THE TARANAKI QUESTION.

57

E—No. %

Wirerau Kingi and his followers to resist the survey of the land, even to blood. Let no one say after this that their resistance was the result of the proclamation of Martial Law. On the llth February this Ritatona te Iwa, writing for himself and Wiremu Kingi, warns their friends at Waikanae that they will resist the survey by force and are prepared to fight. On the 20th February, nine days after this letter, the survey was attempted. On the 22nd February Martial Law was proclaimed. Oα the 17th March hostilities commenced. . , Thus the evidence of the fact, that resistance by force of arms was deliberately intended by Wiremu Kino-i and his people long before the proclamation of Martial Law, is furnished in a letter which was unhappily withheld from the knowledge of the Government for more than nine months after its date, and eight months after the commencement of hostilities. -\- It will be seen that great stress is laid in a following portion of the pamphlet on the peaceable manner in which the survey was obstructed on the 20th February. This letter, produced in support of the accusation that it was the Governor who resorted to force, affords the most conclusive proof of Wiremu Kingi's party having determined to resort to force themselves long before the survey was attempted.

Note 42. (Tipene Ngarunas statement) " Wiremu Pαtukakariki stood up and said." (Page 9.) Tipene's statement is untrue. Patukakariki never made any objection when Teira's land was offered He did obiect when Piripi offered to sell some land. _ It is to be regretted that Sir W. Martin should insert a statement so untrue, when indisputable evidence was before him in the statements of the Native Minister and Chief Commissioner, who were nresent at the meeting Mr. McLean, in his evidence at the bar of the House of Representatives, said that Patukakariki had never protested against the sale of Teira's block, though he had protested agai °ln a letter addressed to the Governor by Mr. McLean on the Ist December 1860, the following statement occurs :—" I was present at Taranaki in March 1859, when the land was offered for sale. «Te Patukakariki never made the slightest objection to the sale of this land, although he did object «to the cession of some claims inland of this block which were offered by a Native named Piripi. _ . As little reliance can be placed on Tipene Ngaruna's statements about Tamati Raru, ieiras father, who instead of being opposed to the sale, with his own hands helped to cut the boundary line, and whose name is the first to the Deed of Sale. These falsehoods dispose of the rest of the letter, and make it unnecessary to say more : but as Sir.W Martin has put in italics the concluding part which refers to a proposal made by Te leira to exchange certain lands, it is perhaps as well to observe that the proposal, whatever it really was, was made long before the offer of Ms land by Teira, and had nothing whatever to do with any transaction in which the Government had been mixed up.

Note 43. [Letter from Rev. Riwai te Ahu. Page 9.] The Rev Riwai te Ahu was a child when he left the Waitara district. «He has resided » said the Bishop of New Zealand in his statement before the Board in 1856, " from his childhood at Waikanae, in Cook's Straits " He was even ignorant of the boundary of a claim of his own in the neighbourhood of the block, which was investigated some time since by the Chief Land Purchase Commissioner. In his statement before the Board of 1856, speaking of a piece of land as an endowment for a school, he said " I could point out the boundaries, provided I knew them. . In this letter to the Superintendent of Wellington he names three specific clams, one on behalf of Te Patukakariki, who being on the spot never claimed for himself ; another on behalf of Wiremu Kin^ii whose cultivation within the block he says is called Te Parepare ; a tbrd on behalf of King s two "children " The cultivations which belonged to their mothers are," he says "at hurirapa, the pa « which was burnt by the soldiers : and another at Orapa on the south of their old pas As regards the cultivations of Kingi himself, neither he nor any of his people had cultivations on the block. lne Hurirana was not burnt. No pa was burnt by the soldiers. The Rev Riwai te Ahu says that Te Patukakariki is the Chief of the Ngabhmga and NgatUuaho harm. On this point the following evidence was given by Commissioner McLean at the bar ot the Sse of Representatives ; «Is not Patukakariki the head of the hapu to which Te Teira belongs ? «If he is not who is?—l have never recognised him as such. I know the contrary. I admit, how- « ever that he is a Chief of some importance. The principal Chief of these hapusiiei some years ago. " Rop'oama Te One, at Queen Charlotte Sound, represents them. , ' Again, Kiwai says, speaking of the occupation of Waitara by the Waikatos in 1842 : « Nuitono "te Pakaru was the first. Therefore one of those old Chiefs, Ngaraurekau went up from Waikanae «to keep possession of Waitara, lest Ngatimaniapoto should come back." It has been shown in Note 15 that the Waikatos returned for quite a different reason; but there is something extremely ridiculous in the notion of an old man from Waikanae preventing the Waikato conquerors from letUr But Riwai admits Teira's title. « True he has a title, that is to say to his own cultivations within - an important admission by the adverse party. It goes to prove far more than the Rev.