mons, in 1844, they state, " When it was first proposed to establish New Zealand as a British colony, dependent upon New South Wales, Sir George Gipps, the Governor of the latter, in a very able address, laid down the following principles as those on which he had framed the bill, which it was his duty to submit to his legislative council for the regulation of the infant colony of New Zealand :-The bill is founded,' he said, upon two or three general principles, which, until I heard them here controverted, I thought were fully admitted, and indeed received as political axioms. The first is, that the uncivilized inhabitants of any country have but a qualified dominion over it, or a right of occupancy only; and that, until they establish amongst themselves a settled form of government, and subjugate the ground to their own uses, by the cultivation of it, they cannot grant to individuals, not of their own tribe, any portion of it, for the simple reason, that they have not themselves any individual property in it. Secondly, that if a settlement be made in any such country by a civilized power, the right of pre-emption of the soil, or in other words, the right of extinguishing the native title is exclusively in the government of that power, and cannot be enjoyed by individuals without the consent of their government. The third principle is, that neither individuals, nor bodies of men belonging to any nation, can form colonies, except with the consent, and under the direction and control of their own government; and that from any settlement which they may form without the consent of their government they may be ousted. This is simply to say, as far as Englishmen are concerned, that colonies cannot be formed without the consent of the crown.""

The Times views the matter in the same light, as Sir George Gipps, as, in an article in that journal of 18th December, 1844, regarding New Zealand, they say, "It is an established principle of colonial settlement, that the right of occupancy, which is the right relied on by the aborigines, is co-extensive only with the land actually occupied. All other lands are open to the establishment of any settled system of occupation; but that occupation to be good against the nomade native tribes, must be the act, not of wanderers, or desultory and independent adventurers like themselves, but of a supreme political power; it must be the act of a government. All unoccupied land in a British settlement, must be acquired by, and transmitted through the crown. The crown alone can treat with the natives; through the crown alone, a valid settlement can be acquired by the individual settler."

Talking of the report by the committee of the House of Commons, at the conclusion of their article the Times says, "we are glad to see that the committee have duly marked their sense of the conduct of the Company, in setting on foot a system of colonization subversive of every principle of prudence and justice in the very first resolution of their report, "That the conduct of the New Zealand Company, in sending out settlers to New Zealand, not only without the sanction, but in direct defiance of the authority of the crown, was highly irregular and improper."

What, then, is the origin of the individual right of property in land? How was it first acquired? We mention the individual right,' because the right of the human race to the earth and its produce appears to us to arise simply from the gift of the great Creator, recorded in Genesis, where God gave to man dominion over

all the earth, and over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.' Upon the point above-mentioned, viz. the individual right, it is extraordinary how little difference exists among the best writers on the subject. Grotius, Puffendorf, Locke, Blackstone, and Paley, all agree upon the main point, and conclude that occupancy or appropriation by labour is the only founda tion of the right to landed property. Nor could we conceive it otherwise. All the earth was given to all mankind by its maker, and it is left for them individually to reduce this gift into possession.

This has already been done by law in all countries having laws, and where natural and individual labour has so far been restrained, for, as Paley well observes, in society we give up a part of our liberty in order to secure the remainder. The question, therefore, has so far been settled, and such countries are beyond the argument. In England, for instance, the right to all land is determined by law, and as to commons and wastes, which apparently belong to nobody, the right to them is declared to be in the lord and freeholders of the manor or otherwise. By law, therefore, no real property here is without an owner. The same general law obtains in France, and in all other countries where laws have been enacted. But in uncivilized nations the question is still seemingly not altogether settled, and to them only, and to New Zealand in particular, our observations must be taken to apply.

Occupancy by labour, then, is, as we have before stated, held by almost every writer to be the only primary foundation of the right of an individual to possess land. We do not know one single writer of authority who holds a contrary opinion. Nor is this sin

gular; for where else could we look for its foundation? The mere accident of birth will not suffice. Because

a woman, enceinte, is unfortunately shipwrecked on a desert isle, this is no reason why her child when born should, eo instanti, become the owner and possessor of every spot and inch of ground upon it, whether it be one acre or one million! And yet, to support this palpable absurdity, our opponents are driven for their argument, if sifted, amounts to this, that the New Zealanders have an absolute right to New Zealand, because it is their country, or, in other words, because they were born there. Putting aside, therefore, the right by mere birth as untenable, what other conceivable foundation remains? We believe none capable of the least degree of rational support, so that we must, of necessity, fall back upon occupancy by labour as an only resource.

An important question, however, here arises, of what nature must this labour be? Should it be actual labour the real sweat of the brow, or the merest bodily exertion, such, for instance, as simply walking across a piece of ground. In other words, must the occupancy be permanent, or will it suffice if it be only transient? Transient possession certainly will not suffice, as the doctrine would inevitably lead to the utmost confusion and absurdity. A man walks across a territory, leaving no trace behind; others do the same; and who is to decide between them, when, after a lapse of years, they assert their rights? A transient possession lacks that animus which is essential to the appropriation of any part of nature's general stock, so that the occupancy necessary to create a primary right to land, must be of a permanent nature, and the act done with the deliberate intention of taking bona fide possession.

Now to apply this doctrine to New Zealand. Of what nature is the occupancy of the New Zealanders? Mr Terry, a man of character, and a strong friend of the natives, and the only competent person who has yet written on the subject, says, in his work on New Zealand, page 165, speaking of the difference of the New Zealander and Red Indian-" Far different is the New Zealander. He is no hunter. He dwells where he was born, in the land of his fathers, cultivates his ground for kumeras and potatoes, which, with fishing, furnish his subsistence, and this restrains him from being a wanderer." The New Zealander thus appears to be domestic; his acts of possession are local and direct, and where he has once settled he continues to live. He is no hunter and wants no hunting grounds, and it would seem that under these circumstances, and on the docrine we have above maintained, there should be no difficulty in deciding between him and the stranger. There would appear to be ample room for both, and while he remains in the village and cultivated grounds of his ancestors, the stranger has an equal right with him to appropriate any of the uncultivated waste around; and the committee of the House of Commons state in their report, that not above onethousandth part of the available land in New Zealand was made use of by the aborigines, so that the unoccupied land, previous to European settlement, was of no value to them. The New Zealander can sell his acquired property if he pleases, and the stranger may buy it, but as to the unappropriated waste, he has never occupied it, has therefore no right to it, and can therefore demand no price for it.

It should be borne in mind, however, that the New Zealand Company have all along maintained, that it