II.—The Surplus Land Reverting to the Crown.

On this subject I might perhaps say little beyond referring the reader to the return hereto appended. It will be seen that the total number of acres reverting to the Crown upon the settlement of the land claims is 204,243, of which the greater portion is situated in the vicinity of the Bay of Islands.

I should remark that these figures either represent known quantities, or where not surveyed then estimated quantities which can pretty accurately be calculated, and which I believe will be found to be within the real extent when laid off. The return takes no account of any claims which lapsed or were not referred to any Commissioner, with the exception of those cases where the land was given up to myself by the Natives. There are many cases where (so far as I can form a judgment) bonâ fide purchases were made, the claims for which have either lapsed altogether or been excluded by the Act; and if the state of the country had permitted I should have taken measures to recover as much as the Natives would agree to give up of this land for the Crown. After the Taranaki war, however, this became impossible in certain districts; the Waikato and Kawhia Natives, for instance, would certainly at present repudiate every sale to private persons, as they are said to have repudiated some of the transactions entered into with Government. Besides, the experiment at Hokianga discouraged me in making the attempt. I found, as I have above remarked, that I could only get 15,000 acres for £33,000 of scrip, incurring an additional cost of more than £700 in the survey: and as the balance of scrip which had been issued (£60,000) represented scattered claims in the North, I determined to give up for the present the attempt at getting the land anywhere except at Ngunguru and Tutukaaka. About nine months ago I sent an officer there to lay off the land which had reverted to the Crown and the land comprised in Mr. Busby's purchase; the exigencies of the public service compelled the Government to page 629recall him and send him on other duty, but he has lately gone up again, and it will not be long before I can exchange the estimate of 4,000 acres in the return for a specific acreage.

I wish to observe that the quantity in the return is exclusive of the land actually sold by the Government as mentioned in the preceding section. When the House of Representatives interfered in 1854 to prevent the further alienation of land comprised in any claim, a stop was put to sales; and so rigidly have the provincial authorities since adhered to the decision then taken, that it was only the other day the Deputy Waste Lands Commissioner of Auckland thought it necessary to apply to me even before laying out a public road through one of the claims.

The settlement of the scrip claims at Ngunguru and Tutukaaka will, no doubt, enable the Government to extinguish the Native title over a good deal of adjacent land, as was the case in the settlement of the land claims in other districts. I append a statement showing the amount of land situate in the northern districts of Auckland over which the Native title has been extinguished, but which has not yet been proclaimed and handed over to the province. The extent amounts to within a few acres of 50,000, of which rather more than 30,000 acres are interspersed with the land claims.

If it should now be determined to hand over the surplus lands and these unproclaimed lands to the provincial authorities, the total immediately available will exceed 254,000 acres. As a large portion of this, however, lies within the boundaries reserved by the Governor under "The Bay of Islands Settlement Act, 1858," it appears to me that before it can be handed over that Act will have to be repealed. The Governor in Council certainly has the power under the Act to determine the manner in which the land reserved shall be sold, and to make regulations as to price and so forth. He might therefore make a simple order that the land should be sold in manner provided by the Auckland Waste Land Regulations of 1859, in force as to other lands in the province; but the application of the money accruing from sales is limited by the Act, and it would not be competent to the Provincial Legislature to appropriate it at their pleasure, as is the case with the Ordinary Territorial Revenue under the provisions of "The Land Revenue Appropriation Act, 1858."