to us which we hope we shall be able to make clear. We are following in precisely the same track which has led to the evils which prevail in England – evils which have driven many of us to seek a home at the antipodes. Political power, family pride, social distinction, and local tradition have all been favorable in England to the accumulation of land, and have all equally tended to prevent its distribution. The fact of the Government and the Legislature, both being under the control of the great landowners, is the reason why every encouragement and facility has been given to the accumulation and retention of large landed properties, and every discouragement and impediment has been opposed to the existence or creation of smaller properties. We solicit from the intelligent elector particular attention to this circumstance, and to the causes we have assigned for it. Land in England is in the hands of the few, and secures a "fancy price" in consequence of the political and social influence it confers on its possessors.

There will be only a very small number of our readers who will think that it would be advantageous to this country that land should be no more widely distributed here than it is in the United Kingdom. But if this is to be prevented care must be taken that in future large landed properties shall not give its possessors those exclusive political privileges and social distinctions which we have shewn has been the case in England. In England did we say? Has it not already been the case here? Who comprise the members of the whole of one out of the two branches of the Legislature? Do the majority of the members of our Upper House owe their seats to their birth, education, merit, public service, intellectual attainments, or tried wisdom and integrity, or to their wealth and large landed possessions? The question is worth pondering on, for the answer is a practical one and pregnant with meaning. Why were such men as "Barney" Rhodes and "Money" Robinson created Colonial peers, if not exclusively on account of their large landed possessions? These questions suggest a train of thought, when considered with what we have said above, which we will leave the intelligent reader to pursue at his leisure. If it comes to be understood and acted upon here that the possession of large landed estates shall entitle a man to a scat in on

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branch of the Legislature, and entitle him to have five times more votes in the election of the Local Government of the County or borough than the working settler, we shall lay the foundation of those evils we complain of in the mother Country, only they will assume here a less tolerable and a more grinding form. The land of England has got into the hands of so small a number of persons on account of the political and social influence which has been allowed to be attached to it. There are many reasons why this should be so in England, but none whatever why it should be so in New Zealand. In England the possession of large landed estates, as we have before pointed out, pre-suppose the possession of other valuable qualities, qualifications and excellencies, inherited and acquired; but the possession of large landed properties here pre-supposes nothing of the kind. It is those qualities, and not their large estates which distinguish a true from a sham aristocracy. A true aristocracy will in all countries make its legitimate influence be felt and recognised, if no artificial obstacles are imposed to check its manifestations, and impede its force. But though large landed estates will not be the means of creating a real aristocracy in New Zealand, they have been the means when combined with exclusive political privileges, of obstructing the progress and settlement of the country. The circumstance appears to be overlooked that in these modern days there are other forms of property besides property in land, though this was not the case at the time out of which the feudal system originated. There is, however, fewer objections to substantial landed possessions than there is to the granting of those exclusive political privileges which in a far different state of society than what exists now appeared naturally and rightfully to belong to the owners of large landed estates. The presence of one or two large landholders in any rural district would not be without its advantages provided they would be satisfied with that social influence which their wealth, their intellectual attainments, their cultivated tastes and manners, would be always sure to command. It is not well that all the members of a Community should be on a dead level in these respects. And indeed it is only in a new country or in the infancy of society that this could be probable or possible. We hold it to be of the highest importance that in every community there should be men who, from their education and position, are able to take part in local affairs, to contribute to the formation of public opinion, to act the part of good citizens, and to spread to those below them a sense of high civilisation; but that is no reason why they should possess more political privileges than their less fortunate neighbors, or that it is good for the community at large that the bulk of the population should be excluded from the enjoyment of any landed property whatever. We think with Mr Lefevre that so far as the laws and the influence of the State are concerned they should be directed rather to the distribution of property than to its accumulation. The making the "tenure of landed property the fulfilment of duty," was, as Lord Beaconfield has pointed out, the basis of the feudal system, and is now the essence of good Government. The imposition of a graduated land tax could be justified on these grounds; and it will prove the only effectual means, short of the French law of inheritance, of breaking up the enormous landed estates which have been acquired at so trifling a cost, and of preventing in the future that land speculation and monopoly which have all along been the bane and which may hereafter prove the curse of this, our adopted country.

HISTORY AND POLITICS,

THE ELECTORAL FRANCHISE.

THE following article was written on the rejection of Sir George Grey's Manhood Suffrage Bill by the House of Representatives in October, 1876:

The time is not distant when some such Bill will be carried; and it is more than ever desirable now that it should be, seeing that the Provincial Legislatures have been abolished, and that the local Governments, to be established in their places, are to be elected on what virtually amounts to a high property qualification. Whatever may be our individual views on this most important of political questions, of this we may be assured – to quote the words of Mill – "That no arrangement of the suffrage can be permanently satisfactory in which any person or class is peremptorily excluded, and in which the electoral privilege is not open to all persons of full age who desire to obtain it." As there is nothing more certain than that we are too apt to place the highest value on those qualities and acquisitions of the human mind or character which may not be in themselves the most excellent, but in which we suppose ourselves most to excell; so also there can be no doubt that we always place too high a value on those acquisitions which we chance to possess, whether these be learning or riches. Nowhere is this tendency of the human mind more observable than in discussions on the elective franchise. In spite of the fact that when artificial restrictions are removed, as in the case of violent political revolutions, the greatest men, and those too in no insignificant numbers, make their way to the front, the object aimed at has always been to impose those restrictions on the right of suffrage as have the effect, if they have not the object, of preventing so desirable a consummation. The wealthy man not only places by far too high a value on his wealth, but also on the claims to which it is entitled. He cannot conceive how anyone can have a stake in the country, or feel any true interest in its welfare who is not the owner of property. History and every day experience teach a very different lesson; but such lessons are entirely thrown away on those who are determined not to learn them. "None are so blind as those who won't see." So also the college-bred man labors under a somewhat similar delusion. It is difficult to persuade him that the least valuable of all knowledge is that which is acquired at school or from books. With men, as with horses, there is more in the breed than in the training. That may improve it where it is, but it will not develope it where it is not. The most valuable qualities are not the exclusive possession of the learned or the rich; and like the property and titles of the English nobility they are more frequently inherited than acquired. Intellect, common sense, clearness of vision, honesty, disinterestedness, patriotism, conscientiousness, and true heroism, can never be bestowed, however much they may be improved, by education. In no case can they be exclusively claimed by either the propertied or educated classes. Now, as it is the possession of these qualities which is necessary for the right and faithful exercise of the electoral franchise; as they cannot be conferred by either property or learning; and as they have been distributed with an impartial hand by a beneficient Providence amongst all members of the community, it follows that no class should be excluded from the electoral franchise – or we may exclude a Cromwell or a Blake, a Franklin or a Jefferson, unawares. In all countries, and under all forms of Government, the select and most able few will always have the real direction of affairs; but in whose interests those affairs are directed will depend greatly on the circumstance whether all classes, or only one privileged class, has the selection of those by

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whom that few hold office. The history of England teaches us that in proportion as the electoral franchise has been extended, so in proportion have the rights and interests of the classes thus enfranchised been regarded. However happy it may be for a country to have the best and wisest of its citizens at the head of its affairs, they can effect no lasting improvement unless aided by the active co-operation of the whole community. As with individuals, so with a people, it is what they do, and not what is done for them, by which their merit will be measured, and their well-being secured. Even the best and wisest of Governments will not be able to effect any lasting benefit if everything is done for, and nothing by the people. 'No reform,' says Buckle, 'can produce real good unless it is the work of public opinion, and unless the people themselves take the initiative.'

