282
THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.
the land thus about to be acquired, part is to
be granted in lots, varying from 50 to 400
acres, to the members of the Colonial Force
recently raised, numbering, I understand,
about 4,000 persons, and part is to be occu-
pied by settlers, who are to be introduced
from Europe at the expense of the Colony,
and are to hold their lands on a species of
Military Tenure. It is supposed that the
whole number of settlers, including the
above-mentioned Colonial Force, will amount
to 20,000.

A scheme of this kind was submitted to
the Duke of Newcastle, in your despatch
No. 109, of the 29th of August last. Your
Ministry then proposed the introduction of
5,000 men, who were to hold fifty-acre
farms upon Military Tenure, on land to be
taken from the insurgent natives. Your
Despatch implied that you approved the
principle of this scheme, and you stated that
you had sanctioned it to the extent of raising
2,000 men for active service.

The Duke of Newcastle adopted your
views, but not without a very serious caution
as to the danger and delicacy of applying
them. He indicated the difficulty of pre-
venting injustice, and the hazard of exciting
the apprehension of the Natives; he pointed
out to the Local Government the respon-
sibility which they would incur of providing
against these evident risks; and he added
that if the determination of your Govern-
ment should have the effect of extending and
intensifying the spirit of disaffection, and of
thus enlarging the sphere or prolonging the
period of Military operations, these conse-
quences would be viewed by Her Majesty's
Government with the gravest concern and
reprehension. I need scarcely observe that
the Act now forwarded, taken in combination
with the scheme proposed by your Govern-
ment, exhibits a rapid expansion of the
principles in which the Duke of Newcastle
acquiesced with so much reserve.

The number of settlers, and consequently
the immediate amount of confiscation, is
quadrupled; the compulsory power of ac-
quiring land within a proclaimed District is,
by the terms of the Act, applied alike to the
loyal and the disloyal; the right of compen-
sation is jealously limited, and is denied even
to the most loyal native if he refuses to sur-
render his accustomed right of carrying
arms, and these powers are not to be exer-
cised exceptionally and to meet the present
emergency, or by regularly constituted Courts
of Justice, but are to be permanently em-
bodied in the Law of New Zealand; and to
form a standing qualification of the Treaty of
Waitangi.

This being the nature of the law, I pro-
ceed to consider some very grave objections
which may be urged against it.

It renders permanently insecure the tenure
of native property throughout the islands,
and is thus calculated to alarm our friends.
It makes no difference between the leaders
and contrivers of rebellion and their unwill-
ing agents or allies, and is thus calculated to
drive to despair those who are but half our
enemies. The proceedings by which unli-
mited confiscation of property is to take place
may be secret, without argument and without
appeal. And the provision for compensation is
as rigidly confined as the provision for pun-
ishment is flexible and unlimited.

I concur with your advisers in thinking it
impossible to apply to the Maoris the maxims
of English law in all their application to the
details of civilized life. It is necessary to take
into account the anomalous position which
they occupy on the one hand, as having
acknowledged the Queen's sovereignty, and
thus become liable to the obligations and
entitled to the rights of British subjects, and
on the other hand as having been allowed to
retain their tribal organization and native
usages, and as thus occupying in a great mea-
sure the position of independent communi-
ties. Viewed in the former capacity, they
have, by levying war against the Queen, ren-
dered themselves punishable by death and
confiscation of property. These penalties,
however, can only be inflicted according to
the rules and under the protection of the
Criminal Law. Viewed in the latter capa-
city, they would be at the mercy of their con-
querors, to whom all public property would
at once be transferred, private property re-
maining under the protection of international
custom. Remembering the difficulty of deter-
mining what is private and what public pro-
perty among the Maoris, it seems to follow
that in the interest of all parties the rights of
the Maori insurgents must be dealt with by
methods not prescribed in any law book,
but arising out of the exceptional circum-
stances of a most anomalous case.

It is therefore doubly necessary that those
who administer in the name of the Queen a
Government of irresistible power, should
weigh dispassionately the claims which the
insurgent Maoris have on our consideration.
In the absence of those legal safeguards which
furnish the ordinary protection of the van-
quished, the Imperial and Colonial Govern-
ments are bound so to adjust their proceed-
ings to the laws of natural equity, and to the
expectations which the natives have been en-
couraged or allowed to form, as to impress the
whole Maori race at this critical moment with
the conviction that their European rulers are
just, as well as severe, and are desirous of
using the present opportunity not for their
oppression, but for the permanent well-being
of all the inhabitants of New Zealand.

I recognise the necessity of inflicting a
salutary penalty upon the authors of a war
which was commenced by a treacherous and
sanguinary outrage, and attended by so many
circumstances justly entailing upon the guilty
portion of the natives measures of condign
punishment. But I hold in the first place
that in the apportionment of this punishment
those who have actively promoted or violently