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A compendium of official documents relative to native affairs in the South Island, Volume One.

No. 78. — The Hon. W. B. D. Mantell to the Hon. J. C. Richmond

No. 78.
The Hon. W. B. D. Mantell to the Hon. J. C. Richmond.

Wellington, 26th August, 1867.

Sir,—

Not having yet received a reply to my letter of the 22nd, nor any intimation of an intention. on your part to favour me with further explanation of your letter of the 19th instant, there remains for me only the painful duty of replying to that letter.

I cannot understand the mode in which the Government can reconcile with any reputable idea of honor and good faith the limitation and withdrawal of the guarantee of 25th July, intimated in your letter of 19th August.

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If the arrangement of which you speak was made at or near the former of these dates, its inconsistency with your letter of 25th July must have been as apparent then as now. It would have been as easy then as now to hare attempted to suspend or impede the attempt of the Ngaitahu to obtain a hearing in the Supreme Court. None but the initiatory steps had at that time been taken. I, and not the Government, was responsible for the expense of those steps. From the delay of a reply to Topi's letter and petition of the 15th July, that chief had been compelled to return home, and the case was dropped.

I was more gratified than surprised at its renewal by the Government, and willingly undertook that part in it which they assigned me.

I at once telegraphed to John Topi to return, and, as desired by you, put myself in communication with Mr. Izard (calling in also the assistance of Mr. Allan), and took every proper step in my power question of the validity of the grant submitted to a judicial tribunal, and, as an inevitable corollary, adopted every available precaution to prevent the title to the property in dispute from being disposed of in any other way.

Not only was I aware that the Government held in its custody the large sum which had accrued from the letting of the reserve for the period anterior to any title given by the grant to the Superintendent, during which period every record of the Government goes to prove that it was a Native reserve and nothing else, but Mr. Stafford's letter of 16th October, 1866, shows, if I rightly comprehend the following extract, that the Government had long recognized the duty of providing the necessary funds. Mr. Stafford says—"The expenses attending the process will be chargeable on the contingencies of the Native Department or on the proceeds of the reserve, according as the issue may be." With these facts and assurances before me, to have doubted the good faith and honorable intentions of the Government would have been to have doubted the good faith and honor of every member of it, and these, at that time, I did not feel justified in doubting. I therefore unhesitatingly resumed action, paid the passage and expenses of the chief to and from Wellington, where his presence was necessary to further action on behalf of his tribe, and on the 7th instant reported progress to you, and prayed your immediate directions as to the mode in which the bond required by the Attorney-General, as the condition for his flat that the writ of scire facias might issue, should be given.

Receiving no answer from you to this letter, which at least afforded you another opportunity of informing me of the "inconsistent arrangement" and of therefore staying proceedings, I recommended Mr. Izard to tender the bond (for £500) of John Topi, who had returned from the South, and who undertook the liability.

Whether that unfortunate chief can "withdraw" this guarantee with the facility which you appear to believe attends a similar but far less justifiable act on the part of the Government, the Attorney-General can inform you.

On the same 7th of August the Government brought in a Bill which is described as identical with that of last Session for giving the rents of the Princes Street Reserve to the Superintendent of Otago; this Bill having, on its first introduction by a private Member, been found to be a private Bill.

If the description of this Bill given by its promoters be correct, and if the taking charge of it by the Government was part of the "arrangement" of about the 25th July, you will perceive that, containing no clauses to protect the rights of the Native claimants to the estate and proceeds, it was not in accordance with the sketch of "the arrangement" contained in your letter of the 22nd instant, No. 457.

Upon this, in fulfilment of the charge intrusted to me by the Government, I felt it necessary to endeavour to move Parliament to pause ere it assented to this Bill, and after consultation with Topi and his legal advisers, petitions to that effect were addressed by Topi to both Houses of the Legislature and to Her Majesty the Queen. This done, Topi returned to the South.

I must remind you, lest any question should arise between you and Mr. Izard relative to the repayment to him of the expenses of Topi's journey and petitions, that the expenditure was in each case caused by the Government. Had the reply to this letter and petition of the 15th July not been so long delayed, he could have received it before returning home, and taken all necessary steps before his departure; and had the Government not taken charge of Mr. Bell's Bill, that measure must, I submit, have been rejected for non-compliance with the Standing Orders, in which case the petitions would not have been required.

I must also recall to your recollection that I am imperfectly informed as to the "arrangement." Among such documents as I have found, the only one which seems, from the surprising reply elicited by it, to be likely to be the one referred to by you (if, that is, the "arrangement" was recorded), is the letter of the 12th July, signed by sixteen Otago Members of the General Assembly. I am the more disposed to imagine that this has at least something to do with "the arrangement," from remembering the purport of your reference to a numerous and threatening deputation of Otago Members, at the interview with which you honoured me at your office on or about the 15th July.

But when I follow the correspondence thus begun, through Mr. Stafford's, letters of 23rd and 24th July, to its apparent conclusion in Mr. Macandrew's reply of 25th July, I feel that record of the "arrangement" has probably yet to be laid before the Legislature.

It seems scarcely necessary to inform you that, after this experience of the ways of your Government towards the weak, I decline to take further action in this matter on behalf of the Government.

You will of course address any further communication to Mr. Izard, who, with Mr. Allan, on your letter and guarantee, undertook the conduct and charges of the case—my correspondence with you ending, I trust, here.

To me the case is but too clear: on the one hand the Natives require from you, out of the funds received by you as their self-constituted guardians, sufficient to enable them, as encouraged by the Queen's Representative and by yourselves, to try in the Courts of the Colony to recover property long recognized as theirs, but carelessly and unconsciously granted away from them; on the other, a demand for these funds is made on behalf of the body which now holds that grant, supported by no argument that has not yet been fairly met, but preferred by sixteen Members having votes in the page 152Legislature (of whom I trust there are not a few who would not now renew their signatures to such a document).

And in this dilemma the Government proposes now to assume a position of absolute passiveness, withholding from suitors of its own creation enough of their own money to pay their expenses, but in return promising (and I consider that this promise demands the most serious attention) "to interpose no obstacle in the way of the Native claimants bringing their claims into Court."

Of the choice thus made by the Government there is, I fear, but one opinion open to any man who cares for the reputation of the Colony and his own honor.

I have, &c.,

The Hon. J C.Richmond, M.E.C., Native Office

Walter Mantell.