Otago land claim case resumes

Press, 7 December 1988, Page 14

Otago land claim case resumes

The Crown yesterday resumed its case on the purchase of Otago from Ngai Tahu with extensive evidence supplied by a Dunedin historian. Professor Gordon Parsonson, a retired associate Professor of History at the Otago University, produced more than 160 pages of evidence and supporting documents to the Waitangi Tribunal. The tribe had placed a clear claim for the tenths, he said.

The tribe had claimed that the New Zealand Company involved in the purchase had a policy of reserving one-tenth of the land sold and had followed that policy in Nelson, Wellington and New Plymouth.

“For some reason however, this system of reserve allocation was held back and finally annulled.

“As a result the tribe claims it has been greatly disadvantaged, and in common justice should now be compensated in like proportion ...” ... “a tenth of the modern value of the original property.” “Unhappily, the arguments in favour of these propositions are none too convincing.”

Professor Parsonson said there had been a lack of scholarly research on the subject.

The evidence showed that 400,000 acres in Otago had been sold by the tribe in 1844.

The land had been bought by the New Zealand Company through its representatives Colonel William Wakefield.

Professor Parsonson outlined the history of the “tenths” scheme in relation to Nelson, Wellington and New Plymouth.

The scheme had biblical roots, he said. "The ancient Israelites brought to the Lord a tithe or tenth of their flocks and herds.” In the nineteenth century the term was used by property developers in the English Midlands.

Professor Parsonson said Colonel Wakefield’s New Zealand application had been “unworkable.” Because it was impossible to establish the price of a piece of waste land in an undeveloped country and do justice to the owner and purchaser the “tenth” was to be part of the price.

By May 1840 Wakefield had established that the “tenths” established in the first Wellington colony were worth £30,000 and would appreciate to £lOO,OOO. “This, however, assumed that the lands concerned would actually be occupied and developed. “In any case Wakefield’s sums were astray. The value of the Wellington sections did not appreciate to the extent he hoped.”

The real defect of the scheme from an economic viewpoint was that the “tenths” were inalienable, unsaleable and could share in the incremental value of market properties.

“Wakefield’s ‘tenths’ however, were less concerned with economic value or justice, than with a rather more ambitious goal, the preservation of the native race.” Wakefield maintained that a society could not survive without class divisions. The “tenths” were to provide the essential economic base of a “landed Maori aristocracy.”

“In the last resort, then, Wakefield was less concerned with the preservation of the ancient Maori tribes than with ushering in a new society altogether.”

But the chiefs were not interested in becoming a native aristocracy and the idea showed a lack of insight into Maori society. “Wakefield was not loved at the colonial office and his schemes were anathema.

“In the end, the Government reluctantly annexed New Zealand and established its own authority, which it was not anxious to share with anyone, least of all the (New Zealand) Company.”

The "tenths" were "reborn” as a primitive form of social security when the Government reluctantly decided to deal with the company.

“As such the scheme never really got off the ground."

The Government took over the management and making of the "tenths” and found the scheme “profitless."

"At long last then, the scheme was quietly buried.”

The Otago “tenths” was a straightforward issue. There were no resident tribespeople and the tribe was sufficiently asserting treaty rights. “Thirdly, since there were no settlers, there was no sense in making ‘tenths.’

“But apart from all that the original company scheme of the “tenths" was dead by 1844; to have installed it in Otago in 1848 would have been quite pointless.”