T, PAEATA.J

37

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continued refusal on their part would transform that man-of-war into a prison, or something still worse, to them ; third, because the boundaries mentioned in that deed are not the boundaries which were settled verbally between Kemp and our elders, the land-sellers? It is often said in the North Island, " The Natives of the Middle Island are well off- they are living by the rent of their lands." This is not so. If the land given us by the Government is individualized, the proportion to each Native is as follows: ..,,,,,„, , Acres each. At the Heads, Otago, about ... ... ... ijq „ Waikouaiti, about ... ... ... 20 ~ Moeraki, about ... ... ... ... ... 51 ~ Waitaki, about ... ... n ~ Waikawa, about ... ... jq. ~ Tauhina, about ... ... ... 3 ~ Arowheima, Waipopo, To Waiateruati, Timaru, and Taumutu, taken altogether ... .... ... ... . g ~ Rapaki and Port Levy ... ... ... 14 ~ Kaiapoi ... ... ... ... 16 The condition of the Natives of the Middle Island is bad As long as we have strength to work as servants to the Europeans, as long as the market is accepting that servitude we are keeping ourselves and families above want. Should this strength and the market fail—and the time will come that it will—then we Natives will be little better than a mass of paupers thrown upon the present lords of the land. ■ A^, o '^™^ 011 is tbat the White nian has g™ s Ped at our fifty millions of acres 111 the Middk, Iβ and without any equitable return or provision for the Natives; that such transactions as C. Wakefield s, and his friends Kemp and Mantell, are unintelligible and unjust without the condition of one acre out of every ten for the Natives. For instance, Kemp extorts the consent ot the cession of about seven million acres at Akaroa for £2,000, and, not content with that worded his deed so loosely as to convey the idea of having agreed for twenty millions of acres —namely nearly all the land included in the Otago and Canterbury Provinces': Is this equitable without the condition of one in ten acres out of the cession for the Natives ? The proof of this condition has lately been required from us. Why,' if this condition is not expressed m the deed the fault is not ours. If it is, why has it never been fulfilled to us? Governor Sir G. Grey says that the Otepoti acre (Princes Street Reserve) was a tardy act of justice to the Native sellers of the Otago Block, who were entitled, by the terms of the original scheme of the company, to have reserved for their benefit one acre to every ten of the allotments T?. m J™ *-™ n of P.unedin, &c. But this condition embodies a sufficient provision for the Natives ot the Middle Island if applied in its true spirit to all the land ceded to the company: the Otepoti acre is a mere mockery. Loud and universal was the cry formerly against private traders buying landed estates for fish-hooks and scissors in Now Zealand; but without that condition of one out ot every ten acres over the whole cession, Wakefield's, Kemp's, and Mantell's transactions would leave the worst of private land-sharking far behind. We are dilating before you, the honourable members of Parliament, the wrongs we suffer relying firmly upon your honour and love of fair-play for you to redress them, and take under .your protection the semi-paupers and orphans of the Middle Island. This is all. From the Natives assembled at Kaiapoi, this 25th March, 1874, and others. [Here follow the signatures.] mP nt A tf Pa 'T : r And L** 7 '- Mr ;. Cl : ai r aD ' th l a V hat l have Said t0 y° u in ™y P«*»t statement before this Committee is entirely borne out by this parliamentary paper, extracts from which 1 have now read to you. The interpreter, Mr. Barclay, on behalf of Mr. Parata, then read the following document :~ To His Excellency the Marquis of Normanby, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Colony of New Zealand, Wellington. In April, 1875, we the Natives of Moeraki, Waitaki, Arowhentia Ac. (as distinct from the Natives south of Port Chalmers), presented a humble petition to Your Excellency, praying that the deed (Kemp s, 1848), upon which the New Zealand Government is founding its tenure of about twenty millions of acres in the Middle Island, be made the subject of a trial, having been 7?/?s£ VS/r\f Slß n T> J t 19th ' 1875 ' We received a communLat on?N g & D 75/3242, No. 221) from Mr. Clarke, informing us that Your Excellency had the goodness to appoint Judge Williams to investigate the subject of our above-mentioned petition A twelvemonth has now expired, and Judge Williams has not yet announced hi's intention to tins tth I r° r A* 7 I th T fe V emainin g ° ld cMefs ' Wh ° were actors in th ese transactions m the year 1848, and whose depositions are indispensable in the trial of our case as these circumstances-the threats and intimidations resorted to by Commissioner Kemp irT 848-have suXceTf £ C matt° e r nt tloD ' *** b °° kS ° f ** f ° r reaS ° nS wMch onZ We humbly wish to bring to Your Excellency's consideration that the denial of a trial of these our grievances, emanating not from Her Majesty's representative, but from the Colonial Ministry of the day, as an interested party, has been the invariable rule in the dealings between the Go