LORD STANLEY'S WHITEWASHING.
To understand how far Lord Stanley's colleagues have been suc- cessful in making his face white before the world, it is necessary to understand the thing about which the charge of bad faith arose.
While it was the pleasure of the British Government to declare New Zealand an "independent" country, the Company purchased certain lands there, of the Native chiefs. The Company was no innovator on the customs of the country : other purchasers had preceded it, and among them men of the sacred missionary call- ing,—nineteen of whom in a body of twice that number, we per- ceive from Parliamentary papers, have claimed land as purchased from the Natives to the extent of 192,000 acres. Of course, in an " independent " country, it did not require the consent of the fo- reign British Government to complete the title of the occupant. The New Zealand Company took possession ; and there is no doubt that, had the British Government not interfered, the Com- pany, by its settlers, would have held possession as stoutly as our forefathers held possession of the early settlements of New Eng- land, and perhaps more prosperously. After a while, the British Government was pleased to assume the sovereignty of New Zealand. This was done by a mixed operation : first, cession of the sovereignty for a part was obtained from some Native chiefs ; then sovereignty over the rest was assumed by right of discovery; and finally, before the treaty of cession was consummated, the sovereignty was exercised over the whole. In this process, the Native lordship of the land merged in the rights of the British Crown : Governor Hobson proclaimed that purchases from the Natives, future or past, would not be recognized, but from the Crown alone ; and Lord John Russell, then Colonial Minister, entered into a special negotiation with the Company, which resulted in his compelling it to "forego and disclaim all title or all pretence of title" to any land not granted by the Crown. Hoivever, Lord John Russell recognized the equitable claim of a public body which had really and truly formed the colony, at a large outlay ; and, instead of rudely snatching from the Com- pany its own handiwork, he agreed to a compromise. The claim of tie Company as derived from the Native purchase was set aside, but the equitable title founded on what the Company had done was allowed ; and Lord John Russell agreed to grant to the Company, as holding from the Crown, land to the amount of four times as many acres as it had laid out pounds sterling in the purchase of land, the conveyance of emigrants, and other colo- nizing expenses. The test of the title, under Lord John Russell's agreement, was, not whether the Company had satisfied certain Native chiefs—not whether partieular persons had been paid— but whether the Company had expended so much. Lord John disallowed one title, but established another, guaranteed by the responsibility of hisas a Cabinet Minister. Lord John R went out of office, and Lord Stanley came in. It is usual for incoming Ministers to fulfil the engagements formally- undertaken by their predecessors; but Lord Stanley "repudiated" his predecessor's written agreement. Of course he found a pretext. He discovered that Lord John Russell must have meant that the Company should be put in possession of their land on proving a " valid " title—a valid title as derived from the New Zealand savages ! This was official vacillation worse than the bed of Procrustes, which did not at least shift its condition to baulk the same occupant. As against the Natives, while independent, the Company had a title the validity of which to defend : that title was disallowed by Government, and a new one was given, with quite a different test : but again the Com- pany was referred back to the original title, after the proceedings of Government had put such a title into an inextricable state of confusion, and had inveigled the Company into a security which made it neglect to watch over its first rights. Be it observed, too, that Lord Stanley insisted upon the conditions of exacting that title and also the title as stipulated by Lord John Russell. The Company subsequently appealed to the framer of the bond, Lord John himself, to know if Lord Stanley rightly interpreted his intent—evoked the ghost of the testator to interpret his own will. Lord John explicitly stated, that what Lord Stanley said he must mean he did not mean : he meant the words in their natural and not in Lord Stanley's non-natural sense. Meanwhile, however, practical effect had been given to the wrong interpreta- tion. In the colony a "Court of and Claims" was established : at the head of it was placed a country attorney, whose professional success in England had not been so striking as to prevent his emi- gration: without assuming that he had more than the average at- torney-power in hunting up fees, it is evident that his mind was swayed by technicalities based rather on a hand-to-mouth style of practice than on enlarged views of equity or the law of nations; and he entered eagerly into the plan of throwing, not separate
an
estates, but the whole colony, entire En into nto that state which is colloquially described as being "in chancery." honesty always profits by confusion ; and rogues, Black or White, appeared in shoals to strive for pickings in the anarchy bred by Mr. Spain's law-court. While matters thus proceeded in the colony, the confusion was reflected at home in an angry and idle correspondence, kept up by the Colonial Secretary with the Company for many months. At length he crept out of the diffi- culty which he had made, by a compromise ; to which his vic- • tims were fain to submit, to save their colonists from the ruinous evils of further delay.
