THE EVENING MAIL, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1877.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 247, 6 February 1877, Page 2

THE EVENING MAIL,

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1877.

»f<r thinirs, unit ;v drop of inlc fcUlins tbtttiyht na»y produce that wh'u.-h uuikus thousand. Ulink."

TUB people of the North Istand five not at all satisfied with the proceedings ot' the Auckland Waste Lam Is Board, and protect againat tin? terms of the conditions upon which Mr. Broohkam. is t*> have the Thames Land. They fail to see the justice of granting concessions to strangers which will not be conceded to otd wfottists who are witling t«> takp it|> other tantt upon a similar footing, and kv mating t,hi» protest, it must be admitted they have something very like e<t'uey >n their side. It was thought by some that the negotiations between !\fr. lUuH»cttAt.t. and the Board would he ot very little avail', and, satisfactory a« were the terms upon which T« Arolia f«!<»ck was t<> bp obtained. there was vt-ry littlo likelihood of the arrangements being concluded, on account of the 2vative complications* aud the claim set up by the King over the land. That difficulty, however, we learn, hart been now removed, or will, in all probability, vvry shortly be, and Mr. MacKAV » at present irv the Waikatov conferring with the Natives as to the stuns which had buen promised to thy vari'-tts tribes* on account of their claims to the Block. From thy Jfmtltt we learn that Tawhiao is to receive £r>Ort —not s» much, we suppose, on account of any right which he has to the land, as a recognition of his position, or mu/ut; and because the acceptance ot' the money will be taken as a pledge that he wilt make no difficulty at all abotat its occupation. As, then, the negotiations are likely to result in the occupation t>£ the hvftd by the Settlement, it may be of interest to> our readers to know the specific terms, as agreed upon between the Waste Lands Board at Auckland and Mr. fixoomu, acting on behalf of the Settlement, for which we are indebted to the VFmfotto Time it :—" That 50,000 acres ot 62,553 con. prise i in the Te Aroha block ohould be sold to Mr, JJkovjxuxu.,

