past opposed to gold mining were now in support of it as the lesser of two evils as compared to land sales. Mackay met with each hapu in turn to go over the accounts and ascertain the debt of each.

Mackay also tried to explain in the local press his involvement with raihana. He asserted that he had never asked Maori to take orders for goods, instead of cash, for payment in land:

The difficulty I have to contend with … is to withstand the innumerable applications made to me for money and goods, and to find out which of the persons asking for payment or preliminary deposit is entitled to the land … The result of giving orders for goods is not at all satisfactory to me … I have to pay the storekeeper whether I get the money or not, and I frequently lose money by mistakes in accounts, and by natives repudiating the receipt of articles they have applied for on behalf of friends and relatives … I claim niether profit on [the goods] or interest on the money, which I frequently pay to storekeepers long before it can be charged against the land, and be refunded by the Government. I have therefore given these orders to oblige the natives, and to enable me to obtain lands which they would not sell for money down. It must not however, be assumed that I have paid for land with goods only. Many blocks have been purchased for cash, and nothing else; in all other cases payment has been in money and goods.⁸⁰

Meanwhile, hapu leaders had been amazed and troubled at the levels of debt revealed by Mackay as having accumulated against the land. A newspaper correspondent reported that they ‘are tortured to think the land that the soil they almost worshipped must go, and yet cannot clearly see any other way of escape’. Informed of a debt of £5067 against Ngati Tawhaki, the hapu of Te Moananui, the latter accused Mackay of impatience and would not meet him, but he did not repudiate the debt. Te Hira said that his people’s debts would have to be redeemed against other lands, not Ohinemuri.⁸¹ At a further meeting at Pukatea-wairahi on 19 October, Hohepa Te Rauhihi pointed out to Mackay that Te Hira, Te Moananui, and others had told him to stop issuing raihana. Mackay acknowledged that this was so, but those who had urged such a course ‘were among the first to apply for more. He would rather have paid them in cash, but they themselves had pestered him for orders to get goods.’⁸²

At this meeting, serious discussion began concerning the apportionment of the £26,000 debt which lay over Ohinemuri, Waikawau, and Moehau. Mackay said he had over 100 signed receipts relating specifically to Ohinemuri for over £15,000, and pressed for the transfer of the block. The Maori leaders asked for the debt to be redeemed against the other two blocks. Ngati Koi and Whakatohea, however, said they had no interests outside Ohinemuri and would give up some of the land rather than live under obligation to others. By 28 November,

80. Thames Advertiser, 14 November 1874 (p 249)

81. Ibid, 18 November 1874 (pp 250–251)

82. Ibid, 20 November 1874 (p 252)