1254 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [PART V 
the Governor, who on his own responsibility offered certain 
terms to natives who should surrender! They had come 
into violent conflict with the Governor as to the respective 
rights of the Imperial Government and the Colonial Govern- 
ment as to the treatment of prisoners of war. These prisoners 
were confined, by the desire of the Colonial Government, on 
a hulk which the Governor visited and thought unsuited for 
their detention ; moreover, he thought that they should 
be brought to trial with all reasonable celerity, while the 
Government withheld action. The Secretary of State ulti- 
mately instructed the Governor explicitly that he was at 
liberty in this matter, as the war was being carried on by 
Imperial troops, to act on his own responsibility, and to 
dispose of the prisoners as he thought fit. The Government 
objected to this view and maintained that they were entitled 
to dispose of the prisoners. This elicited from the Secretary 
of State an expression of his views to the effect that the 
Government were really asking that they should be supplied 
with troops and a commander by the Imperial Government, 
while the Imperial Government was divested of all control 
over the operations of these forces for which they paid, and 
were thus reduced to the position of being tributary to the 
Colonial Government.? 
The position was rendered more and more difficult by 
disputes between the Governor and the general commanding 
with regard to the conduct of hostilities, and in consequence 
of the absolute inability of the Governor and the officer com- 
manding to agree as to the policy to be pursued, and also 
of the Governor insisting on retaining troops which the 
Imperial Government had desired should be returned to 
Australia, the Imperial Government decided to take the 
control of all the troops save one regiment out of the hands 
of the Governor, instructing him that the other troops 
should be treated as being merely in the position of troops 
which had called at New Zealand en route. 
See Parl. Pap., March 2, 1865, p. 4. 
' See Parl. Pap., H. C. 467, 1863, p. 242 ; July 1864, p. 18 ; February 7, 
1865, pp. 117 seq., 197. Cf. Parl. Pap., H. C. 307, 1869, pp. 232 seq., 
£20, 522 sey. ; Rusden, ii. 185-90.