In these days of mammon-worship and political retrogression, the truth cannot be too strongly or frequently insisted upon that there are other excellencies besides riches and learning, and which cannot be purchased by either. We should be the last to try to lower the legitimate influence of both; but when, in addition to the enormous influence they carry with them, it is sought, by artificial restrictions on the right of suffrage, to confer upon their possessors a monopoly of political power, the question wears another and altogether different aspect. Nor should it be forgotten how different are the circumstances of England and those of New Zealand in this respect. In the one the possession of wealth almost insures the possession of a liberal education and of numerous other estimable qualifications; but is this the case in this Colony? Here the extension of the franchise is required, not; only in the interests of the more humble classes of the community, but for the purpose of conferring on birth, breeding, and refinement that influence over mere brute wealth which they cannot now exorcise. It is required also to give the necessary political education to that large class of colonists who must, even under the existing law, eventually enjoy the electoral franchise. This cannot be done by the elementary school, as Mr Lowe, when he told the House of Commons that "they must educate their masters," ignorantly imagined; but it can be done by that active participation in public affairs which the voting at local and parliamentary elections would afford them the opportunity and desire for taking. It is only in this way men can be politically taught; for they cannot otherwise be taught any more than men can be taught to swim if not allowed to go into the water. The able management and remarkable success of many English Co-operation Societies composed exclusively of working men are convincing evidence that intellectual and administrative capacity is not monopolised, like the voting power, by the wealthy and educated classes, as that management will bear favorable comparison with, and in many cases put to shame, the huge bungling of railway direction, and the incapacity displayed in numerous middle-class, joint-stock concerns, by men possessing not only wealth and education, but experience also, Such facts prove convincingly that intellectually working men are qualified to enjoy the electoral franchise, and that its intelligent use can be best acquired by its frequent exercise.

THE UPPER HOUSE.

IN considering the question of the reconstruction of the Upper House there are several points which should by no means be lost sight of. In proportion as you increase the power of one Chamber you will necessarily diminish that of the other. This would be effected either by making the Upper House elective, or by

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filling it with men possessing higher qualifications than those possessed by the majority of its present members. In the one case they could claim to be the representatives of the wealth and the intelligence of the community. In the other they would naturally exercise more power than they would do if their qualifications as legislators were of a lower order. This would be effected in two directions. As in so limited a population the number of able and fit men must be still more limited, the larger the number of these who obtained seats in the Legislative Council the smaller would be the number of those who are qualified to have seats in the House of Representatives. Relatively and actually the power of the popular branch of the Legislature would thus be seriously diminished. It is quite true that the Legislative Council is composed too exclusively of one class; but that fault, so far as it is an unavoidable one, is the fault of the Ministry by whom they were nominated. We have observed that the members of the Upper House have shewn quite as much intelligence, public spirit, and conscientiousness as those of the Lower House on all questions in which their especial interests were not directly or indirectly affected; and the way to prevent in future the admitted evils which have resulted from this circumstance would be, not to make the constitution of the Upper House elective, but to disqualify all members from voting on those questions which directly affected their class interests.

What we have said will be sufficient to convince the intelligent reader that the question of the reconstruction of the Upper House is a more difficult one than shallow writers and talkers have been in the habit of representing. Ever since the Constitution Act has been in operation there has been a small but active and powerful section of the community which has aimed to diminish the political equality which was established under it, and to increase the power of the wealthy classes, first, by the cunning manipulation of the representation; second, by the diminution of the powers of the Provincial Legislatures; third, by augmenting the powers revenues, and jurisdiction of the Central Authority, and now, lastly, by aiming to get the Upper House elected on a high property qualification. The course which has been taken here is totally opposite to that which political events have taken in England. As the Age truly observes: "Every fundamental change from the days of Magna Charta down to the date of the last reform Act, a few years ago, has had for its purpose to increase the popular power, to lessen the privileges of caste, whether in Church or State, to diminish the influence of a dominant aristocracy, and institute a genuine democracy as the grand characteristic of the Commonwealth.

Though the progress which has been made in England in the extension of popular liberties has thus been both marked and rapid, it has also been not less noticeable on other subjects, and in other directions. Ten years ago an Act was passed by the Imperial Parliament called "The Masters and Servants Act," with the object of relieving the latter of numerous legal disabilities under which they labored. Last year another Act was passed with the same object; but it no longer bore the same obnoxious title. Instead of "Masters and Servants," it was called the "Employers and Workmen's Act," and the change which was made in the law was quite as remarkable "liberal" and enlightened as the change that was made in the name by which it was designated. We shall look in vain in our colonial legislation for any indications of an equal enlightenment and of a like progress? We account for the fact to the low estimate the bulk of the people have been in the habit of placing on their political privileges, and to the conse-

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quent little interest they have usually taken in public affairs. It was only the other day that a constituency in the Middle Island comprising one or two publicans and a half dozen squatters, had as much power in returning a member to Parliament as the numerous and wealthy constituency of Christchurch. How could this have happened if not for the reasons above indicated? When political privileges are valued so lightly by the great body of the people, constitutional changes, and the whole course of legislation, are not likely to take any other save a retrograde direction. And would not this be the result whatever may be the professed object, of a change in the constitution of the Upper Chamber? If the people so willingly consented, as they recently tacitly did, to give such a preponderating influence to property in the election of a County Council, they will not be likely to offer any strong objection to the giving of still greater influence and domination to mere brute wealth in the election of the Upper House. We are aware that at the first blush an elective Upper Chamber appears to possess many advantages over a nominated one. If, however, it only represented wealth, simply as such, and not intelligence, public spirit and real worth, the fact of its being elected would increase its obstructiveness by augmenting its power. Indeed, the very circumstance of its being elected might of itself be sufficient to place the popular branch of the legislature in relation to itself in a position not unlike the Provincial legislatures held under the Colonial Parliament. Knowing that some of the greatest of England's statesman first obtained entrance into the House of Commons, as nominees of the proprietors of rotten boroughs; knowing how difficult it was for some of the best men to obtain seats in Parliament after the inauguration of the ten pound franchise; and bearing in mind that most public functionaries are nominated and not elected, we have no hesitation in saying that we should sooner see a portion of the Upper House appointed for their talents, eminence, public worth, or public services, than to see the whole of them elected either on a high property qualification, or on the still more vicious and indefensible system, which has been established in the election of the County Councils. Of all despotisms that of an ignorant, selfish, and narrow-minded monied class would be the most grinding and intolerable.

