ES.5.6 Te Aroha

Gold was discovered at Te Aroha in 1880 by the Maori prospector Te Hone Warehiko. The reefs lay partly in Crown land and partly in the Ngati Rahiri Tumutumu reserves at Omahu and Wairakau. The Crown negotiators, George Wilkinson and Harry Kenrick, negotiated a mining agreement with Te Mokena Hou and WH Taipari over a portion of the land in which they had dominant interests, but others of Ngati Rahiri held out for better terms. Relying on the part-agreement, and the fact that some of the gold was on Crown land, the Crown officials declared the field open anyway. Although most of the former dissentients then took out licences and began mining (as well as receiving a share of lease revenue) the Crown accepts that the officials’ action in forcing the agreement on them ‘did not accord with the policy of the [1868?] legislation requiring consent before [Maori] land was open to goldmining, and is inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty’.⁴

ES.5.7 East Coast goldfìelds and Manaia

A sequence of mining cession agreements was negotiated in respect of Harataunga, Cape Colville, Pakirarahi, Whangapoua, Kuaotunu, and Manaia. There are indications of some haste by Crown officials in declaring fields open, but generally the evidence shows that consent was obtained. Many of the gold workings were short-lived, and burdened by high costs of extraction. Claims that some Maori were deprived of rights to some mining revenues is confused by boundary issues which were not resolved then and are not readily resolvable today - and by the purchase of the freehold of the land. The owners of Pakirarahi signed deeds of sale, but also signed a further agreement indicating that they wished to sell only the timber on the land and to retain both the freehold and the mining revenue. The district registrar of titles registered the deeds of sale but also registered a caveat noting the subsequent agreement. In the confused legal proceedings which followed, Pakirarahi 1 came under the control of the Kauri Timber Company, and the owners - unfairly we believe - lost access to the mining revenues. However, because the registrar had also registered the caveat, they were ultimately able to recover the land itself. Mining cession revenues continued to be paid by the Crown in respect of Pakirarahi 2 until the late nineteenth century, after which the record becomes obscure and mining petered out.

ES.5.8 General issues

(1) The basis of payment

Claimant evidence indicates that Hauraki Maori received under the cession agreements payments totalling in the order of £62,000 for the period 1867 to 1880 and £27,000 for the

4. Paper 2.550, p 14