The Treaty of Waitangi; or, how New Zealand became a British ColonyBuick, Thomas Lindsay
History
The Treaty of Waitangi; or, how New Zealand became a British Colony
Buick, Thomas Lindsay
New Zealand -- Politics and government; Treaty of Waitangi (1840)
Up to this point, however, the official mind had never been troubled
by doubts as to the extent of its jurisdiction. Governor Philip not
only believed that his authority extended to New Zealand, but far
beyond it, and under this belief he actually colonised Norfolk Island
as a part of the territory he had been commissioned to govern. In like
manner the British Government believed it had a right to all that it
claimed in Philip's Commission; and at the Congress of Vienna at the
close of the Napoleonic wars in 1814, when the map of Europe was
recast, it had its claims allowed, New Zealand being acknowledged by
the Great Powers to be a portion of our then infant Empire. Even
earlier in the century Ministers had seriously discussed a
representation made by Lieutenant-Colonel Foveaux, of the New South
Wales Corps, to appoint a Lieutenant-Governor in New Zealand, which
under his scheme was to become a penal settlement subordinate to New
South Wales. Fortunately for New Zealand that baneful suggestion was
not entertained; but Governor Macquarie appointed Justices of the
Peace and exercised the functions of Government within the Islands, as
did his successor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, down to the time of his
proclamation which excluded New Zealand from amongst the dependencies
of New South Wales.
Thus far Britain would seem _prima facie_ to have kept alive her
right to colonise in these Islands as against any other nation,
except, perhaps, in the important particular that she had not
systematically occupied the land. It is not sufficient that discovery
should take place, or that the free will and consent of the native
inhabitants should be obtained to the introduction of colonisation. It
is an essential factor in the acquisition of new territory that the
sanction thus secured should be followed up by speedy emigration and
effective settlement, for obviously no nation could be permitted to
hold idle for an indefinite period vast tracts of waste country to the
exclusion of another nation to whom the inhabitants might also be
willing to concede the right to colonise. The principle upon which
this view is based has thus been stated: "The Law of Nations, then,
will recognise the proprietary rights, and the sovereignty of a
nation over only uninhabited countries which it shall have occupied
really and in fact, in which it shall have formed a settlement, or
from which it shall be deriving an actual use."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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