SIR GEORGE GREYS RETURN TO PUBLIC LIFE.

THE circumstances connected with Sir George Grey's re-entrance on the public stage are so well-known, and are of so recent a date that it will not be necessary to refer to them at any length. In October, 1874, he forwarded a memorial to Sir James Fergusson protesting against any revolutionary changes being made in the Constitution until those most interested had been consulted on the subject. "It would be," said the New Zealand Times, "a poor compliment to such a man were his protest passed lightly by at such a time. There are few men in and out of New Zealand of whom we entertain so high an opinion as we do of Sir George Grey, and although we may differ from him on some points, yet we feel pleasure indeed in the fact that at last he has broken silence, and has taken bis proper place as a leading, if not the leading, colonist of New Zealand."

In December of the same year he addressed a letter to the Auckland Herald, in which he pointed out that the policy he had recommended for adoption in South Africa in 1858, which recommendation had been made the ostensible ground for his recall from the Governorship of the Cape, and which was tantamount to inflict-

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ing upon him a pecuniary fine of almost £2000, had been acknowledged ten years after by the leading men of South Africa as having been a far-sighted and comprehensive policy, while now the very men opposed to him in 1858 are earnestly endeavoring to bring to pass the policy which he then recommended. Let this, he thought, as he mused in his solitude, be a lesson to himself and those who are now aiding him, that men who would serve their fellows must labor earnestly, and bear patiently, and perhaps wait for years before they see the result of their labors. While thus musing, a packet of newspapers arrived, some of which contained personal attacks upon himself "Having read them," he observes, "I felt how useful the previous discipline in relation to South African affairs had been to my mind; and I felt also a kind of keen pleasure that I could once again in the decline of life have an opportunity of serving my fellow men." After referring to the Abolition resolutions, he says: – "This form of government is now to be destroyed by a Government in which the people are most imperfectly represented, and which from having at the present moment millions of borrowed money at its command, in such an unrestricted manner regarding its disposal as is, I believe unexampled, and is certainly unconstitutional, – has the power of exercising temporarily a dangerous influence both within and without the walls of the General Assembly. The slightest consideration of the small number of men amongst whom these immense sums of borrowed money are in a short time to be spent, will give a measure of what this influence must be, which is greatly increased by the number of contractors and their agents now in the colony, who undoubtedly possess, and have attempted to exercise an influence over public affairs. I think that every man who loves this country, will from these causes alone object to such a moment being chosen as a fitting one in which to destroy all of really representative government which exists here. Truly the time and the conditions were not favorable for making such changes as those proposed.

At the beginning of 1875 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives for Auckland City West, and, on the death of John Williamson, Superintendent of the Province of Auckland, The Otago Daily Times, in commenting on his reply to the Auckland deputation, observed: – "Whatever faults his enemies may have found with Sir George Grey from time time, no one ever doubted that he was a most devoted New Zealand colonist. The history of his life is one long testimony to the patriotism of the man. For real unselfish zeal for the interest of New Zealand, and uncomplaining self-sacrifice at the same shrine, we do not know where to look for the equal of Sir George Grey." In that reply Sir George Grey announced his intention of supporting a more equitable apportionment of the land revenue than at present obtained, and it was thought not impossible that he would be in favor of a tax on absentees. With reference to this latter question the Otago Daily Times says: – "With regard to this subject, Sir George Grey has put his finger on a blot. When we complain of our wealthy men returning to Europe to spend their leisure ease, and when we deplore the financial injury wrought to the colony by their secession, we should do well to remember that many leave us because they have not the moral courage to run the gauntlet of abuse through which a new politician must pass ere he achieves an independent position. It is not everyone who can make up his mind to sacrifice ease, leisure, comfort, and endure abuse, misrepresentation, detraction, for the good of his country, like Sir George Grey. As a

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matter of fact, Sir George Grey's entrance upon political life is a thing to be hailed with much satisfaction on several grounds. We think the country will be the better for his statesmanlike views and honesty of purpose, and that his example will be productive of good, by teaching others who are able their duty to their country."

The following passages from his address to the electors of Auckland are worthy of a place in these pages. In the event of the abolition of the Provinces he says: – "I should like to have such institutions established in the place of the existing Provinces as would secure to New Zealand generally at least those extensive rights in regard to legislation and other matters which the Provinces now possess, and to the various country districts a larger share of local self government, and a greater and more direct control over local revenues than is now given to them." On the settlement of not only immigrants but the children of old settlers on the land he said, "The Superintendent should see that energetic measures are taken to secure the permanent location in the country of the population now here, and of the immigrants who may arrive, by holding out inducements to take up land in the best positions which can be secured to them, and thus lead them to become permanent occupiers and cultivators of the soil. Active steps should be taken to induce people possessing capital sufficient to enable them to undertake the cultivation of the soil and the employment of labor, to again resort to this province, and means might also be advantageously taken to enable children of established settlers to occupy farms of waste lands, and thus to contribute as their fathers have before them, to establish the prosperity of the Colony on a lasting basis." His remarks on the important question of education were also to the purpose. He objected to a uniform house tax for educational purposes and said: – "All who draw wealth or revenue from this country are interested in seeing that the rising generations grow up educated and well conducted members of the community; but it is the duty of all to contribute with some reference to their wealth, and it seems hard to oblige the struggling laborer to pay largely from his small means for this purpose, whilst those who draw great incomes from New Zealand, pay but a small trifle in proportion to their ability, or, if they be absentees, pay absolutely nothing."

SIR GEORGE GREY IN PARLIAMENT.

ON the appearance of Sir George Grey in Parliament in the session which opened in July, 1875, he was received with enthusiastic applause. I have before me his speech on the address, which is one of the most eloquent that has ever been delivered in a legislative assembly. After making a most eloquent appeal to the Ministry, he said: – "I now turn to the princes of the people – to those real kings of men – who, by their own labor, have raised themselves from humble positions in life, and have added to the nobility of labor the adornment of self-culture. Upon them for years I have looked with pleasure, seeing them as they climbed from the depths to which in the mother country class distinctions would have sunk them, attain to positions of credit and distinction; and I ask them now, would they kick down and break to pieces the ladder by which they raised themselves? Would men whom I have seen make magnificent farms from bleak barren sterility, whom I have seen achieve great works in spite of all obstacles, who have made the wilderness blossom as the rose, and the earth to teem with the means of supporting a great population – will those men, I say, leave it in the power of posterity, while praising them on the one hand

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for the work they have done, on the other to curse them for having forced upon them a Constitution which may sink them to misery? Will no voice cry aloud to announce to them what is taking place? Will no apostles go forth and convene meetings throughout the country, and give the people an explanation of the circumstances under which they are to live, so that they may consider well the change before it is forced upon them? Will no person cry aloud and tell them that, until they are fairly and truly represented by representatives chosen by themselves to consider this subject they ought not to consent to such an alteration of the form of government under which they are to live, and that they will take no new form of government from such a general assembly as now exists?"

