the provisions of article 3 of the Treaty which extends the rights and privileges of British subjects to Maori. This means that laws on liability for personal debt also apply to Maori. It should be noted that no power existed for a share of undivided tribal land to be taken for personal debt. We need to question to what extent can or should the Crown protect individuals from themselves.

A further grievance of the claimants is that the Crown used special legislation to override the provisions of the wills of Rina Mokena and Ema Lipsey in order to complete certain purchases. In section 8 of the 1893 amendment to the Maori Real Estate Management Act 1888 the interests in section 15 of Ani Lipsey, then a minor, were sold to the Crown. In section 13 of the Native Land Claims Adjustment Act 1911, sales of the interests of minors who were beneficiaries of Ema Lipsey’s will were validated. We note that in both cases the special legislation was used to validate transactions that, but for these interests of minors, had been completed, and which had been consented to by all interested family members. We have no evidence of undue pressure being exerted by the Crown in any of these transactions.

The loss of land and the disinheritance of future generations by sale of ancestral lands is a generic issue which we have reviewed elsewhere in this report. The Te Aroha claim is mainly about Mokena whanau lands but many other Ngati Rahiri Tumutumu families, in other parts of Omahu, and in other reserves in Te Aroha block, also sold their lands. The restrictions on alienation imposed by the Native Land Court had no effect if the owners applied for removal for the purpose of selling to the Crown, although Crown officials did try to prevent such sales by delaying permission and warning of the danger of landlessness.

The Mokena whanau were fortunate in that a township was built on their land and that the income from rents and sales was substantial. Other whanau also lost their land with far less payment. The issue really goes back to the creation, by legislation governing the operation of the Native Land Court, of a system of allocating individual interests in tribal land, a property right which the individual owner could dispose of as he or she pleased, without consultation with anyone else. Even George Lipsey, Pakeha father and businessman, could not prevent his son and daughter, Akuhata and Ani, from selling their inheritance to pay their debts.

In summary, we conclude that the Crown had failed to protect the traditional values and kaitiakitanga of Ngati Rahiri Tumutumu in Te Aroha mountain and the hot springs, and had failed to ensure their participation in the management of these places. We note that in the last 20 years Maori have been given a greater opportunity to participate in discussion and consultation. As for the Te Aroha town sections, the Mokena family, like many other whanau in Hauraki, sold their lands, and their descendants join with other Hauraki claimants in suffering the impacts of land loss.