✨ Official Despatch Publication
Numb. 24.
281
DIEU ET MON DROIT
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE
The New Zealand Gazette.
Published by Authority.
THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 1864.
Colonial Secretary's Office,
Auckland, 27th June, 1864.
THE following Despatch from Her Majesty's
Principal Secretary of State for the
Colonies is published for general information.
Wm. Fox.
Downing Street,
26th April, 1864.
SIR,-Her Majesty's Government have had
under their consideration three Acts passed
by the Legislature of New Zealand in order
to give effect to the views of your advisers
with reference to the native war, viz.:
No. 8. An Act to enable the Governor to
establish Settlements for Colonisation in the
Northern Island of New Zealand.
No. 11. An Act for raising a Loan of
Three Millions sterling for the Public Service
of the Colony of New Zealand.
No. 12. An Act to appropriate certain
sums to be raised under the New Zealand
Loan Act, 1863 (the last-mentioned Act) and
to provide for the repayment of certain por-
tions thereof.
The most important of these Acts is that
which stands first on the list.
It declares in effect that if, in the opinion
of the Colonial Government, any considerable
number of the members of any native com-
munity have been or shall hereafter be in
rebellion, the Colonial Government may de-
clare any district within which such commu-
nity may hold property, to be a District for
the purpose of this Act, and may at any time
thereafter confiscate within that district such
lands as they may from time to time consider
requisite for purposes of settlement, whether
those lands be the property of loyal or disloyal
natives or of colonists.
Compensation is to be given, according to
the judgment of a Court, to persons (or I
presume to tribes or communities) who are
to be dispossessed without having been engaged
in rebellion.
These Courts are not only empowered to
refuse, but are positively disabled from giving
compensation to any person who shall have
aided, assisted, or comforted any rebel, or who
(whether engaged in rebellion or not) shall
have refused to give up his arms on being
required to do so by proclamation.
The law is a permanent law, applicable
not only to the present conjuncture, but to
any case in which the Colonial Government
shall hereafter "be satisfied" that any con-
siderable number of any Native Community
in any part of the Island shall have been in
rebellion since the first of January, 1863.
I learn from the memorandum which ac-
companies this Act that the power of the
Assembly to pass it has been questioned in
New Zealand, and I have thought it right to
submit it, together with one which has also
been passed by the Colonial Legislature for
the suppression of the Rebellion, to the Law
Officers of the Crown, for their opinion.
That opinion I cannot receive in time to
communicate with you by this mail; but I
need not leave you in ignorance of the views
which I entertain upon the policy embodied
in this important law, or of the opinion of
Her Majesty's Government in respect to the
measures which ought to be taken as soon as
decisive success in arms shall enable you to
take them for the pacification and settlement
of the Northern Island. It appears that of
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NZ Gazette 1864, No 24
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Publication of Despatch regarding Native War Legislation and Land Settlement
(continued from previous page)
🏛️ Governance & Central Administration27 June 1864
Despatch, Secretary of State, Native War, Land Confiscation, Legislation Review, Imperial Policy
- William Fox