228 Auckland Provincial Government Gazette.

acts have been begun, continued, and it is proposed to end them, in the name of the Queen, that name being used for this purpose by absolutely irresponsible persons. My contention is, that the Queen has never, directly or indirectly, nor could Her Majesty lawfully, have allowed her name to be used in this manner for such purposes. All who have observed with unanimous admiration Her Majesty’s actions, during the many years of a most illustrious reign, must well know that the Queen would never assent to give her name for the promotion of such purposes or the accomplishment of such objects.

To allow this to be done would indeed cut off all hope from the Queen’s subjects. If the persons who unlawfully usurp the powers of the Crown commit in its name a wrongful act, no redress can be obtained in the Courts unless the name of the Crown is afforded to the suitor to give him a right to commence an action against the alleged wrong-doers. The same persons, therefore, who had used the name of the Queen, to commit a wrong, would have the power of refusing her subjects the right of using the name of the Crown in the Courts of the Crown for the purpose of obtaining a remedy for the wrong suffered.

Your Excellency will find, upon enquiry, that in this portion of the British dominions, in which all persons as British subjects are said to possess equal rights, whilst the public at large have been unable to obtain from the Crown land required by pressing necessities, many thousands of acres of Crown land, the property of the entire Empire, have unlawfully, wrongfully, and privately been pretended to be given to persons favoured by those who have usurped the right of using the name of the Crown—a right, as I maintain, unlawfully yielded and unlawfully taken, so that these wrongs are done in the Queen’s name to British subjects and no redress is left open to them.

The heads of the Provincial Governments and the Provincial Legislatures are, equally with all other classes of subjects, injured by these proceedings. They are deprived of rights which the Constitution Act, in the most clear and deliberate language, assures to them, and are thus placed under grievous disabilities without any power of obtaining relief.

I feel it personally so intolerable a burden and so great an indignity thus to be deprived of rights, and to be compelled, as Superintendent, to submit to see from amongst those people, whose interests are entrusted to me, some deprived of legal rights, and others greatly and, as I believe, wrongfully and unlawfully enriched at the cost and to the detriment of good, dutiful, and law-respecting subjects of the Queen; and I find it difficult to repress my indignation; and I feel confident that, if some relief is not in a lawful and constitutional manner afforded, difficulties of a serious nature will occur in this country.

Under such circumstances, if unlawful transactions of this kind, as Your Excellency suggests, were to be left to the pleasure of Parliament alone, our Judges and Courts would be useless. The most unlawful and oppressive acts could be performed by a Government, and then be ratified by a mere party majority in the Assembly. Every trace of liberty, and all security for equal rights and for property, would be swept away. I could not, therefore, as Superintendent of this Province, give my assent to referring questions in which such great interests of its people are involved to a mere party tribunal, instead of to the calm deliberation and justice of the ordinary Courts of Law.

I beg, however, with great gratitude, to acknowledge the consideration which Your Excellency was so good as to give to my letter of the 18th instant. I feel that in signifying your assent to my appealing to the Courts of the country by the action of law, for the purpose of setting aside the act of which I complained in that letter, Your Excellency has done your utmost in the difficult position in which you are placed to enable the inhabitants of the Province of Auckland to obtain redress; and I will, availing myself of Your Excellency’s permission, immediately direct the necessary steps to be taken to obtain a legal decision upon the question at issue, feeling assured that, after the expressions used by Your Excellency on this subject, if any more formal instrument should be required to enable me to use the name of the Crown in the requisite action at law, you will take care that the necessary powers are conceded to me for that purpose, this indeed being nothing more than I believe the Crown invariably does in similar cases.

Your Excellency might still further aid the inhabitants of the Province of Auckland in obtaining that justice to which I feel they are entitled by preventing, as I requested in my former letter, any action in the name and upon behalf of the Crown being taken for confirming or completing the transaction complained of, until the Courts of Law have had an opportunity of pronouncing their opinion upon the question submitted to them.

I have the honour to be,

My Lord,
Your Lordship’s most obedient humble servant,
G. Grey.

His Excellency the Governor.

IV.
Government House,
Auckland, 24th May, 1876.

SIR,—

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your Honor’s second letter, dated 23rd of May.

2. Referring to the latter portion of that letter, in which your Honor announces your intention of commencing legal proceedings, I have only to state that if in your position as Superintendent of the Province of Auckland you deem it necessary for the protection of the interests of the Province to take such a step no technical objection such as your Honor refers to will be made to prevent it.

3. I purposely avoid making any reference to the opinions expressed by your Honor upon the subject of the Constitution and Parliament of this country, differing as I do entirely from most of them, it would only entail a controversy which I must decline entering into.

4. I am fully sensible of the responsibility which your Honor states I owe to Her Majesty and the British Parliament, and I am perfectly ready to assume any responsibility which may properly attach to my acts, but with every respect for the experience which your Honor possesses I must claim the right to exercise my own discretion, and must decline to accept the opinions, or to act upon the advice of anyone who is not in the position of one of my Constitutional Advisers.

I have the honor to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
Normanby.

To His Honor the Superintendent of Auckland.