Littlewood on Public Nuisance, Tax Avoidance, and George Grey in 19th-C New Zealand

Michael Littlewood, University of Auckland Faculty of Law, has posted three papers on nineteenth-century New Zealand.  The first is a short paper, Public Nuisance in Aotearoa New Zealand in 1849.  It “examines the Constabulary Force Ordinance enacted by the legislature of the New Zealand Province of New Munster in 1849" for its revelations into the everyday life of the time.  A second paper, Nothing New under the Sun: Tax Avoidance in Otago in 1856, reports on a tax on river crossings.  The third Sir George Grey’s Machiavellian Constitutional and Fiscal Reforms in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1845–1876:

Sir George Grey (wiki)

This paper examines the evolution of the New Zealand tax system from 1845 to 1876. The key to this period is the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 (UK), which was devised by the Governor, Sir George Grey, and which divided the Colony into six provinces. There were hardly any roads, so allowing isolated settler communities a degree of autonomy made obvious sense. Grey’s more sinister aim, however, was to retain control of the purse-strings and thus dictate policy generally. In this he was markedly successful: the Act gave the Governor tight control over the Colony’s two main sources of revenue (land sales and customs duties) and also over the military (which he used to confiscate Maori land). The provinces were free to build and operate roads, wharves, railways, schools, hospitals and so on — but they had to either persuade the Governor to supply funding or pay for them themselves.

Twenty years later the difficulties of communication had been largely solved and the Colonial Government, spectacularly insolvent prior to Grey’s arrival, was financially secure. The provinces had served their purpose and in 1876 they were abolished. Since then, New Zealand has had one of the most centralised systems of government and taxation in the world, and the Maori people are still suffering from the catastrophic loss of their land.

--Dan Ernst

Landmark Cases in Torts

Another volume in the Landmark Cases by Hart Publishing came out in paperback in 2016. We didn't post on the hardback version when it originally came out in 2010, so here are the full details on Landmark Cases in the Law of Tort, edited by Charles Mitchell and Paul Mitchell, both of University College London. From the press:

Landmark Cases in the Law of Tort contains thirteen original essays on leading tort cases, ranging from the early nineteenth century to the present day. It is the third volume in a series of collected essays on landmark cases (the previous two volumes having dealt with restitution and contract). The cases examined raise a broad range of important issues across the law of tort, including such diverse areas as acts of state and public nuisance, as well as central questions relating to the tort of negligence. Several of the essays place cases in their historical context in ways that change our understanding of the case's significance. Sometimes the focus is on drawing out previously neglected aspects of cases which have been – undeservedly – assigned minor importance. Other essays explore the judicial methodologies and techniques that worked to shape leading principles of tort law.

So much of tort law turns on cases, and there are so many cases, that all but the most recent decisions have a tendency to become reduced to terse propositions of law, so as to keep the subject manageable. This collection shows how important it is, despite the constant temptation to compression, not to lose sight of the contexts and nuances which qualify and illuminate so many leading authorities.

TOC after the jump.