No. 15.
Mr. T. C. Harrington to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Sir,—

I am instructed by the Directors of the New Zealand Company to transmit for your information the accompanying copy of a despatch which has just been received from the Company's Principal Agent, Colonel Wakefield, and to request your particular attention to the two documents of which it encloses copies, and which purport to be deeds of grant executed by Governor Fitzroy in favour of the New Zealand Company—the one for 71,900 acres in the settlement of Wellington, and the other for 151,000 acres in Nelson (of which, however, the 60,000 acres at Wairoa form no part), but both subject to certain reservations and exceptions, as under mentioned.

The Wellington deed reserves "all the pas, burial-places, and grounds actually in cultivation by the Natives," the limits of the pas being defined to be the ground fenced in, including the adjoining ground in cultivation, &c.; "and the cultivations being those tracks of lands which are now used by the Natives for vegetable productions, or which have been so used by any aboriginal natives of New Zealand since the establishment of the Colony;" also, the Native reserves, comprising forty-one country sections of 100 acres each, and 110 town acres, together with four portions of land granted to private claimants, the extent of which is not stated, except in one instance, an acre and a half, and all lauds set apart as Government reserves for public purposes.

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In the Nelson deed, the reservations are of precisely the same character, and worded in the same manner, with the exception only that the Native reserves are defined to be one-tenth of the 151,000 acres granted, and that in lieu of specific grants to particular individuals, a clause is inserted, "Excepting any portions of land within any of the lands hereinbefore described, to which private claimants or any private claimant may have already proved, or may hereafter prove, that they, he, or or any of them had a valid claim prior to the purchase of the New Zealand Company."

With regard to the pas and burial-places, the amount of which is not known, the only remarks which the Directors desire to offer are, that the extent of the Native reserves was fixed by the Company in a belief that the whole of the remainder was the Company's property; and that in excepting from the Nelson deed, on account of such reserves, one-tenth of the land granted; Governor Fitzroy appears to have overlooked the fact that, in the published prospectus for that settlement (dated 15th February, 1841), it was stated that the Native reserves would be "equal to one-tenth of the lands offered for sale" —that is, to one-eleventh of the quantity comprised in the entire scheme.

But the other clauses relating to private purchasers and to Native cultivations are of greater importance.

The reservation of the spots in the town of Wellington claimed by private purchasers is directly at variance with the public pledge contained in the letter addressed to Colonel Wakefield by the late Governor Hobson on the 6th of September, 1841, which is printed at page 545 of the Appendix to the Report of the Parliamentary Committee of 1844, and of which I do myself the honor to enclose a copy. Although of comparatively small extent, these reservations comprise some of the most valuable portions of the shore of the harbour of Port Nicholson, and portions upon which, in faith of Captain Hobson's pledge, buildings have been erected and other improvements made, as the Directors are informed, to the extent of some thousands of pounds. And the issue of deeds of grant, which is understood to have been actually made in favour of the private claimants, by placing the remedy of a regrant out of the power of the Crown, has complicated the embarrassment in a tenfold degree.

The quantity of land comprised within the Native cultivation, as defined in these instruments, cannot be stated with accuracy. In a private letter which the Directors have seen, written by a person wholly unconnected with the Company, and of undoubted authority, it is asserted that these reservations will exclude from the grant at least one-sixth, and not improbably one-fourth, of the whole of that part of the town of Wellington on which buildings have been erected, the purchase of these spots by the Company (so far as the Directors are aware, and as they believe) being hitherto undisputed by the Natives, and confirmed by the award of the Commissioner. On the Hutt and in Porirua, the reservations in question will comprise spots from which the Natives have ejected the settlers by force, planting potatoes in the lands cleared by the latter, and for the repurchase of which an additional sum was recently paid by Colonel Wakefield, under the personal sanction of Governor Fitzroy. (The circumstances are referred to in pages 676 to 693 of the Committee's Report of 1844; and in pages 9 and 11 of the Parliamentary Paper, No. 517.—I of 1845.)

Of the amount of individual loss which will thus be occasioned, the encouragement which will be afforded to similar aggressions, and the degree to which a dishonest desire of reacquisition will be awakened in the Native claimant, and a determination to defeat that desire (too probably by force) on the part of the European owner; of the litigation or the violence that will ensue, and of the animosity which will be perpetuated between the races by this indefinite, arbitrary, and, for aught that appears, unnecessary clause, it is impossible to make any calculation.

The reservation in the Nelson deed of all private claims which have been or may be hereafter proved, without limitation of time, renders the land altogether unavailable, and the deed, therefore, in the apprehension of the Directors, altogether of no effect.

On these grounds, the Directors earnestly hope that these measures of Governor Fitzroy's will not obtain your sanction; but that instructions will be given to Governor Grey for remedying the injury, so far as a remedy is yet practicable, by the execution of new grants, freed from the objectionable clauses now complained of.

They will esteem as a favour, also, their being furnished with copies of the awards or reports of Mr. Commissioner Spain, or other documents upon which the deeds in question have been founded.