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ART. V.-The New Zealand Question, and the Rights of Aborigines. By Louis Alexis Chamerovzow. 8vo. London: T. C. Newby.

THIS curious volume is addressed to the steadily increasing body among us, interested in colonization; and to all who feel the necessity of a more economical, systematic, and humane, colonial policy. It examines thoroughly the title of the barbarous aborigines of new countries; and scrutinizes the principles on which civilized men can justifiably settle there. It concludes that a more equitable course than the past has been, would be a wiser course; and for this conclusion it depends on the undeniable truth, that when well treated, these aborigines are eager to receive Europeans among them, and to enter into friendly intercourse, in a confident expectation of permanent benefits from their visits. The author follows up these just remarks by asking--Why, in occupying the lands of such barbarians, we should make might the measure of right? Why violate the sacred rights of nations, by disregarding the law that equity has laid down, that reason supports, and that religion invokes, in behalf of the uncivilized inhabitants of the earth?

The author has furnished an answer to these questions by exhi biting our colonial minister, Earl Grey, in a melancholy light. It is a growing opinion, that no preceding Secretary of State for the Colonies has committed so many grave faults as his lordship. Unusually pains-taking and honest, but self-willed and ill-tempered, he has erred past all recovery by adopting some of the worst practices of his predecessors. He never consults those who necessarily understand the subject better than himself. He will not ever listen to individual complainants. To be deeply interested in the permanent success of wise and humane modes of colonial government is a title rather to the jealousy, than to the ready attention, of Earl Grey. His administration, consequently, has only continued the miserable routine of the Colonial Office, of which of all men he ought to have known, and might easily have cured the vices. In individual cases he has done enormous wrong by setting at nought the elementary principles of justice. In public cases, by the same course, he has aggravated all the horrors of war in South Africa, and has exposed another colony, New Zealand, to the most imminent hazard of a worse convulsion.

Yet Earl Grey has done one act, founded on excellent principles, and calculated to improve the administration of all the colonies, and to secure to most complainants complete indemnity

against administrative injustice. This is the revival of a jurisdiction in the Privy Council for the adjudication of colonial administrative controversies. This was done in April last; and for reasons which are highly honourable to the candour of his lordship.

'Your lordships are aware,' said Earl Grey, in his letter to the Committee for Trade and Plantations, that when the Board of Trade and Plantations was first constituted as a united Board, in the year 1672, it was charged, amongst its other functions, with a principal share in the transaction of the more important public business relating to the colo

nies.

I apprehend that all my predecessors have felt the difficulties of which I am continually sensible, of proceeding to investigate and decide on matters of this description in private, and unaided by the advice which might be derived from a deliberative body, authorized to hear the representations of all the parties to any such discussion, and enabled by their forms of proceeding to afford such parties every requisite facility for adducing evidence and for being heard, if necessary, by their counsel or agents.

In conclusion, I have to remark, that in this proposal I have not suggested a mere innovation, but rather a return, as nearly as possible, to the mode of action contemplated on the original appointment of the Board of Plantations in 1672, to most of the functions of which your Lordship's Committee afterwards succeeded, and that your resumption, in the manner I have now proposed, of the functions thus properly ap pertaining to you, but which have fallen into disuse, would, I am persuaded, greatly contribute to the public convenience and advantage.'

The only error in this important measure is a condition, that no complainant can have access to the revived jurisdiction, whose case is not referred to it with the assent of the Secretary of State.

The two legal assessors of the board will be highly approved by all complainants. Sir Edward Ryan, one of them, possesses all the qualities that secure public confidence in a judge; and the other, Mr. James Stephen, is at length placed in a situation that compels him to hear appellants, who probably would not have been complainants, had he not habitually refused to hear them during his thirty years' rule in the Colonial Office. It will be a great satisfaction thus to appeal from Cæsar, uninformed and despotic-to Cæsar, controlled by his own instructed intelligence, and by an independent colleague. It is a set off to a world of faults, on Earl Grey, to have re-opened* this tribunal, which closed with an American Indian's suit of seventy years' duration !!

*The form in which this much wanted tribunal is revived, must lead to some interesting discussions, such as the following case might open. In 1832, a claim by a colonial attorney-general upon the crown, was referred

This volume establishes against Earl Grey some most important positions respecting British title to lauds in new countries, and especially in New Zealand. It is first shown with abundant learning, and ample quotations, that the right of the barbarian to his native land is equally strong with that of the most civilized people to theirs; and that, no colony can be founded by us, with justice, in a new country, inhabited by savages or barbarians, without their consent. These positions are made good by citations from the best writers on natural law, and the law of nations. The author should have gone a step further, and have produced the clear authority of the statesmen of the reign of George II., in favour of the same principles. The atrocities committed in Captain Cook's first voyages, raised the question, whether we were entitled to the lands discovered by our navigators. It was then declared, that the consent of the natives must be obtained, to our occupation of their lands. This just decision was abandoned, with many other good things, after the wars of the French revolution threw the moral world of Europe into confusion. Nevertheless, the principle was recognised by the highest authority, in the most solemn manner; and the incident should not be so utterly forgotten by the advocates of the Aborigines.

The author, however, has found good doctrine enough to place Earl Grey altogether in the wrong. His lordship unluckily got hold of a passage of the late Dr. Arnold's works, in which that eminent man rashly declared that the cultivation of the soil is essential to a title to it. So much,' says Dr. Arnold, 'does the right of property go along with labour, that civilized nations have never scrupled to take possession of countries inhabited only by tribes of savages,-countries which have been hunted over, but never subdued or cultivated.' On the contrary our author declares correctly, that all our colonial history, down to the independence of North America, is directly opposed to this, both in fact, and in judicial authority. It is further shown-and this is the most important part of the volumethat Earl Grey's promulgation of this false doctrine has been, and is now, in the highest degree, disastrous in New Zealand.