THE COMPROMISE.

IN a leader in the Standard of 21st September, 1875, I refer to the conduct of the Opposition in consenting to the closing of the Provincial Councils on the condition that the Abolition Act Was not brought into operation until after the general election; a proceeding which the Standard alone of all the Opposition journals then condemned. It also was condemned most emphatically by Sir George Grey at the time, and subsequently by most of the Opposition journals in the Colony. I observe: – "It is fortunate that earnestness is infectious, or otherwise we should despair of the ultimate triumph of the cause which we have so long advocated, and which Sir George Grey has lately so ably espoused. In a fit of inspiration Coleridge once cried out, "Oh! for a great man – but one really great man, who could feel the weight and power of a principle, and unflinchingly put it into act.' By the reappearance of Sir George Grey in the political arena, at this juncture, this aspiration of the poet, so far as New Zealand is concerned, promises to be realised. According to the same authority, O'Connell's influence and success were owing to his assertion of a broad principle, upon which he acted, in which he had faith, and into which he put his whole body and soul. The same influence and success may be secured here by the same agencies; and it is the conviction of this truth which inspires us with hope and confidence in the future of New Zealand.

We have already expressed our emphatic disapproval of the conduct and the results of the late negotiations by the leaders of the Opposition; and we still think they too readily surrendered those points upon the recognition of which they should have insisted, while they only secured those which the Ministry would have willingly conceded had no pressure been brought to bear upon them in that behalf. In order to conciliate their own supporters, the Ministry, in the face of the public meetings held at Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin, and in view of the threatened action in the Supreme Court, would naturally feel no great desire to take upon themselves the grave and enormous) responsibility of bringing the Act into operation until after the result of the general election had become known; and this, in effect was all that they conceded. For this concession they secured without question a vote of a half million sterling, impeded the free action of the Opposition, and left all Provincial works and affairs in a state of the most wretched confusion until after the close of the next session of Parliament.

It is, however, not so much what the Opposition have done, as what they have left undone, to which we now feel irresistibly impelled thus forcibly to refer. With much talk about the desirability of appealing to the country, and with the knowledge that nearly the whole press of the Colony is dead against them, they

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have not taken any steps whatever to indoctrinate the public mind with their views. At the paltry sacrifice of a month's salary by the members of the Provincial Executives in the House, a fund could have been secured sufficient to have paid the cost of placing copies of their revised speeches in the hands of every elector in the Colony. Or probably at a little more cost they could have established a weekly organ at Wellington, after the manner of the Anti-Corn Law League, by which the same object could have been still more effectually accomplished. Instead, however, of doing anything in this direction, they appear to have taken no steps whatever to prevent, to answer, or to render innoxious the sneering remarks made on their chosen leader by the only organ in Wellington which was at one time supposed to be favorable to their views. It is not by such apathy as this that success for any cause was ever deserved or achieved.

Nor, up to the present time, has their conduct in the House been characterized by more tact, zeal, and decision. There are several motions which they could have made which would either have insured them a majority, or would have insured the defeat at the next elections of at least some of those members who voted against them. With the exception of Sir George Grey, Mr Reader Wood, Mr Rees, and one or two others, instead of carrying the war into the enemy's camp, they have contented themselves with futile attempts at warding off the persistent attacks which the Ministry and their supporters have levelled against them. In modern political warfare Fabian tactics are seldom successful. An Opposition naturally and necessarily, to be effective, must be the attacking party. It is a Ministry which has to stand on the defensive. But during the present session all this has been reversed; and up to the present time not a resolution has been moved which would have implied a vote of censure on the Government, scattered confusion amongst Ministerial supporters, or have secured adherents to the Opposition programme outside the walls of Parliament. But, as we said at the outset, earnestness is infectious, and though we doubt whether Sir George Grey will be able to infuse anything of the kind into the selfish advocates of Provincial Institutions within the House, he may succeed in doing so amongst the disinterested supporters of those institutions out of it." But it was not to be; and consequently not even an attempt was made to give the people the opportunity of determining under what form of Government they desired to live.

WHAT ABOLITION MEANS.

IN the first session of the new Parliament held in 1870, Sir George Grey made a speech on certain resolutions which had been moved by Mr Macandrew, when he admitted that there was no one who wished to see Provincialism re-established in the form in which it lately existed, but what Provincialists desired was to see it restored to the state in which the Parliament of Great Britain gave it to us – not in the mutilated form to which the Centralists had reduced it. "The premier," said Sir George "told us that the Provinces did not desire to be restored to the state which they once enjoyed – to those advantages given to them by the Constitution of the country. Why that is precisely what we do desire. That is precisely what we ask for, and the honorable gentleman told us that that the people do not understand what abolition means. It means that a small number of wealthy men should obtain possession of the public lands, and that the rest of the people throughout New Zealand should be reduced to the position of serfs. That is what

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abolition means. It means that those great estates, acquired, as I believe, unlawfully, by honorable gentlemen who sit, or have sat, on those benches, or which belong to their friends, shall be unlawfully secured to them. It means that the mass of the inhabitants of the people of New Zealand, deprived of the power they now have of legislating for themselves, shall be reduced to a state of poverty, of abject subjection of spirit. That is what abolition means. It means to set up one governing race and one governing class, and to lower the rest of the people beneath their feet. It means to attempt to reestablish in this country a system which in the old country is the lament of all right-thinking people. It means to set in power, not an hereditary nobility sprung from the feudal system, but a class of people who, by an adroit use of the land laws, or an adroit use of political power, have accumulated and will accumulate lands and wealth, who will deprive their fellow citizens of what rightfully belongs to them, and will sink the rest of the people of New Zealand in poverty and want. It means to introduce people of a foreign race, who have no knowledge of the British Constitution, who cannot speak our language, who know nothing of the rights they ought to possess, for the purpose of settling them upon their estates. It means to make the free British subjects in this colony contribute largely, often from their small means, to bring these people out, and then compel them to compete in the labor market with people of a lower status than themselves, to go to the wall and lose their status in society."

The reference made to the introduction of the foreign element into the colony, and the effect it had in swamping the votes of the English colonists deserve thoughtful consideration. The fact that at the last election the whole of the Scandinavian electors of the Forty Mile Bush went and plumped en bloc for one of the candidates, and this before some of them had been naturalised, and when none of them either knew or cared about the question at issue affords sufficient evidence of the truth, justice, and necessity of Sir George Grey's remarks.

