8

The Governor-in-Chief, and published in the colony, laid it down as an incontrovertible position, that the natives are only entitled to a proprietary right in such lands as they actually occupy, and that the Crown is entitled to take possession of all vacant territory without purchase from the natives. What was signified by 'occupation' was defined by the 33rd clause of the 13th chapter of the Royal Instructions, and confines the native ownership within very narrow limits.

It is true, that a very large discretion was given to the Local Government in determining how far the principle there laid down was to be carried into operation; but with a full knowledge that the population of the Middle Island was less than 3000 inhabitants to an area estimated at nearly fifty millions acres, and that those few natives had occupied, in Lord Grey’s sense of the word, an almost inappreciable quantity of land, it was impossible that either the Home Government or the Company could, at the time of entering into the existing arrangements, have anticipated the necessity of laying out large sums of money in purchasing the waste lands of the Middle Island, and incurring considerable expenses in negotiating purchases from the natives.

Believing also as I do, that the title of the Crown to the waste lands could have been asserted and maintained without difficulty in the Middle Island, in conformity with the design developed in the despatch and instructions already referred to, and considering that in such case the necessity of making the present payments would have been spared to the Company, I cannot but feel that the course which the Local Government has pursued (no doubt for reasons perfectly satisfactory to itself) operates hardly upon the New Zealand Company; while, had the waste lands been acquired simply by an assertion of the Crown, and such registration as prescribed by the Royal Instructions, the Company would not have been called upon to pay the expense of the machinery necessary for effecting such registration.

The Government having in its discretion adopted another method of acquiring the waste lands and defining the limits of the Crown demesne, it seems to me scarcely just to impose upon the Company the cost of the proceeding.

I have, &c.,

(Signed) W. Fox,
Acting Principal Agent of the N. Z. Co.

His Excellency,
Lieutenant-Governor Eyre,
&c., &c., &c.

A true copy—J. D. Ormond.

No. 20.

[Financial.]

Government House,
Wellington, 10th March, 1849.

Sir,

I have the honor to transmit, for your Excellency’s information, copies of a correspondence which has taken place between the Local Government and the Principal Agent of the New Zealand Company, on the subject of the instalments falling due on the 1st April next, for the Porirua and Wairau purchases.

2. Your Excellency having, in December last, supplied me with copies of some despatches from Earl Grey, on the subject of land purchases to be made by the Crown for the New Zealand Company, and covering copies of a correspondence which had taken place between the Colonial Office and the Directors of that body in England, I gather from the general tenor of those documents, that Earl Grey intended that in all cases (with the single exception of the district required as a site for the Canterbury settlement) where funds were required to meet land purchases made for the New Zealand Company, those funds should be provided by that body. No other exception appears to have been made to this rule, although the liabilities which had been incurred with regard to the Wairau and Porirua were well known in England at the time.

3. Independently, however, of the reasons above mentioned, for this Government declining to meet the instalments due upon the Wairau and Porirua purchases on the 1st April next, it is, in the present state of the local finances, absolutely impossible to make such provision; and as I have not received any instructions from your Excellency on the subject, nor have any arrangements been made to enable me to meet so heavy a demand, I can only assume that your Excellency contemplates the purchases in question as coming under the general instructions of Earl Grey, and more especially as for both the districts the New Zealand Company have accepted Crown Grants, and have therefore virtually adopted the arrangements entered into with the natives by the Crown.

I have, &c.,
E. Eyre,
His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief,
&c., &c.

[Enclosure to despatch No. 20.]

Wellington, 6th March, 1849.

Sir,

I have the honor to inform you, that on the 1st of April next ensuing, the following payments will become due to the natives on account of arrangements entered into with them by His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief.