structure except for resident site licences (discussed at pp. 172–175). Throughout the twentieth century, the Hauraki people continued to question the competency of the Government's implementation of the cession agreements, and the fairness of its dealings with reference to the payment of revenues and acquisition of the freehold of those blocks. The Government's response to this sense of grievance is discussed in the context of the MacCormick Commission of 1938–1939, and the negotiations surrounding the continuing operation of resident site licences under general mining legislation which gave tenants a virtual lease in perpetuity to Maori land at long out-dated rentals.
Chapter I: Government Policy and Maori Reaction, 1880–1890
The first chapter of this report deals with the period 1880–1890. The political aspirations of Hauraki are first briefly discussed in the context of the formation of the Thames Native Committee (pp. 22–24). Hauraki views—their goals and their grievances—were often presented in concrete terms. Petition, discussion, and action concerned apparently mundane matters such as the routes taken by roads, the application of rates to land, or the particular decisions of the Native Land Court, but this report suggests that more profound political questions of the place of Maori in the new, colonial society underlay that expression. At issue here was the extent to which their views, objects, and practise would be taken into account in the formulation and application of policy: and their lack of representation (except for the four Maori Members of the House) in both central and local government, on the borough and county councils and the highway boards which were having an increasing influence on the direction and pace of development in the Hauraki district.
The Thames Native Committee
In 1883 Bryce as Native Minister gave a limited response to the ongoing Maori desire for a greater measure of self-government and efforts to gain official recognition of the informal runanga structures which had continued to gather in order to discuss matters of title, and law and order—a practice which was exemplified in the case of Hauraki, by the Pukehange committee discussed in Part 1 of this report, The Crown, the Treaty, and the Hauraki Tribes, 1800–1885. A Thames Native Committee was established under the Native Committee Empowering Act 1883 and was to play a leading role in the negotiations at Piako, (discussed at pp. 43–53). Its major concerns, expressed at the meetings with Ballance in 1885, were the costs of the land court, the lack of Maori authority over the title process, and lack of consultation in the formulation of legislation. The effectiveness of the Committee was, however, diminished by administrative lines which took little account of traditional tribal affiliations, and the unwillingness of the Government to accord it any real power. Ultimately, as the negotiations at Piako demonstrated, the Native Committee had the power neither to impose its decisions on its own people, nor to influence the policy of the Government. The Government used the Committee as a vehicle for negotiation but
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