INSULAR SEPARATION.

IN an article in the Standard of July 22, 1876, I refer to the effect which the abolition of the Provinces will have in strengthening the demand for insular separation, and observe: –

In an article of 12th September, 1874, under the heading "Strike! but hear," we said, "One of the evils of which there is some danger from the sudden abolition of Provincial Institutions is no less than that of the disruption of the colony by the establishment of insular separation. Another is the removal of the seat of Government from Wellington, which would be the consequence of such separation. Without question the Provincial system of government has hitherto proved a most formidable barrier to the political and financial division of the Colony; and, without doubt, if that barrier be suddenly destroyed the cry for insular separation will again be raised, with the almost certainty of being ultimately crowned with success. This is a matter which concerns Wellington more especially; but it also concerns everyone who desires to maintain the unity of the Colony." In the next issue we again returned to the subject and dwelt on the evils which would result from the absorption of all legislative and administrative functions by the Central Government. On the 20th January, 1875, we had another leader on the question, which the New Zealand Times pronounced the most able one that had ever appeared in support of Provincial Institutions; but no reference whatever was made

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by our contemporary to the following remarks which now possess more interest and significance than they did at the time they were published. We said: – "It would not be difficult to prove that had the two districts of country now constituting the independent colonies of Victoria and Queensland enjoyed from the first Provincial Institutions they might now, as then, constitute with New South Wales one powerful and independent colony. We beg the attention of the people of Wellington to this view of a broad question, and we ask them whether they think the seat of Government would have been removed to Port Nicholson, or that New Zealand, any more than New South Wales, would have continued one colony under the General Government, had it not been for the existence of Provincial Institutions?" On 13th February, 1875, we again directed attention to the above view of this most important subject, and observed: – "We know something of the history of New Zealand, and the views held by her public men, and we are persuaded that it has been solely owing to the existence of Provincial Institutions that the integrity of the colony has been maintained." In the same article we refer to the views held by the late Duke of Newcastle, who had strongly recommended a provincial system, like that which had been established here, for the adoption of the South African colonies. He did this after Sir George Grey had left the Cape and had become for a second term Governor of New Zealand. We ask is it not also a significant circumstance that all the principal features of our Constitution should have been copied by that so recently conferred on the colonies now constituting the Dominion of Canada? We added, "What is still more to the purpose, will they not have to be adopted by the Australian Colonies if they are to effectually rid themselves of border duties, separation movements, and the other evils which they now labor under, or to which they are now constantly liable. We said that if we were going to commence de novo we should not choose the Provincial system for New Zealand. We took the precaution to observe that we did not maintain that the system satisfied every condition of local government, but at the same time we pointed out that it secured the unity of the colony and the seat of the Central Government at Wellington, and on that account alone it was not to be lightly regarded by those who valued the unity of the colony and the existence of a strong Colonial Government at Port Nicholson.

I insert the above not on account of its literary merit, nor to show that I early foresaw what would be one of the results of the abolition of the Provinces, but for the purpose of pointing out to those who will come after me that a matter which so much concerned the Wellington public was never once referred to by the Wellington press, during the whole time the question of the abolition of the provinces was under discussion. To me it is as clear as daylight that sooner or later either the two islands will each have one or more Provincial Governments of its own, or that they will be constituted two separate and independant colonies. The division of the two islands into provinces alone, prevented this being long ago accomplished. It was from the first astonishing to me, that the Wellington people could never view the subject in this light. The opposition of Sir George Grey to the abolition of the provinces was as fruitless, as probably will be the subsequent efforts that will be made by Wellington to prevent the disruption of the Colony.

THE COLONIAL PRESS.

Notwithstanding the enormous increase which has taken place in the

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number and circulation of newspapers during the last twenty-five years, the newspaper press itself is not so great a power in the Colony as it was a quarter of a century ago. Several reasons could be given to account for the fact, the principal one being that the leader writers then were themselves prominent members of the party they supported, who kept up, as far as the then means of communication would permit, a regular correspondence with each other. Anything appearing in one paper of more than ordinary importance was inserted and commented on in all the others which took the same side in politics. The leader writers of the popular party in those days were in fact bound together by common opinions, common ties, and common interests. The division of the Colony into Provinces, and the official positions most of the writers for the press then acquired, put an end to all this, and from that date there were no longer any Colonial newspapers, all public questions, generally speaking, being viewed and discussed from a mere Provincial stand point, while, as was to be anticipated, the imposition of a tax on all newspapers which are sent out of the Province in which they are published has tended to increase the evil. The newspaper, consequently, has ceased to be a power in the Colony, and only possesses a mere local or sectional influence. This state of things must be changed, if the public press is to exercise that influence on Government and Parliament which it exercises elsewhere. There must be more co-operation between those journals which aspire to lead public opinion, than has yet been witnessed. With them as with other interests, "united we stand, divided we fall." They may prove without such co-operation a financial success, but they will never become a political power, before which a corrupt Government would be made to stand in awe,

LOCALISM V. CENTRALISM.

WE are well aware that men scientifically trained for a duty, and receiving their instructions from a central authority equally as well trained, may be better qualified to discharge it efficiently than men chosen by the locality and resident on the spot; but on the other hand the latter best know the wants of the district, and as they directly suffer from any mistakes which may be committed, they naturally do their best to avoid them, and to rectify them when they occur. The question, however, is not be much whether public affairs would be better administered under a Localised than under a Centralised system, but which is likely to produce the best citizens. It is the public spirit, self-education, and individual energy evolved by the former system, and which a centralised system tends to emasculate and deaden, which are its distinguishing characteristics. The one creates a citizen, the other keeps him in a state of pupilage. The doing what is wanted ourselves instead of depending upon and paying others to do it for us, is what is meant by local self-government. Under a centralised system the Government is everything and the individual is counted for nothing. Under a localised system it is the well being of the individual rather than the greatness of the nation which is the first object of regard. It is only under the latter system that men can be said to constitute the State. It is only under such a system that we shall find "men who their duties know, and know their lights, and knowing, dare maintain them." The advocates of local self-government see more beauty and utility in a natural diversity than in an artificial uniformity. They care more, also, for individual freedom and local independence, than for extended empire and national glory. In brief, Centralisation gives apparent strength and unity to the Government; the Localised

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system real strength and freedom to the governed.

PLURAL VOTING.

