THE DEBATE ON THE HAWKE'S BAY "RING" LAND TRANSACTIONS.

Wananga, 30 October 1875, Page 322

THE DEBATE ON THE HAWKE'S BAY "RING" LAND TRANSACTIONS.

(Continued from our last,) For ten or eleven years the administration of the Province of Hawke's Bay was almost in the hands of these two gentlemen. I am further correct in saying that, during the greater portion of that time, they held conjointly the offices of Superintendent and General Government Agent of the Province, and one of them was a member of the Government when he held these appointments. The Native population of Hawke's Bay, speaking roughly, is three or four thousand, mainly composed of one particular tribe. This tribe had not the advantage of the civilising influences which had been available to most of the other Native tribes in the colony. Beyond the labors of one or two missionaries, and intercomse with whalers and persons of that standing, the Natives of Hawke's Bay, at the time of the foundation of the Province, had had little or no veal experience of Europeans, and had made little or no progress in civilisation. The bulk of the land in the vicinity of Napier at that time belongod to those Natives. I should say that, in the immediate vicinity of Napier, there was something like 250,000 acres of land not to be surpassed in the colony for almost every purpose for which land is useful. That quantity of land still remained in the hands of the Natives. A portion of it, before the coming into force of the Native Lands Act, hud been illegally occupied by certain Europeans, in contravention of the law. The House knows, or at least many members of the House know, what the old provisions were with regard to the occupation of Native lands before the introduction of "The Native Lands Act, 1862," and the subsequent amendment Acts. Being absolutely illegal, it has happened over and over again that persons who got occupation of these lands have been turned off at the instance of the Government. I shall presently refer to that subject, for the purpose of pointing out some of the people who illegally occupied these lands. I desire to point out that the misfortunes that have come upon the people of a y—l may say the great misfortunes, and that they are such the House will admit when I have done addressing them on this question—the misfortunes that have come upon them have been traceable to one or two causes. One of these causes has been their own ignorance. The second is the operation of the la-vs which this Assembly passed for the purpose of carrying into effect the direct purchase system. I am speaking from many years' experience of the working of these Acts. In the first place, the men who were called on to administer the Acts wore men who had no knowledge of the law of real estate, and who, if desiring to obtain land fox their own pergonal benefit, would have

had to go to a lawyer to obtain advice in regard to swell private transaction. The result was that the Natives never had a correct appreciation of the operation of the Native Lands Act until of late years. It must be borne in mind by the House that the solemn pledge given to the Native people ou the introduction of these Acts was that in every respect they would be benefited by the change of Native title to Crown grant. At the time this promise was given, the Native lands were absolutely Native property. They were protected from seizure for debt; the lands could not be given away without the consent of the whole people, and of the Government afterwards. The Native title was in every respect a good ond secure one. By the introduction of these Acts we put the Natives in .the position to obtain Crown grants for their property, and put tham in the way of disposing of these lands for sale, lease, mortgage, or otherwise. The result of that has been that in Hawkc's Bay the Native title is almost evtinguished, and their lands have passed into the hands of other people, under circumstances which this House will really deplore when they hear of them. There is ample evidence to show that from the beginning the Native Land Court Judges have never faithnil y done the work which has been intrusted to them by this Assembly. In the first place, no steps whatever have been taken, as a rule, to determine who were the persons really entitled to Crown grants of land, I heard my honorable friend the Colonial Treasurer state that he could hardly imngine that a grant would be given to a person who was not entitled. I can say that there have been numerous cases in which land has been granted to people who were not entitled to it. The result has been that people outside those grants were entitled to be in them. The law requires that the actual owners should be ascertained. But what is the practice of the Court ? The practice of the Court has hitherto been that, when a case came before it for investigation, it did not attempt to investigate the title. They told the Natives they had better go outside and settle the atter among themselves, as to who were to go into the grant. The Natives would then go outside and determine among themselves who were to corue in under the grant; The Court did not attempt to ascertain who were the rightful owners, but simply adopted the decision come toby the Natives themselves. The result was that the principal chiefs obtained the power over the property of the minor members of their tribes, who had not the opportunity of putting forth their claims before the Court and establishing them. They knew that they would be injuring their position in the estimation of the chiefs who were opposing them. When the Natives brought their decision into the Court, the inferior members of the tribe sat silent; they did not dare declare their ownership in the presence of their chiefs. The result was that a number of names were put in the grant to the exclusion of the real owners of the land. The Court, instead of investigating the title, and taking evidence as to who were the owners, adopted this disgraceful compromise. They failed to discharge their proper duty. The Court not only did that, but it also avoided work whenever it possibly could get out of doing it. I will mention a case in point, one that has recently been before the tribunals of the colony, which will illustrate this matter in the very best possible degree.

