Chapter 1: Government Policy and Maori Reaction, 1880–1890

potential—township and mineral areas still in Maori hands. It was largely assumed that development of such areas depended on European control: that of the Government in the case of mineral blocks, that of settlers and entrepreneurs in the case of the townships which had been established to exploit the sub-surface resources of the district. Despite greater caution, administrations in the 1880s remained interested in areas of proven resource and commercial potential, and continued to act on the principle that lands containing mineral and other assets of particular value should be acquired whenever possible, in order to ensure Government control and to protect capital. Purchase was also pursued because the Government wished to withdraw from the old mining arrangements which meant that any revenues from miners' rights, licences and fees went into Maori hands. In those negotiations, the Government used its power to unilaterally revoke earlier agreements to push Maori into selling outright while continuing to act as though such blocks were still open to mining and under its management. At the same time, the Government's failure to properly manage those revenues impaired the ability of the Maori owners to withstand the pressure on them to sell their interests.

(d) The Purchase of Piako

Only one large tract of territory remained in Maori hands by the mid-1880s. That district comprising the Hauraki Plains (often referred to as the 'Piako lands') lay between the confiscation line and the Waihou River and formed the major focus of Government land purchase activity in the 1880s and for the next 30 years. In the 1870s and early 1880s policy with regard to the acquisition of 'Piako' lands shadowed that pursued at Ohinemuri, but completion of the purchase proved more elusive. Mackay again operated ahead of the Native Land Court, dealing largely with one party within Ngati Paoa who duly signed a deed committing the tribe to an alienation. Other tribes—Ngati Maru and Ngati Hako—and the non-sellers within Ngati Paoa then came under pressure to agree to the survey of internal tribal boundaries so that the interests of those who had accepted payment could be defined and transferred to the Crown. In the meantime, those groups were unable to come to their own arrangements with regard to any part of the Piako block, with any party other than the Crown, since the whole of the area (estimated at 200,000 acres) had been proclaimed as under negotiation. King supporters, based primarily at Te Hoe-o-Tainui and Te Kerepehi, found themselves tied to the alienation of tribal lands so that the debts of others could be redeemed, and were pushed by the Government to accede to survey and the authority of the land court. Other complications existed with regard to the area: the claim of the late Tarapipipi Te Kopara's people that Pollen had promised to exclude Te Hoe-o-Tainui lands from the confiscation boundary; continuing problems with the adjustment of the old land claims of Webster and others; and a claim from Whitaker for land in Piako in exchange for interests within the confiscation boundary.85

85 See NLP 81/112, 85/343, 81/35, 82/1313 in Piako special block file, MA 13/64 (b); AJHR 1877, G–7, p. 8.

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