HERETOFORE, when treating of the important question of the electoral franchise we have dwelt principally on the injustice of giving a plurality of votes in the election of members for the County Council to wealthy ratepayers, seeing that those councils will have the expenditure of funds to which the wealthy ratepayer had not contributed more than his poorer neighbor and seeing also that those councils will have the control and administration of affairs, in the right determining of which all ratepayers, rich and poor are alike interested. But we hold that apart from the injustice of the proposal, the giving a plurality of votes to men of large means over men of small means in the administration of such funds, as those that are to be placed under the control of County Councils, will either result in setting class against class, or in practically excluding a large portion of the population from any active participation in that system of local Government which it is the pretended aim of the present Ministry to confer upon the settlers at large. There is no necessity for granting any such exclusive political privileges to the wealthy classes; for however ill they may have fared under despotisms, they have always, under a popular form of Government, been well able to take care of themselves. We shewed in a recent issue that though in Athens every citizen was equally eligible to all the offices of State, it was only, generally speaking, the wealthy citizens who attained them. And has not the same thing, under almost an equally democratic Constitution, been witnessed here in the election of Superintendents and members both of the Provincial and General Legislatures? The political equality which has existed in this colony, since the Constitution Act was brought into operation, has done more to allay political agitation and discontent, to educate the public mind, to ensure true respect for men of worth and station, and to promote the peace and prosperity of the country, than many persons appear to be aware of. That in the future, if permitted fair play, it would do more in this direction we have not the slightest doubt. The effect of the democratical constitution, with its diffused and equal citizenship, in calling forth not merely strong attachment but painful self-sacrifice on the part of all Athenians, is well shewn in the xlviii. chapter of Grote's History of Greece, to which we feel happy to direct special attention at the present juncture. Whatever may be said of the political bias of that wealthy author, it can with confidence be asserted that the active part the people of Athens constantly took in public affairs, where it was held the man who stood aloof from them was not only harmless but useless, was one of the causes of their greatness, and which resulted in making Athens, in the words of Pericles, "The Schoolmistress of Greece."

OBSTACLES TO TRUTH.

THE cause of truth and the progress of knowledge have had many obstacles to contend with, which the steam press, rapid intercommunication, and popularly constituted Governments, have been at present powerless to remove. This is not owing chiefly lo any intellectual incapacity on the part of the Government generally, nor even in this country to that indifference which prevails among the settlers as a body to all matters outside of the narrow world in which they contentedly vegetate, and which a long course of material prosperity has been the means of fostering. Both of these causes have been in active operation, but they are not sufficient of themselves to account for the slow

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progress of truth compared with the facilities which now exist for its promulgation and advancement. The fact is the human mind is as full of errors, prejudices, and inconsistencies as a neglected garden is full of weeds, and no good seeds will have any chance of germinating until those weeds to a great extent have been eradicated. It will thus be seen that the evil is not that the mind is unoccupied, but that it is pre-occupied, which of itself is sufficient to account for the slow progress of true knowledge.

We have been led to the above reflections, which of course have a relationship to other subjects besides the one more particularly present to our mind, by observing how difficult it is to get the plainest political truth recognised, even when it has reference to matters which are admitted to be of the greatest personal or local importance. We find that it is not only necessary for misinformation to be dislodged from the mind, before true information can hope to effect an entrance, but to get the blatant disseminators of false information discredited, who with all the conceit and confidence of ignorance generally succeed in obtaining prior possession of the field. This is a somewhat difficult achievement, and is always a work of time. Evils, consequently, when originating in this cause, frequently grow to a head before a remedy can be applied.

EDUCATION AND CRIME

IT is many years since we first gave a great deal of time and much thought to the consideration of the question bow far the spread of what is called education would be likely to effect the number of criminals and the amount of crime; and we then arrived at the conclusion that it would not have so great an effect in this direction as was then generally anticipated. Longer experience and more extended knowledge have rather tended to strengthen than to modify the judgement we then arrived at on this important subject. We are well aware that the criminal statistics of Europe show that a very large proportion of criminals can either not read or write or that they possessed only a knowledge of these arts in a very imperfect degree. On the other hand those statistics shew that a very small proportion of criminals, when compared with the whole, had received a superior degree of instruction. We say the proportion is small when compared with the whole number of criminals examined, but that proportion might be large when compared with the comparatively few persons who really do receive superior education. But; such facts as those here referred to would rather tend to shew that criminals in the majority of cases sprung from the poverty stricken and neglected classes, and had been from their birth surrounded by the most unfavorable circumstances, than that the mere knowledge of the arts of reading and writing could possibly have any appreciable effect in preventing the commission of crime. It is obvious that such knowledge, by itself, could have but little, if any, effect in repressing criminal passions and criminal acts. All that can be claimed for it is that, on the whole, the amount of instruction a certain number of persons have received may be taken as evidence of the manner they have been brought up and of the state of their moral and social surroundings. Thus far, and no farther, the mere ability to read and write may be taken as an indication that the moral education of such has not been so neglected as it has been in those where this ability is lacking. Such knowledge would afford no certain knowledge that this was the case; but it is probably the best which can at present be obtained; and as an approximation it is to a certain extent worthy of credit. But even then such fact

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speak less emphatically in favor of mere school instruction than they do in favor of good circumstances and other influences in repression of crime. There is, however, too much evidence to shew, to which the events of every day are making lamentable additions, that no amount of education and favorable influences will prevent the commission by some persons of criminal acts.

CARRIED WITHOUT A DIVISION

(Wairarapa Standard, Oct. 19, 1876.)

"Old things need not be therefore true,
O brother men, nor yet the new;
Ah! still awhile the old thought retain.
And yet consider it again."

THE time which has been occupied during the present session, in long and varied discussions, has not been altogether time wasted. To act first and think afterwards is the vice of savage tribes, of young children, and of infant Colonies. It has been the besetting sin of the Government and people of New Zealand during the whole of the late Vogelian era. This fact will be generally recognised before the Colony is much older. Both the Government and people, it will be found, have been too little in the habit of looking before leaping. We resolve first, and then consider at our leisure what will be the consequence of our hasty resolutions. How true is this of our Public Works policy! How true is it of our Abolition policy also! Instead of considering first what railways it would be desirable to undertake, and obtaining careful estimates of their cost, we determine first to raise a large public works loan, and then throw it on the floor of the House to be scrambled for by all present. Those who first came were first served, and obtained consequently the lions share of the spoils. Precisely the same course has been adopted with regard to our constitutional measures. Instead of first considering what kind of local institutions would now best suit a country like New Zealand, we first abolish those we possess, and then consider by what others they shall be replaced. In so doing we gratify that passion for action which Bagehot shews has been inherited from times when quick action generally led to desirable ends. This passion is more ready to pull down than to build up; because the former is the easier of the two. This passion which prompts to quick action is the characteristic of savages, and of all savage acts. The blow is given in haste and repentance follows at leisure.

