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)
The executive authority of the Association was, he said, to be placed
in the hands of a Commission resident in England, which Commission was
to be merely a provisional body to last so long as might be thought
necessary to set the scheme on foot. It was proposed to delegate to
these Commissioners the power to make laws, the Crown to determine the
extent of the delegation, and many other important matters. A further
power of delegation was to be given to a Council in New Zealand, but
the responsibility for all that was done was to rest with the
Commission at home. "Whatever the powers are, it is only required that
they should be exercised for a period of twenty-one years, and the
Association would not at all object if it should seem desirable to
have the time shortened. At the end of that term the whole Government
of the colony would revert to the Crown."
In its land dealings, the element of profit was to be eliminated by
the fact that the whole of the money derived from the sale of land or
other sources must be spent in the interests of the colony, and no
member was to derive any advantage therefrom: "The money for which the
land will be sold by the Commissioners will be a price made up of
several sums. It will in the first place contain the sum paid for the
land itself, which I conceive will be a very small proportion. It will
contain then a sum which will be calculated as sufficient for bringing
out labourers to cultivate the land purchased; that will be the
largest amount. It is also proposed that there should be a further sum
added for the purpose of making roads, bridges, and public works, and
it is also proposed that one of the items should be a sum to be
expended in making provision for the natives, such as procuring them
medical assistance and some instruction in the arts. The price the
settlers will pay for the land will be only the price paid for it to
the natives, and the additions to that sum will be in fact the
purchase money paid for certain benefits which are considered
essential to the prosperity of the colony, more especially for a due
supply of labour."
The House of Lords' Committee reported against this scheme on the
broadly Imperial grounds that the extension of the colonial
possessions of the Crown was a question of public policy with which
the Government only should deal. The element of private enterprise
was, in their Lordships' opinion, eminently undesirable, holding with
Captain Fitzroy, whose personal experience they valued, that
"colonisation to be useful must be entirely under the control of the
Executive Government of the Mother Country."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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