leasing of large areas be allowed at once, it is not at all unlikely that one or two people would now lease in one Block what in three months hence would be the chosen site for a Township were it available, in which case the Europeans would then be reaping the benefit instead of the natives.⁵⁸

Wilkinson was also concerned about protecting ‘land which the Natives are now cultivating and residing upon, including also their pah’. He also made the remark quoted above in section 16.3.1(3) that he thought them ‘reckless and improvident’ with ‘no thought for the future’, and recommended that removal of restrictions not be allowed unless there was some obvious real benefit. At that stage, survey of the subdivisions of Omahu reserve had not been completed.

We have already noted that in 1902 the balance of section 15 owned by the Mokena whanau was sold to the Crown. George Lipsey seems to have intended that a continuing income for his family would be received from the rents from business and residence site licences in Lipseytown, the western part of Te Aroha goldfield township on section 17. However, by the early 1900s pressures were mounting to sell. In section 2 of the Te Aroha Township Act 1882, the streets within Lipseytown and Morgantown were ‘declared to have been duly dedicated to the public, and shall hereafter be public highways or streets’. No compensation appears to have been paid, but under the mining legislation proclaiming a goldfield and township the Crown effectively took over control of Maori land ceded for a goldfield. Maori owners received the rents from business and residence site licences in the township and a portion of miner’s rights fees (see ch 11).

Beginning with the Crown acquisition of the railway reserve in 1885,⁵⁹ which seems to have been negotiated by agreement with the Lipseys, there was a piecemeal purchase by the Crown of the freehold of the whole of section 17 (fig 85). In 1893, about six acres of hilly land were leased to the Crown for water supply. In 1900, this area was taken under the Public Works Act 1894 for the construction of waterworks for Te Aroha water supply and compensation of £30 was paid by Te Aroha Borough.⁶⁰ In 1905, Ani and Akuhata Lipsey, who were now of age, sold to the Crown their interests in a number of town blocks in Lipseytown. The restrictions on alienation had already been lifted under section 14 of the Native Land Purchase Act 1892, at the Lipseys’ request. Akuhata received £2500 for his town sections, about £330 per acre, a very high price for that time. Ani’s sections brought her £2000 and she also received £266 for 32 acres of hill country surrounding the water supply reserve.

58.Ibid, p 210

59.‘Native Land Taken for a Portion of Waikato-Thames Railway (Morrinsville-Te Aroha Section)’, 13 October 1885, New Zealand Gazette, 1885, pp 1218-1219. An additional area was taken for water service and for a reservoir for locomotives in the 1890s: New Zealand Gazette, 1896, no 32, pp 715-717; ‘Additional Land to be Taken in Te Aroha Township for the Purposes of the Waikato-Thames Railway’, 25 January 1897, New Zealand Gazette, 1897, no 12, p 336. Compensation was paid for all these takings: see doc GI, pp 85-99.

60.‘Land Taken for Waterworks in Block IX, Aroha Survey District’, 23 October 1900, New Zealand Gazette, 1900, no 92, p 1985