10.3.2 Allocating the debt

In 1880, against considerable Maori opposition, Wilkinson brought Ohinemuri before the Native Land Court, with a view to having the various hapu interests defined and the outstanding debt allocated against them.

The question arises as to whether the £15,000 that Mackay advanced against Ohinemuri was against purchase of the freehold, or was ‘a consideration for the right to proclaim and possibly, to occupy the gold fields, rather than on account of purchase’. In 1883, the Native Affairs Committee considered the issue in relation a petition from the Thames County Council, which sought a determination that the advances constituted a legal purchase of land.¹¹² The committee rejected the county council’s contention that the Government had commenced to purchase ‘from the moment it first paid any sum of money to the Natives, which might by law have been assessed at any time in land to the value thereof by the Land Court’. Instead, it concluded that ‘the evidence before the Committee is that the sum of £15,000 was not paid on account of purchase but was really a payment for the right to proclaim, and perhaps to occupy the gold fields’.¹¹³

Possibly, the committee was influenced by the fact that the Crown, when it decided to resume purchasing in 1877–78, paid the right-owners regardless of whether they had received pre-1875 payments (advances on mining revenue) or not. The committee’s finding is nevertheless puzzling in that the documentary record shows that from 1872 to 1874 Mackay was employed to purchase the freehold of Ohinemuri (as well as other Hauraki blocks). Although his 1868–69 provisional agreement with Ropata Te Arakai and others had clearly involved a payment for a mining cession, the available documentation (quoted above) indicates that, once he had accepted the Government commission to purchase land in March 1872, Mackay regarded his payments against Waikawau, Moehau, and Ohinemuri to be payments for the freehold; he turned back to the negotiation of a ming lease only in the meetings of late 1874. Moreover, by producing the receipts or vouchers at those meetings, Mackay obliged a number of Maori present to acknowledge that they had accepted payment chargeable against the land, not miner’s rights fees.¹¹⁴ The MacCormick commission of 1939–40 also quotes evidence from both before and after 1875 showing that Mackay’s advances were on account of the purchase of the freehold.¹¹⁵

The MacCormick commission noted that:

Reference to the actual Deed of Conveyance [of the freehold] itself does not help as it is undated, but it does not seem that any further evidence upon the point is required. The

112. Thames county petition, in ‘Statement of the Facts and Circumstances Affecting the Ohinemuri Block’ (doc a8(a), pp 1026–1237)

113. Document a8, pp 262–263

114. Ibid, p 270

115. ‘Statement of the Facts and Circumstances Affecting the Ohinemuri Block’ (doc a8(a), pp 1026–1237)