We have said that the time which has been occupied in what is called wordy discussions during the present session, has not been altogether wasted. It has moderated the vice we had been plunging into of acting first and deliberating afterwards. Upon this subject Bagehot in his recent work on "Physics and Politics," has some excellent remarks which are well worth quoting. After shewing that an inability to stay quiet, an irritable desire to act directly, is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind, he goes on to prove that, what he calls Government by discussion, has a tendency to prevent or mitigate the evil. He says, "It can and does do both in the very plainest way. If you want to stop instant and immediate action, always make it a condition that the action shall not begin till a considerable number of persons have talked over it, and agreed on it. If those persons be people of different temperaments, different ideas, and different educations, you have an almost infallible security that nothing, or almost nothing, will be done with excessive rapidity. Each kind of persons will have their spokesman, each spokesman will have his characteristic objection, and each his characteristic counter proposition, so in the end nothing will be done except that which is plainly urgent." For preventing hasty action

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there is nothing like a polity of discussion.

But there is no necessity to have recourse to Bagehot, or any other author, to prove the accuracy of what we have above stated. Is it not universally admitted that the Abolition resolutions themselves were the outcome of a sudden pique on the part of the late Premier? Is not the existence of the Legislative Council itself evidence of the necessity of providing against hasty legislative action; however little, in the matter of these constitutional changes, it has fulfilled the object for which it was designed? The fact of the Counties Bill being passed without a division has been thought of sufficient importance to be telegraphed to England; and that fact also ought to suggest a doubt on the part of our fellow settlers who are abolitionists whether they are doing wisely in aiding the Government and the large landed class (of which class the Legislative Council is mainly composed) in hastily destroying that system of political equality which was secured to them under the Constitution Act, and which this Counties Bill, carried without a division by the "Lords," completely ignores. If they would only reflect for a moment, the fact will be worth pondering on. It is quite as significant and suggestive to them as to Her Majesty's Ministers. The haste displayed by the Legislative Council in this instance, so unlike their usual proceedings, is pregnant with meaning. Would it have been in such a violent hurry had the object of the Counties Bill been to confer real local powers of self-government on the working settlers of the colony? During the present session the Opposition in the Lower House, and not the Upper House, has been really the one conservative element in the Government of the country. Such an element, as we have shewn, is at all times desirable, and never more so than when the ground laws of a country are being altered, and important constitutional measures in the Legislative Council are being 'carried without a division.' We thank thee, noble Marquis, for this information, which will prove of more advantage to the people, if they only knew how to use it, than that which is usually furnished to them from such a quarter.

THE TEACHER, THE OFFICIAL, AND THE JOURNALIST.

THERE is a notion very prevalent among our most successful colonists who have not had themselves the advantages of a school education, though it is by no means confined to them, that the teacher is not only able to furnish their children with elementary education, but also to supply them with brains. This is beyond his power. For a boy to distinguish himself at school he must have a natural capacity for acquiring knowledge, or the most skilful tuition will be to little purpose. So for a man to distinguish himself in any profession, department, or trade he must have a natural fitness for it, without which no amount of training will be of much service. In the public administrator and public journalist, both natural fitness and long training are indispensable qualifications for success. Every member of a free commonwealth, and consequently every settler in this Colony, is at full liberty to criticise every branch of public administration, but it does not therefore follow that he is equally qualified, or has an equal right to take the management of public affairs into his own hands. In like manner while every individual has the undoubted liberty to criticise alike the conduct of public men and of public affairs, it is necessary, if the criticism is to prove effective, that it be intrusted to men of tried and acknowledged capacity. As at one time it was taken for granted that

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anyone who could write a tolerable hand, and who knew the first four rules in arithmetic, if fit tor nothing else, was qualified to be a schoolmaster, so also it has been taken too much for granted that anybody with the due amount of nerve and "cram" to pass a successful examination was qualified to discharge satisfactorily the duties of a departmental officer. Indeed, even now, under our Parliamentary system of Government, no man, however well qualified by nature and education for the post, can fill any of the highest departments in the colony who fails to obtain a seat in Parliament.

It is now pretty generally admitted that for the school teacher, as for the lawyer and medical practitioner, natural fitness, as well as special training, are absolutely required; but it is not so with regard to the public administrator or public journalist. Any man, however unqualified, can get a Government post provided only he can secure sufficient political influence; while it must be admitted that it does not require any great amount of capacity, or journalistic experience, to conduct many of our colonial newspapers. With the medical and legal profession, as with the professional teacher, their natural fitness for the proper discharge of their duties, has not in all cases been sufficiently regarded. In the case of the latter, in this Province at all events, system, symmetry and show are over valued, while too little regard is paid by the Inspector to the diverse capacities, individual aptitudes, and particular idiosyncracies of the pupils. If on leaving school they were required to act like a regiment of soldiers the method and discipline so much insisted on in the school would prove an excellent preparatory training; but we question whether it would prove equally as well adapted for fitting them to become intelligent and active citizens of a free commonwealth. The special qualifications of the teacher to impart and the pupil to receive instruction are matters of much more importance than any machinery can be for turning out scholars of one uniform cut and pattern.

With regard to the Government official and public journalist, natural aptitude, and special training and experience are required for the discharge of the duties of both. Ministerial patronage, and our system of responsibility, as it is called, appear to have been specially designed to insure the minimum of these qualifications in the higher officers of the State; while low pay, excessive competition, and the practice of the anonymous in journalism, are well calculated to perform the same service for the public journalist. Until these matters are altered there is no chance for a change for the better in either service. With regard both to the public service and to public journalism, the principle of individual responsibility, which has in relation to the former been found to be so efficatious in Prussia, and in relation to the latter in France, is incompatible with our system of Ministerial Responsibility and of the anonymous in journalism. Both may be highly appreciated in an aristocratic and wealthy country like England; but it does not therefore follow that they are equally as well adapted for a country like New Zealand. Even in England the signatures of the authors are attached to the various articles which are published both in the Contemporary and the Fortnightly Review, and that practice has been warmly advocated by the late Richard Cobden, by the late Canon Kingsley, by Mr John Bright, by Mr Thomas Hughes and by many other of the foremost men in Britain. It may suit the wealthy newspaper proprietory at home to make the journal everything, and to treat the journalist as nobody, but it may be doubted whether the latter is in all cases a willing assenting party to such a one-

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sided arrangement. We know there are two sides to the question, and we also know that in the discussion of it the personal interests, feelings, and wishes of the journalist himself have always been carefully ignored.

SETTLEMENT OF THE WASTE LANDS.