gobject to the extinguishment of the Native title, and to the reservation of sttch lsntla as might be deemed necessary [ for Native purposes; such reservation, however, not to diminish the area of the 30,000 acres before stated. That the land should be sold to Mr. Broomhaxl at the rate of 10s. p«.r acre, the amount of the purchase, £*J-V)*)0 tn cash, to be paid to the Agent-Genera! ' n London, within a I month after the receipt by him of a plan ■ t>f the 50, CM) acres, having all the Native ; reserves dehned upon it. That Mr. BBooMitAt.t. should settle upon the land t>M adult immigrants, of eighteen years or upwards (two persons of eighteen years of agtt to be emitted as one adult), ami that he should erect no fewer than !«>«» houses, of a minimum value of £6O, each inclusive of buildings to be us»d as churches, chapels, schools, mechanics' institutes, or stovt-s. That he should reserve land for rßerwative, municipal, educational, ami religious purposes, placing the same on trust. That one tiffch of the total area of .*>o,ooo acres should be put under cultivation, omr acre of drained swamp to be : reckoned as to the same extent of ; cultivated ground. That all these condti tih'fis should be fulfilled on or before the ! Ist day of January, ISS3, and that, as a j ,'iuu-autee for this, Mr. Bkoomhau. should ; deposit with the Agent-General £12,;>00 in I L \\'W Zealand per cent, bonds with ! coupons attached. That on receipt by the ! Agent-General of the above-mentioned ' purchase money and deposit, he shoitl 1 : ;tifonu the New Zealand Government by telegraph of such fact, whereupon a Crown Grant, reserving precious metals, and containing the usual covenr.nts to lay o;u road's, shoutd be prepared in Mr. BeuomB.ux'fk name, and delivered on his account to the Manager of the Bunk r»f New Zealand in Auckland." There ts one- portion of the agreement which is somewhat cloudy—that which stipulates that " Mr. IiKOOMiiAi.L should settle upon the land t>W> adult immigrants, of eighteen year* or upwards (two persons : of eighteen years to be counted as one i adult)." From the reading of the first ; portion of the sentence it would certainly be inferred that persons arriving at the ; age of eighteen years were reckoned as adults ; but that condition is nuUiti&d by > the stipulation that two persons of thai age should count but one person. As a ' ovcat deal of interest attaches to the present claim put in by the Natives to the bud in question, we clip from Hie : btikd &W the following singular history of : the To Aroha I'doek " It has a hisiory vvtucU could scarcely tind a parallel in any other country on the face of the globe. The e"ut'usmct which was inseparable troin r,h<? old Maori system of land tenure, which was practically no system at all, has been an endless source of complication, atvuovanee, expanse, and bloodshed in the endeavor to define intertribal boundaries, and ttx the titles. The Te Aroha block is a notable example. The investigation t>£ proprietary claims to this block was commenced in the Land Court at Auckland sortie veal's and resulted in the land Win/awarded Co the- Ngathaua tribe of Waii.aU>. The Ohineimn Natives no sooner Ik eaute aware of this decision than thev challenged its justice, anil stoutly demanded a rehearing, which was granted, i'oth sides engaged an array ok toivu-uc taknt. big briefs were built up on the stivuv'th of the weurUy which th<: Ian»l otl'cred, and the old fable of t?:e oyster «nd the shell very nearly found a modem illustration. This tune the Court admitted the Ohiuemttri natives a.-; co-pro-prietors of Te Aroha. I he effect <>f i sis decision upon the minds of the Waikatos was puK-.ling in the extreme. In tii-ir rough and ready way of reasoning, the two judgments were paradoxical ; no amount of logic «.->ukl reconcile the two contradictory tikanga. They waited on Sir I>oN.\r,t» Jl'Lr.-iX and protested they de-tired to know whether his mafia (power or authority) was not sufficient to override and extinguish the simple tikangn of a katwhakawa,- or judge. The late Native Minister prom sed to inquire into matter, and there it rested for some time. But then a new claimant suddenly came on the scene in the person of the renowned chief T.wt.vri Waka. Tins claim to Te Aroha was b.v.vd on irrefragable grounds. Manv vear.-> ago he headed a Ngapuhi war party who built a pa on the land, and exterminated the ancestors of the miserable remnant who now had the audacity to put forward a claim to the land. The process of extermination was so effectual as to leave no room for doubt—Tamati \\ aha and his braves had simply eaten the original proprietors, and as a matter of course tncorp-orafed their proprietary rights. And the proofs were no less clear and undent- 1 aide; there were the remains of trie pa, j and there were also the clean picked bones of the original owners of Te Aroha, j bleaching in the sun and rain. Tamati Witka, however, like a distinguished ran- j gattra, considered it beneath his dignity j to contest his claim, so long as the miser- j able and enslaved remnants of the defunct j and devoured did not put on any airs, or j endeavour to assert their mana over the |

block. But this does not exhaust the list of claimants. The Ngatinauas or Tamahere also claimed through their ancestors, and, to cap the complications, Tawhiao declared that all the previous claimants were usurpers, and that he himself was lord of the manor. Under these circumstances, the ingenuity of the Native Office shone out in all its brilliancy. After lengthy negotiations it was finally arranged that the Thames Natives should receive £2OOO. Tc Wheoro's party £BOO, and the Tama here Natives £1250. At the last meeting between the late Sir Donald M'Lean and Tawhiao it was hinted by the former that the sum of £ooo would be forthcoming in consideration of Tawhiao relinquishing his claim, but that potentate did not appear to be at all anxious to come to terms. It may be mentioned title that at one stage of the affair two opposing parties of Natives, numbering each nearly 400, and fully armed, were in occupation of the Te Aroha block, and that a collision was only prevented by the exertions of Mr Commissioner Kemp and others."