Appendix 2 - Colonisation on New Zealand: Extract from Queens' Instructions of 5 December 1840
37. And whereas by the said recited charter, we have given and granted to the governor of our said colony of New Zealand for the time being, full power and authority, with the advice and consent of the Executive Council of our said colony (but subject nevertheless to such provisions as should be in that respect contained in any instructions which might from time to time be addressed to him in that behalf), by any proclamation or proclamations, to divide our said colony into districts, counties, hundreds, towns, townships, and parishes, and to appoint the limits thereof respectively, and to make and execute in our name, and on our behalf, under the public seal of our said colony, grants of waste land to us belonging within the same, to private persons for their own use and benefit, or to any persons, bodies, politic or corporate, in trust for the public. uses of our subjects there resident, or any of them; provided nevertheless, that nothing in the said charter contained shall affect or be construed to affect the rights of any aboriginal natives of the said colony to the actual - occupation or enjoyment in their own persons, or in the persons of their descendants, of any lands in the said colony then actually occupied or enjoyed by such natives. Now we do hereby authorize and require you to cause a survey to be made, in manner hereinafter mentioned, of all the lands within our said colony; and you are for this purpose from time to time to issue instructions to the surveyor-general for the time being of our said colony, and to divide and apportion the whole of the said colony into counties, each of which shall contain, as nearly as may be, 40 miles square, and to apportion each county into hundreds, of which each hundred sha1l, as nearly as may be, comprise an area of one 100 square miles, and again to sub-divide each hundred into parishes, of which each parish shall, as nearly as may be, comprise an area of 25 square miles; and you are to instruct the said surveyor-general that in making the division aforesaid of our said colony into counties, hundreds and parishes, he do have regard to all such natural divisions thereof as may be formed by rivers, streams, highlands, or otherwise; and that whenever in order to obtain a clear and well-defined natural boundary of any county, hundred, or parish, it shall be lawful and necessary to include therein a greater or a smaller quantity of land than is hereinbefore mentioned, he the said surveyor-general do make such deviations from the prescribed, dimensions of such county, hundred, or parish as may be necessary for obtaining such natural boundary, provided that no such county, hundred, or parish, shall in any case exceed or fall short of the dimensions before prescribed to the extent of more than one third part of such dimensions.
38. You are further to require the said surveyor-general from time to time to make to you reports, setting forth the progress which he has made in the before-mentioned survey of our said colony, specifying therein. the limits of each county, hundred, and parish which he has surveyed and apportioned; and you are to require him to annex to such his written reports charts or maps of every such county, hundred, and parish.
39. And it is our pleasure that when any such report of the surveyor-general as aforesaid shall be finally approved by you, with the advice of our said Executive Council, the same shall be deposited among the public records of the said colony, and that an exact transcript thereof shall be deposited in the office of the surveyor-general of our said colony, and that another transcript thereof shall be transmitted to us through one of our Principal Secretaries of State.
40. And for the better guidance of the said surveyor-general in the execution of the duty so to be committed to him, you will, with the advice of the said Executive Council, issue to him such instructions as may from time to time become necessary.
41. And it is our further will and pleasure, and we do hereby specially authorize and empower you in our name from time to time to issue, under the public seal of our said colony, letters patent for erecting into counties, hundreds, and parishes such districts as may m manner aforesaid be selected for that purpose by the said surveyor-general, in and by any reports so to be; made by him and approved by you; and all such letters patent so to be issued by you in our name shall be enro1led among the public records of the said colony, and shall be of record; and the issuing of any such letters patent shall by you be made known to all our loving subjects within our said colony by proclamations, to be by you from time to time published for that purpose in the most usual and public manner.
42. And we do further authorize and require you, in and by any such letters patent as aforesaid, in our name and on our behalf, to grant to our loving subjects resident within any such county, hundred, or parish all such franchises, immunities, rights, and privileges whatever as, consistently with the circumstances, situation, laws, and usages of our colony of New Zealand, may be properly granted to such our loving subjects in that behalf; provided that such franchises, immunities, rights, and privileges shall, as far as the circumstances of the said colony may admit, be such as are and of right may be claimed, held, enjoyed, and exercised by our subjects inhabiting and residing in any county, hundred, or parish in that part of our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called England, and not otherwise.
43. And it is our pleasure, and we do further direct you to require and authorize the said surveyor-general further to report to you what particular lands it may be proper to reserve in each county, hundred, and parish, so to be surveyed by him as aforesaid, for public roads and other internal communications, whether by land or water, or as the sites of towns, villages churches, school-houses, or parsonage-houses, or as places for the interment of the dead, or as places for the future extension of any existing towns or villages, or as places fit to be set apart for the recreation and amusement of the inhabitants of any town or village, or for promoting the health of such inhabitants, or as the sites of quays or landing-places which it may at any future time be expedient to erect, form, or establish on the sea coast or in the neighbourhood of navigable streams, or which it may be desirable to reserve for any other purpose of public convenience, utility, health, or enjoyment; and you are specially to require the sand surveyor-general to specify in his reports, and to distinguish in the charts or maps to be subjoined to those reports, such tracts, pieces, or parcels of land in each county, hundred, and parish within our said colony as may appear to him best adapted to answer ad promote the several public purposes before mentioned; and it is our will and pleasure, and we do strictly enjoin and require you, that you do not on any account, or on any pretence whatsoever, grant, convey, or demise to any person or persons any of the lands so specified as fit to be reserved as aforesaid, nor permit or suffer any such lands to be occupied by any private person for any private purposes.
