Abstract:
When, in 1886, William Gisborne surveyed the first half century of organized British settlement in New Zealand he noted that the country had been "from the first, the puzzle of politicians"; for although its problems had been "worked on a small scale ... their solution involved serious issues, affecting the honour of the Crown, and the lives, property and welfare of those directly concerned". Gisborne was interested in statesmanship, "with the ascertainment", as he put it, "of sound principles of political action, and in their wise adaptation to circumstances". William Gisborne, New Zealand Rulers and Statesmen, p. 1 The thesis here presented has been prompted by a similar interest. It is a study of the attempt to establish in New Zealand institutions of government that would be capable of satisfying the desire of the settlers for self government and of protecting the rights and interests of the native race, and at the same time of laying the foundations upon which the amalgamation of the two races in a single political community could be built. Its purpose is to elucidate the principles of political action that were devised, first in the Treaty of Waitangi and later in the Constitutions of 1846 and 1852, to resolve what were in fact incompatible objectives of policy, and to explain how these principles, as finally expressed in the Constitution of 1852, were adapted during the early years of self government to the still conflicting conditions of the colony.
