Thomas Lindsay Buick

“ It is in the spirit of that enlightenment which characterises the present age, that the British Government is now about to interfere in the affairs of New Zealand. That it interferes against its will, and only under the force of circumstances, is evident from Lord Normanby's despatch; the objects for which we go to New Zealand are clearly set forth in it, and amongst the foremost is the noble one of rescuing a most interesting race of men from that fate which contact with the nations of Christendom has hitherto invariably and unhappily brought upon the uncivilised tribes of the earth. ”

“ Its most virulent enemies have ever been the land speculators, and there are not wanting signs in these times of unsatisfied land hunger—of never-ceasing speculation—that the treaty has either been forgotten by those whose duty it is to remember it, or that its obligations have ceased to have their old-time moral value. Lest we forget that the treaty is still in force, and that native lands are not common plunder for the avaricious Pakeha, let us briefly review the circumstances which made the compact between the two nations a political virtue, if not a political necessity. ”

“ Contemplating the future growth and extension of a British colony in New Zealand, it is an object of the first importance that the alienation of the unsettled lands within its limits should be conducted from its commencement upon that system of sale of which experience has proved the wisdom, and the disregard of which has been so fatal to the prosperity of other British Settlements. With a view to those interests it is obviously the same thing whether large tracts of land be acquired by the mere gift of the Government or by purchases effected on nominal considerations from the aborigines. ”

“ We have not been insensible to the importance of New Zealand to the interests of Great Britain in Australia, nor unaware of the great natural resources by which that country is distinguished, or that its geographical position must in seasons, either of peace or war, enable it in the hands of civilised men to exercise a paramount influence in that quarter of the globe. There is probably no part of the earth in which colonisation could be effected with a greater or surer prospect of national advantage. ”

“ Say here to me, O ye chiefs of the tribes of the northern part of New Zealand, how are we henceforward to act? Friends, whose potatoes do we eat? Whose were our blankets? These spears (holding up his taiaha) are laid aside. What has the Nga-Puhi now? The Pakeha's gun, his shot, his powder. Many months has he been in our whares; many of his children are our children. Is not the land already gone? Is it not covered, all covered with men, with strangers, foreigners—even as the grass and herbage—over whom we have no power? We the chiefs, and natives of this land, are down low ”

“ Many probably who may be willing to cede to them the right of sovereignty as far as concerns themselves would not go to such lengths as to say that Great Britain should not cede the sovereignty as regards any right which may be put in by other nations; and I do not know on what principle we should draw a distinction, and say how much or how little of this right of sovereignty we should claim. The French have been attracted by the flax: suppose they were to say 'If you relinquish your rights of sovereignty we will put in our claim, we stand next,' or the Dutch may say so. ”

“ It is equally an acknowledged maxim of the Law of Nations that should the newly discovered land not prove to be "waste and without a master," but that it should be inhabited and under government of any kind, then the mere fact of its discovery by a civilised nation confers upon the discoverer no title to the soil, but only the prior right to colonise as against other colonising nations. ”

“ In no sense does the act of discovery confer the right of property in the land, or the right of sovereignty {216} over its people. That is to say, in the abstract, no nation whatever can under any pretext violate the rights of any other independent nation. This was clearly the principle which guided those British Governments to whose lot fell the establishment of the first colonies in America. In all these cases was the property of the Indian tribes respected, and no land was acquired save by purchase, or by some other equitable arrangement made with the aboriginal owners. ”

“ I have heard that the chiefs and people of New Zealand have proved the faithful friends of those who have come among them to do them good, and I therefore trust myself to their protection and friendship with confidence. All good Englishmen are desirous that the New Zealanders should be a rich and happy people, and it is my wish when I shall have erected my house that all the chiefs will come and visit me and be my friends. We will then consult together by what means they can make their country a flourishing country, and their people a rich and wise people like the people of Great Britain. ”

“ What events may await this fair portion of the globe, whether England will regard with a sisterly eye so beautiful an Island, placed like herself in a commanding position, well harboured, well wooded, and fertile in resources; whether this country will stretch forth a friendly and vigorous arm, so that New Zealand may with her native population adorn the page of future history as an industrious, well-ordered, and Christian nation, it is not for the committee of the Church Missionary Society to anticipate—but this consolation they do possess. ”

“ It cannot be said that this Declaration of Independence was a serious bar to Britain's colonising scheme, for under the Confederation of Chiefs which grew out of it, no Government was founded stable enough to merit recognition by other established administrations. Indeed its own members were the first to acknowledge its failure in the face of the difficulties by which it was confronted. As useless and as harmless as the "paper pellet" to which it has been compared by the sarcastic Gipps, it was neither government for the Maori nor a controlling influence for the Europeans. ”

