NEW ZEALAND

GOVERNMENT GAZETTE

FOR THE

PROVINCE OF NEW PLYMOUTH.

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, and are to be obeyed accordingly.

CHARLES BROWN, Superintendent.

VOL. III. NEW PLYMOUTH, THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 1855. [No. 6.

PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

THE following Memorial for presentation to Her Majesty the Queen was unanimously adopted at a sitting of the Provincial Council held 8th of March 1855, and is published for general information.

I. N. WATT,
Speaker.

TO HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY VICTORIA, QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, &c. &c. &c.

The Memorial of the Superintendent and Provincial Council of the Province of New Plymouth, in the colony of New Zealand,—

HUMBLY SHEWETH,

That since the beginning of the month of August, 1854, (a period of more than seven months) this Province has been the seat of serious and increasing disturbances amongst the Native Population. Upwards of twenty Natives, including a native Assessor of the Resident Magistrate, have already fallen, and many more have been wounded, in the various encounters which have recently taken place between large bodies of armed Natives within a few miles of the Town of New Plymouth. Tribe after Tribe is involved in these feuds, and our settlement seems about to become the battle-field for a large part of the Maori population.

That the Natives are fast losing the last remnant of respect for British Law. It would indeed be a great error to suppose that British law has ever been enforced against them in this part of the country. The Native has been allowed the benefit of our law against the European, but the corresponding obligations it has never in our Province been attempted to impose upon him. Persuasion and the influence of Chiefs salaried by Government have now and then obtained an imperfect justice for the European. We have acquiesced in the inevitable evils of our position, and have been content to await the time when the Natives should be brought within the pale of our civilization. But a crisis has now occurred, and the weak pretences which covered the supremacy of the savage have been done away with. The slaughter of an Assessor, Rawiri Waisua, and his unarmed party, almost within our homesteads, has been followed by other acts of violence. Fortified Pahs are rapidly rising throughout the district. The Natives declare to us \"your law is weak and we return to our old customs;\" and though as yet their own people have been the only sufferers, we know not how soon it may be our turn, since the imprudence of an individual may at any moment involve our whole community.

That one of the two parties into which the Natives are divided, (commonly styled the friendly party,) claims a right to the support of the British Government. The general ground of this claim is the fact that this party has been favorable to Land Sales and the extension of the European settlements. Rawiri belonged to this side, and actually met his death whilst cutting the boundary line of a Block he was about to offer to Government with the sanction of the resident Land Purchase Commissioner. The other native party is inveterately opposed to the extension of our territory. The Officers of Government are continually solicited by the former party for supplies of arms and ammunition and threats are thrown out that if these be not given, they will be taken. They revile what they term our cowardice in leaving Rawiri unavenged. \"He was one of your magistrates,\" they tell us \"and he fell in your cause.\" It is certain this party if worsted, would fall back on the Town, from which the nearest of their Pahs is not distant