CONFISCATED LANDS

Waipa Post, Volume 37, Issue 2217, 2 October 1928, Page 5

CONFISCATED LANDS

COMPENSATION PAYMENTS RECOMMENDED. ROYAL COMMISSION’S REPORT. Sympathetic consideration of the recommendations of the Royal Commission which inquired into confiscation ot native lands, following the Maori wars, and othsr grievances of the Ma°n people, was promised by the Pume Minister, in the House on Representatives, when the report of the was laid on the table. The Commission was set up in 1926, and devoted its attention principally to the grievances of the Maoris in the Taranaki, Waikato, and Bay of Plenty districts. The members of the Commission were) Sir Wulliam Sim, the Hon. V. H. Reed, and Mr W. Cooper, and the first question they were asked fco consider was whether, “ having regard to all the circumstances and necessities of the period during which ■proclamations and Orders-in-Council under the New Zealand Settlements Act, 1863, were made, and tion effected, such confiscation or any of them exceeded in quantities what was fair and just, whether as penalty for rebellion or as providing for protection by settlement, as defined in the Act.” '

The report states that “this question assumes that in every case confiscation was justified, and directs an inquiry oniy as to the extent only of the confiscation. Counsel for the natives claimed that, notwithstanding this apparent limitation of the inquiry, the natives were entitled to raise the question whether whether or not there should have been any confiscation at all. This contention was not really disputed by counsel for the Crown, and in efech case the question whether or not there should havq been any confiscation at all was raised and discussed. '- It was contended on behalf of the Maoris that in dealing with this question under •several petitions the Commission was not bound by the limitations imposed by the first question, and that natives who had denied the sovereignty of the Queen, and who had repudiated her authority, could claim the benefits of the provisions of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Commission says that in dealing with these petitions, and in ascertaining what accords with good conscience and equity, it should treat the petitioners whose ancestors, were rebels .as not entitled, except in special circumstances, to alaim the benefits of the, Treaty. DECLARATION OF WAR WRONG. The Commission says that both the Taranaki wars ought to be treated as having*, arisen out of the Waibara purchase and judged accordingly. “ The Government was wrong in declaring war against the natives for the purpose of establishing the supposed rights of the Crown under that purchase. It was, as Dr Featherston called it, an unjust and unholy war, and the second war was only the resumption of the original conflict.” Although the natives who took part in the second Taranaki war were engaged in rebellion within the meaning oft he New Zealand Settlements Act, 1863, the Commission thinks that in the circumstances they ought not to have been punished by the confiscation of any of thejir lands. A total of 462,000 acres was finally confiscated, and the Commission says it is difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion as to the value of the land* at the date of itsi confiscation.

“ The Commission recommends that the wrong done by the confiscation should be compensated for by making a yearly payment of £5900 to be applied by a board for the benefit of the tribes whose lands were confiscated.” CONFISCATION EXCESSIVE. The history of the Waikato trouble was traced at some length by the Commission, which aays it is true that the Government did not afford the Maoris of that district some excuse for their resort to arms. Had the natives contented themselves with providing for the maintenance also of law and order in fiheir midst, and for the regulation of the sales of native land, they might have been declared to be blameless. But they were not content to dlo that, and formed a plan for the destruction of Auckland and the slaughter of its inhabitants. The Commission says that it is not justified in saying that the tribes who took part in the Waikato war ought not to have suffered some confiscation of their lands as a penalty for the part thejj; took in the rebellion. “ After reviewing all the circumstances, the Commission says that the confiscation was excessive, and particularly so in the case of the Mangers, Ihumata, and Pukaki natives. It recommends that this excessive confiscation should be compensated for by making a yearly payment of £3OOO to be applied by a board for the benefit of the natives whose lands were confiscated.”

TAURANGA AND BAY OF PLENTY. •With regard to the Tauranga confiscations, the Commission finds that they were justified and not excessive, and that the natives; have not made out any case for >an inquiry asked for by them in regard to the rightls of loyal, natives to an area of 50,000 acres, and as to a contention that both the loyalists and the rebels were entitled to a full share in that land as if it had not been confiscated. Dealing with the Bay of Plenty confiscations, which wqre the outcome of events following the murder of the Rev. C. Volkner at Opotiki on 2nd March, 18G5, and the murder of James Falloon at Whakatane on 21st July, 1865, the Commission says, it is clear that the natives at Opotiki were engaged in rebellion when they resisted with arms the advance 'cf the forces sent out to capture the murderers, and that the confiscations were justified. ANOTHER GRANT PROPOSED. “It is impossible at this distance of time to determine exactly the hapus concerned in the rebellion or to ascertain their respective interests in the land confiscated,” states the report. “ It would be idle to attempt to discriminate now as to the complicity of the different hapus, and all that can be said now is that it has not been proved

to the satisfaction of the Commission that the land of any innocent hapu , was confiscated. . , The. Coriimission : finds- that except in the case of the. Whakatohea tribe/'which, was left with 347,130-acres of of 491,000 acres, the , confiscation in’ the Bay of Plenty did not exceed what was fair and just. * “ In the case of*the tribe mentioned., it was excessive, .but only to a small extent, and the Commission mends that xa yearly sum Oi ±3OO sih-ould be provided for the purpose ofhigher education’ for the children, of • the members of that tribe.”RESTORATION IMPOSSIBELE. In reply to the question as to whether any lands included in any confiscation were of such a nature as that they should havq been, excluded for some special reason, the Commission says that it is clear that any general attempt to restore these places new is quite out of the question. It asks, for example, what would be the use of a canoe landing-place to natives who have not any canoes and who now travel in motor cars. The Commission also deals at length . with a number of petitions affecting cases from individual hapus. In the majority of cases application was marie for relief by way of grants of land, but the Commission has found that few have established a case.