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

from their growing indebtedness (stemming initially from raihana payments in the 1870s, followed by large court and survey costs as complex issues of native title were bitterly fought out in the late 1880s and 1890s), and thereafter, from the Government's development of an extensive drainage and 'improvement' scheme for the area, resulting in a number of key acquisitions under public works and general land legislation in the first decade of the twentieth century. Some emphasis is given, too, to the Government's continuing efforts to acquire blocks with the most valuable sub-surface resources or best commercialpotential in order to forestall private purchase and to control development, to protect existing capital investment, and in response to the demands of local bodies and Pakeha settlers and entrepreneurs.

The general theme of Hauraki land loss also encompasses two particular questions which are discussed in some detail in separate chapters: the fate of their reserved lands, and transfer of land as a result of a growing rating burden. The emphasis here, is on the role of the Government as both law-maker and administrator. In the context of reserved lands, it is argued that the trend of legislation was towards making it easier to have prohibitions against sale removed from the title, while the growing predisposition of administrations was, similarly, to give readier approval to the freeing up of such lands to purchase. The question of the impact of rating legislation on Hauraki forms a final thread of discussion on the transfer of land resource into Government and Pakeha hands. The report traces a history of conflicting perception and interpretation of the responsibilities of Maori landowners in the payment of rates and development of an infrastructure of roads, water-supply, hospitals, and related works and services. Again, the trend in the twentieth century was one of diminishing recognition of the special circumstances and needs of Maori land owners: of bringing Maori land into the same position as that owned by Pakeha, and in the case of Thames, for the Government administration to give approval for transfer of properties, at a cheap price, into the hands of the local borough council in order to cover an accumulated rates debt.

Issues relating to minerals and sub-surface resources have continued to play an important role in the relationship between Hauraki iwi and the Crown up to the present day, and form a second important theme within the following discussion. The decline in the position of Hauraki in this context involved more than the alienation of the freehold of those blocks still generating a little income in the form of mining rents and fees. Particular emphasis is placed on the Government's exercise of its legislative powers which tended to the marginalisation of the status of the early cession agreements in terms of both the mining revenues to be received by Maori owners and their ability to withhold their lands from the Government's jurisdiction. The underpinnings of that legislative trend were a strengthened assertion of the Crown's prerogative over minerals and, again, an appeal to the concept of 'equality under law': that the Government should have equal power to control mining on Maori as on Pakeha land.

The Crown continued to claim jurisdiction over Maori lands which had been brought into the compass of its gold field powers as a result of the negotiated cessions and forced concessions of the late 1860 and 1870s, until 1971 when the Mining Act dismantled that

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