A FIGHT OVER LAND

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1933, Page 13 (Supplement)

A FIGHT OVER LAND

PURCHASE OF BELL BLOCK

(By

T.C.L.)

By the end of the year 1847, the purchase of nearly 30,000 acres had been arranged for with the Maoris, and a month after Sir George Grey’s second visit to Taranaki a deed was received from the absentee natives of the Ngamotu tribe then living at Wellington and on the shores of Cook Strait formally relinquishing their claims to the “Fitzroy” and “Grey” blocks of land that had been purchased. The Governor and the Resident Agent of the New Zealand Company at New Plymouth, Mr. F. D. Bell, had reason to believe that settlement of land difficulties by means of negotiation with the Maoris would proceed in a normal manner, and the Agent was authorised to purchase the 1500 acres of land in what is now known as the Bell Block district.

Negotiations were begun with the Puketapu hapu for the purchase of the land. Some of the Maoris were willing and anxious to sell, others were just as hostile to the disposal of the land. Moreover, just after negotiations for the purchase of the “Bell Block” had begun there was a great “return to Taranaki movement organised by the Taranaki Maoris who had settled at Waikanae and further south along the coast. The reasons for the migration were said to be the love of their ancestral lands, the sale of Waikanae to the pakeha, and the consent of the Great Waikato chief Te Wherowhero to the return. Included among them was the chieftain Wi Kingi, who had treated Governor Grey with such scant courtesy on his Excellency s first visit to New Plymouth. At first the Government was inclined to prohibit the return ,of the Taranaki tribes, but ultimately decided against any action. The incident is interesting as showing that for the first time the welfare of a “Company” settlement was regarded as one of the. obligations of the general Government. At all events Wi Kingi and his friends returned to Taranaki and a strong village was erected by him near the south head of the Waitara river.

Wi Kingi’s return is held by some authorities to have had much effect upon the Bell Block negotiations. It is certain that he claimed portion of the purchase money and that his claim was resisted by the Puketapu hapu. What support he promised the recalcitrant members of that hapu in their resistance to the sale is not so clearly recorded. Negotiations proceeded, and the day arrived when the boundary lines were to be cut. The Maoris who were willing to sell—with their friends they made a party of 60—found those who opposed the sale were prepared to resist the survey party by force. The struggle appears to have been willing but without any bitterness. Only fists, sticks, and the backs of tomahawks were used, and though bruises were plentiful there were no serious injuries inflicted. Gradually the anti-sale Maoris were driven back and the survey lines cut. When that had been done a feast was held and the sellers of land and their antagonists forgathered in a friendly way. All the same, the authorities were under no illusion as to the strength of the hostility to the sale. Although Bell Block was purchased in IS4B it was five years later before it was thought advisable to allow settlers to occupy -the land, and even that occupation had its repercussions in the darker days that lay ahead.

Shortly after the purchase of the Bell Block lands Mr. Bell left Taranaki, being succeeded as Resident Agent by Mr. William Haise. With the settlement of land questions the position of Agent naturally lost a good deal of its importance Almost imperceptibly the control of affairs drifted from the Company to the Government There were the constabulary, the Protector,, and other officials as a constant reminder of the authority of the Crown, and the Resident Agent became less of a diplomat ana more of a commercial and financial representative than was the case in the earlier days of settlement. Governor Grey’s programme seemed to be working well. The Omata lands were opened for settlement, the “Grey Institution, on the. Wesleyan Mission farm at Moturoa was opened as a Maori training school, and the town began to settle down to ordinary development. The end of 1848 saw a good harvest in prospect and, what was equally satisfactory, a disposition on the part of the Maoris to accept employment by the settlers in clearing the bush. The clouds o uncertainty and depression were hftmg, and the Taranaki correspondent of the “Wellington Independent” records in December, 1848, that “Taranaki has 40 to 50 tons of flour of last year’s growth for export.” The price asked was £ll a ton, and the writer maintained that if this price could be obtained for the crops to be harvested it would fairly remunerate the growers. The correspondent concluded with a rather striking sentence in view of later Taranaki history.’ “As for our dairy farmers, he says, “they have made their fortunes a long time ago.” The value of the Taranaki pastures was soon recognised by those West of England settiers. Most of them, men and women, had come from the “dairy farm of England and one can imagine how dairy-farming m Taranaki would appeal to them with the absence of housing and feeding cattle through the long and dreary English winter.

It is difficult to think oneself back into the New Plymouth of eight years of age. The town consisted of a few small stores in Devon Street on either side of the Huatoki River, one or two hotels, a gaol in James’ Lane off Currie Street, a few houses and stores in upper and lower Brougham Street and a trickle of houses towards Moturoa in what is now bt. Aubyn Street. In Liardet Street and Gill Street there were a few cottages on the seaward side of Devon Street, and from there to Te Henui there were a few residences. The Te Henui river was bridged, but the Fitzroy district was held in small farms, and from the Waiwakaiho onwards settlement had scarcely begun. There was a dwindling Maori pa at Mount Elliot, a hill that has since been removed for railway reclamation purposes, and a large pa at the sea end of Currie Street. Moturoa was a mission farm and Maori training school, and on Carrington Road a brewery and a flour null had been erected. Money was scarce. Most of. the trading was by barter, but the spirit of the settlement had revived. . The old fear of invalid titles to their holdings had been overcome since the visit of Governor Grey, and when, in May, the New Zealand Company agreed to compensate those settlers who had lost their holdings by Governor Fitzroy s action in 1844 it seemed that development had no further checks ahead. Supplies were irregular. They depended upon the frequency with which vessels from England called in the roadstead, but fear of actual want had been removed since sufficient wheat was grown for local needs.