No. 5.
Memorandum by Mr.
Mackay on the
Lighthouse Reserve Question.
With reference to the boundary of the Pilot Station Reserve at Taiaroa Heads, and the claim made for payment for Pukekura by the Natives, on inquiring I do not find either of these questions have any foundation. In the first place, the line on which the Government have erected the boundary fence corresponds as nearly with the description given in the deed of sale as it is possible to make it: the boundaries, as described in the deed, are at Waiwakaheke on the one side, and Pukekura on the other.
In a recent notice received from the Native Lands Court, setting forth the date of sitting of the Court at Christchurch and Dunedin, I notice amongst their claims they have sent in one for Pukekura; this claim can easily be disposed of when the time arrives. *
Respecting the acre they are entitled to at Pukekura, it is difficult to define its precise position; the posts alluded to in the deed as forming the boundaries of it were old watta posts (not survey posts) which have long since disappeared, and no satisfactory information can be gained as to where they actually stood. The Natives are evidently bent on securing the site on which the Pilot Station stands; but if the block coloured yellow on the tracing copied from Parliamentary Papers, No. 45, 369, p. 54, is taken as the approximate position of the said acre, its position will be very near the spot indicated in the tracing herewith attached.
* The Court decided at its sitting in Dunedin in May, 1868, that the line of fence erected by the Provincial Government should be the boundary of the Lighthouse Reserve at Taiaroa Head, about eighteen acres in all, out of which one (1) acre has been excepted for the Natives in accordance with the terms of Symonds' purchase, the grant to be issued in favour of Korako Karetai. The landing-place to the Pilot Station at Otakou Heads was made inalienable except to Her Majesty, her heirs and successors. The Provincial Government of Otago pay the Natives a rental of £2 10s. for a right to use the beach as a binding for the Pilot Service.— Alexander Mackay.