ABSTRACT
WHEN Lord Grey came into office the strife that had so long been raging in England upon New Zealand affairs was dying down: the New Zealand Company and the Government were slowly coming together. To all intents and purposes the parties had agreed that New Zealand should be given self-government; that the colony should in some way be politically divided in view of the difficulty of running Auckland and Wellington in double harness; that something should be done to provide land for settlement; and that some financial aid should be given to the Company. Now Lord Grey, as Chairman of the Select Committee of 1844 and as a speaker in the debates of the following year, had identified himself to no small extent with the Company's cause; and Charles Buller himself was a member of the Ministry and was to assist Grey at the Colonial Office. These men were surely destined to bring to the Company and to the colony all, and more than all, that Peel and Gladstone had promised them. Lord Grey was not a man to waste time. Before the session was out he had passed a Bill to confer representative government on New Zealand, and soon the settlement of the other vexed questions was in train.
