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An Epitome of Official Documents Relative to Native Affairs and Land Purchases in the North Island of New Zealand

[No. 28.]

page 143

No. 28.

(1.) Address of the Canterbury Provincial Council, now in Session.
Offering Aid to Taranaki Settlers during the Native Rebellion.

To His Excellency Colonel Thomas Gore Browne, C.B., &c., Governor of New Zealand.

May it please your Excellency,—The members of the Provincial Council of Canterbury, assembled in Council, desire to express their deep sympathy in the trying circumstances surrounding your Excellency by reason of the violence and insubordination of a portion of the Maori population of the North Island. While they express their thankfulness to the Almighty for having cast their lot in a portion of the colony in which they are spared the infliction of the personal consequences of a like revolt, they feel that their provincial prosperity depends in a great measure upon the maintenance of peace and good order in the colony at large. Entirely confiding in your Excellency's judgment, and in your determination to uphold the dignity of the Crown, the members of this Council desire to assure your Excellency of their willingness to co-operate with you to the utmost of their ability in the assertion of that authority, and to bear their share of the burden which under unlooked-for and adverse results may possibly fall upon their fellow-colonists in the North; and, while they do not doubt that many of the young men of this province are ready to place themselves at your Excellency's disposal in case of need, they believe that some portion of the difficulty you experience may be removed by a proposal on the part of this province to afford an asylum to those of the out-settlers in the Province of Taranaki who, driven from their homes, may be exposed to inconveniences and sufferings in consequence of being forced into the town for shelter, and which its limited accommodation is not capable of affording to them. Should these troubles increase, the Council offer in the name of the settlers in Canterbury the protection of their province, and they are ready to provide an immediate asylum for those women and children who may be cast upon your Excellency's care. In conclusion, this Council earnestly trust that the efforts which your Excellency has so laudably made in the extension of civil institutions suited to the wants of the Native population may ere long be appreciated by them, and that the present resistance to your authority may speedily give place to the conviction that under your rule the British Crown desires to form one people, under one law, of the colonists and the Native tribes.

By order of the Provincial Council.

Charles C. Bowen, Speaker.

Canterbury, March, 1860.

(2.) Address of the Inhabitants of Whanganui.
Expressing Approval of Governor's Policy.

To His Excellency Colonel Thomas Gore Browne, C.B., Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over Her Majesty's Colony of New Zealand.

We, the undersigned, inhabitants of Whanganui and district, desire to express our warm approval of the policy pursued by your Excellency in the Native disturbances existing in Taranaki. We regard the grounds on which your Excellency has taken up arms to be just and necessary, and respectfully assure your Excellency of our cordial support (should we be called upon) to measures calculated, by a just and firm determination, to convey a lesson to the disaffected, which may speedily end present and prevent future outbreaks of the Native population of these Islands.

D. S. Durie, R.M.
[And 375 other signatures.]

Whanganui, 19th April, 1860.

(3.) Resolutions of Public Meeting at Nelson.
Approval of Government Decision to suppress the Native Rebellion.

1.That this meeting entirely approves of the decision with which the Government has acted in confronting a Native rebellion at Taranaki, and trusts that it will make no peace excepting on the terms of the unconditional submission of the rebels, on which basis alone the meeting believes that any peace must be founded if it is to be lasting.
2.That, while desirous of living on friendly terms with the Maoris, and rejoicing in every instance of their progress in civilization and material comfort, this meeting considers that it is no less due to them than to the British colonists that proceedings on the part of any of them subversive of all natural justice and moral law, and leading, as at Taranaki, to bloodshed and destruction of property, should be promptly and decidedly punished by the Government.
3.That copies of the above resolutions be forwarded to His Excellency the Governor and to his Honour the Superintendent of Taranaki.

Llewellyn Nash, Chairman.

Nelson, 23rd April, 1860.