Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

A Compendium of Official Documents Relative to Native Affairs in the South Island. Volume Two.

[letter from J. W. Hamilton]

In reference to the foregoing minutes, I should remark that the country ceded has been for several years past almost entirely occupied by ourselves as freehold or sheepwalk. By reserving any new tract for the Maoris, serious complications might be created, and the necessity for reference to the Land Office would delay the purchase greatly. This was my chief reason (not made known to them) for declining their proposal to accept £150 and a reserve, which otherwise I should have at once agreed to. But, under existing circumstances, it seemed absolutely indispensable to pay a large purchase money and make no reserve.

I trust that His Excellency the Governor will see good reason to grant me the necessary warrant for payment of the additional £50.

I enclose copy of the guarantee given by me, and I beg to state that I should have named £300 instead of £200; but I feared, first, lest, notwithstanding all that had been said, the larger sum should really influence the Maoris in giving their signatures, as it were, on speculation. Secondly, lest the Kaikoura Natives should recall their offer, and raise their demands extravagantly.

I beg to urge on His Excellency the Governor, in the strongest possible manner, the justice and reasonableness of the first demand for £500. I venture to hope that weight will be given to my guarantee, on the following considerations.

I firmly believe that the delay of six years or more in obtaining a hearing of their case was the real reason why the Maoris accepted so small a sum as £200, instead of insisting on receiving £500; because they grasped at what was within their reach, fearing further delay. For, when I asked why, if they denied the right of the Ngatitoa to sell the land as they pretended to do some six years ago, they had not (as is their custom) turned Europeans off, who came to occupy. They replied, the Governor had asked them not to disturb the Europeans. I am aware however, though they did not mention the facts, that Mr. Torlesse was obstructed in about 1849 when he first crossed the Ashley to survey for the Canterbury Association. And that Kaikoura was exceedingly troublesome when Messrs. Hanmer and Wortley, in 1851 or 1852; first settled near Amuri. This was done to keep up the assertion of their rights of ownership.

Had I been sent to treat for their land, with power to pay any sum under £1000, I should have been glad to close instantly with their offer for £500.

According to the average scale of payment, before our settlement of this part of Middle Island had created a new value for their land, £150 paid at Kaikoura, £200 paid at Kaiapoi, and £300 distributed afterwards, in all £650, appears to me the lowest sum for which we could have expected six years ago to have obtained the surrender of the country extending from Kaiapoi to Waiau-toa (the Clarence River).

About two years ago, one block of this land between Waipaoa and the Hurunui, containing 30,000 acres, was sold by the Government for £15,000, besides several other smaller pieces.

Recollecting this fact, I should feel that I had made myself party to a gross fraud practised upon the Maoris in agreeing now to give only £200 for their land which we have already sold at such a very different price, were it not for the following considerations:—

  • Firstly.—I hardly doubted that the Government could refuse to act generously; and in the same spirit as the Maoris, in the matter of the guarantee they sought for.page 22
  • Secondly.—Having neither the means nor the knowledge to turn the land to account, it may he considered almost useless and valueless to themselves.
  • Thirdly.—It is greatly to their advantage that it should be in profitable occupation by ourselves; and that all questions about it should be closed at once.
  • Fourthly.—Our arrival among them has given such a value to their reserves that they may be considered to have been handsomely compensated for the surrender of what they could not use. Not less than £40,00 now represents the value of the Kaiapoi reserve alone,—when we first came it would barely have been valued at £500. This reserve consists of 2,640 acres, of which about 1000 acres are forest land. The timber alone is now selling to sawyers at £35 per acre, and represents a value of £35,000; while the land itself cannot be worth less than the Government price of £2. Much of it, however, has positive value of £4, £5, up to £10 per acre, if not higher. At the lowest value of £4, the land itself is worth roughly £10,000. This value given to the Kaiapoi reserve is quite as much attributable to our profitable occupation of the fine country to the north of it, which we had not purchased, as of that part of the plains we were rightfully occupying.
  • Fifthly.—The sum of £500 is quite insignificant in comparison with the £15,000 or £20,000 or more, which part of their land has already been sold for, and for which they seek to obtain but £500; they might, with every show of justice and reason, urge their right to receive from us the whole sum which has been paid to us for property still theirs at the time of payment.
  • Sixthly.—I feel fortified in the views thus expressed by me, by the concurrent opinions of the Rev. J. Aldred, who interpreted, and Sir W. Congreve, who was present at the meeting as an unconcerned looker on. Both these gentleman expressed themselves strongly on the justice of the demand for an additional sum of £300. To the latter gentleman I am indebted for much valuable information on the history of the Ngaitahu people, and their contests with the Te Rauparaha and the Ngatitoa.

The whole of the foregoing observations are necessarily based upon the assumption that the Ngaitahu Title to the country in question is thoroughly sound. I am in no position to enquire into the Ngatitoa side of the case. And, as Government have undertaken to treat for the land with Ngaitahu I must proceed on the belief that their Title is recognized.

Finally, I beg to remark that so strongly did I feel impressed with the justice of their case, that I was unable to argue against it at the meetings, with the Maoris. And when they at last agreed to the terms I was able to offer, I regretted they had done so; for I felt convinced that in holding out for their demand of £500, and referring the proposal to His Excellency, it must inevitably have been acceded to. And one advising them in their own interest, could not have recommended such a course to them.

I await with much anxiety His Excellency's decision in this matter; for, if an additional payment be not made, I shall cease to regret having been concerned in the bargain; and I may say the same for Mr. Aldred, who interpreted.

I have, &c.,

J. W. Hamilton,

Agent for purchase of lands at Akaroa and Kaiapoi. P.S.—I enclose copy of Memorandum shewing the areas of the tracts referred to in this and other letters respecting the Ngaitahu lands, which the Chief Surveyor of this Province, Mr. Cass, has kindly furnished at my request.