THE WAITARA QUESTION.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 107, 28 October 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE WAITARA QUESTION.

IpnRTANT DESPATCH OF. SIR h ■V GEORGE GREY. 1

r 6B following Ts a copy of a despatch j 0 the Governor to the Duke of New- ] & :- " '- r. ' lffl his Excellency Sir George Grey, i J bis Grace ttie Duke of Newcastle. < " Taranaki, May 25, 1863. j V Lord Duke— ln order that her testy' 3 Government may understand "sßcoessive steps by which we came into -present position with the Natives of province, I heg to be permitted to i. in consecutive order the several events regard to the Native races which have , e n place here, all of which are extractfrom reports which have from time-to r , e been made to Government by the; pral officers charged with 'the -manager- 1 n t of Native-affairs. ; jcliief,Katatore,:had fora long time. led his determination to retain a 'par-, alar portion of land, audit had been in. sequence excepted by the Government •„, their previous purchases. " One of 1 itatore's peo ple .destroyed a field of wheatt c ; h had recently been sown by a cliief m'ed Rawiri on his own land, which he 1 cultivated »for several years. Rawiri, u was provoked by this, and waa_the gker party and wanted aid, determined sell the very piece of land to the Go[jittient which "Katatore had always inided to retain, and which had been ex,tcd by the "Government in their prejns purchases. The Government lent e lf lo Rawiri's, design, ancl agreed to ylhe land. The result was that Rawiri i olher Natives persisted in obedience the orders of the jGovernment, in their [empts to cut the boundary line of this rtieular piece of land, and Rawiri and [■'ofhis men, none of whom had firens, were shot by Katatore, and some ol j people. The interference of the Go;mment was then vehemently called for Rawiri's friends, who were the weaker ity, and who made loud demands for ns and -ammunition, and also for troops punish Katatoie and those who had iin Rawiri. : Katatore's party were jimed, aiid anxious that the Governed should not interfere in the matter, aiious Native feuds resulted from these oceedings, and at length peace was apirently only established between the par a The Provincial' Council thus desibes what followed : — "After the establishment of this hollow ace, Katatore, who for many years id maintained^, his influence by iposing the sale of land, suddenly langed his policy and became a most ilhusiastic advocate on the other side, eatoncetook the foremost place in the ownment, while the men who had only mained consistent were thrust aside for eiiew man, and the negotiations for thc ucliasertf land which ensued immediately ithe establishment bf peace depended

lainly on the influence of Katatore." The slayers of Rawiri, the friend of the Hjyemmeiit, who fell in obeying their ders, became thus our friends and allies. niKatatore having come in as the new ian; sold the Government a block of tout 40,000 acres of land, and being der their influence, was one day s<*nt irby the Government to come into New lytoohth, was forbidden to bring his Ifes with him, and being thus betrayed, Krmed, into the power of his enemies, as by them, with one of his people, iiirdered by an ambush on our land, on lebighway, elose to a settler's house, in loinanner detailed in my despatch No. ), of the 14th instant. The two princiilpersoris concerned in this assassination efclhaia and his bi other Tamati TirauiH. T-he Government taking no steps to lanish the murderers of Katatore, the [ativesTOse in arms for this purpose. The tincipul leader of the Natives against haia and the other murderers was filliam"King, chief ait the WaitaraIt would, I think, have been supposed utKataore having thus been murdered hen he was, as it were, our unarmed nest, and was on our land, that we should nder no circumstances, have become the lies of those who had murd- red our new tiend. But Te Teira, a relative of Ihai nil Tamati Tiraixrao, Tiaving offered to ill us a piece of land at the W-aitara, E'hich. was regarded as specially desirable, id on which William King and about i>o of liis people had been fbr more than Irelve years located, regarding the land as B eir own, Te Teira's claim 'to this land is nominally purchased "by the Gover)r; William King and his followers were lined off by force of arms, and we ended y being lhe allies of Catatore's murderers ; id by for -three years supporting them jainst their enemies by a detachment of roops, as explained in my despatch, No. 5, of the 14th May. It is under.such- circumstances as these iat the Natives now evince a great want f confidence in our persistence in any ittled line of aotioh, and show a distrust Fas, which, I fear, it will require some me to remove. I have, &c, #c, G. GtIEY. IIII'- ■ ■ - ■ .