Ohinemuri District: Ohinemuri

Mr Mackay, to one-fifth of the land they had sold. This I pointed out was a demand that could not be entertained, and as there was no room for further argument, I desired them to bring their demand before the Court on the 26th.

June 26th. I stated to the Court this morning that on the 24th the Ngatitamatera Natives had further discussed with me the question of apportioning their reserve, but beyond agreeing to the names of the grantees who were to share in it, nothing was settled; that the acreage of land demanded appeared to me excessive; that I therefore requested them to bring their case into Court today.

After the Natives had made their statement and after much controversy, I agreed on behalf of the Government that they should have two reserves, one of 300 acres in No 5 block, the other of 3,130 acres in No 17 block. The position of the former was determined without difficulty, but no agreement could be come to between the Natives and myself as to the position of the latter. They asked that it might be on a part of the block that I could not agree to, as it would include all or nearly all the best of the land. There appearing no possibility of a settlement, the Court stated that unless some agreement with the Government was come to, it would have to take evidence of surveyors and others regarding the quality of the land. I asked that this question might stand over, and requested the Court now to determine the position of the land in the several blocks to be awarded to Government. This work occupied the rest of the day and part of the next.

I made application that the orders vesting the portions of the land cut out of the blocks for the non-sellers might be made inalienable except by sale to the Crown. The Court would not agree to this, stating that the only question before it was the ascertaining what interest had been acquired by Her Majesty the Queen, that the legal position of the balance of the land would be the same as before this enquiry, that the Court could not say how the land stood effected by the Gold Fields Regulation, or by the Deed of Lease that had been exhibited, and that the present enquiry would in no way remove any restriction imposed on the land by the lease or the Gold Fields Regulations.

The following schedule shows the area of the land awarded by the Court in each of the blocks:

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