ABSTRACT
Fortunately Lord Grey was not a small-minded man: he was convinced by the Governor's arguments and at once informed him that the provisions for representative government would be suspended for five years .. Indeed, he went farther than the Governor had ventured to recommend, for he thought it advisable that the suspension should apply in the south as well as in the north. He hoped that the Governor would at once proceed with the municipal part of the policy, as being the best preparation for wider powers; he would empower him to dispense in particular cases with the literary qualification for the franchise, and would empower the New Zealand Legislative Council to establish Provincial Councils if it should think fit.4 A heavy responsibility was
imposed upon the Governor, as Peel and Gladstone pointed out in the debates on the Suspension Bill in 1848, but George Grey was a man who revelled in responsibility. He was certain to be involved in much unpopularity, for the southern settlers in particular felt that the cup of freedom had been snatched from their very lips: but on the other hand he had the power of working out his own ideas on native policy and of remodelling on his own lines the copybook constitution of 1846. For after 1847 Lord Grey left his Governor virtually a free hand. And the colonists had at least the consolation that Parliament would still provide, as under a system of free institutions it could not be expected to provide, for a large part of the expenses of government in New Zealand. l
Little was left now of the native land policy or the constitutional policy of 1846, but Buller's agreement with the Company still stood. Along with the pacification of the country by George Grey and the success of his land purchase policy, it led to a revival of confidence in the colony. The population, the customs revenue grew steadily: agriculture made slow and pastoral pursuits more rapid progress. At Auckland the number of speculators had always been greater in proportion to the genuine settlers, and there the new policy made little difference: it recovered more slowly. In the far south two new settlements were founded-each of them upon the Wakefield plan of colonization, and each of them under the patronage of the Company. The Free Kirk colony of Otago had originated about the time of the disruption of the Scottish Church in 1843, and the Otago Block on which it was fixed was purchased in 1844, but it was not until March 1848 that the first ship arrived and the colony was founded. In Otago most of the business after the selection of the emigrants and sale of the properties was done by the Company. In the case of Canterbury it did little more than provide the preliminary funds and put 2,500,000 acres in the colony at the disposal of the Canterbury Association, though· no doubt it also served a useful purpose in acting as a buffer between Wakefield and the Colonial Office.
