CROWN GRANTS for the SOUTHERN SETTLEMENTS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 184, 13 September 1845, Page 111

CROWN GRANTS for the SOUTHERN SETTLEMENTS.

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator.

Wellington, 13th August, 1845. Sir — I have to request to be allowed to make public through the medium of the next number of your paper, that the last arrival from Auckland brought to his Honour the Superintendent the deed of grant in favour of the New Zealand Company of land comprised in the Port Nicholson purchase to the amount of 71,900 acres.

Of these, 63,100 have been surveyed, and 54,900, including 4,310 reserved for the natives, have been selected.

Thus, the grant gives a Crown title to a little more than half of the land purchased from the Company in 1839 in this settlement. It is to be presumed that the remainder awaits further reports from the Commissioner of Land Claims. All the pas, burial-places, and ground in cultivation by the natives, situated within any of the lands so granted to the New Zealand Company ; the cultivations being " those tracts of land which are now used by the natives for vegetable productions, or which have been so used by any aboriginal natives of New Zealand since the establishment of the colony," are excepted.

Also, three portions of land in the town of Wellington.

These exceptions, and the demand of fees amounting, conjointly with those on a deed of grant of 151,000 acres of land in the Nelson settlement lying around Blind Bay, to £1,1 14 10s., render it necessary for me to ask for instructions from the Court of Directors of the Company as to my acceptance of the grants on its behalf; but it may be .satisfactory to the purchasers of land from the Company to learn that the titledeeds from the Crown of the above-mentioned portions of the settlements of Wellington and Nelson are in existence.

The three portions of town land to which I have before adverted, consist of one acre and a half fronting Lambton Quay, and now covered with buildings estimated to be worth between £4,000 and £5,000, granted to Mr. David Scott.

Three-quarters of an acre fronting Tborndon Quay, granted to Mr. George Young; and Four acres on Thorn don Flat, with frontage to Thorndon Quay, granted to the Union Bank of Australia, to the manager of which the claim has been assigned by Mr. Robert Tod. The payment of a fee of £5 is demanded on each of these grants.

The claims to the two first portions are founded on purchases alleged to have been made prior to the sale of the district to the Company, and the third on a purchase made from a single native three months after the general sale by the natives, and just previous to the arrival of the first body of settlers. The interests of numerous individuals being affected, and considerable uneasiness having been produced by the issue of these grants of land to others than those to whom it was allotted by the Company five years ago, I venture to trespass on your space to show by the following references to public documents, that such allotting by the Company took place under the direct authority of the first Governor of the colony, that it was in accordance with the terms of the first Land Claims Ordinance, then and now in force, as well as with the second, which was law during the examination of the claims, and that it is in direct contravention of the letter and spirit of those ordinances, and of proceedings expressly sanctioned by Governor Hobson and Lord Stanley, that the grants in question have been made.

.Upon the occasion of Governor Hobson's visit to Wellington in August, 1841, in a proposal dated 24th August, for carrying out the arrangements made by her Majesty's Government, and for effecting a settlement of the rights of purchasers of land from the Company upon the faith of that arrangement; among other points I submitted to his Excellency the following : —

44 That to meet the other conditions of the arrangement, and to forward the prosperous settlement of this part of the colony, your Excellency should guarantee to the British subjects who claim lands in New Zealand, as purchasers from the New Zealand Company, a sure and indefeasible title to all such lands as have been surveyed, or may be surveyed, for the purpose of satisfying their claims as such purchasers as aforesaid : provided always, that if any part of the said lands shall, upon due inquiry, be found not to have been validly purchased from them before the date of the alleged purchase by the New Zealand Company, full compensation shall be made to the natives, or the previous purchaser <a» the case may be) by the New

Zealand Company. In the case of the former, the compensation to be decided by the native protector and an agent of the Company ; or, in case of difference, by an umpire named by them : and, in the latter, according to the scale fixed in clause No. 6, of Sir George Gipps's Act, in respect of claimants of land considered necessary for pus* poses of public utility, who might be dispossessed by the Government."

To this communication Governor Hobson replied in a letter, under date 6th September, 1841:—

44 Understanding that some doubt is entertained as to the intentions of the Government with respect to the lands claimed by the New Zealand Company, in reference both to the right of preemption vested in the Crown, and to conflicting claims between the Company and other purchasers —

" It may be satisfactory for you to know that the Crown will forego its right of pre-emption to the lands comprised within the limits laid down in the accompanying schedule, and that the Company will receive a grant of all such lands as may by any one have been validly purchased from the natives; the Company compensating all previous purchasers according to a scale to be fixed by a local ordinance. 41 You are at liberty to give the utmost publicity to this communication." Schedule of lands referred to : — 44 Town of Wellington, containing (1,100) eleven hundred acres, in sections of one acre each, numbered from 1 to 1,100 on the Company's plan. "Town district, including Karori and Ohiro, containing (5,000) five thousand acres, more or less, in sections numbered on the said plan 2, 3, and 5, to 52 consecutively, Nos. 1 and 4 being Crown reserves.

44 Harbour district, containing (6,900) six thousand nine hundred acres, more or less, in sections numbered from 1 to 69 on the said plan. 41 Watt's Peninsula, containing (1,200) twelve hundred acres, more or less, numbered on the said plan from 1 to 11 and 13, No. 12 being a Crown reserve.

