At the second meeting, Williamson pointed out the peacefulness of the miners at Shortland and continued, ‘There is one opinion you hold, viz, that if you throw open the country for mining purposes the land will be taken from you. This is a mistake – you will permit the gold to be dug out of the hills – the mana to the land will still, as it is now, be yours.’²⁰ But Pineaha of Ngati Hako, Reihana Te Tahua, Rota, and others disagreed. In debating with Reihana, Williamson offered the assurance that the Government ‘would not give any money until they have obtained the consent of those concerned’. Reihana responded, ‘if you spend your money amongst those who are giving up the land evil will arise. Your affairs will not be amicable to us.’ Williamson concluded in a potentially divisive fashion, foreshadowing dealings on a hapu-by-hapu or individualised basis, by asking those who were offering to land for mining purposes for their names, so that their titles could be investigated by the Native Land Court and the ‘true owners’ determined.²¹

The issue of separating the interests of those in favour of mining from the interests of those opposed was the bone of contention at the meeting organised by Mackay for 16 December 1868. According to Mackay, the group opposed to mining ‘were ably supported by all the Hauhaus who could be mustered from Piako and the adjacent districts’.²² At this meeting, Teni Te Kopara raised the analogy of the Waitara purchase, which had triggered the first Taranaki war. He pointed out that the land was jointly owned, there were many claimants, and there was no consensus as at Shortland, where ‘Hoterene [Taipari] gave up the land and all the tribe consented’. He urged Mackay to be cautious. Mackay replied, ‘It is true what you say, that the assertion of individuals that they own land which is common to the whole tribe has frequently caused trouble.’ He maintained, however, that he had exercised caution; although he had accepted Ropata’s offer of his own land, he had not given Ropata any money or placed miners on it. He blamed outsiders for inflaming the situation.

The meeting continued into a second day with the pro-mining speakers asserting their right to deal individually with their land, and the anti-mining speakers saying that rights were mixed, and they would not open their land. Te Hira wrote to Mackay requiring him to leave, but Mackay declared that he would ‘hold’ the land given to him for mining purposes by Ropata and others. He asked the pro-mining faction whether they agreed to hand over their lands for mining: they did. Mackay obtained some 63 signatures to a cession agreement, described as ‘preliminary’, dated 19 December 1868, in consideration of which he agreed to pay £1500, of which £1000 was an advance against miner’s rights and £500 was a bonus payment, ‘as a deposit to bind the said agreement’.²³ Some money, perhaps even the whole amount, was handed over at the meeting.²⁴

20. New Zealand Herald, 24 November 1868 (p 156)

21. Ibid, 24 November 1868 (p 156)

22. Mackay, ‘Report by Mr Commissioner Mackay’, p 9

23. Ibid, pp 9–10, ends m, MA

24. New Zealand Herald, 22 December 1868 (doc o6, p 162)