[i roto i te reo Māori]

Report of the Select Committee on Native Affaies.
Petition (No. 1) of Rairi Rangiheuea and 3 Others.

This petition is by the representatives of the owners of the Himatangi Block, Manawatu, and asks for the payment of certain rents impounded by the late Dr. Featherston during negotiations for the purchase of the Manawatu-Rangitikei Block, a part of which rents, accruing on a lease of the said block to Captain Robinson, it is alleged were due, but not paid, to the owners. Interest thereon is also claimed.

Your Committee report that in 1864 the late Dr. Featherston, acting as Land Purchase Commissioner, impounded the rents due and payable under all the leases of land comprised in the Manawatu-Rangitikei Block, negotiations for the sale of which were going on.

That among these leases was one to Captain Francis Robinson, the land included in which was nearly conterminous with, and of the same area as, the Himatangi Block, and that the amount of rent due under the lease was at the date of the completion of the purchase of the Manawatu-Rangitikei Block £500.

That the present owners of the Himatangi Block under Crown grant are the same persons, or their representatives, who were formerly owners thereof according to the Native custom, and that the lease to Captain F. Robinson was signed by members of the hapu by authority and on behalf of the said owners under Native custom.

That the said owners did not agree to the sale of the said Manawatu-Rangitikei Block, and that their rights and claims therein were excluded from the purchase.

That the rents under the lease to Captain F. Robinson were, up to the date of their impounding by the Land Purchase Commissioners, paid to the said owners under Native custom.

That on the 17th October, 1869, Dr. Featherston, the said Land Purchase Commissioner, convened a meeting at Rangitikei for the payment of the impounded rents, and, as previously determined, distributed the whole of the amount, together with interest, a total sum of £4,699, to the tribes of Rangitane and Ngatiapa and the three hapu of the tribe of Ngatiraukawa, namely, Ngatikauwhata, Ngatiparewahawaha, and Ngatikahoro.

That the hapu of the petitioners are not included in any of the three hapu paid by Dr. Featherston, but constitute three independent hapu of the tribe of Ngatiraukawa; that they were not represented at the meeting of the 17th October, 1869, and received none of the rents.

That the receipts for the moneys paid on that day, now filed in the office of the Minister of Native Affairs, account for the payment of the whole estimated rents and interest, including the £500 due under Captain Robinson's lease, excepting only £66 still to the debit of the account in the Colonial Treasurer's books, but that no name belonging to the hapu of the owners of Himatangi is on any of the receipts.

That, in conference with the Government of the day on the proposed Bill for restoring the Himatangi Block to its owners, an offer was made by Dr. Buller, acting for the petitioners, in consideration of the return of the land, to waive claim for accrued rents, and that the Bill, as intro-page 3duced into the Legislative Council, excluded such claim in the following words: "or the rents, issues, and profits thereof, or the sum of five hundred pounds paid to the Provincial Government of the late Province of Wellington, or of the interest thereon, or otherwise howsoever."

That these words were in Committee struck out from the Bill, the Hon. Dr. Pollen, then Minister of Native Affairs, saying that it was desirable to "dissociate" the claim for rents from the real object of the Bill.

That, though the justice of petitioner's claim to Himatangi was recognized by the preamble to the Act, the restoration to the land was not achieved without many efforts, some expenditure, and the incurring of considerable liabilities by petitioners.

Your Committee therefore recommend that the claim for accrued rents and interest should be discharged in full by the Government, and that the propriety of reimbursing the expenditure and discharging the reasonable liabilities incurred by the petitioners in this matter should be considered in a liberal spirit.