(4) Crown purchase of land subject to mining cession agreements

For most of the 1860s, the Crown showed no wish to purchase the freehold of goldbearing land rather than negotiate mining cession agreements. By 1870, however, some Hauraki Maori had begun to put land through the court and either to let or to sell it to private parties. Successive Ministers, and Crown officials in Hauraki, then began to urge that, in the public interest, the Crown should buy auriferous land. There is also evidence of growing resentment by miners, mining companies, and local bodies to paying licence fees and rentals that flowed to Maori owners. By the early 1880s, when the Crown bought Maori land already subject to mining cession agreements, it paid the mining revenues to local authorities, not to the former Maori owners. From 1876 to 1882, there was uncertainty among officials about the effect on mining revenues of Maori selling their land to private parties, though this uncertainty was as much about whether the revenues were payable to the Crown rather than the private owners as whether it was still payable to Maori. In 1882, however, the Attorney-General, Frederick Whitaker, gave a definitive ruling that such entitlements passed along with all other lesser rights to the new owner of the fee simple. This spurred Crown Ministers and officials to new efforts to purchase auriferous land.

(5) The MacCormick commission

In the late 1930s, Judge MacCormick of the Maori Land Court was appointed commissioner to investigate the arrears of payments of goldfields revenue still due to Maori. His report was highly critical of the Crown’s administration of those revenues. In the course of his inquiry, MacCormick also examined the way in which lands such as Ohinemuri had passed into the Crown’s ownership, and he concluded that Maori were not fully advised of the fact that, when they sold the freehold, they lost their entitlement to continue to receive mining revenue. MacCormick considered that consequently they may have made bad bargains. Although he did not believe the Crown had done anything illegal, he recommended that the Crown make an ex gratia payment to Hauraki Maori of £30,000 to £40,000:

in view of the very large sums of money received by the Crown by reason of its purchase of the freehold previously ceded to it for mining purposes, and the doubt whether the Natives fully appreciated the effect of their sales, and the further doubt as to the proper distribution to the Natives of the money they were entitled to.

The Second World War intervened, and MacCormick’s recommendation has never been implemented.

(6) Implementation of the MacCormick recommendation

In opening submissions to this Tribunal on gold issues, Crown counsel stated that the Crown ought to have acted on the recommendation of the MacCormick commission. We note, however, that in closing submissions Crown counsel also stated that the concession was made