POSTSCRIPT 4: 'Protection,' Duties and 'Rights' in Normanby's Instructions

Following on from my book review of Ned Fletcher's English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi, this is POSTSCRIPT 3: Excerpts from Normanby's Instructions to Hobson, as drafted by James Stephen, dated 14 August, 1839

KEY WORDS/CONCEPTS HIGHLIGHTED: Protection, Rights, Duties/Object of Your Mission, Gradualism

"The acquaintance which your service in Her Majesty's Navy has enabled you to obtain with the state of society in New Zealand relieves me from the necessity of entering on any explanations on that subject. It is sufficient that I should generally notice the fact, that a very considerable body of Her Majesty's subjects have already established their residence and effected settlements there, and that many persons in this kingdom have formed themselves into a society, having for its object the acquisition of land, and the removal of emigrants to those Islands. ...

The necessity for the interposition of the Government has, however, become too evident to admit of any further inaction. ... The spirit of adventure having thus been effectually roused, it can no longer be doubted that an extensive settlement of British subjects will be rapidly established in New Zealand; and that, unless protected and restrained by necessary laws and institutions, they will repeat, unchecked, in that quarter of the globe, the same process of war and spoliation under which uncivilized tribes have almost invariably disappeared as often as they have been brought into the immediate vicinity of emigrants from the nations of Christendom. To mitigate and, if possible, to avert these disasters, and to rescue the emigrants themselves from the evils of a lawless state of society, it has been resolved to adopt the most effective measures for establishing amongst them a settled form of civil government. To accomplish this design is the principal object of your mission.

I have already stated that we acknowledge New Zealand as a sovereign and independent state, so far at least as it is possible to make that acknowledgment in favour of a people composed of numerous, dispersed, and petty tribes, who possess few political relations to each other, and are incompetent to act, or even to deliberate, in concert. But the admission of their rights, though inevitably qualified by this consideration, is binding on the faith of the British Crown. ...

Believing, however, that their own welfare would, under the circumstances I have mentioned, be best promoted by the surrender to Her Majesty of a right now so precarious, and little more than nominal, and persuaded that the benefits of British protection, and of laws administered by British judges, would far more than compensate for the sacrifice by the Natives of a national independence which they are no longer able to maintain, Her Majesty's Government have resolved to authorize you to treat with the aborigines of New Zealand for the recognition of Her Majesty's sovereign authority over the whole or any parts of those Islands which they may be willing to place under Her Majesty's dominion. ...

Especially you will point out to them the dangers to which they may be exposed by the residence amongst them of settlers amenable to no laws or tribunals of their own, and the impossibility of Her Majesty's extending to them any effectual protection unless the Queen be acknowledged as the sovereign of their country, or at least of those districts within or adjacent to which Her Majesty's subjects may acquire lands or habitations ...

It is further necessary that the chiefs should be induced, if possible, to contract with you, as representing Her Majesty, that henceforward no lands shall be ceded, either gratuitously or otherwise, except to the Crown of Great Britain. ... Extensive acquisitions of such lands have undoubtedly been already obtained, and it is probable that, before your arrival, a great addition will have been made to them. The embarrassments occasioned by such claims will demand your earliest and most careful attention. ... 

[I]it will be your duty to obtain, by fair and equal contracts with the Natives, the cession to the Crown of such waste lands as may be progressively required for the occupation of settlers resorting to New Zealand. All such contracts should be made by yourself, through the intervention of an officer expressly appointed to watch over the interests of the aborigines as their protector. The re-sales of the first purchases that may be made will provide the funds necessary for future acquisitions ... the price to be paid to the Natives by the local Government will bear an exceedingly small proportion to the price for which the same lands will be re-sold by the Government to the settlers....

The acquisition of land by the Crown for the future settlement of British subjects must be confined to such districts as the Natives can alienate without distress or serious inconvenience to themselves. To secure the observance of this, will be one of the first duties of their official protector....

There are yet other duties owing to the aborigines of New Zealand, which may be all comprised in the comprehensive expression of promoting their civilization,—understanding by that term whatever relates to the religious, intellectual, and social advancement of mankind. For their religious instruction, liberal provision has already been made by the zeal of the missionaries and of the missionary societies in this kingdom; and it will be at once the most important and the most grateful of your duties to this ignorant race of men to afford the utmost encouragement, protection, and support, to their Christian teachers. ... The establishment of schools for the education of the aborigines in the elements of literature will be another object of your solicitude; and until they can be brought within the pale of civilized life, and trained to the adoption of its habits, they must be carefully defended in the observance of their own customs, so far as these are compatible with the universal maxims of humanity and morals. But the savage practices of human sacrifice, and of cannibalism, must be promptly and decisively interdicted. Such atrocities, under whatever plea of religion they may take place, are not to be tolerated within any part of the dominions of the British Crown.