Moehau District: Harataunga

Advise Brooking of what you do in the way of purchasing shares. He will do likewise, or rather his successor will as he leaves us again at the end of the year.78

Mair responded that

Most of the owners, excepting those on the East Coast, live near Coromandel. I will look them up by and by, and act as you direct whenever a signature is obtained.76

Between 1893 and 1896 the Crown purchased a number of interests. All the purchases were negotiated by the land purchase officer in Gisborne.77 Mair did not obtain any signatures on

the Coromandel Peninsula.

In September 1897 Mair reported that

Puterangi, the principal chief of Kennedys Bay, and his immediate relatives will not sell their interests as they say they have no other land whatever. It has been a great waste of money surveying the numerous subdivisions. The natives seem anxious now to have them all swept away, with a view, if it could be arranged, of taking the non-sellers shares in one or two pieces, and so save cutting up the 6 or 7 divisions into as many more by long narrow strips. This is a valuable property and there is no doubt that dividing it into narrow pieces will greatly depreciate the value.78

When after 1896 there seemed little prospect of obtaining further signatures, application was made to the Native Land Court to have the Crown's interests in each of the 6 Harataunga

West subdivisions where it had purchased interests separately defined. The application was

called at Thames in November 1898, when it was adjourned to Coromandel!' At the resumed hearing in March 1899 the Court made the following awards:

In reporting on the sitting Mair explained that

I had a great deal of trouble in arranging a fair subdivision of the land, owing to the fact that there are large cultivations and a number of wooden houses, the property of the resident non-sellers, on each block. I had to make several visits to Kennedys Bay accompanied by Major Lusk, the Crown Lands Ranger.81 Another difficulty arose from the fact that there had never been a

75 Chief Land Purchase Officer to Land Purchase Officer Thames, zo November 1894, on Chief Land Purchase Officer to Resident Magistrate Thames, 24 February 1893. Maori Affairs Head Office file MLP 1899/48. Supporting Papers #B128.43-44.

76 Land Purchase Officer Thames to Chief Land Purchase Officer, 2 December 1894. Maori Affairs Head Office file MLP 1899/48. Supporting Papers #B128.45.

77 Land Purchase Officer Thames to Chief Land Purchase Officer, z8 September 1897. Maori Affairs Head Office file MLPS

1-99. 4— Supporting Papers #B128.50-51.

78 Hauraki Minute Book 49 page 318. Supporting Papers #J56.3.

79 Coromandel Minute Book 6 pages 113-127 and 150-151. Supporting Papers 0.17-31 and 32-33.

81 Mair had been instructed to work with the Crown Lands Ranger in selecting the portion of each subdivision to be sought by the Crown in partitioning out the Crown's interest. Telegram Chief Land Purchase Officer to Land Purchase Officer Thames, 25 October 1898. Maori Affairs Head Office file MLP 1899/48. Supporting Papers #B128.74.

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