Lord Normanby's Instructions to Captain William Hobson

This is part two of the instructions.

"All dealings with the natives for their lands must be conducted on the same principles of sincerity, justice and good faith as must govern your transactions with them for the recognition of Her Majesty’s sovereignty in the Islands. Nor is that all: they must not be permitted to enter into any contracts in which they might be ignorant and unintentional authors of injuries to themselves. You will not, for example, purchase from them any territory the retention of which by them would be essential or highly conducive to their own comfort, safety, or subsistence. The acquisition of land by the Crown for the future settlement of British subjects must be confined to such districts as the natives can alienate without distress or serious inconvenience to themselves. To secure the observance of this - will be one of the first duties of their Official Protector.

There are yet other duties owing to the aborigines of New Zealand, which may be all comprised in the comprehensive expression of promoting their civilisation, understanding by that term whatever relates to religious, intellectual and social advancement of mankind. For their religious instruction liberal provision has already been made by the zeal of the missionaries, and the Missionary Societies in this kingdom, and it will be at once the most important and the most grateful of your duties to this ignorant race of men to afford the utmost encouragement, protection and support to their Christian teachers. I acknowledge also the obligation of rendering to the Missions such pecuniary aid as the local Government may be able to afford, and as their increased labours may reasonably entitle them to expect. The establishment of schools for the education of the aborigines in the elements of literature will be another object of your solicitude, and until they can be brought within the pale of civilised life, and trained to the adoption of its habits, they must be carefully defended in the observance of their own customs, so far as these are compatible of with the universal maxims of humanity and morals. But the savage practices of human sacrifice and cannibalism must be promptly and decisively interdicted; such atrocities, under whatever plea of religion they may take place, are not to be tolerated within any part of the dominions of the British Crown.

It remains to be considered in what manner provision is to be made for carrying these instructions into effect and for the establishment and exercise of your authority over Her Majesty’s subjects who may settle in New Zealand, or who are already there. Numerous projects for the establishment of a constitution for the proposed colony have at different times been suggested to myself and to my immediate predecessor in office, and during the last session of Parliament, a Bill for the same purpose was introduced into the House of Commons at the of instance of some persons immediately connected with the emigration then contemplated. The same subject was carefully examined by a Committee of the House of Lords. But the common result of all enquiries, both in this office and either House of Parliament, was to show the impracticability of the schemes proposed for adoption, and the extreme difficulty of establishing at New Zealand any institutions, legislative, judicial or fiscal without some more effective control than could be found amongst the settlers themselves in the infancy of the settlement. It has therefore been resolved to place whatever territories may be acquired in the sovereignty by the Queen in New Zealand in the relation of dependency to the Government of New South Wales. I am, of course, fully aware of the objections which may be reasonably urged against this measure, but after the most ample investigation I am convinced that for the present there is no other practicable course which would not be opposed by difficulties still more considerable, although I trust that the time is not distant when it may be proper to establish in New Zealand itself a local legislative authority.

In New South Wales there is a Colonial Government possessing comparatively long experience, sustained by a large revenue, and constituted in such a manner as is best adapted to enable the legislative and executive authorities to act with promptitude and decision. It presents the opportunity of bringing the internal economy of the proposed new colony under the constant revision of a power sufficiently near to obtain early and accurate intelligence and sufficiently remote to be removed from the influence of the passions and prejudices by which the first colonists must in the commencement of their enterprise be agitated. It is impossible to confide to an indiscriminate body of persons who have voluntarily settled themselves in the immediate vicinity of numerous population of New Zealand, those large and irresponsible powers which belong to the representative system of Colonial Government. Nor is that system adapted to a colony struggling with the first difficulties of their new situation. Whatever may be the ultimate form of Government to which the British settlers in New Zealand are to be subject, it is essential to their own welfare, not less than that of the aborigines, that they should at first be placed under a rule which is at once effective and a considerable degree external. The proposed connection with New South Wales will not, however, involve the extension to New Zealand of the character of a penal settlement. Every motive concurs in forbidding this, and it is to be understood as a fundamental principle of the new colony that no convict is ever to be sent thither to undergo his punishment.

The accompanying copy of my correspondence with the law Officers will be explained to you on the grounds of law on which it is to be concluded that by the annexation of New Zealand to New South Wales, the powers vested by Parliament in the Governor and Legislative Council of the older settlement might be exercised over the inhabitants of the new colony. The accompanying Commission under the Great Seal will give effect to this arrangement, and the warrant that I enclose under Her Majesty’s sign manual, will constitute you Lieutenant-Governor of that part of the New South Wales Colony which has thus been extended over the New Zealand Islands. These instructions you will deliver to Sir George Gipps, who on your proceeding to New Zealand will place them in your hands to be published there. You will then return them to him to be deposited amongst the archives of the New South Wales Government.

