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A compendium of official documents relative to native affairs in the South Island, Volume One.

No. 71. — The Hon. W. B. D. Mantell to His Excellency the Governor

No. 71.
The Hon. W. B. D. Mantell to His Excellency the Governor.

Wellington, 19th August, 1867.

Sir,—

At the request of John Topi Patuki, I do myself the honor of enclosing a petition addressed to Her Majesty the Queen by him, as chief of the Ngaitahu and Ngatimamoe Tribe, and of respectfully requesting your Excellency to forward that petition to the Right Honorable the Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.

page 148

The petitioner prays Her Majesty to exert her royal authority to prevent certain claims of his tribe from being extinguished or prejudiced by legislation in the General Assembly of this Colony, those claims being, he submits, of a nature which can and should be dealt with by the judicial tribunals of the Empire.

In the endesvour to restrict the allegations of his petition to such only as seemed absolutely needful to show a primd facie claim to the consideration prayed for, a clerical omission has unfortunately occurred in the third line of the seventh paragraph of its second page. The following statement should have appeared between the words "cancelled" and "the Governor":—"without any warning to your petitioner's tribe of the intention so to convey this reserve, and without any opportunity having been afforded to them of being heard in defence of their claims thereto before the Executive Council or the Supreme Court."

As the present appeal of this chief to Her Majesty is designed only to pray for her gracious interference in order to restrain the action of the Legislature to its proper functions, and to maintain on behalf of that race of Her Majesty's subjects in this Colony which is not represented in its Legislature whatever protection of their rights and interests the Courts of the country can afford, it has not been thought necessary therein to advert to the injustice of the Provincial Government's demand for the reserve in question, to the history of the Bill now before the Legislature, or to its repugnancy to principles already affirmed during the present Session in the Private Estates Bills Bill.

I am so unwilling that the accidental omission above noted should in the least weaken whatever force this petition may possess, that I venture respectfully but earnestly to pray your Excellency to forward a copy of this letter to the Right Honorable the Secretary of State for the Colonies, with the enclosed petition.

I have, &c.,

His Excellency the Governor.

W. B. D. Mantell.

P.S.—I should add that petitions of similar purport have been addressed to both Houses of the General Assembly.

W. B. D. M.