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

Public Auction

Public Auction.

  • 4. As to the power of sale, to make the exercise of it most attractive and satisfactory to the seller, and to exclude all private intriguing, all sources of jealousy and irritation, one precaution is necessary and sufficient. Let no Native land be sold under this Act otherwise than by public auction. Let the Natives see that their interests are fully protected, and that land is sold by the Government on their behalf just as the Government sells its own land. The auction should take place, after due notice, in such one of the English settlements as might be appointed for that purpose. The name and description of the purchaser being reported to the Civil Commissioner of the district in which the land was situate, he would cause the conveyance to be executed in the presence of himself or of some Resident Magistrate of the district, and forward it to the office in Auckland. The office would receive the purchase-money and either remit it or deposit it, as desired by the sellers, and would hand over the conveyance to the purchaser. Thus the great inconvenience and evil which often attends Government dealings with Natives, of keeping a number of persons hanging about the town for days together, might be avoided. The purchaser should, after a certain time, be entitled to receive a Crown grant.

    It would be a valuable addition to this plan if some convenient mode of investing the proceeds of sales could be open to the Natives, where they might obtain good interests on their deposits, and so might see that they derive a substantial and permanent benefit from our management. The frequent and natural complaint of the Natives, that the land abides whilst the payment perishes, might thus be obviated. The present savings banks have been instituted for a different purpose, and by the limited amount to be deposited, and by other regulations, are rendered unfit for the object here contemplated. Yet the political advantages to flow from any system which should attract Native investment, and so bind Natives to the Government, are great and obvious. For the attainment of a political end it would be wise to lay stress on those economical considerations which ordinarily prevail in such matters. If made attractive in this way, the selling of land may be expected to be, after a season, resumed freely. It is possible that in particular cases some inconvenience may be felt, but I have no doubt whatever that (if we look to the general working of the Act, to the attractiveness of its operation, and the peace of the country at large) the advantages will be found to preponderate enormously on the side of the sale by public auction. By no other mode can the settlers at large be secured against the forestalling of the land by a few; and by no other will the Natives be satisfied that they receive the fair value of the land.

    Cases will be found where money has been received by Natives as an advance upon a contract or understanding for sale of land; and such cases will need to be specially provided for. The persons who have in this way sought to gain a preference over others have no claim to consideration on the part of the Assembly or of the Government, inasmuch as it is provided by the express terms of the Native Lands Act itself that "Every contract, promise, or engagement for the purchase, lease, or occupation of any Native land, or of any interest therein, made prior to the issue of a certificate of title under this Act, shall be absolutely void;" to which enactment, moreover, attention has been drawn by an express notification in the Government Gazette. Care should also be taken that the page 5Native seller should not have the benefit of such unlawful contracts; for which purpose, upon the land being afterwards sold by auction, an amount equal to that which had been already received under the private dealing should be deducted out of the purchase-money, and paid into a fund for the general benefit of the district.