The Company had now been subjected to three kinds of title : Lord Stanley devised a fourth. It was whimsical, and it was as whimsically brought about. Instead of proposing his own terms, he obliged the Company to make his own offer to him. That was done in a rough draught, which he corrected, so that they might be accurate in offering to him the terms which he was in fact offering to them. That curious piece of green-room rehearsal accomplished, both parties come upon the stage, and the Company, in a letter from Mr. Somes dated 8th May 1843, ostensibly offer to Lord Stanley to take 50,0001. worth of land at Auckland, (a pet ' settlement founded by Governor Hobson, which Government could not bring people to, and for which they therefore desired the help of the Company,) and to abandon 50,000 out of the larger number of acres acknowledged to be their due on the shores of Cook's Straits ; with this further comprehensive stipulation- " For the purpose of effectually settling the question of the Company's titles, and of quieting the minds of their purchasers, they suggest, that your Lordship should forthwith direct his Excellency to make to the Company a conditional. ant of the lands selected by their aunts; the Company obtaining within the istrict so selected the whole title which the Crown may have the power to grant, and having the option in the event of prior claims being set up, of either ex- cluding from the selected lands such portions as may appear to be subject to such prior claims. and in that case receiving a corresponding number of acres in lieu; or of including such portions subject to the pnor title, but obtaining from the Crown in respect of them the exclusive right of preemption enjoyed by the Crown; the Governor and Council being instructed, as soon as practicable, to establish some general rule for defining Native titles and settling. the claims to land, and to do their best to aid the agents of the Company in effecting the necessary arrange- ments with the Natives, either for the purchase of lands belonging to them, but unimproved., or for making on the part of the Company equitable compensation for the original value of the land which may have been occupied by themselves or their settlers without sufficient title, but on which they may have effected im- provements?' The "conditional grant" here stipulated would have put the Company in immediate possession or the lands selected, subject to the future risk of being ousted on proof of superior claim. The Company had probably little to apprehend from that risk; at all events, it was encountered as the least in a choice of evils.
The Company's tender was formally accepted by Government, in these terms, conveyed [12th May 1843] in a letter by Mr. Under-Secretary Hope— "Lord Stanley directs me to state his assent to these propositions; and to in- timate further, that he will be prepared to issue to the Governor of New Zealand instructions to the effect proposed in your letter for effectually settling the ques- tion of the Company's titles to land in that colony."
Of course the Company supposed that Mr. Hope was telling the truth, and that Lord Stanley was "prepared" to issue instructions to the effect stated. At first it seemed so. Lord Stanley [19th May 1843] sent the Company's letter and Mr. Hope's reply of acceptance to Lieutenant Shortland, then Acting-Governor, in a ird letter, directing Mr. Shortland to take immediate steps for effect to the arrangement about Auckland; and telling him at the other "questions" were reserved for the newly-appointed Governor. This letter of the 19th May was communicated to the Company. We now come to the alleged breach of faith. In a letter to Lord Stanley, [15th June 1843,] the newly-appointed Governor, Captain Fitzroy, said that " doubts " had been expressed,—by whom, he does not say ; whether by himself, or Lord Stanley, or some hidden person in the Colonial Office, or by some private friend, or by a fellow-passenger in an omnibus ; but "doubts " had been expressed in regard to the arrangements of Government for confirming the Company's title to land. Here are two of these " doubts ": Captain Fitzroy's " impression " is— "1st. That ant of a certain extent of land in New Zealand, said to have been purchased by the New Zealand Company, the Government will confirm their title to as many acres as they have expended crowns in purchase and emigration, &c., provided that they prove the validity of !heir purchase. "2d. That the Government will assist the Company in making good their claims, solar as may be done with propriety."
