DIE
NSE
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 Commands,
ANDREW SINCLAIR, Colonial Secretary.

VOL. VII. AUCKLAND, THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 1847. No. 18.

JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

123 TUESDAY, 27th JULY, 1847.
Present His Excellency the Governor, and
five Members, Mr. Domett absent.
The Council met pursuant to adjournment,
and the minutes of the last meeting were
read and confirmed.

Mr. Donnelly presented a petition from
the Members of the Auckland Total Abstinence
Society, in favor of the Bill prohibiting
the Sale of Spirits to the Native Race.
The petition was read, received, and ordered
to be printed.

To His Excellency GEORGE GREY, Esquire, Lien-
tenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief of New
Zealand and its Dependencies, and to the Honor-
able the Members of the Legislative Council at
present assembled.

The Memorial of the Members of the Auckland
Total Abstinence Society,
That your Memorialists have
received, with the deepest satisfaction and gratitude,
the intelligence, that a Bill is to be brought before
your Honorable Council, at its present sitting, to be
entitled the "Sale of Spirits Bill," having for its
objects, the total prevention of the sale or supply
of Spirituous Liquors to the Aboriginal Natives of this
Country, and a partial prevention of the Sale or Sup-
ply to them of Wine or Fermented Liquors.

That your Memorialists so long since as the month
of May, 1844, in a Memorial then presented by them
to your Honorable Council, pointed out the painful
fact, that the Aboriginal Natives of this Country,
were then already acquiring a taste for Intoxicating
Liquors; since then, however, your Memorialists
have found with grief, that this taste has spread and
that it has been much encouraged by some portions
of the European population, who have ever attained
to the length of paying for Native labour in some
cases, in Ardent Spirits a fact-sufficiently conclu-
sive, to all acquainted with the Native character, as
to the powerful influence exerted upon them by this
depraved vice.

That your Memorialists have heard that certain of
the Native population have already been instigated
to appeal against the introduction of this Bill, on the
ground of its alleged partiality; but your Memo-
rialists feel that no argument can be necessary on
this head. Your Honorable Council did not hesitate
in passing the "Arms and Ammunition Bill," al-
though the same charge of partiality might readily
be brought against it, feeling as you did, that it was
essentially necessary, not only for the ultimate good
of the Native population, but for the present exist-
ence of the European; and not less necessary is the
Sale of Spirits Bill for both the present and ulti-
mate benefit of both races, the Native especially.

But, your Memorialists beg humbly, but earnestly
to urge upon your Honorable Council, the just
claims of the large undeprived portion of the Native
population, that the benefits intended by this Bill,
should not be conferred upon them by halves; they,
as a people averse by nature, instinct, and habit,
have found it with
great difficulty, and at the expense of much disgust,
that they first acquire the power of indulging in
them, a power which once acquired, invariably, and
once proceeds to an insatiable thirst for further
indulgence. As a people they see it and feel this and
your Memorialists are convinced that the great mass
of the Native population, would as readily and wil-
lingly submit to the restriction on the sale or supply
of all fermented liquors, as they would to that of
Spirituous Liquors only.

Your Memorialists, in conclusion, would remark,
that they have before them a great mass of statistical
information, shewing the grievous evils inflicted on
society, both in a civilised and savage state, by ha-
bits of indulgence in intoxicating liquors; but they
feel that it cannot be necessary to bring it more pro-