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

No. 34. — Memorandum by the Land Claims Commissioner on the Land Claims at Poverty Bay

No. 34.
Memorandum by the Land Claims Commissioner on the Land Claims at Poverty Bay.

In obedience to the Governor's commands that I should state in an official form the substance of a private letter I recently addressed to His Excellency from Poverty Bay, I have to make the following remarks on the land claims there under purchase from the Natives.

These claims are few in number, and do not comprise together more than 2,200 acres. Only six are for land bought prior to Governor Sir G. Gipps's Proclamation of 14th January, 1840. The others relate to transactions entered into contrary to law at various periods from 1840 to 1854 or 1855.

When Governor Fitzroy introduced what is called the penny-an-acre Proclamation the Turanga settlers asked him to waive the right of pre-emption so as to enable them to complete their purchases; but he refused. With the exception of these transactions, of a small piece of land sold to the Government not long ago as a place for the Resident Magistrate, and of the land set apart for the Bishop's industrial school, the Native title has not been extinguished, and the district remains in the hands of the Natives.

Mr. McLean was to have inquired into the claims at Turanga some years ago, but was prevented from doing so, chiefly, I believe, on account of so many of them being illegal, while in his position towards the Natives it would have been almost impossible for him to avoid going into them. The same difficulty was in my way; for, while the Land Claims Act gave me no authority formally to "investigate" cases in which land was bought without the sanction of Government since 1840, the Natives were anxious to have all inquired into, if any.

For some time past there has been growing up a desire on their part to repossess themselves of the lands they had sold; and before I got to Poverty Bay there were discussions among them as to whether they should appear before me at all, lest by doing so they should compromise the position page 23they had assumed towards the settlers. However, they determined to come, and several meetings took place between us in the last week of December, 1859. They opened the discussion by a very decided intimation of their intention to resume all the land; but in order to strengthen their position they adopted a course quite novel, namely, that of repudiating their sales, commencing with the claim of the Bishop of Waiapu, which I had always understood to be disputed by nobody.

During the meetings I explained to them that there were three classes of claims at Turanga: (1) Those arising prior to 1840; (2) those arising out of the setting-apart of land for the maintenance of half-caste children; and (3) those arising out of purchases after Sir G. Gripps's Proclamation.

The only real difficulty attached to the last class. I took pains to explain the grounds of the doctrine that wherever they had actually parted with their title it passed to the Crown; and that, therefore, they should give up the land sold irrespective of the date of purchase. Further, that they had nothing to do with any regulations as between the Crown and its subjects of the European race regarding the ultimate disposal of the land. The principal seller had been a chief named Kahutia; and thereupon he confessed to having sold the land wrongfully, confirmed the allegation of the Natives that they had an equal right to it, which has never been satisfied, and admitted that they talked of sending him off to another part of the East Coast, as a kind of punishment. Of course this last was an unmeaning threat, but the end of it was that they united in the declaration that they would repossess themselves of the land. To this I objected that they had permitted the settlers to live there for years, and to incur a good deal of expense in building and cultivating, and that it would be unjust to take the land and not pay for the improvements. They admitted the justice of paying for these, and requested me to value them; which, however, I had no power to do. Most of the settlers, seeing the course things were taking, got alarmed and decided not bring forward their claims at all, lest when the evidence came before me their own witnesses should, as Kahutia had done, repudiate the sales. Even in a case where the evidence seemed to establish the claim, the claimant considered it would be hazardous to make a survey; and, though (in accordance with the rule I have pursued from the first) I refused to allow young men to annul transactions of the older chiefs, I'think it would be difficult iu any case to make such a survey as I require before issuing a grant. The settlers then expressed a desire to abandon their claims to the Grovernment, in the hope of some day getting a title; and I took the opportunity of pointing out, in claims arising since 1840, the absurdity of their calling upon the Governor to protect them and expecting the aid of the law to maintain their violation of it.

On the whole, I could not but arrive at an unfavourable opinion of the Natives. I never heard anywhere such language used about the Queen's authority, law, government, Magistrates, and the like. I think much of this state of things arises from the decline of chieftainship in the district, instanced by the proverb among them that "at Turanga all men are equal;" and it would have been far better if the ordinance of 1846 had been put in force, and straggling settlers prevented from occupying the land contrary to law. This is, in my opinion, the chief cause of the bad state of feeling that has grown up at Poverty Bay. Whatever may be the true reason, it has resulted in preventing the settlement of the claims, and at present I see no prospect of making such a settlement.

F. Dillon Bell,
Land Claims Commissioner.

Auckland, 24th February, 1860.
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