It is not for the present proposed to appoint any subordinate officers for your assistance. That such appointments will be indispensable is not, indeed, to be doubted. But I am unwilling at first to advance beyond the strict limits of the necessity which alone induces the Ministers of the Crown to interfere at all on this subject. You will confer with Sir George Gipps as to the number and nature of the official appointments which would be made at the commencement of the undertaking and as to the proper rate of their emoluments. These must be fixed with the most anxious regard for frugality and the expenditure of the public resources. The selection of the individuals by whom such offices are to be borne must be made by yourself from the colonists either of New South Wales or New Zealand, but upon the full and distinct understanding that their tenure of office, and even the existence of the offices which they are to hold must be provisional and dependant upon the future pleasure of the Crown. Amongst the offices thus to be created, the most evidently indispensable are those of a Judge, a Public Prosecutor, a Protector of the Aborigines, a Colonial Secretary, a Treasurer, a Surveyor General of Lands, and a Superintendent of Police. Of these the Judge alone will require the enactment of a law to create and define his functions. The Act now pending in Parliament, for the revival, with amendments, of the New South Wales ACT, will, if passed into law, enable the Governor and Legislative Council to make all necessary provision for the establishment in New Zealand of a Court of Justice and a judicial system separate from and independent of the existing Supreme Court. The other functionaries I have mentioned can be appointed by the Governor in the unaided exercise of the delegated prerogative of the Crown Whatever laws may be required for the Government of the new colony will be enacted by the Governor and Legislative Council. It will be his duty to bring under their notice, such recommendations as you may see cause to convey to him on subjects of this nature. The absolute necessity of the revenue being raised to defray the expenses of the Government of the proposed settlement in New Zealand has not of course, escaped my careful attention. Having consulted the Lords of the Treasury on this subject, I have arranged with their Lordships that until the sources of such revenues shall have been set in action, you should be authorised to draw on the Government of New South Wales for your unavoidable expenditure. Separate accounts, however, will be kept of the public revenue of New Zealand and the application of it, and whatever debt may be contracted to New South Wales, must be replaced by the earliest possible opportunity. Duties of import on tobacco, spirits, wine and sugar will probably supersede the necessity of any other taxation, and such duties except on spirits, will probably be of very moderate amount.

The system at present established in New South Wales regarding land will be applied to all waste lands which may be acquired by the Crown in New Zealand.

Separate accounts must be kept of the Land revenue, subject to the necessary deductions for the expense of surveys and management, and for the improvement by roads and otherwise of the unsold territory, and subject to any deductions which may be required to meet the indispensable exigencies of the local Government. The surplus of the revenue will be applicable, as in New South Wales, to the charge of removing emigrants from this kingdom to the new colony.

The system established in New South Wales to provide for the religious instruction of the inhabitants has so fully justified the policy by which it was dictated that I could suggest no better means of providing for this all-important object in New Zealand. It is, however, gratifying to know that the spiritual wants of the settlers will, in the commencement of the undertaking, be readily and amply provided for by the missionaries of the established Church of England, and the other Christian communions, who have been so long settled on those Islands. It will not be difficult to secure for the European inhabitants some portion of that time and attention which the missionaries have hitherto devoted exclusively to the aborigines.

I enclose, for your information and guidance, copies of a correspondence between this department and (they are not given here) the Treasury, referring you to Sir George Gipps for such additional instructions as may enable you to give full affect to the view of Her Majesty’s Government on the subject of finance. You will observe that the general principle is that of maintaining in the proposed colony a system of revenue, expenditure, and account entirely separate from that of New South Wales, though corresponding with it as far as that correspondence can be maintained.

After briefly describing the rules to be observed by Captain Hobson in conducting his correspondence (not shown here DG) with his immediate superior, Governor Gipps, and the Colonial Office, Lord Normanby concluded his instructions as follows:

I have thus attempted to touch upon all the topics on which it seems to me necessary to address you on your departure from this country. Many questions have been unavoidably passed over in silence, and many others have been adverted to in a brief and cursory manner, because I am fully impressed with the conviction that in such an undertaking as that in which you are about to engage much must be left to your own discretion and many questions must occur which no foresight could anticipate or properly resolve beforehand. Reposing the utmost confidence in your judgement, experience and zeal for Her Majesty’s service and aware of how powerful a coadjutor and how able a guide you will have in Sir George Gipps, I willing leave for consultation between you many subjects on which I feel my own incompetency at this distance from the scene of action to form an opinion."

Notes

Source - The Treaty of Waitangi, by T.L. Buick pp 70-79

This 4,200 word document was given by Lord Normanby, The British Colonial Secretary to Captain William Hobson, before he left England on the 25th of August 1839. It was composed by (HW xx) who had drafted Britains anti-slavery laws

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