Extract from the Speech of His Honor the Superintendent, on opening the Sixteenth Session of the Provincial Council, Tuesday, 19th May, 1868.

"The vexed question of the Manawatu purchase unfortunately again crops up and requires a few words of explanation.

By the Native Lands Act of last session, the Governor was empowered to refer the claims of the dissentients to the Native Land Court, and some ten claims were so referred. After sitting about six weeks at Otaki, the Court [have recently given their judgment in one case, that of Parakaia and twenty-six other claimants to the small block of 12,000 acres, known as the Himatangi Block. The decision of the Court on the question of the tribal title is entirely satisfactory. It most fully establishes the propriety of the course pursued by me in negotiating with the several tribes as joint owners of the district, and it particularly corroborates my action in giving to the claims of the Ngatiapa and Rangitane, the weight which I attribute to them. It also most completely refutes the case so industriously circulated through the colony by Mr. Williams, the editor of the Canterbury Press, and the missionary body who entirely ignored the title of the Ngatiapa and Rangitane, and asserted the exclusive ownership of the resident and non-resident Ngatiraukawa.

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In these respects the decision of the Court is the most triumphant and complete vindication of the course pursued by me, and the most absolute refutation of the assertions of those who have so long thwarted and impeded the settlement of the question. Had I been permitted, without their interference, to continue my attempts to bring the matter to a final adjustment on the principle on which the Court now puts it, I have no doubt it would have long ago been arranged to the satisfaction of all parties who had any real interest in the question. So far, then, I repeat, the decision of the Court on the tribal question, is entirely satisfactory to myself; and I understand also to the whole of the natives who sold their rights to the Crown.

But when I examine the manner in which the judges of the Land Court have applied the principle laid down by them to the particular case of Parakaia's claim, I cannot but regard their decision as illogical, inconsequential, and in its practical operation, unjust. Affecting to carry out the principle of divided tribal ownership, they award one-half of the small block under consideration to the Ngatiapa tribe as a whole, while they award the other half, not to the Ngatiraukawa as a whole, but only to twenty-seven members of that tribe. The true application of the principle to the facts proved, would have been, to subdivide that moiety of the block which was awarded to the Ngatiraukawa, into two parts; one of which being the quantity actually occupied by Parakaia and his hapu, should have been given to them as resident claimants; the other being the balance of unoccupied and uncultivated land, should have been given to the entire Ngatiraukawa tribe resident on the Rangitikei-Manawatu block. Three fourths of these having sold their claims to the Crown, their share would have passed to it under the purchase deed, and Parakaia and his co-claimants would have received a portion less grossly disproportionate to, or rather less absolutely exclusive of, the rights of the whole resident tribe.

I have further to complain of the very unfair manner in which the block has been divided, nearly all the available land within it being given to Parakaia, while the Crown is put off with the part remote from the river, and consisting of little else than swamp and sand hills. I still further complain of the Court having ignored the thoroughly proved claim of Matene Matuku to the specific holding of the Himatangi bush, the long established residence of Ngatiteupokoiri, on the river bank, and their refusal to recognise the claim of Ihakara and Patukohuru, while they admit that of Parakaia, whose personal participation in the block was at least as weak as that of Ihakara. Nor do I think it creditable to the moral sense of the Court, that it should not only have passed over, without comment, the perjury alleged to have been committed by Parakaia, but, notwithstanding the very convincing evidence on that point, page cxi should have awarded to him a share of the block without so much as a word of censure, for what, from the most charitable point of view, they must have regarded as very loose and very hard swearing.

Notwithstanding, however, my objection to the decision of the Court as far as the particular claim of Parakaia was concerned, I felt it my duty to bow to that decision, and to instruct my counsel to attend the adjourned sitting of the Court at Rangitikei, there to oppose the cases of the other claimants in the same legitimate manner as that of Parakaia had been resisted. On the sitting of the Court, however, it appeared that the gentleman who had undertaken the cases of the claimants (Mr. T. C. Williams) had abandoned their cause, and without any excuse offered to the Court absented himself from it, a course for which he was very severely and most justly censured by the Court. Under these circumstances the claimants in each case, as it was called on, declined to proceed, and the whole of the remaining cases were either dismissed by the Court or withdrawn by the claimants. The Court then closed its session and adjourned tine die.

While it is to be regretted that all the cases were not adjudicated on, and finally disposed of, it will now, I presume, rest with the advisers of His Excellency to decide what further action they will take in the matter; for it is quite certain that the sellers whose rights have been so fully admitted by the Court, will not brook further delay, but will insist upon the Crown being put into immediate possession of the block, and upon their rents which have been impounded since 1863, and which now must amount to nearly £3,000, being at once paid up by the squatters. The Ngatiapas have, in fact, I understand, already commenced to mark off the boundaries.

It is unnecessary for me to acknowledge the important services rendered by Mr. Fox to the Province in undertaking to conduct this case through the Land Court, for I know full well that those services will be most warmly recognised and appreciated by you"