The following passage is of startling interest, and has all the marks of being perfectly genuine :

for settlement to the Privy Council; that is to say, to the old jurisdiction of 1672. The lords rejected the case through an alleged want of jurisdiction. As Earl Grey states, that old jurisdiction was disused. The petition has, therefore, been hung up these sixteen years; and it will probably be revived in law along with the tribunal partially called forth by the Secretary of State.

Our position is, that Earl Grey's enactment is a violation of the Treaty.

That a similar opinion is entertained in the Colony itself is matter of notoriety. The local newspapers have discussed the point over and over, and the most influential residents, together with the missionary bodies, have not failed to hold serious consultations upon the subject, while the bishop himself went even so far as to pen a protest against the doctrine advanced by Earl Grey, and to address it to the Governor; in it he declares it to be his duty to inform his Excellency, that he is resolved to use all legal and constitutional measures, befitting his station, to inform the natives of New Zealand of their rights and privileges as British subjects, and to assist them in asserting and maintaining them, whether by petition to the imperial parliament, or other loyal and peaceable methods

Nor have the natives themselves been inactive, though they had, up to the date of the latest advices, abstained from any hostile demonstra tion. Nevertheless, their suspicions are awakened, and there can exist no doubt that, but for the decision and admirable prudence of the Governor, assisted by the bishop and by both the missionary bodies, long ere this the colony would have been the scene of bloodshed and devastation.

The excitement which ensued upon the publication of the Despatch and the Letter of Instructions had not diminished at the period of the last advices; vague rumours and anxious whisperings were rife, but this was all, though portentous enough. In proof of what is passing there, we subjoin an abstract from a private letter lately received from Auckland, premising that it comes from competent and veracious authority.

Auckland, 4th Dec. 1847.

The subject of Earl Grey's Despatch and Instructions has not lost any of its interest. The judgment passed upon it by the settlers is, I believe, unanimous ; at any rate, I have heard no dissentient from that which, I doubt not, is your own conviction, that the thing proposed and recommended to the Colonial Assemblies in the Queen's name is nothing less than a breach of the pledged faith of England. We are actually witnessing in this place the strange fact, that a memorial is drawn up and signed by the Colonists, praying the Queen to protect the native race from the injustice propounded by one of her Majesty's principal

Secretaries of State.

The natives were soon aware of the contents of the Despatch, for many persons are able and willing to communicate such matters to them. Nor do I see how that can be complained of. The natives, as subjects of the Queen, have a good right to be informed of all measures by which they may be affected. However, so it is, that they are quite aware of the contents of the Despatch; but with their usual practical good sense, they sit still and wait for the next move. They have been long aware that there are amongst us some who prefer the seizing to the buying of their lands; and to them it makes no difference that what is mere cupidity in some may be philosophy in others. But they have a perfect confidence that our present Governor will never put forth his hand to wrong them; and they are satisfied that the new doctrines and

suggestions are not the word of the Queen.' I will give you an instance of the way in which the natives take this matter. A young man came, soon after the receipt of the news, to question me on the subject. He said, that at first he did not think it worth while to speak about the reports which had reached him. He steadily maintained that they were falsehoods; but having heard from four different persons (whom he named), of four different tribes, the same story, he went to an Englishman (whom he named also), and ascertained the truth. He then came to me. He was much calmed by learning that the Letters, Despatch, etc. from England had no present effect at all; that the Governor would take care that the native people should suffer no injustice by reason of any mistake or ignorance of any of the chiefs at home; and that in case any such injustice were attempted hereafter, it would be proper for them to petition the Queen and all the chiefs of England, who would take care that justice should be done. In the course of conversation, this young man said, 'If it does come to taking our land the result will be this our people will believe what has often been told them, that all your proceedings from the beginning have been a trick. Your religion will be abandoned, and we shall return to our old way of living and of shedding blood.' [Ka mahue te karakia : ka noho maori, ka patu maori.] These were his words; for I was so much struck by them that I noted them down at the time. Now this person is a very good specimen of the most hopeful portion of the rising generation, greatly attached to the Pakeha, always wearing our dress, and having partly acquired our language. An older man, who keeps a school for children in his village, in talking the matter over with me lately, remarked, 'The natives will not thrive and grow, for they will say, There is a war at hand.' He quietly closed the conversation with these words, Ma te kuini tona hiahia e pehi'-'It remains for the Queen to suppress his desire; meaning the desire of the propounder of the new doctrine.

'I mention these small incidents as indicating the character of this people. Perhaps a sufficiently large collection of such facts might open the eyes of some persons in England.'—p. 356–360.

At so late a date as the 16th of last March, the determination of the natives of New Zealand was known to be unshaken, to combine to a man, and defend their right to the soil, so violently attacked by Earl Grey. But there is a feeling of deep despondency among their friends, at what is passing on the subject. What have we to hope,' say they, from the Colonial Office, where such a scheme of spoliation could by any possibility have been devised? Let all England,' say they, 'utter a voice that shall be heard hereon.'

It seems, indeed, to be highly probable, that a new war of races will break out in that country, when Earl Grey will have the disgrace of purchasing the soil at a price far exceeding its money value, and of sealing his purchase with torrents of blood.

The conduct of the New Zealand Company is assailed in this