THE CROWN, THE TREATY, AND THE HAURAKI TRIBES, 1800–1885

was able to interpret those deeds as mere legal devices referring to a limited grant of easement and holding no wider significance. That interpretation reflected the growing domination of common law precepts which had been previously hidden—a theme which will be explored in more detail in Part Two of this work.

By the beginning of the 1880s political authority, land ownership, and control of resources had shifted decisively in favour of Pakeha. The Crown had purchased over 300,000 acres in the region in the preceding ten years, and Maori were left with only small blocks on the peninsula. Much of Ohinemuri had gone, while many of those areas, apparently remaining within Maori hands, were encumbered by debt, or by mining cession. There was clear warning at the time from one of the Government's own agents that steps should be taken before the Hauraki tribes were rendered completely landless? Part Two of this report will detail how that warning, and Maori efforts to exert greater control over their remaining assets, were largely ignored, and Hauraki's last resources either purchased or appropriated.

It will be argued there that although Government purchase activity generally quietened in the region during the 1880s, consistent efforts were made to complete transactions where debts were outstanding, and to acquire blocks of particular value, for example, those of mineral, agricultural, or tourist potential. In any case, the respite for Hauraki was short–lived. The pace of Government purchase picked up again under the Liberal Government, as the Hauraki Plains area—alienation of which had been long delayed by the complications of tribal tenure, and strength of non–selling sentiment of the communities based around Waitakaruru, Kerepehi, and Hoe–o–Tainui—was finally brought through the Native Land Court. Bitter contest there, the costs in fighting claims based on different colours of right, and expenses of survey, immediately necessitated sales, even by those who had formerly been intransigent opponents to alienation. Throughout the late 1890s and early twentieth century the Government took ruthless advantage of the distressed situation of Hauraki Maori: keeping them to the lowest possible price, removing restrictions on the alienation of reserves, and purchasing out private survey liens against blocks, encouraging the court to award land in lieu of survey debt, and actively acquiring the last large areas in Maori hands (the floodplain) for large–scale drainage schemes made possible by new technology. That purchase and development policy was backed up by utilisation of section 20 of the Maori Land and Settlement Act 1905, and by takings under public works legislation in 1909–1911 for the 'more effective carrying out of drainage works'.

At the same time the Crown further strengthened its control over sub–surface resources, Maori ability to deny Crown access to minerals being severely diminished in the final two decades of the nineteenth century. A series of statutes—the Reserves and Endowments in Mining Districts Act 1882, the Mining Act 1886, the Mining Act (no. 2) 1887, and the Mining Act Amendment Act 1896–all chipped away at their rights under cession

7 See Native Agent to Under Secretary Native Department, 29 May 1880. AJHR, 1880, G–4, p. 5. Doc. 74, p. 1511.

26