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OF THE NEW ZEALAND CONSTITUTION.

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his own objects in his own way. We know that the other five colonies were organised by a company or association; in some cases by the aid of subordinate associations, each of which had its own peculiar crotchets for the management of immigration and the settlement of the colonists; its own schemes for establishing a sufficient price for land, and a sufficient remuneration for labour; and that the circumstances under which Auckland was settled were loudly complained of as inconsistent with the success of those crotchets and organisations. My time forbids me to refer more at length to these organisations. But I will ask the Council to suppose that the whole of them were the contrivance of one of the acutest minds of the nineteenth century of a person who, judging from his antecedents, was not likely to be prevented by an over-conscientiousness from attaining his ends. And that all their movements were regulated by the same skilful hand; and all directed to give the most extensive field of operations to those who had shared in the venture, and were waiting to undertake the duties of government, and to make such provision for those duties as might not disappoint the reasonable expectations' of those who considered themselves the founders of the colonies."" After quoting from a published letter from Mr. Gibbon Wakefield to the Duke of Newcastle, complaining that the General Assembly should meet at Auckland and not at Wellington-stating that "it became him as one of the principal authors of the Constitution, and as one of the principal founders of the colony, to declare publicly against the present policy of the Government"-the speaker proceeds :-"Can any member have now any difficulty in understanding the net-work of con trivances by which we have been enveloped, and the motives which led to them. Let the seat of Government be transferred to Wellington as the most central position in the islands; let the revenue of all the colonies be collected into one common

purse; let that purse be placed in the hands of the principal associates in the scheme; let what may remain of it, 'when their objects are accomplished, be made a stake to be gambled for by the election of parties to spend it; finally, let the Queen's representative be denuded of power to interfere with the working of the machinery under a system which is called responsible government; and then let us ask ourselves the question whether the Prince of Schemers has not exceeded all his former efforts in ingenuity, by making use of a community to aggrandise the leaders, and maintain the largest number of political adventurers associated with him which the community could,

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INJUSTICE WROUGHT TO THE

by any means, be made to support. The Abbé Sieyes said, when the first French Revolution was accomplished, that the difference between the new state of things and the old was this :-That whereas, before, the Government was everything and the people nothing; now, the people was everything and the Government nothing. Sir, this Constitution reverses the picture, and places this community in the position of the French people under the old régime, who were divided into un gens corveèable et taillable". -a class whose part it was to labour, and to bear the public burdens; and a class whose privilege it was to lay on those burdens, and enjoy the fruits of those labours. I believe, sir, that whoever enters into the investigation the most deeply, will be the most fully convinced that, in the history of Governments, ancient or modern, the ingenuity of men has not been able to contrive a system that enabled one class of the community to constitute themselves a governing class, so disproportioned to the rest of the people; or one which consumed so large a proportion of the earnings of

.*

* By a return to the General Assembly, dated 6th September, 1861, it appeared that every twenty-fifth male adult was in receipt of salary from the public, the average rate being 1547. per annum. But this was before the introduction of Sir George Grey's "Institutions of Native Government," which were avowedly founded upon the assumption that the restless spirits amongst the colonists were kept quiet by the expenditure of so much money in salaries, and that a similar expenditure amongst the Maories would be cheaper than reducing them to subjection by military operations. The Assembly acceded to this view, and gave the Governor authority to appropriate, at his discretion, 25,000l. a year to give salaries to native assessors, and wardens, and constables; he undertaking to expend, or to procure a remission of the same amount, from Imperial funds. This led to no end of appointments; commissioners and resident magistrates being located all over the colony to instruct the Maories in the business of legislation and magistracy. The result of these measures was foretold by a remarkably active and intelligent native assessor in the Bay of Islands district :-"I wish you," he said, "to remember what I say, for by and by you will see that it is true; the natives are not such fools but they can see that the Governor's plan is to keep all offenders and evil-minded people quiet by paying them money; and as there are many chiefs of more influence than us assessors, who are quite unknown, or at least unnoticed, by the Government, they begin to say they will obstruct the Government in every way, in hope of getting places and money. What can we assessors do? We have no money to pay offenders, and we shall lose all our influence." The last sentence was spoken ironically. He then said, with great seriousness :-" I have always believed that offenders were to be punished by the law, but I see now that the punishment is to be money. Remember what I say, it will all go wrong this new system; there will be a great number of offenders; and as for myself, I think if the Governor gives Potatau (the Maori King) a salary, I will not be able to hold out any longer, but will begin to rob Pakehas myself. What is an assessor's salary to what a great robber would get?" By the latest accounts from New Zealand, it appears that since 1st January, 1864, 201 new offices have been created under the general Government, and £12,000 per annum added to existing salaries.

COLONISTS BY THE NEW ZEALAND CONSTITUTION.

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industry; or one which, so far from promoting the peace and well-being of the community, did more to stir up party strife and ill-feeling, and to corrupt and debauch the people, as this Constitution of New Zealand with its responsible government."

