WHY WAS THE WAITARA GIVEN UP?

Wellington Independent, Volume XVIII, Issue 1897, 21 July 1863, Page 4

WHY WAS THE WAITARA GIVEN UP?

[From the Canterbury Press.] By recent advices from the North, we have the whole story of the abandonment of the Waitara before us, and we offer to our readers a tale which in all important particulars may be relied on, and which presents, we venture to say, one of the most melancholy narratives of misunder standing ever penned. The Waitara valley belonged to the Ngati • awa tribe, having been handed down from remote ancestors. la 1827, part of the tribe migrated under the leadership of William King's father, to Waikanae in Cook's Straits; and in 1830,' the Waitara country was conquered by the Waikatos but not occupied. Whatever rights over the land the Waikatos raay have acquired by this conquest were purchased from Te Wherowhero for £500 by Governor Hob.^oo, in 1841. The Ngatiawa were not unfriendly to the English, and in 1846, when Bangihaeita took up 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 Flymouth, and now Native Minister, We need not recapitulate the details of the Waitara purchase hy Governor Browne. The poiut at issue is in a nut shell. Not quibbling over individual expressions, but taking the most patent facts of the case as stated on both sides, the issue may be thus stated. Colonel Browne thought that the land was Teira's alone, and that William King was simply insisting on the forcible assertion of the doctrines of the Land League; whilst William King thought, and all tbe Wai« lato tribes have since thought, that the Governor meant to repudiate the whole principal of tribal tenure, upon which their existence as a distinct rsce depends. When too late it appeared that both misunderstood what the other { meant. Governor Browne did not mean to repudiate the tribal right generally, but only refused to believe that it existed in this case ; 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 be investigated, until tbe other day when Tataraimaka was seized by the troops, not one step of any kind whatever was taken to make a formal and legal inquiry into the light 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 j connected with the public service. Mr Bell \ got into conversation with the chief, and with that pleasaat manner for which he is so remarkable, and which wins unwonted confidence j from the bearer, recurred to the old times when he had met Teira returning with William King from Waikanae to settle again on tbe land of their common forefathers. Teira related what j happened when they arrived at Waitara. Wm. King's first intention, he said, was to settle on j north bank of the river, but it was sub- ' sequently arranged with the mutual consent of all the tribe, that they should all live together ota 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 mutual protection and defence to all against their late foe. William King built his pah j there, and there lived on the very land Teira j sold to the Governor: and William King by this act acquired a valid legal interest in the soil according to all maxims of Mauri law. It is understood thatTeiranow distinctly admits this fact. Mr Bell could not tail to be struck with the admission thus made by Teira that he had given King a legal interest in tbe land ; and asked him how he came to sell tbe land to the Governor when he knew that King bad an in- | terest in it, Now we shall, no doubt, have the answer to that question in the Maori word for word, when the Assembly mets; but we can only give what we hear is the translation of the reply. Both. Teira and Ihaia said — " To that question we have no answer to make." But Teira went «v to say that he never intended to sfcll the land on which thepah had stood, extend. ! iug to about 200 acres. That he intended to reserve; Nay, more, there were some thirty or forty other persons who owned properties in the block, all of whose land he never intended to sell. But, he naively added, he "wanted to sell tbe 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 bad a small deposit of £50 or £100 at ■ first, and nothing since. Of course Mr Parris i • was appealed to. Did Mr Parris know anyftjing of the 200 acres which were to bave been /reserved? No! There was to be a reserve but be had never heard of 20') acres. Did he know anything of tbe other 30 or 40 Natives who had special holdings in the block F Not much it appeared. Was not the money paid to Teira ? Nol Mr Parris had had frequent instructions to pay the money but he had not paid it — why, j we do not know. This no doubt will be ex"plainfid, and perhaps it may come out, that the fishy nature of the whole transaction induced tbe Commissioner to withold the purchase money. It will also we believe, appear that it was contemplated by Mr Parris to lay out a town at the mouth of the Waitara and to satisfy certain claims which were known to be overhanging tbe block by giving town sections in exchange, and we believe it will be found that William King was one of those to whom it was contemplated to give such town sections. And yet it will appear that tbe identic il land which was to be the site of the town was the same 200 acres which Teira now admits he had neverany right to sell, and all along ioteuded to reserve. So that William Kiug's rights to an interest in the block were distinctly recognised by tbe fact that be was to be paid by sections in the proposed Town. And so we have fought against this man who ( was all along defending his own. And we ' worship Hampden, and Tell, and Garibaldi, but cannot enter into the feelings of a man who knew that he was being robbed, and called around him all that was manly in his dying race 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 tbe above without saying that we entirely acquit Colonel Browne and the , .Ministers of a knowledge of these facts. It , seems to us a case of misunderstanding arising out of negociations between incapable subor- > dinates and a'throughly dishonest Maori. It was upon a consideration of these facts that Sir George Grey detirmed not to give vp 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 'tbe deposit. It is also the ca«e, that tbe determination not , * to.go on with the Waitara purchase was come to a month before tbe murders at Oakura, but by some strange and most unfortunate mischance was not published. We have not been able to learn the cause of the delay. It was • ofie most deeply to be regretted, and may proybably have been the sole occasion of a costly and bloody war.| I '^;' Still we isay tbe Governor has done wrong. ' -facts should not bare been made the private conversation in a Minister's "stuayfbut Should have btfeu formally proved and recorded in a Court of Justice, and to that after all it is more thanlikely itmustcomeatlast.