‘Fisheries’ limited in area—linguist

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 10

‘Fisheries’ limited in area —linguist

The use of the word “fisheries” in the English version of the Treaty of Waitangi did not mean areas of open sea should be reserved for the Maori people, a linguistics expert told the Waitangi Tribunal. It would have been “conceptually foreign and linguistically odd” for the English drafters of the Treaty to have used “fisheries” in this way, said Professor lan Gordon.

The meaning of "their fisheries” could extend from rivers and lakes within tracts of Maori-owned lands to favoured fishing grounds along the shoreline adjacent to those lands, he said.

But to infer the protection extended to fishing grounds in the "no-man’s-land” of the open sea was to defy the ordinary understanding of the word. The Waitangi Tribunal’s finding on the Muriwhenua claim that “fisheries” meant “the business of fishing” was erroneous.

It was inappropriate when considering a document drawn up in 1840 to rely on definitions offered by twentiethcentury dictionaries, said Professor Gordon. Professor Gordon was cross-ex-amined by three of his former pupils sitting on the Waitangi Tribunal, Mrs Georgina Te Heuheu, Judge Ashley McHugh and Professor Gordon Orr.

The English draftsmen of the Treaty were familiar with Maori fishing of the time in the north, said Professor Orr. These Maoris relied extensively on fish from the sea for sustenance.

It was, therefore, unlikely the draftsmen did not know “fisheries" referred to a major source of livelihood which came from the sea, suggested Professor Orr.

Mrs Te Heuheu asked Professor Gordon if he accepted wider considerations than dictionary definitions had to be taken into account when determining what was meant by "fisheries."

Professor Gordon replied he had been given only the narrow brief of determining what "fisheries" meant to an Englishman in the early nineteenth century. He was no expert on any other aspect of the Treaty. Bishop Manuhia Bennett said that on the day the Treaty was signed, it was presented in Maori, and was signed by a handful of English-speaking people and a large number of Maori people. "It seems to me to be against English justice to expect non-English speaking people to sign a treaty with this sort of implication without having the details explained to them,” he said.

Professor Gordon was called as a witness by the fishing industry.

The hearing will continue today.