T. PABATA.j

29

I.—3b.

is this : that had the Maoris of the South Island known of the contemplated visit of the then Chief Judge Fenton to hold a Court at Christchurch to deal with this matter, there would have been present before him a number of the representative chiefs from Kaiapoi right down to Southland who had taken part in the sale of the land to Mr. Kemp. They would have come in order to appear before Judge Fenton and tell him in Court that the promises made at the time of Kemp's purchase remained unfulfilled —that, in fact, Mr. Kemp's purchase made in 1848 was illegal and void, and of no effect. As a matter of fact, the Ngaitahu case simply sprang up through the circumstance of a dispute which arose between lawyers appearing before that Court in regard to the Kaitorete case. It was then found that Mr. Kemp's deed was invalid, because it had not been signed by the Governor, Governor Grey not having signed the deed because he had found that the Government officers had neglected to carry out the instructions of Her Majesty Queen Victoria in regard to that purchase by the New Zealand Company. And I say that then, as before, there was deliberate injury, prejudice, slaughter, robbery, and murder perpetrated by Government officials in regard to the rights of the Maoris of the South Island. And I say, sir, that I have ample right and justification for making this statement that there was slaughter, robbery, and murder then committed, although you may think the words hard. I state here, as the representative of the South Island Maoris, that we have been treated in an unfair, cruel, unwarrantable, unjust, and unjustifiable manner. The Maoris were asked in a perfunctory way what pieces of land they claimed, but they were not at that time prepared to go into the question, and put forward their case in a proper manner, and thoroughly explain what land they claimed was due to them. I say that they should have had ample time allowed them to communicate with their chiefs living southward of Kaiapoi and that neighbourhood as far south as Waikouaiti and Otago. The majority of the chiefs from the districts south of Canterbury did not attend there on that occasion—viz., some of the chiefs who had signed their names to Kemp's deed on the occasion of the payment of the first sum of £500 of purchase-money. I say that the proceedings of that Court were so utterly bad, so unworthy, so thievish, and so wrong that I dare not make use of the words which are genuinely applicable and should be used concerning it, and which, though unexpressed, still rankle in the minds of the South Island Maoris to this present day. Now, here is another deliberate piece of wrongdoing that took place. The Superintendent of the Province of Canterbury and the lawyers and certain Government officials put their heads together and discussed what steps should be taken, and then they decided that Sir John Hall should sign his name to Kemp's deed of purchase as representing the Governor, as the Governor was then at Auckland or Bay of Islands, and could not be got at to come down in time to sign the deed himself in person. So Sir John Hall thereupon signed the deed as the Governor's proxy. He, I believe, was the Superintendent of Canterbury then, but that can be easily ascertained. That signing validated the deed, and enabled the Court to give judgment legalizing the order of reference, and clothing the land with a title. Without that the Court would have had no legal power to act upon its order of reference. Shortly afterwards, during the ver_y same year, an Act was passed by Parliament called the Ngaitahu Validation Act, 1868. That was to validate the signing by Sir John Hall of the deed of Kemp's purchase of the Ngaitahu Block. Well, now, I cannot help saying in the face of these things that'that was a deliberate murdering of the rights of the Ngaitahu Tribe. Not a single one of those promises has ever been fulfilled —those promises made at the time of Kemp's purchase, that as soon as the sale was completed and the land was surveyed the Maoris would receive ample payment for the land then sold by them, and that there would be sufficient land returned, reserved, and set apart for them and for their descendants for all time. That promise has so far never been fulfilled up to the present day. I say that the Native Land Court to which I have referred dealt with the Ngaitahu case from an entirely wrong point of view, and in an entirely unjustifiable manner. The people of the Ngaitahu Tribe feel that their lauds have been unjustly and wrongfully seized and taken from them, and that their rights thereto have been prejudiced, injured, stolen, and murdered. And I must point out that subsequent to that time Parliament passed an Act validating what was done by that Court, for the purpose of injuring, slaughtering, and murdering the Ngaitahu Tribe. I have finished what I proposed to say in regard to that head. I now propose to speak a few words in regard to Mr. Alexander Mackay. It has been alleged that Mr. Alexander Mackay was appointed by the Government to look after the interests of the Maoris before the Native Land Court which sat at Christchurch in 1868 and subsequent to that time. Noyv, the fact is that the Maoris never appointed Mr. Mackay to look after their interests, and they were not awaie that it was alleged that he was to look after their interests before that Court and afterwards. Mr. Mackay was appointed to represent the Government, and to hoodwink and mislead the Maoris and induce them not to take up any position hostile to the Government or object to Mr. Kemp's deed of purchase. I am sorry to have to say that, because Mr. Mackay was a very good personal friend of mine, but I feel that I cannot suppress that which is a fact. Now, what was the first thing Mr. Mackay did? In the year 1868 he got Mr. Rolleston and other members of the then Government to interview the Natives and inquire what was the lowest area of land that the Maoris would accept. Wi Naihira represented the Kaiapoi Maoris. The Court was sitting at the time, and Wi Naihira was called into the Courtroom before Chief Judge Fenton. He was asked what land he claimed for his people, and lie said to the Court, " I am not in a position to speak until I first go back and consult my people." He would not make a statement unauthorized by them. So he went outside the Court and interviewed his people, and he then went back into the Court and said that the Maoris there present refused to discuss the matter then, not having had sufficient time to consider what reply they should make to the question which had been asked them by the Court. I think he asked in the first place for an area of 50,000 acres, and the reply he got from the Government officers was, "Oh ! you won't get anything like that. You had better go outside and discuss the matter again with your people and see if you cannot make a smaller proposal than that, and if you don't agree