G.—7

2

I. FIEST REPORT

To His Excellency the Right Honourable William Lee, Baron Plunket, Knight Commander of the Eoyal Victorian Order, Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over His Majesty's Colony of New Zealand and its Dependencies. May it Please Your Excellency. I have the honour to inform you that in accordance with the Commission issued to me on the 26th day of January, 1905, I, on the 11th day of May last and on subsequent dates, held an inquiry in the Masonic Hall at New Plymouth respecting the alleged claims of Heni te Eau and others to be absentee members of the Ngatimutunga Hapu of the Ngatiawa Tribe, and entitled to participate in 3,000 acres of land in the Waitara Survey District, Taranaki Province. It appears that in 1866 large numbers of the Maoris resident in the Wellington, Nelson, and Marlborough Provinces and the Chatham Islands went to New Plymouth to attend the sitting of the Compensation Court which was then being held there in connection with confiscated lands in the Province of Taranaki and elsewhere on the west coast of the North Island. The majority of the claims of these persons were disallowed on the ground of non-residence and long absence from the district. The Hon. J. C. Richmond (then Native Minister) for grave political reasons in July, 1867, made arrangements by which the absentee members of the Ngatitama, Ngatimutunga, Ngatiawa, Puketapu, and Taranaki Hapus were to be allocated 16 acres each in certain blocks then reserved for that purpose, viz. : — Aores. Ngatitama (Parinihinihi to Titoki) .. ... ... ... ... 1,300 Ngatimutunga (Titoki to Te Rau-o-te-Hina) ... ... ... 3,000 Ngatiawa (Titirangi to Onatiki) ... ... ... ... ... 2.700 Puketapu (Onatiki to Waitaha) ... ... ... ... ... 2,100 Taranaki (Okurukuru to Omuturangi) ... ... ... ... 3,100 Total ... ... ... ... ... 12,200 The whole of the hapus, except the Ngatimutunga, appear to have been satisfactorily dealt with in respect to their claims to the above reservations. The Ngatimutunga, however, held aloof from the arrangements, and the Hon. Sir William Pox, in his report of the 26th April, 1884, stated: " It has been found impossible to ascertain the names of the Natives in whose favour Mr. Richmond's promises were made, or even to discover where they are." Sir W. Pox further states that he consulted Major Parris, Mr. Rennell, and Mr. Alexander Mackay on the subject, but without satisfactory result, and adds, "Very little interest in the subject appears to exist either among any absentees there may be, or among the resident members of the same tribes. This is probably owing to the fact that the individual interest of the class is so small—only 16 acres each— as to be hardly worth claiming." According to the evidence given before the Commission no claim was set up for several years, and the Government, considering that the 3,000 acres set apart for the Ngatimutunga Hapu was not required for the purpose for which it had been reserved, dealt with it as ordinary Crown lands, and it was accordingly declared open for sale or selection on the 7th May, 1890, and disposed of as " second-class lands," with the exception of 43 acres, which was styled " first-class lands." Subsequently, Heni te Rau (Mrs. Brown) petitioned Parliament on behalf of the claims of herself and" the Ngatimutunga Hapu to the 3,000 acres, which resulted in the setting-up of the present Commission. With reference to the petition of Heni te Rau, it in effect prays that the whole of the 3,000 acres in the Waitara district should be handed over to the Ngatimutunga Hapu without restriction, and that they should be allowed to partition it as they pleased among themselves, On the first perusal of the Hon. J. 0. Richmond's minute of the 6th July, 1867, that construction might easily be placed on it, but the subsequent proceedings show clearly that the intention was to give 16 acres to every absentee member of the above-mentioned hapus. The words " every member" do not, in my opinion, mean every man, woman, and child in the hapu, but would include all the male and female adult members of the tribe only at the time that Mr. Richmond's promise was made. I therefore commenced the inquiry by endeavouring to ascertain who were the Ngatimutunga people interested in the land promised, by the Hon. J. C. Richmond ; and in the cases where death had removed any of the beneficiaries, to find who were the persons entitled to succeed to them according to Maori custom. In order to accomplish this satisfactorily it was found necessary to construct a genealogical tree of the Ngatimutunga Hapu, which is herewith annexed. * The representatives of the Native claimants were then requested to make out and lodge lists showing the names of the person for whom they respectively appeared. The total number in the lists was 269. As the Maoris of the present day pose under several different names, it was found

* Not printed.