In linaine, it may be observed that Captain Fitzroy had nothing to do with the " validity " : his office was merely nunisterial—to execute the " conditional grant," and put the Company in pos- session of its land. The validity of the title could, even under this com—promiie, only be raised by third parties, at a subsequent
stage and must have been determined in a court law, not settled rt as a preliminary to the grant. By his first "doubt,"
Captain Fitzroy undoes the whole agreement with Lord Stanley, and goes back to the old hostile interpretation of the agreement with Lord John Russell—the very thing set aside by the new agreement with Lord Stanley. In fact, Captain Fitzroy does not at all understand that new agreement : he supposes it to be some- thing different from what it is—the very thing, we say, that it superseded and was meant to obviate. Does Lord Stanley tell the misled man that he is wrong, in so many plain unmistakeable words? No; he says this— "On the first point, I have to refer you to the correspondence with the New Zealand Company, enclosed in my despatch to the Acting-Governor of New Zealand of the 19th ult., No. 85. You will there perceive, that her Majesty's Government have conceded to the Company, as regards the district included in the original agreement, that, with a view to facilitate the adjustment of their titles, the Local Government of New Zealand should be directed to make to the Company's agents a conditional grant of the lands selected by them on the terms definitively stated, in that correspondence; the principle of that concession being, to allow to the Company a prima facie title to such lands, under the condition that the validity of their purchase shall not be successfully impugned by other parties. Subject to this qualification, I concur in the view taken by you on this To a man who is lost in blundering, to the degree of supposing an agreement to mean its reverse, Lord Stanley answers by put- ting the very substance of the agreement, in a long obscurely- worded sentence, as a "qualification and telling Captain Fitzroy that with that qualification he is rig," ht! Of course, the Governor was to understand that in the main he was right, subject to some qualification ; when in fact he was altogether wrong, and the agreement is unintelligible as a "qualification." Tell a sheriff who construes a certain document to be a death-warrant, that, subject to the qualification of its being a pardon, he is right, and assuredly he will understand it to be a death-warrant, subject to some impossible and incompatible condition which does not come in force.
Lord Stanley proceeds— "On the second point, I have certainly no difficulty in authorizing you to assist the Company in making good their claims, so far as may be consistent with a re- gard to the Wends of other parties, and of the community at large; on which point also I must refer you to the correspondence already referred to." Compare these words with the words of the original agreement, and observe how the heartiness of the covenant "to do their best to aid the agents of the Company" is damped and qualified to the doubting Governor, by the "certainly no difficulty," and the "authorizing" or permitting, and the "so far as may be consist- ent with a regard to the interests of other parties and of the com- munity at large.". Surely these ordinary conditions of just go- vernment needed no special proviso.
Captain Fitzroy has an "impression" about the Auckland arrangement, and an impression about " indebted " and " due " and "compensation" by the Government to the Company, all which the Colonial Secretary treats in the same spirit.
Lord Stanley had contracted with the Company to execute a deed for the conveyance to them of certain lands : in instructing his deputy, he sanctions that officer's introducing clauses of such wide qualification as totally to vitiate the deed. There is no diffi- culty in answering the question whether these instructions are what Mr. Hope calls "to the effect proposed in your letter." The instructions to the Acting-Governor, which seemed in the right way towards "the effect proposed," were shown to the went of the Company : these new Instructions were kept secret from the Company front June 1843 to February 1844—much more than time for the Governor to reach the colony. It is, therefore not difficult to imagine an answer to the question, did Lord Stanley mean to deceive the Company-7 It is averred that he did not. In spite of a. puerile arrogance and fondness for contest, Lord Stanley bears in private an un- blemished character, and is considered to be goodhearted. It may be believed that he did not intend a trick of such gross and mis- chievous meanness. It is easier, however, to put a generous ac- ceptation on a simple assurance to that effect than to take it as proved by the laboured but feeble " explanations " of his col- leagues. Lord Stanley told the Company that he would instruct the Governorin one way: he did not content himself with doing so, but instructed him in another way : he did not tell the Com- pany that he had altered the stipulated terms of the instructions. It may not have been intentional dishonesty; but then it was gross carelessness. Furthermore, Lord Stanley may not have perceived the distinction between giving land on fixed condi- tions and giving land if the doubting Governor thought proper : but in that case, what are we to think of his capacity! In- deed, presuming no malice prepense, the reckless negligence would of itself prove extreme incapacity: it is difficult to cha- racterize in polite terms the mind that could be careless in such matters. Charity acquits Lord Stanley of fraud only by sup- posing him weak of understanding.
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