THE conflicting opinions held on this important subject is a proof that it is not at present thoroughly understood. In the House of Representatives, in the session held in 1870, there appeared to be almost as many opinions as there were speeches. "If," said Mr Sheehan, "a hundred people came into this Colony intending to settle and take up land, it would be well even to give them the land. The country otherwise would be idle and unoccupied, and be a positive loss to the Government who bought it. If the people were living upon the land they would contribute to the exports and imports of the country and to the local taxation; and although no price was received for the land, yet a return would be received from the occupation of it. At present, every difficulty was thrown in the way of a number of people who desire to form special settlements; and yet three or four gentlemen resident in the Colony, who desired to obtain large blocks, experienced no difficulty whatever in getting them at a cheap rate." Dr Hodgkinson spoke strongly in favor of the free grant system, and showed that it had been successful in all countries where it had been honestly carried out. Mr Stafford, on the other hand, was opposed to the free grant system, yet even he was constrained to admit that he knew "a portion of New Zealand where an area of country two hundred miles long is completely shut off from the rest of the Colony through being in the hands of large proprietors. In districts such as those, the carpenter, the blacksmith, the shoemaker, or any other handicraftsman whose presence would be beneficial, is entirely unknown; and I have known instances where a blacksmith has absolutely had to beg, hat in hand, for a bit of land big enough to put a shop on, the Government having parted with their right in every acre of it. Now, if we are going to continue the possibility of that system – that is, the aggregation of these large estates without interspersing them with small holdings – we shall experience none of the benefits derivable from settlement, and our immigration policy will result in comparative failure. If you do not give ground to persons who are prepared to hold small tenements they cannot and will not remain in the country. They will go to those countries where better provision is made." But, as was to be expected. Sir George Grey spoke with a thorough knowledge of the subject. "If," he said "the Government are determined to consider the welfare of the country at large, then the manner in which they propose to lock up large districts of land for pastoral purposes, and the mode in which they propose that the land shall be paid for, cannot be justified. Both these proposals are unfair to the country, and the people at large. Arrangements should be made that every man who purchased land should have the right to run his stock on the waste land in his neighborhood, so as to enable him profitably to work his farm. The endeavor now made to perpetuate the state of things that exists, and to enrich a few favored people at the expense of the mass of the community, was most unjust and unfair."

BUSH SETTLEMENTS.

Two years or more before the debate referred to above, took place, the following appeared in the Standard: –

In the summer of 1834, now nearly forty years ago, the writer found

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himself at an hotel on the great road which had then just been completed through the forest which stretched from Lake Simcoe to Lake Huron in Upper Canada. Settlements had been established on one side of this road at intervals of seme five miles throughout its whole extent. These settlements were composed chiefly of the men, with their wives and children, who had been employed in making the road, as each of them who had worked at road making for twelve months entitled himself to a free grant of a section of land, in addition to wages and rations during the time he was thus employed. At the time of our visit they had only recently been located on their sections, and even then a considerable number of substantial log houses, large clearings, and luxuriant wheat crops were to be seen, not only on those sections which had been set aside on one particular side of the road for these laborers, but on the opposite side also, the land having been purchased from the Crown at an enhanced price by settlers having more or less capital at their command. This enhanced price being freely given on account of the road having been constructed, and of the facilities which existed for obtaining the labor they required. A timber and grist mill had been already erected, and carpenters, wheelwrights, blacksmiths shoemakers, and other mechanics and artizans were settling in the vicinity owing to the anticipated demand for their services; from £5 to as much as £50 being freely given for an acre of land which a few years before would not have commanded 5s. By this scheme all parties were benefitted; the road laborers; the small capitalists and tradesmen; and the Government, the Crown lands being sold in 100 acre sections at from three to five times the amount they would otherwise have realised. At the end of the road abutting on Kempenfelt Bay – one of the clearest and most beautiful sheets of water in the world – a township had been laid off, on Crown lands, none of the lots in which had then been sold, though there had been two hotels, one or two stores, and a number of dwelling houses already erected; as the Government well knew that if the sale was postponed more money would be obtained for these lots than the whole cost of the aforesaid road had amounted to. We afterwards saw the effects of the credit land system adopted by the Upper Canada Land Company, and the marvellous rise of townships on the route of the Erie Canal; but from that day to the present moment we never saw a scheme put into operation for the settlement of the "Backwoods," so likely to prove advantageous to the laboring classes, small capitalists, and the land revenue than the one we have been referring to. There appears to us no good and sufficient reason why a somewhat similar scheme, with the necessary modifications, should not be adopted in this colony.

SMALL FARM SYSTEM.

To secure the beneficial settlement of the Waste Lands we know no better plan than the sale of land in small sections, with a right of commonage. It is not only the best system for encouraging immigration of the right sort, and for providing immigrants and the sons of old settlers with permanent homes, but it is also the system best adapted to meet the circumstances, to answer the requirements, and to develope the agricultural resources of the Colony. Yet, though the small farm system has been a success wherever it has been tried, the Government has gone on selling the public estate for mere revenue purposes, under the pretence that the opening up of the country by roads is the best, instead of being only one of the means of promoting its profitable settlement.

All authorities acknowledge that the fact of the ownership of land

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being vested in him who cultivates it, developes in the man himself very valuable qualities – frugality, foresight, industry, economy, and, above all, that sentiment of independence which is so dear to an Englishman, and which probably more than any other prompts him to abandon his native country and found for himself a new home even in a wilderness. Nor is it by any means proved that large farms are more productive than small ones, or that, in a new country, they can be more profitably cultivated. It is true that the system of small holdings excludes to a certain extent the adoption of scientific methods and the possession of costly machinery; but probably other methods which the small farmer only can employ may prove equally as effective, and machinery can generally be hired when required. Nor should it be forgotten that small holdings render unnecessary the employment of hired labor, the high price of which in a new country prevents bush land and large farms being cultivated at a profit. Were it absolutely necessary that the whole available land of the country should be divided into very large or very small holdings, we think that the balance of the advantages would be found on the side of the latter. But there is no such n cessity. Judging from the present state of England with regard to this subject there is more danger of large estates absorbing small ones than of the former being too minutely subdivided. The question, however, which we are at present concerned with is, which of the two systems is best adapted for securing the successful colonisation of a country like New Zealand? It appears to us that the small farm system is best adapted for this purpose.

SELF-GOVERNING INSTITUTIONS.

THE following brief reference to the political views of Senor Castelar will appropriately conclude these "Leaves from my Writings": –

In a speech he made in 1870 at Madrid, Senor Castelar points out that that cohort of great French orators, of great tribunes, who brought the honey of Attic eloquence on their lips, and the recollection of the Amphictyonic league in their hearts, were all federalists. Almost all of them died on the scaffold in the prime of life for having opposed the gigantic dictatorship which, absorbing municipal and provincial rights, and the power of the State, necessarily tended to bring in Caesarism, which is impossible in Federalism. The French revolution would have been less powerful, but more enduring, if it had been federal. "Little republics" continues our authority, "within a great nation: this is the saving formula." In his opinion the instability of the first French Republic was owing to its centralisation, to its neglect of the municipality, and to its trampling on the rights of districts. On the other hand the stability of the American Republic was insured by its organised and self-governing institutions; and by the division of the country into a series of counties and states, also self-governing, each within its own sphere, by means of which authority was united to liberty, and the freedom as well as the power of the nation were firmly secured.

THE END.

WILLIAM F. ROYDHOUSE, PRINTER.

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