Chap. XVIII. DISALLOWANCE OF ORDINANCES. 485 
price and revengeful disposition, it would have been the 
duty of a really humane and humanizing Government 
to deter such men as Rauperaha and Rungihaeata 
from the indulgence of their unbridled passions by the 
most iron-like justice and the most severe penalties. 
It was in the end of September that we got the Go- 
vernment Gazette from Auckland, announcing the dis- 
allowance by Lord Stanley of the last Land Claims Bill 
and the Corporation Bill, and also detailing the reasons 
for disallowance. 
The Land Claims Bill had been passed in 1842 to 
amend the one passed in 1841. The principal reason 
adduced by the Colonial Office for disallowing the Bill 
of 1842 was, that it did not provide against an ad- 
mitted evil, the accumulation of land in new colonies 
in the hands of persons without capital or the means 
of introducing labour. The Ordinance of June 1841, 
like the New South Wales Land Claims Bill of 1840, 
limited grants of land to 2560 acres, beyond which no 
grant could be claimed. This restriction was aban- 
doned in the Ordinance passed in 1842, now dis- 
allowed. The next ground taken for its disallowance 
was, that a large body of settlers (the northern land- 
sharks) had represented that it would be injurious to 
their interests. The principle of the Ordinance of 
lb41 was to value the land, to those who had obtained 
it in times of insecurity, and had expended labour and 
capital upon it, at a low rate, which was considered 
just. That principle the Ordinance of 1842 abandoned, 
and placing all parties upon an equality, fixed a uniform 
price of 5*. wherever and under whatever circumstances 
it had been obtained. To the justice of this Lord 
Stanley could not assent. The Governor was then 
instructed to be guided in future by the provisions of 
the enactment of the 9th June 1841 ; which was of 
