D—No. 10

LAND CLAIMS COMMISSION:

4

I.— The Total Number of Claims.

It will be seen that the Land Claims of New Zealand under purchases or dealings with natives, were 1376 in number. I have divided them into four classes:—

Class I. consists of 1050 cases belonging to the series of Old Land Claims which were sent in to the Governments of New South Wales and New Zealand within the time limited by the Ordinances of 1840 and 1841, received a separate number, and were successively referred to Commissioners Fisher, Godfrey, Richmond, Fitzgerald, and Spain.

Class n. consists of claims under Governor Fitzßoy's Proclamations of 1844, commonly known as Pre-emptive Land Claims, amounting to 250 cases ; these were mostly referred to Commissioner Matson.

Class IH. consists of claims which were sent in to the Government but not referred to the former Commissioners or included in the series of Old Land Claims, or which properly do not belong either to that series or the Pre-emptive series. These number 58 cases.

Class IV consists of Half-caste Claims.

I believe these four classes will be found to contain every claim arising out of purchase or other dealings with the natives for the acquisition of land, which is known to have been sent in to the Government from the foundation of the Colony up to the present time, with the exception of a few which have been settled under the 11th section of the Waste Lands Act, 1858, and of the leases for pastoral occupation which were entered into in the Southern portions of the North Island.

2.— Tfie Claimants.

It should, perhaps, be observed, that the actual number of different persons claiming was much less than the total number of cases, many of the claimants having several separate claims.

3.— Tlie Locality, and Extent Claimed.

The total area originally estimated to have been comprised in all the claims cannot be accurately ascertained. In many cases the extent of the claim was not stated. In some the contents were estimated in round numbers, by millions of acres, or by degrees of latitude and longitude, or by the expression "as far as a cannon shot will reach." So far as can be estimated, however, after excluding the last mentioned classes, the particulars as given in the Return show a total of 10,322,453 acres.

4.— The Years in which the Land ivas Bought.

It will be seen that the greater number of purchases were made in 1837, 1838, and 1839. Most of the larger speculative purchases were of course made in the last year, when the expectation had become almost a certainty that the Crown would take possession of the Islands and found a Colony.

s.— Payments Griven to Natives.

This is one of the most curious features in the story of the Claims. It appears that payments to the value of upwards of ninety-five thousand pounds were made by Europeans to Natives for the purchase of land. Yet this sum, though it includes all that can be ascertained with tolerable certainty, by no means represents the whole amount which was paid away. In many cases the consideration given to the natives was not stated by the Claimants, and will never be known; payments amounting in the whole to a large sum were wholly rejected by the investigating Commissioners as having been given to the natives after Sir George Gipps' Proclamation of 14th January 1840 ; and another large sum never appeared at all, being the price given to original claimants by derivative purchasers from them. The amount of payments given in Old Land Claims was £88,373 17s. lOd.; in Pre-emptive Claims £6,841 4s. 2d.; the two sums making together a total of £95,215 2s. Out of this total the sum of £85,447 Is. 6d. has been formally proved before various Commissioners to have been expended.