This attempt to mislead the Minister by a flagrant disregard for the proceedings of Major Bunbury and all that those proceedings implied, was unfortunately but too characteristic of the methods pursued by the Company at this time, whose officers had now developed a dexterity in conjuring with facts against the subtlety of which the Minister could not too jealously guard the public interests.
To the equivocal attitude adopted by the Company Lord Stanley replied through his Under-Secretary, Mr. Hope, in one of the noblest passages ever penned by a British Minister,—a passage in which he sternly refused to sacrifice official integrity to mere commercialism or national honour to ambitious personal ends:
"Lord Stanley," wrote Mr. Hope, "is not prepared, as Her Majesty's Secretary of State, to join with the New Zealand Company in setting aside the Treaty of Waitangi, after obtaining the advantages guaranteed by it, even though it might be made with 'naked savages,' or though it might be treated by lawyers as 'a praiseworthy device for amusing and pacifying savages for the moment.' Lord Stanley entertains a different view of the respect due to the obligations contracted by the Crown of England, and his final answer to the demands of the New Zealand Company must be that, so long as he has the honour of serving the Crown, he will not admit that any person, or any Government acting in the name of Her Majesty, can contract a legal, moral, or honorary obligation to despoil others of their lawful and equitable rights."
Foiled in their efforts to induce the Colonial Minister to award them the full measure of their enormous claim without question or enquiry, the Company then preferred a claim for compensation against the State on the grounds that the policy of the Colonial Office and the proceedings of the Government in New Zealand had brought them to the verge of financial ruin. Still powerful in the House of Commons they were able to exert considerable influence there, and in April 1844 a Select Committee was set up, with Lord Howick, now one of the Company's warmest friends, as Chairman, and an order of reference which authorised them "to enquire into the State of the Colony of New Zealand, and into the proceedings of the New Zealand Company."
The Committee sat until July, taking voluminous evidence from many persons who had some previous knowledge of the country, and when they met to formulate their report it was found that they were sharply divided on material points. A section of the Committee, led by Messrs. Cardwell and Hope, Lord Stanley's Under-Secretary, endeavoured to so frame the report as to make amongst others the following acknowledgments:
That from the time of the discovery by Captain Cook to the beginning of the year 1840, the independence of New Zealand had never been questioned by this country, and in 1832 was recognised by the British Government in a very peculiar and formal manner.
That the urgent applications made by private individuals from time to time to the Colonial Office for the adoption of these islands as a British colony, were reluctantly acceded to by the British Government in 1839, with a view to preventing the evils arising and apprehended from irregular and unauthorised settlement.
That this adoption was effected in the early part of 1840 by an agreement called the Treaty of Waitangi, made by Captain Hobson with upwards of 500 chiefs and other natives, claiming and admitted on the part of this country, to represent the whole population, so far as regarded the Northern Island; while the other islands, which contained no population capable of entering into anything resembling a civil contract, were assumed to the British Crown by the right and title of discovery.[176]
That this treaty was made by Captain Hobson in pursuance of instructions previously received from Home, and that his proceedings obtained the subsequent approbation of the Government.
That the natives ceded to the Queen the sovereignty of the Northern Island, and the Crown secured, in return, to the chiefs and tribes of New Zealand, and to the respective families and individuals thereof, the full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of their lands and estates, forests, fisheries, and other properties, which they may collectively and individually possess, so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession.