Immigration, ID Cards and the Erosion of British Freedom: Part 2

In the first part of this post I discussed the way successive administrations since Mrs Thatcher – those of john Major, Tony Blair, and now, possibly, the coalition, had planned to introduce ID cards. Privacy campaigners such as Simon Davies have opposed them, because of the immense potential they represent for human rights abuses, the mass surveillance of the population, and discrimination against immigrants and minorities. I posted it as a response to Mike’s piece on Vox Political, which I reblogged, on Theresa May’s latest campaign against illegal immigration, and the fears landlords and immigrants’ rights groups have about the terrible effect this will have on them. The landlords in particular were concerned that this would lead to the introduction of 404 European document-style ID cards. In this part of the post I will discuss the dangers ID cards present, and their failure to do what is often claimed for them, such as to prevent crime and illegal immigration.

It looks like illegal immigration will be the platform by which ID cards will be introduced in this country. Mike and a number of other bloggers have commented on the way recent statements and policies by coalition ministers to combat illegal immigration suggest that they plan to introduce ID cards as part of their campaign. Illegal immigration has been the main issue driving their introduction in Europe, America and some developing nations. Davies book on the growth of the surveillance society in Britain notes that as the European Union dissolves borders in Europe, so the police were given greater power to check people’s ID. As for fears that ID cards will somehow stop illegal immigrants from claiming benefits, this has been disproved in Australia. The Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Australia Card found that of 57,000 people, who overstayed their visa in New South Wales, on 22 were illegally claiming Unemployment Benefit.

Anti-racism campaigners are right to worry that ID will increase discrimination. ID cards carrying information on the bearer’s ethnic groups or religious beliefs have been used to discriminate against minority groups in many countries. The Japanese were accused of racism when they passed legislation forcing all foreigners to carry ID cards. The French police were similarly accused of racism in demanding Blacks and Algerians carry and produce ID cards. This was one of the reasons behind the race riots in France in the 1990s. In Greece, the authorities were also accused of using the religious information on the card to discriminate against those, who were not Greek Orthodox. Down Under, Aboriginal and Jewish Australians joined the campaign against the Australia Card from fear that they would also suffer discrimination. A few thousand miles across the Pacific in New Zealand, Kiwi trade unions and civil liberties groups also feared ID cards would lead to discrimination against minorities and the poor.

Contrary to the frequent claims made by various Right-wing governments like Thatcher’s, Major’s and Blair’s, ID cards don’t actually stop welfare fraud. Says Davies ‘the key area of interest lies in creating a single numbering system which would be used as a basis for employment eligibility, and which would reduce the size of the black market economy’. In Oz, the Department of Social Security stated that much less than 1 per cent of overpaid benefits came from identity fraud. The true figure for such crime is probably 0.6 per cent. Most fraudulent or overpaid benefit claims – 61 per cent – came from the non-reporting of variations in the claimant’s income.

ID cards also don’t stop crime. This is again contrary to the statements made by governments wishing to introducing them. The problem is not the identification of criminals, but in collecting sufficient evidence and successfully prosecuting them. The Association of Chief Police Officers in Britain concluded in 1993 report that burglaries, street crime and crimes committed by people impersonating officials could be reduced through ID cards. They did not, however, present any evidence for this. The Association did fear that the introduction of ID cards would make relations between the police and the general public worse. Davies considered that only a DNA or biometric database could possibly link perpetrators with their crimes.

The introduction of ID cards do, however, increase police powers. Police routinely ask for ID cards in all the countries that have them, and detain those, who don’t possess them. In Britain the wartime ID cards were removed in 1953 after a High Court judge ruled that their routine demand by the police was contrary to the spirit of the National Registration Act, and adversely affected the good relations between police and the public.

In fact, instead of helping to combat crime, ID cards actually help it. ID cards provide a ‘one-stop’ proof of identity, and this can and is used by criminal gangs in their crimes. The technology used to manufacture the cards is now available and used by such organisations. As ordinary organisations, such as companies and the state civil service increasingly rely on ID cards as the unquestioned proof of an individual’s identity, so they abandon the other systems used to check it that they have been using for decades. As a result, crimes using fake identities are actually easier with ID cards.

ID cards are a real danger to the privacy of personal information. About one per cent of the staff of companies involved in collecting the personal information used to construct the relational databases used in such cards are corrupt and prepared to trade confidential information. Each year, one per cent of all bank staff in Europe are dismissed for corruption. This is a minuscule percentage, it is true, but nevertheless it still presents a danger to the privacy and safety of the public. In Britain, computer crime amongst the civil services own ID staff massively increased in the 1980s and 1990s. The National Accounting Office estimated in March 1995 that hacking, theft and infection by viruses were all increasing on the IT network in Whitehall. In one year, for example, hacking rose by 140 per cent and viruses by a massive 300 per cent. Of the 655 cases of hacking in the Whitehall network identified by the NAO, most involved staff exceeding their authority to obtain the personal information of members of the public, which was they then passed on to outside individuals.

ID card schemes also tend to be much more expensive than governments’ estimate and allow for. Once again, Australia provides a good example of this. When introducing the Australia Card scheme, the Ozzie government failed to take into account training costs, and the expenses coming from administrative supervision, staff turnover, holiday and sick leave, as well as compliance, the issue of the cards overseas and fraud. They also underestimated the costs of issuing and maintaining the cards and how expensive they would be to private industry. In the first part of this post I mentioned how leading Australian bankers and financiers, such as Sir Noel Foley, were openly hostile to the scheme. This is not surprising, as the Australian Bankers’ Association estimated that the ID card their would cost Ozzie banks A$100 million over ten years. The total cost of the cards to the private sector was estimated at A$1 billion per year. At the time Davies was writing, the cost of the card system in the UK had not taken into account of administration and compliance costs. These could be as high as £2 – £3 billion. When Tony Blair launched his scheme to develop biometric ID cards, there was further embarrassment to the government when it was revealed by the papers that the scheme had also gone massively over its budget due to problems in developing the technology.

Another factor against the cards is the distress and inconvenience caused to the individual by their accidental loss or destruction. About five per cent of ID cards are either lost, damaged or stolen every year, and it can be several weeks before a replacement is received.

Governments have frequently insisted that ID cards will be voluntary. This was the stance taken by Tony Blair’s government on them. It is misleading. There is a tendency for them to become compulsory. Even in nations where they are voluntary, there is considerable inconvenience if they are not carried, so that they are actually compulsory in practice if not in law.

ID cards also have a tendency to become internal passports as they acquire other uses through function creep. These will include all government and a significant number of important, private functions.

Finally, opponents of ID cards object to them because they feel that they damage national identity and personal integrity. The movements against ID cards in America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand called attention to the fears of ordinary people that the introduction of such cards would reduce them to mere numbers. They were a symbol of oppressive authority, and represented popular anxieties that their countries were ruled, not by elected officials, but by bureaucracies driven by technology.

Actually, reading through all the considerable negative aspects of ID cards and the list of the dangers and damage they represent to society and the safety and privacy of its members, I can see why the Coalition government would see no problem in introducing them. After all, such schemes are inefficient, corrupt and massively expensive. They expand the power of the state and the police at the expense of the individual, and are used to persecute and victimise minorities and the poor. Pretty much like all the Coalition’s policies, then. And ID cards are exactly like IDS welfare schemes and workfare in that, undercover of eliminating welfare fraud, which they actually don’t do anything about, they’re really about controlling the movement of labour.

So, corrupt, authoritarian and discriminatory: just right for Theresa May and the rest of the Coalition then!

Immigration, ID Cards and the Erosion of British Freedom: Part 1

‘The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts’.

– Edmund Burke.

Edmund Burke is regarded as the founder of modern Conservatism, the defender of tradition, freedom, and gradual change against revolutionary innovation based solely on abstract principle. He was also the 18th century MP, who successfully campaigned for the Canadian provinces to be given self-government on the grounds that, as they paid their taxes, so they had earned their right to government. His defence of tradition came from his observation of the horror of the French Revolution and his ideas regarding their political and social causes, as reflected in his great work, Reflections on the Revolution in France. While his Conservatism may justly be attacked by those on the Left, the statement on the gradual, incremental danger to liberty is still very much true, and should be taken seriously by citizens on both the Left and Right sides of the political spectrum. This should not be a party political issue.

In my last post, I reblogged Mike’s article commenting on recent legislation attempting to cut down on illegal immigration. This essentially devolved the responsibility for checking on the status of immigrants to private individuals and organisations, such as banks and landlords. As with much of what the government does, or claims to do, it essentially consists of the state putting its duties and responsibilities into the private sphere. Among the groups protesting at the proposed new legislation were the BMA, immgrants’ rights groups and the Residential Landlords’ Association. The last were particularly concerned about the possible introduction of identification documents, modelled on the 404 European papers, in order to combat illegal immigration. Such fears are neither new nor unfounded. I remember in the early 1980s Mrs Thatcher’s administration considered introduction ID cards. The plan was dropped as civil liberties groups were afraid that this would create a surveillance society similar to that of Nazi Germany or the Communist states. The schemes were mooted again in the 1990s first by John Major’s administration, and then by Blair’s Labour party, following pressure from the European Union, which apparently considers such documents a great idea. The Conservative papers then, rightly but hypocritically, ran articles attacking the scheme.

There are now a couple of books discussing and criticising the massive expansion of state surveillance in modern Britain and our gradual descent into just such a totalitarian surveillance state portrayed in Moore’s V for Vendetta. One of these is Big Brother: Britain’s Web of Surveillance and the New Technological Order, by Simon Davies, published by Pan in 1996. Davies was the founder of Privacy International, a body set up in 1990 to defend individual liberties from encroachment by the state and private corporations. He was the Visiting Law Fellow at the University of Essex and Chicago’s John Marshall Law School. Davies was suspicious of INSPASS – the Immigration and Naturalisation Service Passenger Accelerated Service System, an automatic system for checking and verifying immigration status using palm-prints and smart cards. It was part of the Blue Lane information exchange system in which information on passengers was transmitted to different countries ahead of the journey. The countries using the system were the US, Canada, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, San Marino, Spain, Sweden and the UK. Davies considered the scheme a danger to liberty through the state’s increasing use of technology to monitor and control the population.

At the time Davies was writing, 90 countries used ID cards including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. They also included such sterling examples of democracy as Thailand and Singapore. In the latter, the ID card was used as an internal passport and was necessary for every transaction. The Singaporean government under Lee Kwan Yew has regularly harassed and imprisoned political opponents. The longest serving prisoner of conscience isn’t in one of the Arab despotisms or absolute monarchies, nor in Putin’s Russia. They’re in Singapore. A few years ago the country opened its first free speech corner, modelled on Hyde Park’s own Speaker’s Corner. You were free to use it, provided you gave due notice about what you were planning to talk about to the police first for their approval. There weren’t many takers. As for Thailand, each citizen was issued a plastic identity card. The chip in each contained their thumbprint and photograph, as well as details of their ancestry, education, occupation, nationality, religion, and police records and tax details. It also contains their Population Number, which gives access to all their documents, whether public or private. It was the world’s second largest relational database, exceeded in size only by that of the Mormon Church at their headquarters in Salt Lake City. Thailand also has a ‘village information system’, which collates and monitors information at the village level. This is also linked to information on the person’s electoral preferences, public opinion data and information on candidates in local elections. The Bangkok post warned that the system would strengthen the interior ministry and the police. If you needed to be reminded, Thailand has regularly appeared in the pages of the ‘Letter from…’ column in Private Eye as it is a barely disguised military dictatorship.

In 1981 France’s President Mitterand declared that ‘the creation of computerised identity cards contains are real danger for the liberty of individuals’. This did not stop France and the Netherlands passing legislation requiring foreigners to carry identity cards. The European umbrella police organisation, Europol, also wanted all the nations in Europe to force their citizens to carry identity cards. At the global level, the International Monetary Fund routinely included the introduction of ID cards into the criteria of economic, social and political performance for nations in the developing world.

Davies’ own organisation, Privacy International, founded in 1990, reported than in their survey of 50 countries using ID cards, the police in virtually all of them abused the system. The abuses uncovered by the organisation included detention after failure to produce the card, and the beating of juveniles and members of minorities, as well as massive discrimination based on the information the card contained.

In Australia, the financial sector voiced similar concerns about the scheme to those expressed recently by the landlords and immigrants’ rights and welfare organisations. Under the Australian scheme, employees in the financial sector were required by law to report suspicious information or abuse of ID cards to the government. The penalty for neglecting or refusing to do so was gaol. The former chairman of the Pacific nation’s largest bank, Westpar, Sir Noel Foley, attacked the scheme. It was ‘a serious threat to the privacy, liberty and safety of every citizen’. The Australian Financial Review stated in an editorial on the cards that ‘It is simply obscene to use revenue arguments (‘We can make more money out of the Australia Card’) as support for authoritarian impositions rather than take the road of broadening national freedoms’. Dr Bruce Shepherd, the president of the Australian Medical Association stated of the scheme that ‘It’s going to turn Australian against Australian. But given the horrific impact the card will have on Australia, its defeat would almost be worth fighting a civil war for’. To show how bitterly the country that produced folk heroes like Ned Kelly thought of this scheme, cartoons appeared in the Ozzie papers showing the country’s president, Bob Hawke, in Nazi uniform.

For those without ID cards, the penalties were harsh. They could not be legally employed, or, if in work, paid. Farmers, who didn’t have them, could not collect payments from marketing boards. If you didn’t have a card, you also couldn’t access your bank account, cash in any investments, give or receive money from a solicitor, or receive money from unity, property or cash management trusts. You also couldn’t rent or buy a home, receive unemployment benefit, or the benefits for widows, supporting parents, or for old age, sickness and invalidity. There was a A$5,000 fine for deliberate destruction of the card, a A$500 fine if you lost the card but didn’t report it. The penalty for failing to attend a compulsory conference at the ID agency was A$1,000 or six months gaol. The penalty for refusing to produce it to the Inland Revenue when they demanded was A$20,000. About 5 per cent of the cards were estimated to be lost, stolen or deliberately destroyed each year.

The ID Card was too much for the great Australian public to stomach, and the scheme eventually had to be scrapped. It’s a pity that we Poms haven’t learned from our Ozzie cousins and that such ID schemes are still being seriously contemplated over here. It is definitely worth not only whingeing about, but protesting very loudly and strongly indeed.

In Part 2 of this article, I will describe precisely what the scheme does not and cannot do, despite all the inflated claims made by its proponents.

Former French Foreign Minister: Britain Planned to Attack Syria Two Years Previously

The clip below is of the former French foreign minister, Dumas, stating on French television that he had been at a meeting two years previously in London. He claimed that during the meeting, David Cameron told him Britain had made plans to invade Syria, because of the threat the Syrians posed to Israel. He claimed further that the Israeli president had said to him that Israeli wished to leave in peace with the surrounding states. If they couldn’t, they would take these states down.

I don’t know whether this claim is true or not. The bombing of Greenpeace’s ship, The Rainbow Warrior, in New Zealand in the 1980s by French special forces shows that the French are also capable of taking violent covert action against those groups they see as acting against their national interests. In the case of the Rainbow Warrior, the ship had been active in demonstrations against French nuclear testing in the Pacific. It is possible that this claim is disinformation, designed to serve some purpose of the French state in the region in some way. It could, of course, also just be complete rubbish uttered by the former minister for his own ends, or simply due to a poor memory.

My guess is that there’s probably something to it. Although Syria had initially cooperated with America in intelligence gathering after 9/11, by 2002 the relationship had soured. Michael Young, in his paper, ‘Syria, the US and Terrorism’ states that the pro-Israel and Neo-Conservative groups in Bush’s government increasingly disliked Syria, partly because the Syrians had provided sanctuary to Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas. This wasn’t the sole cause of these groups’ hostility towards Syria. Other reasons included Syria’s occupation of Lebanon and the fact that the country also appeared to be allowing Islamic terrorists and remnants of the Ba’ath party to enter Iraq to attack Coalition forces. I think that it’s therefore highly likely that some kind of decision was made several years ago to attack Syria for these reasons.

Source

Michael Young, ‘Syria, the US and Terrorism’, in Christopher Heffelfinger, ed., Unmasking Terror: A Global Review of Terrorist Activities (Washington DC: The Jamestown Foundation 2005) 56-8.

Missionaries and the British Annexation of New Zealand

Christianity has been attacked for its role in supporting and promoting European colonialism. According to some critics of Christianity, its character as a universalist religion and mission to convert those outside the faith was used to support European imperialism and the conquest and displacement of indigenous peoples. Christian evangelism provided the pretext and legitimised the dispossession of indigenous, non-Christian peoples from their lands, the destruction of their way of life, and their exploitation and enslavement by their new colonial masters. 

Now some of the most vicious and expoitative imperialist regimes did indeed attempt to justify their conquest of and expoitation of their new, non-European subjects through the claim that they were saving the souls of the indigenous peoples by bringing them Christianity. The Spanish Conquest of the New World, for example, was based on the theological notion originating from the Crusades, that as God was lord of all creation, pagan states and political structures, which failed to recognise Him had no validity. It was the duty of the Amerindian nations to convert to Christianity. If they did not, the Spanish crown had the right to impose Christianity by force and overthrow them. 1The atrocities committed by the Spanish against the Amerindians during the conquest of South America became notorious, though they were hardly alone. Other nations, such as the Portuguese and British, also committed atrocities in their campaigns of imperialist expansion and colonisation.

Demand for Missionaries and Missionary Opposition to Imperialism in New Zealand

However, the justification of European imperialism was one aspect of a complex relationship between European states, the churches and indigenous peoples. Elsewhere Christian evangelism was invited and encouraged by indigenous leaders because it brought their peoples literacy, modern medical care, and access to European goods and markets, while Christian missionaries also acted as peacemakers between warring indigenous nations. Nor did Christian missionaries always see indigenous peoples as inferiors to be colonised by Europeans. While most, if not all, certainly believed in the superiority of European culture, many also took the view that contact with Europeans brutalised and exploited extra-European peoples. As a result, some missionaries were strongly opposed to imperialism, while others supported it as a means of controlling and punishing the lawless behaviour of European traders and settlers who were already encroaching on indigenous territories. This was the case in New Zealand in the early 19th century, where British missionaries such as Henry and Edward Williams, and Dandeson Coates of the Church Missionary Society, supported the annexation of New Zealand by Britain under the Treaty of Waitangi as a means of protecting the Maori against oppression by European colonists.

Beginnings of Christians Missionary Work in New Zealand

Missions to New Zealand by citizens of the British Empire began in the second decade of the 19th century. In 1808 the Anglican Church’s Church Missionary Society proposed sending missionaries to New Zealand.  Six years later, in 1814, Thomas Kendall and William Hall, two Anglican lay readers from New South Wales, and the Anglican clergyman Samuel Marsden established a mission at the Bay of Islands. They were followed by the Wesleyan Methodists, who under Leigh and William White, established a missionat Whangaroa in 1821. Their activities were closely monitored by Maori chiefs, who, in return for allowing the missionaries to preach the Gospel and attempt to convert their subjects, expected the missionaries to promote trade between themselves and the Europeans, teaching their subjects the necessary skills for successful commerce. If the missionaries failed to provide these practical, commercial benefits, they were threatened with dismissal and being replaced by those of a rival denomination. 2 Furthermore, missions were vulnerable to attack and looting by the Maori. In January 1827 the Wesleyan mission at Whangaroa was destroyed, forcing the missionaries to flee to Kerikeri, and the Church Missionary Society’s stations at Rotorua and Tauranga were also occasionally attacked and looted in the 1830s. At least in the early 19th century Christianity was not imposed on the Maoris by force. Indeed, the Maoris themselves welcomed the missions, with distant Maori communities demanding their own missionary. 3

Opposition of Christian Missionaries and British Imperial Authorities to Exploitation by European Colonists

Europeans began trading with the Maori in the late 18th century, with merchants and traders arriving from Britain and Australia to acquire kauri wood for ship’s masts, and hunt whales and seals. 4 Most of the traders viewed Maoris with contempt as savages, and frequently abused and exploited them. The only groups that did not do so and treated the Maori with respect were the Quakers and Congregationalists from New England. 5 The British government, however, soon became concerned at the lawlessness and brutality of many of the European colonists and settlers towards the Maori. By 1813, the governor of New South Wales, Lachlan MacQuarrie, declared that the Maori were under British protection in order to stop their brutalisation and exploitation. In 1817 the British parliament passed an act that, while recognising New Zealand as an independent state, provided for the punishment of those committing murder or manslaughter outside British imperial territory. It granted the authorities of Britain and New South Wale the powers to enforce British law on British subjects in New Zealand. Further acts were passed in 1823 and 1828 granting the courts of New South Wales and Tasmania the powers to try Britons for misdemeanours committed in New Zealand. Missionaries were granted powers to act as justices of the peace and enforce the law. In 1831 the governor of New South Wales also prohibited the trade in tattooed heads. Under pressure from the missionaries to bring law to New Zealand, and permit colonisation from the land speculators, the British government sent James Busby from Sydney to New Zealand as the official British Resident in 1833. 6 These measures to bring law to New Zealand and protect the Maori were strongly supported by Marsden. Although he considered Maori culture as ‘barbarous’, he also declared them to be ‘a noble and intelligent race and prepared to receive the blessings of civilisation and the knowledge of the Christian religion’. 7 He and the other missionaries believed that the Maoris had become suspicious and violent towards Europeans because of their maltreatment by them. He believed firmly that Maori confidence in Europeans would be restored through contact with Europeans, and the acquisition of new skills and practical and religious instruction. When the expected change in Maori attitudes was slow in appearing, Marsden blamed the lack of improvement on the absence of a recognised authority, the lack of regulations governing settlement and trade, disputes over trade in alcohol, firearms and women, and European involvement in local conflicts. 8 In 1837 he lamented the lawlessness in Waimate, complaining that Europeans were running public houses and encouraging every type of criminality, including drunkenness, adultery, and murder without any laws, judges or magistrates. He concluded that ‘Some civilized government must take New Zealand under its protection or themost dreadful evils will be committed from runaway convcts, sailors and publicans.’ 9 Marsden’s view of the brutalisation and corruption of the Maori by lawless Europeans agreed strongly with the conclusions of a House of Commons Select Committee which met in 1836-7 to debate the question of securing justice for the indigenous peoples of British colonies, as well as promoting civilisation and the spread of Christianity. The Select Committee on Aborigines was the result of a campaign by the great antislavery campaigner T.F. Buxton to protect the indigenous peoples of the British – Canadian Indians, Polynesians, Aboriginal Australians and the Black and Khoi-San peoples of South Africa, as well as the Maoris, who were threatened by European expansion and colonisation. 10 It concluded that contact with Europeans had been disaster for indigenous peoples, that Europeans were generally responsible for the conflicts generated. The only way the situation could be improved was through government intervention. In fact, the Committee declared that from the view of economy, security, trade and Britain’s reputation, non-intervention was a disastrous policy. It also viewed that the British had been granted their immense global power for reasons beyond commercial prosperity and military success glory. Britain had a responsibility under God for educating and civilising indigenous peoples, and giving them the Christianity and commercial benefits under which Britain had prospered. The Select Committee’s Report stated

‘The British empire has been signally blessed by Providence and her … advantages, are so many reasons for peculiar obedience to the laws of Him who guides the destinies of nations. These were given for some higher purpose than commercial prosperity and military renown … He who has made Great Brtain what she is, will inquire at our hands how we have employed the influence He has lent to us in our dealings with the untutored and defenceless savage; whether it has been engaged in seizing their lands, warring up on their people, and transplanting unknown disease and deeper degradation … or whether we have, as far as we have been able, informed their ignorance, and … afforded them the opportunity of becoming partakers of that civilization, that innocent commerce, that knowledge and that faith with which it has pleased a gracious Providence to bless our own country.’ 11

Public Demand for Colonisation, British and French Colonial Rivalry and the British Annexation of New Zealand

However, without an established system of courts, enforced by a police force and supported, if necessary, by the army and navy, the missionaries were unable to prevent the violence and criminality. Furthermore, there was pressure in Britain and Australia for a programme of commercial colonisation. This began in 1829 with the publication in the Morning Chronicle of two articles, ‘The Act of a Proposal for Colonising Australasia’ by Robert Couger, and ‘A letter from Sydney’ by Edward Gibbon Wakefield. These recommended the colonisation of Australia and New Zealand through the sale of land and the establishment of planned settlements and the British class system there. Busby attempted to end the lawlessness by making the missionaries Justices of the Peace and the Maori chiefs constables, but he was unable to enforce his authority and on several occasions the criminals successfully defended themselves from arrest with firearms. His authority was further challenged by Baron de Thierry from France, who, laid claim to a large block of territory and styled himself ‘sovereign chief of New Zealand’. 12 The French arrived in New Zealand 1838, and by 1844 had established 12 missionares staffed by 41 missionaries, strongly supported by the French navy and diplomatic service. The British annexation of New Zealand was therefore motivated party by religious rivalry between Protestants and Roman Catholics, as well as geopolitical rivalry between Britain and France. 13 In order to defend the Maori from such colonialist claims and force the Maori chiefs themselves to become responsible for justice, Busby in October 1835 Busby persuaded 35 northern chiefs to sign a declaration of independence, proclaiming them as the ‘united tribes of New Zealand’ under British protection. Furthermore, British policy in the 1830s was of indirect rather than direct rule by advising and placing diplomatic pressure on indigenous institutions. It is possible that if the new tribal federation had been supported by Maori militia and police force under British officers, annexation would have been postponed. However, parliament was under increasing pressure from the New Zealand Association and land agents in Sydney to promote colonisation and sales of land there, as well as the increasing opinion that the British crown had the right to demand foreign territories to submit to British administration in return for protection. Thus the British government eventually decided to annex New Zealand in order to bring law and justice to both the Maori and British. New Zealand was to become a dependency of New South Wales, administered by a lieutenant-governor under the governor of New South Wales. A British naval captain, William Hobson, was despatched to make the final arrangements with the governor, George Gipps, before acquiring sovereignty from the Maori through their ‘free and intelligent consent … expressed according to their established usage’, and become the nation’s first consul and lieutenant-governor. 14

The Treaty of Waitangi and the Dispossession of the Maori the Result of Cultural Misunderstanding not Fraud

The Treaty of Waitangi was translated into Maori on the 4th February 1840 Henry Williams and his son, Edward. It was read to 40 Maori chiefs from Hokianga and the Bay of Islands at Busby’s house the next day. After considerable debate, with some influential chiefs urging its rejection, it was signed by 43 chiefs on the 6th February. 15 The Treaty of Waitangi has been extremely controversial because of its role in giving legality to the British annexation of New Zealand, and the appropriation of Maori lands by the colonial authorities and the subordination and replacement of Maori tribal authority by British governmental institutions. In the 1980s many Maori felt that the true intentions of the Treaty of Waitangi, which in their view retained Maori autonomy and lands, had been betrayed by the British colonial authorities. There were Maori demonstrations in New Zealand demanding that the Treaty should be honoured and the return of Maori lands unfairly appropriated by the colonial authorities.

Many New Zealand historians, on the other hand, believe that the Treaty was not a deliberate fraud, and that rather than being a deliberate deception it was a case of both sides mistakenly assuming that their concept of landholding was shared and understood by the other side. The first article ceded to the British crown complete sovereignty over all New Zealand ‘without reservation’. It did not, however, suggest that the Maori would become subject to British law or be required to assume the roles and duties of British subjects. Thus the Maori assumed that while they would be under the protection and authority of the British Crown, traditional Maori tribal institutions and authority would still be preserved.

The Treaty’s second article was also a cause of serious misunderstanding between the British and Maori. The Treaty stated that the Maori would retain the ownership of their lands, estates, forests, fisheries and other properties. However, the British assumed that the Maoris owned only the lands that they immediately occupied, such as the marae, pas and the land immediately surrounding them. The rest of country was seen as unoccupied waste land whose ownership would naturally pass to the British government, to be disposed of and developed in whatever manner they considered suitable. 16 The Maori, however, viewed the unoccupied lands as rightfully theirs. Although these lands were not permanently settled, the Maoris nevertheless considered the land their possession as it was used and exploited by the Maori as a source of a wide variety of foods in the Maori hunter-gatherer culture. They were also culturally important as the site of tribal marae, sacred burial grounds, and memorials to ancient battles and the heroic events of ancient legends. The Maori therefore assumed that they would still retain their ancient rights to this unoccupied land, with the British Crown merely acting as an overall guardian. 17 These misunderstandings over the nature and role of Crown authority and Maori landownership, with the assumption of cultural superiority by the British, led to the eventual subjection and dispossession of the Maori as New Zealand was annexed by the British Empire.

Missionary Support for Treaty of Waitangi

The missionaries played a leading role in the drafting of the Treaty and its translation into Maori. Six of them had assisted Hobson when he drew it up, and it has been alleged that Williams was deliberately vague in his translation of the Treaty through his political support for annexation. However, while the missionaries supported Crown involvement and control in New Zealand, they were strongly opposed to colonisation. They advocated the extension of British authority to New Zealand as a way of protecting themselves and the Maori against European criminals and occupation by the Roman Catholic French. 18 Moreover, there was considerable pressure in New South Wales and Britain to annexe New Zealand regardless of the attitudes of the missionaries. New Zealand was regarded as a highly suitable territory for British colonisation, as was made clear to Hobson in the orders for the country’s annexation given to him on 14 August 1839. These stated that regarding New Zealand, ‘there is probably no part of the earth in which colonisation would be effected with a greater or surer prospect of national advantage’. 19  New Zealand possessed valuable natural resources, but the increasing violence and lawlessness of European settlers, provocative acts by American merchant ships and a major outbreak of tribal warfare in 1837 convinced the British authorities that the system of government under a British resident and tribal federation had failed to provide stability and order. The British thus considered that they to annexe New Zealand in order to impose peace and law in the islands, while taking possession of the country’s economic resources. Some historians have therefore suggested that New Zealand’s annexation and colonisation by the British was inevitable in these circumstances. 20

