E.—No. 2,

16

PAPERS RELATIVE TO

end to ; secondly, that a large number of natives were living in pas within the block sold, and had been living there for twelve years; and thirdly, that Te Teira intended to make a reserve of these pas, which intention he never communicated to Governor Browne, —that these facts are such as to show that the Waitara purchase ought not to have been prosecuted. IV. That under these circumstances, a small instalment only of the purchase money having been paid, the purchase ought now to be abandoned. 1. With respect to the first of the above paragraphs, Ministers do not understand that the Governor is necessarily precluded from the more extended investigation desired by the natives. For their own part they can have no objection to any investigation —the amplest and most searching that can be made. But this is set aside by the conclusions the Governor has come to, stated in the paragraphs that follow. 2. Ministers cannot dispute the opinion that an attempt on the part of the Government to settle the Waitara question by force of arms, would probably result in a general rising of the natives and an attack upon all the European settlements of the Northern Island. 3. Ministers admit the fact that a large number of natives having been resident for many years upon a part of the block of land offered for sale at Waitara, under the tribal agreement above stated, and the fact of a reserve of some part, to cover the places thus occupied, having been stipulated for but never made, justify the conclusion that such a purchase should not have been completed until satisfactory arrangements on these points had been made with the natives. Certainly, if the circumstances were to occur over again, His Excellency's present advisers could not recommend that any offer of sale, leaving such points of difference undetermined, should be entertained. Although the facts alluded to do not in any way affect Te Teira's abstract right to the ownership of the land, it is quite clear that some of them are such as would have prevented the former Government, had it been aware of them, from completing the purchase. Ministers conclude, with His Excellency, that the Government was not aware of them. The facts themselves appear indisputable, having been voluntarily communicated by Te Teira himself to the Native Minister. 4. Is then the purchase to be abandoned ? Admitting the facts above stated, it certainly appears to Ministers consistent with justice that all claim to the site of the pas, and all the land intended to have been reserved, should be relinquished by Government, and the purchase, to that extent at least, abandoned. On the other hand, the relinquishment of the purchase of the rest of the land undoubtedly implies the abandonment of one of the principal objects for which the war was undertaken, viz.: the maintenance of the principle that one native should not by force prevent another from selling land belonging to the latter. William King's pretension to prevent Te Teira selling his own land would virtually be admitted, unless it be decided that Te Teira has no individual proprietary right to any land at all within the block. But the Native Minister declares that, with the exception of the tribal occupation of the pas, nothing has occurred to shake his conviction that the proprietary rights of the sellers to the greater part of the block would be proved by any investigation to be valid. Ministers do not think it would be right to abandon the principle just stated. They believe that the Duke of Newcastle was right when, in his despatch to Governor Browne, of the 27th of November, 1860, he expressed his opinion that William King had undoubtedly assumed towards Government the position of a chief using his influence to further usurpation of a land league, which attempted to prevent persons, over whom they had no legitimate authority, from alienating their lands. And they concur with His Grace in thinking that all such attempts should be inflexibly resisted. But if Teira's own land, with respect to which Kingi had no legitimate influence over him, be now given back, will not an attempt precisely of that kind, which should be resisted, have been really if not formally acquiesced in by Government. Again, without some further arrangements (which, however, may be made), the abandonment of the purchase might be held to involve, as a consequence, the possible abandonment of Te Teira and his party, the sellers of the land, who fought on the side of the Government during the war, to the chances of a renewal of the native dispute about the ownership of this land, and of the miserable state of danger and continual hostilities in which they were living before the war, should Wiremu Kingi or his followers attempt any retaliation upon their late foes. Te Teira would apparently be placed by this measure, without an investigation, in the worst position in which he could be placed, as far as regards his title to his own land, even by an investigation the result of which should prove unfavourable to his claims. To Ministers, with their views of the past and present circumstances of the case, there appears to be this amount of real or possible injustice involved in the abandonment of the whole of the purchase. Considered as a matter of expediency, the proposal has many forcible reasons in its favour. The Governor, if Ministers do not mistake the purport of his minute, has come to the decision that, the purchase being unjust, and one which could not be investigated or carried on without a general war, he himself could not compel by force either its investigation or completion. In the face of this decision of the Governor, it is certain that no war for these objects would be sanctioned or entered into by the Imperial Government. And it is equally certain that a war carried on by the colony, unaided, would be attended with many disastrous results. Nor are Ministers prepared to assert that the maintenance of this purchase is a cause for the sake of which they should, at all hazards, plunge the colony into opposition to the Governor, to the Imperial Government, and into a war of races with the natives. It appears to Ministers that the preponderance of motives, based upon expediency, is greatly in favour of the Governor's proposal. At the same time they cannot overlook the fact, that there is at least considerable probability that the abandonment by Government of a position so long adhered to, may be looked upon by the natives as a mere concession to dogged resistance, if not to intimidation. And in such case, though existing irritations might be allayed for a time, the difficulty of overcoming or dealing