Another extract from the same speech will not be out of place as serving to illustrate the view taken of the injustice under which the colonists of Auckland were suffering, and the struggles which were made to obtain the restitution of their constitutional rights :-" Having entertained these views from the first appearance of the Constitution Act, my very first act, on becoming a member of the first Provincial Council, was to submit a motion identical in purpose, if not in terms, with the motion I am about to propose. The motion was carried unanimously, though the adoption of the petition was only carried by a majority of ten to eight. I could very satisfactorily explain the reason of this difference, but I will not now detain the Council by doing so. The answer was that the petition had been presented to the Queen, and very graciously received, but that Her Majesty had not been advised to give any orders respecting it. Again, sir, as you and some of the members of this Council are aware, I brought the question before the Council in the session of 1855, on which occasion the motion was agreed to and the petition adopted unanimously. The answer was the same as in the former case, in the sterotyped form when the Government have not made up their minds one way or another. I know, sir, that, in the view of these discouragements, there is a very general belief that any further attempts to procure a change of the Constitution will be unavailing. I do not in the slightest degree partake in that belief. I believe in the omnipotence of truth, and that those who adhere to truth and will pursue it will finally triumph over injustice. I hold, sir, that the people of this province are treated with the greatest injustice by the Constitution Act, and that all that is required to get rid of it is that every man should satisfy himself, first, what are the rights to which he is entitled as a British subject, and then express his determination by peaceable means to maintain such rights as we still possess, and to recover those rights of which we have been defrauded by this Constitution, in order to obtain that due share of the liberty and protection which the Queen is bound to afford to all her free subjects, whether in Great Britain or in colonies planted by British freemen. I use the word freemen with emphasis, for this colony was for some years ruled as a convict colony-Í

F

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DIFFERENT IDEAS OF A GOVERNMENT

say deliberately, worse than a convict colony-and that the Constitution under which we are now governed is, as I am about to show, a false pretence of government and representative institutions, according to the laws and customs of British freemen. There are two ideas of what we call a Government, the one or the other of which is impressed upon our minds according to the point of view from which we regard it. In old countriestake as an instance that of England-the origin of Government is shrouded in the shadows and mists of a thousand years; hereditary institutions have conferred hereditary privileges, which have acquired the force of rights, and have so long and so wisely been considered as rights, that no good man ever thinks of calling them in question. We say the Queen has a right to her throne, the peer to his peerage, the member of the House of Commons to the seat in the House of Commons to which he has been elected; and we are ready to forget that these privileges are, in fact, trusts held for the benefit of the people, and not for the gratification of pride or the selfish ambition of those who hold them. And, sir, while these trusts are administered with integrity the waves of faction will dash in vain upon the foundations of the British Constitution. They are at once the glory and the safeguard (et decus et tutamen) of the Empire. I consider that every British subject has a right to be proud of the Constitution of his country, which has long stood amongst the nations as a monument of the wisdom of ages, combining the stability of the Throne with the liberty of the subject. This, sir, is one idea of a Government-the idea of an institution which one regards as a thing established as much as the return of day and night, of summer and winter. We think and speak of the Government of England as we do of the palaces of its Sovereign, which, indeed, change their inmates, but are enduring; or its oaks of a thousand years, which cast their leaves and renew their verdure, but have not begun to decay-an institution which has its faults, as everything human has its faults, but whose faults are like the dust which gathers in the corners of its palaces or the mosses which cover the trunks of its oaks.

"There is another idea of a Government which reduces it to its elements. Population-to use the language of the economists-begins to press upon the limits of subsistence, the country is too strait for its inhabitants-the mother hive casts off her swarms-a new community commences the race of existence in a new country, unfettered by the restraints of the old, yet enlightened by its experience-with all the advantages

ARISING FROM DIFFERENT CONDITIONS.

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of ripe civilisation, and yet free from the abuses which spring from the crowdings and competitions of society. This, sir, is a stage in the progress of human affairs which opens a new view of the institutions of government, and affords a rare opportunity for reducing its powers to their elements-for casting off the clogs and abuses which may have accumulated upon he institutions of the old country, and separating the essential functions of government from those which corruption may have contrived for the exclusive advantage of its administrators. The question arises, in what relation does the swarm stand to the hive from which it has taken its flight? It is not my intention to enter into any disquisition on the abstract rights and duties which belong, respectively, to the mother country, and the new community which has acquired a separate existence. I shall not go for illustration to the history of ancient colonisation, or of modern European colonies proceeding from other countries than England. To men who are themselves colonists, no inquiry could, rightly considered, be more interesting; but our time will not admit of it-and as regards ourselves, this relation has been settled for two hundred years. I hold it to be the duty of every British colonist to study the history of British colonisation. It will be found pregnant with lessons of instruction. Beginning with the first dawn of British emigration, and tracing its progress from the first settlement of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England, down to the establishment of the colonies of New Zealand, he will witness in operation every variety of human motives, and their corresponding results. At one end of the scale he will see a society of men laying the burden of government upon those of its members who were best qualified to bear it, and its necessary functions performed as a duty-the tenure of office not aspired to as an honour, or sweetened by its rewards-the wants of society claiming the aid of its members, and each member rendering his aid as a duty to the society. Take the following extract from the short and simple annals of the Pilgrim Fathers:'After having been chosen to the office nine years in succession, Governor Bradford was, by reason of his importunity, let off from serving the tenth year, without being fined.' Here is the perfect development of the idea of government, naturally arising from the condition of human affairs, springing from, and adapting itself to, the wants of the community. At the other end of the scale we shall see a state of things which is altogether unparalleled at any intervening period: a governing class establishing and maintaining themselves at the expense of