“By the introduction of the proposed Constitution into the provinces of New Zealand, her Majesty’s Ministers would not confer, as it was intended, upon her subjects the blessings of self-government, but would be giving power to a small minority (the colonists). She would not be giving to her subjects the right to manage their affairs as they might think proper, but would be giving to a small _minority a power to raise taxes from the great majority_ (the aborigines). There was no reason to think that the majority of the aboriginal inhabitants would be satisfied with the rule of the minority; while there are many reasons for believing that they would resist to the uttermost. They were people of _strong natural sense and ability_, but by nature jealous and suspicious. Many of them were owners of vessels, horses, and cattle, and had considerable sums of money at their disposal, _and there was no people he was acquainted with less likely to sit down quietly under what they might regard as an injustice_.” “For these and other reasons, the Governor announced that he should not proclaim the constitution before receiving fresh instructions from the Colonial Office. “The tone of the most trustworthy correspondence from New Zealand, proves that this exercise of independent authority on the part of Governor Grey has saved the colony from disastrous consequences. Ministers acknowledge his superior competency to judge in a matter of this kind, and a bill has accordingly been introduced into the House of Commons by Mr. Labouchere, ‘for suspending, during a limited time (viz., for five years), the operation of part of the Act for making further provision for the government of the New Zealand Islands.’”[55] Thus has this noble people, with a strong natural sense and ability not hitherto supposed to belong innately to “savages,” opposed more successfully the first step in tyranny—the power of unrepresented taxation—than any other nation (except the Saxon), which has ever existed, civilized or uncivilized. This has been done within twenty years after their actual beneficial contact with civilization; but it was more than six hundred years after the Norman conquest, before the Saxon roused himself to enforce the same right of self-taxation. There could be but one better evidence than this of the high-class mind of this people; and it has furnished this one better, and best, evidence—its speedy and conscientious reception of Christianity; for “in no country, similarly circumstanced, has the Gospel made such rapid progress, since the days of the Apostles.”[56]