WHY WAS THE WAITARA GIVEN UP?

Otago Witness, Issue 608, 25 July 1863, Page 7

WHY WAS THE WAITARA GIVEN UP?

(From the Press, July 9th.)

By recent advices from the North, we have the whole &tory of the abandonment of the Waitara before us, and we offer to our readers a tale which in all important jwrticulars xnay be relied on, and which presents, we venture to say, one of the most melancholy narratives of misunderstanding ever penned.

The Waitara valley belonged to the Ngatiawa tribe, having been handed down fiom 1 emote ancestors. In 1827, part ol the tribe migrated, under the lea l^rship of William King's father, to Waikane, in Cook Straits ; and in 1830, the Waitara couutry was conquered by the Waikatos. but not occupied, j Whatever rights over the land the Waikatos may have acquired by this conquest were purchased froiii Te Wherohero for LSOO by Governor IJobson, in 1841. The Ngatiavva were not unfriendly to the English, and in 1846, when Kanirihaeata took tip arms against the English, William King led our Native allies. In 1848, William King and his people returned to the Waitara ; and it so happens that on their journey they were met by Mr Dillon Bell, then, we believe, resident at New Plymouth, and now Native Minister. We need not recapitulate the details of the W.iitara i purchase by Governor Browne. The point at issue ia in a nut shell. Not quibbling over individual expressions, but taking the most pitent facts of the ea-e as stated on both side?, the is-uo may be thu3 stated ; Colonel Browne thought that the land was Teira's alone, and that William King was simply insisting on the forcible assertion of the doctrine* of the Land League ; whilst William King thought, and all the Waikato tribes have since thought, that the Governor meant to repudiate the whole principle of tribal tenure, upon which their existence as a distinct race depends. When too late, it appeared that both misunderstood what the other infant. Governor Browne did not mean to repudiate the tribal right generally, but only refused to believe that it existed in this ca^e : and William King was not asserting the doctrines of the Land League, but asserting a positive property in the particular soil which Teira was selling to the Crown.

From the time when M'Lean virtually promised Thompson that the troops should be removed, and the Governor promised that Waitara should he investigated, until the other day when Tataraimnka was seized by the troops, not one step of any kind whatever was taken to make a formal and le^al inquiry into the right of the case. Not very long ago, however, Te Teira and Ihaia had occasion to call upon the Native Minister, not, we believe, on any business connected with the public service. Mr Bell got into conversation with tlie chief, and with that pleasant manner for which he is so remarkable, and which wins unwonted confidence from the hearer, recurred to the old times "when he had met Teira returning with William King from Waikanae to ' settle again on the land of their common forefathers. Teira related what happened when they arrived at Waitara. William King's first invention, he said, was to settle on the north bank of the river, hut it was subsequently arranged, with the mutual con?ent of all the tribe, that they should all live together on the south side of the river for fear of the Waikatos ,, — not in one pah, but the two pahs were to be built close together, so as to form a m.utua.l protection, and defence to all against their late foe. William, King buiU hia pah there, and there lived, on the very land which Teira sold to the Governor ; and William King by this act acquired a valid legal interest in the soil, according to all maxima of Maori law. It is understood that Teira now dis? tinctly admits this fact. Mr. Reli could not fail to be, struck with the admission thus made by Teira that he had given Kiug a legal interest in the land ; and asked him how he came to sell the land to the Governor when he knew that King had an interest in it. Now we shall, no doubt, have the answer to that question in the Maori, word for word, when the Assembly meets ; but we can only give what we hear is the translation of the reply. IJoth Teira and Ihaia said— ♦'To that question we have no answer to make." Hut Teira went on to say that he never intended to 9e.1l the land on which the pah toad stood, extending to about 200 acresThat he intended to reserve. Nay, more, there were some thirty or forty other persons who QYmed. properties io, the blggk, ull of

whose land he never intended to sell. But he naively added, he wanted to sell the land "in order to get their holdings surveyed." To complete the conversation, Teira asked that he might be paid for the land. He had only had a small deposit of LSO or L lO3 at first, and nothing since. Of cmrse Mr Parris wag app alerl to. Did Mr Parris kno v anything of the 200 acres which Avere to have been reserved ? No ! There was to be a reserve, but he had never heard of 200 acres. Did lie know anything of the other 30 or 40 natives who had special holdings in the block? Not much it appeared. Was not the money paid to Teira? No ! Mr Parrn ha-l had frequent instructions to pay the money, but he had not paid it — why, we do not know. This, no doubt, will be explained, and perhaps it may come out that the fishy nature of the whole transaction, induced the Commissioner to withhold the purchase mouev. It will also, we believe, app'ar that it was contemplated by Mr Parris to lay out a town at the mouth of the Waitara, and to tatis-fy certain claims which were known to be overhanging the block by giving town actions in exclude, and we believe it will bi} found that William King was one of those to whom it was contemplated to give such, town sections. And yet it will appear that tiie identical land which was to be the site of the town was the same 200 acres which Teira no. v a'lmlts he had ne\er any right to sell, and all along inhmloJ to reserve. So that Willhm King's rights to an interest in the block were distinctly rccogn'sed by the fact that he was to be paid by sections in the supposed town.

Aud so we h.vc fought against this man who W.l-* all along defending his own. And we worship llampdeu, and Tel!, ar.d Garibatdi, but cannot enter into the feelings of a man who knew that lie was being robbed, and called around him all that was m mly in his dying rr.ee to defend his lawful estate. Teira admits it. Ihaia admits it. Domett admits it. Bell admits it. What more is wanting? It is the last clause in the most disgraceful chapter in the history of British Colonies.

We cannot publish the above without saying that we entirely acquit Colonel Browne and the Minister 1 ? of a knowledge of these facts. It seems to us a case of misunderstanding arising out of negociations between incapable subordinates and a thoroughly dishonest Maori.

It was upon a consideration of these facts that Sir G. Grey determined not to give up Waitara, but to decline to complete a purchase which after all, it appears, has never gone farther than the payment of a small deposit. It is not true that any money whatever has been paid to Teira, now or at any other time, beyond the deposit.

It ia also the case, that the determination not to go on with the Waitara purchase was come to a month before the murders at Oakura, but by some strange aud most unfortunate mischance was not published. We Have not been able to learn the cause of the delay. It was one mo;t deeply to be regretted, and may probably have been the sole occasion of a costly and bloody war. Still ue say the Governor has done wrong. These facts should not have been made the matters of private conversation in a Minister's study, but should have been formally proved and recorded in a Court of Justice, and to that after all it is more than likely it must come at last.