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An Epitome of Official Documents Relative to Native Affairs and Land Purchases in the North Island of New Zealand

Contracts respecting Lands, Vessels, &c

Contracts respecting Lands, Vessels, &c.

  • 17. The utmost care should be taken for the future to guard against evils of this kind, in respect of money dealings between English and Natives. Such matters are apt to be regarded as minute and insignificant, but in truth they are of great moment. A few special regulations adapted to these cases would be of great service. The lack of such regulations has produced much disaffection and much demoralization. In various places grudges have been strongly felt for years by men who believe themselves to have been wronged. The fraud of one pakeha has often been retaliated upon others who have had no share in the fraud.

    Thus all contracts for the occupation of land, all licenses to cut timber or to pasture cattle on land, should be in writing, both in English and Maori, and should have a memorandum written or indorsed thereon, signed by the Civil Commissioner or Resident Magistrate, certifying that he has caused the same to be read over, both in English arid Maori, to all the parties in his presence, and that the same was perfectly understood by them. A promissory-note in English only should not be valid against a Maori. It should be laid down as a general rule that no action should be allowed for any debt exceeding a certain limit, unless the contract were made in the way above mentioned.

    All contracts for sale or transfer of any ship or vessel, or otherwise concerning any ship or vessel, should be subject to the like regulations. This point is one of the utmost practical importance. Frauds committed in respect of the purchase of small coasting vessels have in some parts caused extreme irritation and soreness against the pakeha; for it has happened repeatedly that a whole community, page 10being keen to enter into trade with Auckland, and having set their hearts on some particular vessel, have combined their efforts to raise the price. They have worked for months in an English settlement for the purpose of providing the instalments of the purchase-money, and then in the end have found that the vessel has been transferred to another purchaser, or removed out of their reach, and that, by reason of the insolvency or disappearance of the person they have dealt with, all chance of obtaining compensation, or even of recovering back their instalments, has been lost. Cases of this kind have produced great dissatisfaction and a strong feeling of distrust towards our whole system. In all future transactions of this kind, where instalments or other money shall be paid in respect of the purchase of a vessel which shall not be in possession of the parties making the payment, such instalments should be paid over into the hands of the Civil Commissioner or a Resident Magistrate, and impounded until the completion of the contract.