DIE
HONI SOIT QUI-MA
ET MON DROIT

NEW ZEALAND
GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.
Published by Authority.

All Public Notifications which appear in this Gazette, with any Official Signature thereunto
annexed, are to be considered as Official Communications made to those Persons to whom they may
relate.

By His Excellency's Command,
ANDREW SINCLAIR, Colonial Secretary.

VOL. V.] AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 17, 1845. [No. 25.

CIRCULAR.

Colonial Secretary's Office,
Auckland, 15th September, 1845.

(TO EACH AUTHORITY IN NEW ZEALAND.)

SIR,-I am directed by the Governor to send
you the following extracts from despatches:
in order that you may be acquainted with the
opinions of Her Majesty's Government with
respect to the application of British Law to the
Aboriginal Natives of New Zealand.

In a despatch dated the 21st June, 1843-
Lord Stanley remarks, that he cannot perceive
a necessity that the Natives of New Zealand
must be liable to all the penalties and amenable
to all the tribunals of the English Law. His
Lordship's words are :-" I cannot perceive the
"necessity; there is no apparent reason why
"the aborigines should not be exempted from
"any responsibility to English Law, or to
"English Courts of Justice, as far as respects
"their relations and their dealings with each
"other. The native law might be maintained,
"and the native customs tolerated, in all cases
"in which no person of European birth, or
"origin, had any concern or interest. An ex-
"ception should indeed be made of such customs
"as are in conflict with the universal laws of
"morality, such, for example, as the customs of
"cannibalism, and human sacrifice. But, with
"this exception, I know not why the native
"New Zealanders might not be permitted to
"live among themselves according to their na-
"tional laws or usages, as is the case with the
"aboriginal races in other British Colonies."

In a despatch dated the 10th February, 1844
-Lord Stanley observes that he knows "of no
"theoretical or practical difficulty in the main-
"tenance, under the same Sovereign, of various
"Codes of Law for the government of different
"races of men. In British India, in Ceylon,
"at the Cape of Good Hope, and in Canada,
"the Aboriginal and the European inhabitants
"live together on these terms. Native laws
"and native customs, when not abhorrent from
"the universal and permanent laws of God are
"respected by English Legislatures and by
"English Courts; and although problems of
"much difficulty will occasionally arise out
"of this state of things, they have never been
"such as to refuse all solution, or as to drive
"the Local Authorities on the far more em-
"barrassing difficulty of extending the Law of
"England to persons wholly ignorant of our
"language, manners, and religion."

And in a Despatch dated the 13th August,
1844-Lord Stanley states, in reference to the
aboriginal natives of New Zealand, that "it
may be necessary to temper the strict appli-
"cation of the Penalties of British Law with
"much discretion and forbearance. Under
"certain circumstances indeed I am afraid it
"may even be inevitable to consider before
"interfering with native customs which are in
"themselves objectionable, how far the means
"of coercion at your disposal may render it
"prudent for you to take steps for that pur-
"pose, which, in case no resistance was to be
"apprehended, you would not hesitate to adopt.
"Difficult however as the task may be, I