44. And it is our will and pleasure that all the waste and uncleared lands within our said colony, belonging to and vested in us, which shall remain after making such reservations as before mentioned for the public service of our said colony of New Zealand shall hereafter be sold and disposed of at one uniform price per acre, which price it is our pleasure shall from time to time be fixed and determined by such instructions as we shall from time to time convey to you through one of our Principal Secretaries of State.
45. And we do further direct that the survey of lands in our said colony shall be carried forward with all practicable expedition, and that the land shall be divided into lots, consisting of not more than one square mile each, which said lots may be further divided into such smaller lots, being equal parts of square miles, as may hereafter be directed by us through one of our Principal Secretaries of State; provided nevertheless, and we do hereby require, that the amount of the expense, to be incurred from year to year in effecting such surveys be included in the estimate of the public expenditure of the said colony, to be annually laid before the legislature thereof, and that such expenses be a charge upon the land revenue of the current year, and be not in any year greater than one-fifth part of the estimated amount of such land revenue, and that such estimate be never exceeded in the actual expenditure for the service aforesaid during the year.
46. And we do direct that charts of all the lands surveyed as aforesaid shall be kept for public inspection in the office of our surveyor-general or deputy surveyor-general for the said colony.
47. And we do further direct that there shall be kept at the office of our said surveyor- general registers of all lands hereafter to be appropriated in the said colony, and that registers shall also be prepared at the same office, as far as may be practicable, of all lands which may have been appropriated within the said colony.
48. And it is our pleasure that such charts and registers shall be kept in such form and manner as to exhibit to all persons applying for the same full and authentic information of all appropriations of land, and all surveyed lands not appropriated.
49. And we do direct, that any person within our said colony of New Zealand, who shall pay to the treasurer or deputy-treasurer of our said colony any sum or sums of money for the purchase of lands situated in the said colony, shall be entitled to receive from such treasurer or deputy-treasurer a certificate of such payment; and on production of such certificate at the office of the surveyor-general in the said colony, every such person shall be entitled to have appropriated and granted to him or her such unappropriated land within the said colony as may be selected by him or her, the number of acres to be granted to him or her corresponding with the amount of the payment so appearing to have been made by him or her divided by the said uniform price per acre.
50. And we do direct, that no person within our said colony shall be entitled to purchase land therein except by payment made as aforesaid to the treasurer or deputy-treasurer of our said colony.
51. And we do further declare our pleasure to be, that and person within our United Kingdom, who shall pay to the agent for our said colony of New Zealand resident in London any sum or sums of money, in such amount as may from time to time be fixed by us for that purpose, for the purchase of land situate in the said colony shall be entitled to receive from such agent a certificate of such payments; and on production of such certificate to our Commissioners of Colonial Land and Emigration in this our United Kingdom, every such person shall be entitled to receive from the said Commissioners a certificate that he or she hath become the purchaser of such a number of acres within the said colony as may be selected by him or her for that purpose, the number of acres to be appropriated to every such purchaser corresponding with the amount of the payments so appearing to have been made by him or her, divided by the said uniform price of land per acre.
52. And we do further declare our pleasure to be, that on the production by any such purchasers as 1ast aforesaid of any such certificate as last aforesaid from the said Commissioners of Colonial Land and Emigration, at the office of our said surveyor of Crown lands in the said colony New Zealand, the said purchaser shall be entitled to have appropriated and granted to him or her such unappropriated lands as may be selected by him or her under the same regulations as aforesaid.
53. Provided nevertheless, and it is our will and pleasure, that all such purchases so to be made as aforesaid, whether by payments in our colony of New Zealand or in this our United Kingdom, shall be made in lots, consisting of such number of acres as shall from time to time be fixed for that purpose by us or under our authority.
54. And we do further direct that grants of all lands, so to be appropriated as aforesaid, shall with all practicable speed after the appropriation thereof, be issued under the public seal of our said colony to the purchaser thereof, and that for ensuring method and punctuality in that respect a sufficient number of such grants, with blanks for the names of the purchasers, and for the description of the lands so to be purchased, shall be kept at the office of the surveyor-general of our said colony, all lands so to be granted as aforesaid being described in such grants with exact references to the charts and registers as aforesaid.
55. And we do further declare our pleasure to be, that any persons by whom such purchase of land as aforesaid shall have been made within this our United Kingdom, shall be entitled either to the free conveyance to the said colony of any emigrants who may be named by them to our Commissioners of Colonial Land and Emigration for the purpose, provided such emigrants shall fall within the rules to be approved and established on our behalf by one of our Principal Secretaries of State, and that the number of such emigrants shall not exceed such proportion to the amount paid for land, as may be fixed and determined on our behalf by one of our Principal Secretaries of State, or else shall be entitled to the payment of a bounty on the introduction of such emigrants as aforesaid into our said colony, according as the one course or the other may be provided by any rules and regulations hereafter to be established in that behalf by one of our Principal Secretaries of State.
56. And we do further declare our pleasure to be that, anything hereinbefore contained to the contrary notwithstanding, no land shall be sold in any part of the said colony of New Zealand, which the said surveyor-general may report to you as proper to be reserved for any of the several public uses hereinbefore mentioned.
Contact for Enquiries
Mark Neeson
Manager, Land and Water Policy
Pastoral House
25 The Terrace
PO Box 2526, Wellington
Phone: +64 894 0703
Fax: +64 4 894 0745