“ The Law of Nations, we believe, recognises no other mode of assuming dominion in a country, of which the inhabitants are so barbarous as to be ignorant of the meaning of the word sovereignty, and therefore incapable of ceding sovereign rights. This was the case with the New Zealanders, from whom it would have been impossible for Captain Cook to have obtained, except in mockery of truth, a British sovereignty by cession. Sovereignty by possession is that which the British Crown maintains in a large portion of its foreign dependencies. ”

“ The story of New Zealand's progress since 1814 has been one of splendid emulation tempered by vicissitude. There have been dark days, days of doubt, of devastation by war, but never a period when our people lost heart or renounced their national faith. ”

“ The courage and capacity which that planter of Imperial outposts declared were necessary to build such an Empire—to effect such a wholesome blending of peoples—were wanting, and there was even an imminent danger that in this negatory attitude towards colonising other Powers would come to regard Britain not as an equal, nor with the fear that an equal can inspire, but as a timorous weakling, a nation destitute of enterprise, the product of a waning courage and of a pusillanimous hand. ”

“ If you go into a country at all inhabited by savages and take possession of their land and become sovereigns of it, you infringe their rights if you do not consider their benefit as well as your own. If you were treating with a child you would not infringe the rights of that child simply by acting and deciding for him, but you would infringe his rights if you acted and decided for your benefit and not his. So with respect to savages; they are compared with civilised men, like children. They are of themselves incapable of acquiring the arts and habits of civilised life ”

“ This fact had already been so much in evidence that when Tareha rose, and in his deep sepulchral voice shouted, "No Governor for me—for us native men," no one who was taking a keen interest in the proceedings was very much surprised. With much of the gesticulation peculiar to Maori oratory and a clever application of the arts involved in native elocution, Tareha began to develop his pronouncement against the Governor. "We, we only are the chiefs—the rulers. We will not be ruled over. What! thou, a foreigner, up and I down! Thou high, and I, Tareha, the great chief of the Nga-Puhi tribes low! ”

“ EDWARDS, J.—In support of his contention that the bed of the lake cannot be the subject of a Native title under Maori customs and usages, the Solicitor-General relies upon the inherent improbability that there was any intention, either by the Treaty of Waitangi or by the statutes relating to native lands, to recognise any such right. To hold that there is such a right would be, the Solicitor-General contends, to destroy the right of navigation in all non-tidal waters to the great detriment of the public. ”

“ In bidding for the sovereignty of the country two courses were open to the British Government—force of arms, or honourable negotiation with the chiefs. It is not to be doubted that had Britain chosen to invade the country, she might, by pouring her battalions into it, in course of time have overcome the tribes by the slaughter of the sword. ”

“ For then the French people or the rum-sellers will have us natives. Remain, remain, sit, sit here; you with the Missionaries all as one. But we natives are children. Yes, it is not for us, but for you, our fathers—you Missionaries—it is for you to say, to decide what it shall be. It is for you to choose, for we are only natives. Who and what are we? Children, yes, children solely. ”

“ The native war-dance, accompanied by those terrific yells which are so well qualified to exhibit the natural ferocity of the New Zealand character, was exhibited for my amusement, the guns from a small European battery were fired, and the natives discharged their muskets and dispersed under three hearty cheers for my party. The feast which I had ordered to be prepared, consisting of pigs, potatoes, rice, and sugar, with a small portion of tobacco to every man, was partaken of by all in perfect harmony. It was estimated that of men, women, and children there were 3000 persons present. ”

“ It would be made use of by designing men to embarrass the Government, to embroil the natives with each other and with the Government, which must be alike injurious to both. Her Majesty's Government having seen fit to colonise New Zealand, it is now an act of humanity to both natives and Europeans to consider the whole of the tribes of New Zealand as British subjects, and to use every honourable and humane means of getting the tribes universally to cede the sovereignty where it has not been ceded. ”

“ It has never been pretended that the wide extent of unoccupied land, to which an exclusive right of property has been asserted on behalf of the native inhabitants of New Zealand, belonged to them as individuals, it was only as tribes that they were supposed to possess it, and granting their title as such to have been good and valid, it was obviously a right which the tribes enjoyed as independent communities—an attribute of sovereignty, which, with the sovereignty, naturally and necessarily was transferred to the British Crown. ”

“ That remedy, he contended, the colonisation of New Zealand would supply. "There is," he said, "an abundance of capital and an abundance of labour in Great Britain, and the abundance of capital the capitalists can hardly employ so as to be sufficiently remunerative by any investment in this country. At the same time there is a great mass of the labouring population who can no longer obtain sufficient wages to keep up what have become the necessaries of life to them. The proposed colony would therefore be a measure of relief to both the capitalists and labourers." ”