As for Williams personally, it has been suggested that his possession of land made him an interested party and so led to his support for annexation. However, the missionaries had been informed that following annexation there would be an official investigation of land claims. If Williams’ possession of his lands had been illegal or in any sense dubious, then he would not have supported Hobson in bringing New Zealand into British possession. Williams has also been criticised for the term he used to translated ‘governorship’ in the Treaty. Instead of using the existing Maori term ‘mana’, Williams coined a new term ‘kawanatanga’, and this may have played a role in the misconception of the nature of British authority that led the Maori to cede complete authority to the British Crown without really understanding the full implications for their own traditional political structures. 21 However, ‘Protestant Missionary Maori’ was the common Maori of the time, and that the Waitangi Tribunal in 1985 declared that it considered that Williams’ use of ‘kawanatanga’ for ‘governorship’ was ‘fair and apt’ and ‘an appropriate choice of words’. 22 Thus, rather than deliberately deceiving the Maori, Williams and the other missionaries were genuinely trying to protect them through the Treaty, which they saw mainly as a device for restraining and controlling European abuse of the indigenous New Zealand peoples.

‘Williams saw the Treaty mainly as a device for controlling British settlers, Faced with a unilateral decision by Britain to annex New Zealand, he saw it his duty to assist the government in such as  way that his flock would be best advantaged. He did not perpetrate a ‘pious fraud’. Later misuse of the Treaty to defraud its Maori signatories should not impugn evil intentions to missionaries who were forced to translate and advice their charges ina  matter of days, and who for a time believed they could control the hand that held the sword of state’. 23

Conclusion: British Missionaries Reluctant Imperialists, who Supported British Imperialism as Action against Colonisation

 Thus, far from being enthusiastic supporters of British imperialism and the exploitation of indigenous peoples, the Protestant missionaries in New Zealand were hostile towards European colonisation. The complete annexation of the country by the British was very much a last resort, after gradual, piecemeal attempts to impose British authority on the European colonists who had already settled there, including the creation of a united, independent Maori state under British protection, had failed. The missionaries supported British imperialism out of a genuine belief that it was the only way the Maoris could be protected from further European brutalisation, exploitation and corruption. Furthermore, rather than being imposed upon the indigenous peoples by force through a powerful, expansionist European state, Christianity, at least at this period in New Zealand history, was not  imposed through military conquest but by missionary work from the religious denominations themselves beyond the British imperial state. The missions also had the support of the Maori themselves through the educational and trading opportunities they offered to aspiring chiefs and tribes, and missionary expansion was initially at the request of the indigenous peoples, who subjected the missions to their own tribal authority. In this instance, rather than being enthusiastic supporters of an imperialist campaign to exploit and dispossess indigenous peoples through the imposition of Christianity by force, missionary support for British imperialism was very much a last resort, taken in order to protect the Maori from a process of exploitation and dispossession that was already occurring, and which, to the missionaries, could only be restrained, regulated and corrected through the power of the British state. In fact the annexation of New Zealand did indeed lead to the dispossession of the Maori and its colonisation by the British. While this process was arguably almost inevitable given European cultural, and economic and political assumptions of the time, it was against the missionaries’ will. It was a tragedy of history that the missionaries who worked hard to gain protection for the Maori against other European from the British state ended up through the imposition of imperial rule inadvertently causing the very dispossession they wished to avoid and so vehemently condemned.

Notes

1. Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America (Oxford, OUP 2004).

2. Laurie Barber, New Zealand: A Short History (London, Hutchinson 1989), p. 32.

3. Barber, New Zealand, p. 34.  

4. Barber, New Zealand, p. 34.

5. Barber, New Zealand, p. 35.

6. Barber, New Zealand, p. 38.

7. Letter from Marsden and others to the Secretary of the Church Missionary Society of 25 October 1815, cited in Andrew Porter, Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700-1914 (Manchester, Manchester University Press 2004), p. 141.

8. Porter, Religion Versus Empire?, p. 141.

9. Porter, Religion Versus Empire?, p. 142.

10. Porter, Religion Versus Empire?, p. 139.

11. Report from the Select Committee on Aborigines (British Settlements) (1837), cited in Porter, Religion Versus Empire?, p. 143.

12. Barber, New Zealand, p. 38.

13. Porter, Religion Versus Empire, pp. 154-5.

14. Barber, New Zealand, p. 39.

15. Barber, New Zealand, p. 40.

16. Barber, New Zealand, p. 41.

17. Barber, New Zealand, p. 41.  

18. Barber, New Zealand, p. 42.

19. Barber, New Zealand, p. 43.

20. Barber, New Zealand, p. 43.

21. Barber, New Zealand, pp. 41, 43.

22. Barber, New Zealand, p. 43.

23. Barber, New Zealand, p. 43.