The Treaty and Its Times: P157
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THE TREATY AND ITS TIMES CHAPTER 6. THE FITTEST COUNTRY FOR COLONISATION Although the first committee had expressed its disapproval for a treaty between Britain and the aborigines in a colony, the second committee took the opposite view. Considering both of these reports, officials now decided that the annexation of New Zealand was an urgent necessity — and would be accomplished using a treaty between the British Government and Maori. Here James Stephen at the Colonial Office saw an opportunity to enact James Stephen drafts his own ideas about how Britain should annex and administer New some instructions Zealand. Using some earlier ideas he had drafted in 1836, he re-worded and suggests these to better reflect the changed political sentiment of 1839. The result was Hobson as Consul a comprehensive set of Instructions that would lay the basis for the entire character of British intervention in New Zealand. Stephen also suggested Captain William Hobson be appointed Consul. In August, Lord Melbourne’s second Government collapsed after a resounding defeat in the House of Commons. Peel became Prime Minister for a few days; then Melbourne was reinstated — the House was in an uproar. Now Lord Normanby, the Colonial Secretary since February 1839, was Lord Normanby being shifted out to take up the post of Secretary of State for the Home about to be Department, and Lord John Russell was about to become the new Colonial shifted out Secretary. On 14th August 1839, with just a few days left in office and amidst this Lord Normanby political upheaval, Normanby hurriedly gave his consent to the Instruc- signs off the tions that commanded Captain William Hobson to go to New Zealand, Instructions secure a treaty with Maori and then assume the post of Lieutenant- to Hobson Governor in the new colony. Hobson was to be answerable to the Chief- Governor, George Gipps of New South Wales. These lengthy and specific Instructions were to be critical in the construc- tion of a treaty between Maori and the Government of Great Britain. 157.