" Porirua district, containing (10,600) ten thousand six hundred acres, more or less, numbered from 1 to 106 on the said plan. " Hutt district, containing (6,400) six thousand four hundred acres, numbered from 1 to 64 on the said plan.

" Seventy-eight thousand eight hundred (78,800) acres, more or less, to be surveyed and allotted by the said Company, in the neighbourhood of Port Nicholson, the boundaries of which neighbourhood are thus declared : —

41 The river ' Manawatu ' (from its mouth upward), to the parallel of the Wahini and Tararua ranges, from thence by the summit of the Tararua range, extending in a general direction about south to the river Hutt, from thence by a line bearing south, by compass, to the summit of the ' Turakirai' range, which forms the eastern boundary of the valley of the river Hutt, to the sea at Baring Head."

This letter, with the schedule and a notice describing the boundaries of the town, were published in the Government Gazette of the 13th of October, 1841.

This public notification of the Government's intentions towards purchasers under the Company gave security to property and caused much satisfaction to the public at the time; encouraging proprietors to build upon their town lands and improve generally all their landed property; and although it was not the Governor's intention to follow out this principle in respect of the Nelson settlement, the following passage in his letter to Captain Arthur Wakefield, of the 27th September, 1841, shows how very clear his intentions were in regard to the Company's first settlement : —

" It may be objected that I have in another instance departed from this rule, by guaranteeing against all European claimants the rights of settlers located by the New Zealand Company upon the lands of Port Nicholson, Wanganui, and Taranaki ; but this course I defend on the score of expediency, as the only means open to me of restoring confidence to the occupiers of land who purchased from the New Zealand Company under an implied assurance that the Company's title was clear and undisputed, while there are at present numerous conflicting claims pending the decision of the Commissioners."

Upon the Governor's return to Auckland, the second Land Ordinance was passed on the 25th February, 1842, to amend the ordinance (Session 1., No. 2) of 9th June, 1841.

Clause 7, of this ordinance (Session 11., No. 14), enacts : —

" If any part of the land to be granted to the New Zealand Company under the provisions of the aforesaid arrangement shall have been vatidly sold by the aboriginal inhabitants to any claimant other than the New Zealand Company, compensation in other land shall be made to such claimant by the said Company, according to such rate as to the Commissioner shall seem meet."

Now this ordinance was law within the colony until August, 1843, when Lord Stanley's despatch of 19th December, 1842, disallowing it, was received in the colony, and as Mr. Spain had then finished his investigations to claims in the Port Nicholson district, his decisions, if then promulgated, must have been governed by this enactment. But to refer to the act of June, 1841, which Lord Stanley says is to govern us, read clause 7 : —

" Provided, nevertheless, and be it enacted and ordained, that the said Commissioners shall not propose to grant to any claimant whatsoever any land which may, in the opinion of the majority of the said Commissioners, or of the majority of the Commissioners appointed to investigate the demand of such claimant, be required for the site of any town or village, or for the purposes of defence or for any other purpose of public utility ; nor shall they propose to grant to any individual any land of a similar character, which they may be directed to reserve by the Governor of New Zealand, but that in every case in which land of such description would otherwise form a portion of the land which the Commissioners- would propose to grant to the claimant, they shall, in lien -of such land, propose to grant to him or her a compeasa-

tion in such quantity of other land as they (the laid Commissioners), or the majority of them, ■hall deem an equivalent for every acre, or part of *n acre, so required to be reserved, either for the site of a village or township, or for the purpose Of defence, or for any other purpose of public utility as aforesaid." If this clause is not equally clear in reference to the particular claimants against the New Zealand Company with that of the act passed on the 85th February, 1842, yet its application as to what lands may be granted and what withheld by the Commissioner is more extensive, and the public notification in the Gazette of the Governor's intentions to deal with the rival claimants, in the case of the Company's purchase of the town and harbour and district of Port Nicholson, must be clearly considered as a notice or direction to the Commissioner to reserve such disputed lands from any Crown grant, and to award a compensation in lieu thereof out of the remaining estate of the Company. And as if to make assurance doubly sure that such should be die course pursued, and to confirm die proceedings of the Company's agents, we have the approval of Governor Hobson's measures by Lord Stanley, as shown below, and finally, the expressed intention of the Officer administering the Government ad interim to falfil the promise contained in the letter or agreement of the 6th September, 1841 : — Governor Hobson to the Principal Secretary of Stats for the Colonies. (No. 30.) Auckland, Nov. 13th, 1841. ' ' Anxious to relieve a numerous body of British subjects from a state of much embarrassment, and having learned from the arrangement entered into with the New Zealand Company that it was the Intention of her Majesty's Government that there should be granted to them four times as many acres of land as it should be found they had expended pounds in the manner pointed out in that arrangement, I caused it to be notified to the Company's Principal Agent that, as to the lands comprised in an accompanying schedule, the Crown would forego its right of pre-emption. The few claims that might be substantiated in preference to that of the New Zealand Company, in respect of the lands comprised within their settlement, being made by persons not actually settled on the spot, I deemed it expedient at once to declare should give way in favour of persons actually occupying the land, and that the Company should compensate such previous purchasers according to a scale to be fixed by a local ordinance, t am happy to say that the assurance thus given to the Company's agent had an immediate and marked effect on the commercial credit of the settlement.