THE CROWN, THE TREATY, AND THE HAURAKI TRIBES, 1880–1980

peoples brought their claims to court and argued their different interpretations of history, right, and evidence of occupation in the region. Hearings were lengthy and expensive, the same issues being resubmitted for court decision repeatedly and, in most blocks, eventually brought to the appellate court. Adding to the expense of the court hearings were the costs of surveyors, condemned by the Government's own officer in the district, as 'rapacious Pakehas'. Most notable was the debt of almost £3,000 owed by Ngati Paoa based at Te Hoe-o-Tainui for the survey of their lands. The Government might take over such liens itself, and actively pursued award of land for survey costs, invariably dictating how much land would be required to cancel the debt, by setting the rate of conversion of the money amount into acres.

The final result, even for the winners of the land court struggle, was one of debt and the need to sell more and more of the blocks concerned. The Crown's acquisition of lands as a result of the pressing need of grantees to pay off pressing court and survey debts is detailed on pp. 63–74. The Government often drove a hard bargain. Maori were paid the lowest amount it was thought that they would accept, so that, after all the expenses were paid, they received very little benefit from establishing title. Mair calculated, for example, that Ngati Hako had paid 12/- per acre in court fees, agents and survey costs, but the Government rarely offered more than 5/- per acre in purchase price.

Maori Land Settlement Act 1905

The passage of the Maori Land Settlement Act 1905 (discussed at pp. 77–83) signalled a further surge of Crown purchase activity resulting in the acquisition of some 11,000 acres in the Hauraki Plains district alone over the next two years. Particularly questionable was the utilisation of section 20 of the Act in the case of II blocks (amounting to over 5,000 acres) to bypass problems caused by the refusal of minority owners to sell to the Crown in its pursuit of a programme of purchase of delta lands for draining and conversion to dairy farms. Under this section, the whole of a block could be designated as Crown land if the majority in value had been acquired, when there were more than ten owners, and the amount owing in respect of the shares of the non-signatories to the deed of transfer held by the Receiver General on their behalf. Not only did this mean that minority non-sellers had no say in the price to be received for their interests, but their capacity as duly recognised owners to refuse to sell their lands for whatever reason, was completely nullified.

The Crown continued, also, to make compulsory acquisitions of blocks in the floodplain for 'drainage purposes' under the Hauraki Plains Act and the Public Works Act of 1908. The major utilisation of the Act took place between 1908 and 1911, during which time nearly 2,000 acres were acquired compulsorily in nine different blocks, with compensation set at levels which ensured that it was the Crown not the former Maori owners who gained the economic benefits from the land improvement schemes for which those blocks had been required. These acquisitions for public works purposes are discussed more fully in Chapter IV.

This marked the final phase of intensive Government engagement in the district. But in spite of earlier advice to the contrary, and the evidence before their own eyes, Government

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