A laige block of country, 3.000 or 4..000 acres of land was agreed to be leased to Europeans in Napier The land is surveyed At the ume of making the survey and making the lease, there was a strip of i 6S an * on which their own settlements were established The surveys showed in Court two distinct blocks of land the intention of the Natives being that one block should go into one grant for the purpose of the lease and that the other block should remain separate for the purpose of holding it as their settlement. In this case the same praatice obtained to which I have iust referred—namely, that instead of the Court finding out the real owners, they sent the Natives outside to determine the title—to determine the case for themselves The Natives came into Court and gave in the names of two persons as the owners. Then again, at the suggestion of the Court, the Natives took one grant for the whole block instead of having two grants for the two distinct blocks. The House will see to what confusion that course led. The land was leased after the issue of the Crown grant. After the execution of the lease, an operation which I sln.ll presently describe was performed upon the grantees. They were laid hold of by a certain storekeeper, and, in the first place, thev gave a mortgage, as they understood, and as the storekeeper understood at the time, of the land comprised mthisjease. As a matter of fact, through the land being m one grant, the whole land, including the settlement of thirty or forty people living there, was included in that mortgage. Following out the usual course of events in the hands of these people, in a short time the mortgage was followed by a convevance In the meantime, between the granting of the mortgage and the agreement and the giving a conveyance* the storekeeper ascertained that the mortgage contained more than the land comprised in the lease. He considered it his duty not to inform the Natives of that fact. The re. -It was that a «: jnveyance passed of the whole of the land, and at the present time the settlement nrvnpied by some forty or fifty people, owned bv and belonging to them, has been alienated from them for ever, and entirely through the neglect and indifference of the officers of the Native Land. Court, I would point out these matters with some particularity because, as I contend, it was mainly through the negloct by the Native Land Court of its duties that persons were enabled to carry on a system which has given to Hawke's Bay a somewhat unpleasant and unenviable notoriety. When the Native Lands Act came into force, the Natives applied to put a giv.it deal of their lands through the Court. I shall show prosentlv, on undoubted testimony, that, in respect of n;i important block of land, the Natives applied to the Native Land Court Judge, before whom the case was being investigated, and asked him the (iiiestion. —'•' IT wo agree to allow this land to go through, the Court, if we put ten names in the grant, can any one or more of those grantees sell or dispose of the property without the J consent of the others?" The House must bear in I mind that this was a question put in open Court to the presiding officer, whose function it was to reply to such : questions, and whose replies are binding upon the Court j and upon the colony. Now, the reply given by that Judge was—" No ; if you take a grant with the names j of ten persons in it, no one of the grantees will be able j to dispose of that property without the consent of the I

others. On the fact of that assurance of the Court, the opposition to the land being pn t through the Court was withdrawn, and the grant was issued to one person. These are some of the evils which result from the operation of the Court itself. But other evils arose from the manner in which the Court discharged its functions m the appointment of surveyors, Nattve interpreters, and their staff of officers. Much of the evil arose from appointing improper persons as surveyors and very improper persons as interpreters of the Court' 1 shall enlarge presently upon the impropriety of appointing any person of known improper character to be an interpreter. The House will see that in transactions between Europeans and Natives, where the European does not speak Maori, and the Native does not speak the European language, all the responsibility rests upon the medium placed between them to carry"on the negotiation lam willing to admit, and shall be happy to find as the result of this investigation, that many of the charges whieh have arisen in the Province of Hawke s Bay against settlers who have dealt in Native land are really traceable to the action of the interpreters, and are not to be laid at the door of the purchasers. l