G.--2.

nothing would do more to reconcile Te Whiti and the better part of the Maori people around him to the settlement of the country, than the certainty that the advancing wave of civilization Avould not bring along with it whai has proved to be the curse and destruction of all aboriginal races which it has reached. At present the evil is intensified to the last degree by the poisonous adulteration of the liquor specially provided for the consumption of the NatiA^es. But were it otherwise, the very "best brands" have potency sufficient to destroy the race, when subjected to temptations which they are powerless to resist. No more sickening sight can be seen, nor one more shameful to ourselves, than a crowd of Maoris of both sexes filling the purlieus of a publiehouse in a state of wild intoxication. Such scenes are most often to be Avitnessed (even in considerable European towns) in the very presence of Government officials, on occasions of the distribution of purchasemoney for land, or the sittings of some Court. And though often enacted under the immediate eye of Eesident Magistrates, Justices of the Peace, and large bodies of police, they are in too many cases allowed to go unchecked, Avhile the sellers of drink who haA re infringed the law go altogether unpunished. We were not much brought into contact with such scenes ourselves, because of the discouragement and warnings we gave to the Natives and to the publicans. On one occasion at Patea Ave had to adjourn our sitting, when the Natives confessed they had had too much drink; but with the aid of tiie Eesident Magistrate, and by remonstrance Avith the publicans, recurrence of the evil Avas prevented. X. —The Awards op the Compensation Court. We now turn to the question of the Compensation Awards : and it would be hard, Ave think, to match the tangle into which what ought to have been a simple matter has been allowed to get. The original Confiscating Act of 1863 intended that where the land of loyal Natives was taken, compensation should be paid in money only; and a Court was set up to assess what had to be paid. In 1864 the Governor was empowered to increase any sum assessed by the Court, or to give compensation if the Court refused it. In 1865 the law Avas further amended so as to let compensation be given wholly or partly in land instead of money, the Government electing Avhich they Avould do before the award was made. The year after, this last restriction was removed, and the Government might elect, either before or after award, whether to give money, or land, or both. At the first sittings at New Plymouth in June 1866, the Court laid doAvn three rules. First, the 11th January 1810 (the elate of proclaiming the Queen's sovereignty) Was fixed as the time at which the title of the Natives Avas to be regarded as settled. Secondly, " finding it impossible to appraise the value of the chiefs on the loyal side or rebel side," the Court decided that " each man on each side was of the same value, and had an equal estate." Thirdly, all claimants Avho since 1810 had not resided on their land, were absolutely excluded unless their title had been alloAved by the Government. In this way 908 loyal claimants were shut out for non-possession or insufficient occupation. The Crown Agent argued that " the Government was not bound by the acts or promises of its predecessors," a doctrine which was promptly repressed by the Court. When the Court sat at Whanganui in the following December, this rule of exclusion was reversed; but absentees were only let in on a fantastic scheme. The Court decided that " the interest of a loyal absentee was to bear the same proportion to the interest of a loyal resident, as the number of loyal residents bore to the number of resident rebels." What a loyal Native's right under the statute had to do with the number of the rebels, is hard to see : the effect, however, of this queer equation was that as there were only 10 loyal residents to 957 rebels, the loyal resident got 100 acres, while the absentee got 16. No wonder that the way this operated upon the chiefs failed to elicit their assent. Nothing, for instance, could be more grotesque than a solemn judgment by which the warrior Whanganui chief Mete Kingi Paetahi, who had fought many a battle by our side, was to have 16 acres in " extinguishment" of his tribal rights; especially as it was carefully provided (lest such munificence should be too much for him) that only 5 acres of it should be open land, and the other 11 acres be sompwhere in the bush, vi—G. 2.

1879.

Report of Mr. AVoon, 8.M., 28th May, 1878. P. P. 1878. G-.-l, p. 13.

1866.

" 3New Zealand Settlements Act, 1863." First amending Act of 1864. Second amending Act of 1865 and 1866.

Judgments of the Compensation Court: P. P. 1866, A.-13. Pamphlet, by authority, 1879.

Judge Smith, New Zealand Gazette, 1867, p. 190.

XXXV