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

Te Ipu o Moehau

At Te Ipu o Moehau, land was purchased by the Government because hermatite had been found on it, and could not be worked under the cession agreements which related to gold only. A first small payment on the land of £6, made by Mackay in 1874, brought the block within the compass of the Government's powers over land under negotiation. The Government retained that prohibition against private dealing in 1878 when the block was notified under the Government Native Land Purchases Act 1877, as being under payment of money and entry of negotiation.51 Matters appear to have rested there until February 1881 when Wilkinson, as part of the rationalisation of the Native Department's efforts, recommended that the purchase be abandoned and the cash advances recovered. Within the month, however, he had changed his mind because the discovery of hermatite on the block was prompting local demands for the purchase, and he now asked for permission to go ahead, suggesting at the same time, that the Government also acquire the adjoining Ngamoraki block on which silver and lead had been found. Wilkinson advised that he would need to exceed the standard price of 5/- per acre given for land in the district because the block lay within the gold field and generated an annual income through miners' rights of some £17.52 The owners had no particular wish to sell, and on Wilkinson's further report that the majority were reluctant to deal with the Government because they would obtain a better price from a private purchase; the Native Minister approved the acquisition at 7/6d per acre.

Over the next two years Wilkinson purchased shares in the block, in one case, immediately upon the appointment of a trustee for a minor who had succeeded to one of the original grantees.53 Rolleston lodged an application to have the Crown's interests defined in late 1883, and the case came on some months later in July 1884. A deed of sale was handed in, and the court determined that the Government had acquired 1,245 acres out of the 1,850 acres of the original block. This represented the purchase of six shares and repayment of an advance of £6 (at 5/- per acre) made in January 1874, and left three unsold shares (605 acres) belonging to two grantees. In the following yea; the Crown went ahead with the purchase of the remaining land. An initial offer of 7/6d per acre was rejected since the block generated income from resident site licences and a battery site, miners were currently working a seam of hermatite, and it contained good firewood and some kauri. Te Arani Watana stated that she had been offered 15/- per acre by a leaseholder running cattle on the block, but who wanted only 100 acres. She was reluctant to accept the offer because she would then have to survey the boundary, and so would agree to 10/- per acre for the whole block.54 Wilkinson again strongly advocated the purchase of the area as being in the public interest:

I think, in the interests of the public in general, and the Thames Goldfield in particular, that Government should where possible acquire the freehold of blocks of this description, and,

51 NZ Gazette, 16 May 1878, p. 607.

52 Wilkinson to Under Secretary Native Land Purchase Department, 23 March & 19 April 1881. MA MLP 1886/36. Cited in Alexander, The Hauraki Tribal Lands, Part 1, p. 337.

53 See Alexander, The Hauraki Tribal Lands, Part 1, p. 338.

54 Te Arani Watana to Native Agent Alexandra, 16 March 1885. MA MLP 1886/36. In ibid. p. 339.

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