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No. 27.
Copy of a Despatch from the
Right Hon. Earl Grey to Governor Grey.
Sir,—
I have the honour to acknowledge your Despatch No. 41, of the 17th April, 1847, on the subject of the grants which your predecessor had extended beyond the established maximum limit of 2,560 acres.
By this despatch I learn that, as had been anticipated by one of the Commissioners of Claims, great difficulties are beginning to arise from Natives coming forward who considered themselves to have rights to portions of the extended grants, and that the peace of the country was thereby seriously endangered. You mention that under these circumstances you would probably be unable to await the instructions for which you had previously applied, and that you had formed the intention, in all cases where the disputes of the Natives about these grants might come before you, to commence legal proceedings for the purpose of ascertaining whether they are not null and void; because, if so, you were resolved not to take any steps which might bring Her Majesty's troops into conflict with her Native subjects in support of an invalid title to land. In taking this resolution you have my cordial approval. No European can have the least pretence to expect that the Government should suffer itself to be led into hostilities in support of any titles to land which were both in themselves invalid, and contrary to any well-founded rights residing in the Natives.
Upon the receipt of my Despatch No. 50, of the lst March, 1847, you will find that I had already authorized you to institute proceedings, wherever your Law Advisers thought that they would be successful, for reversing the extended grants; but at the same time that the persons so dispossessed should have the privilege of purchasing at the minimum upset price any lands on which they might have incurred any considerable expenditure in reliance on the grants and on the promises of the previous Governor.
You have, by your intended course on disputed cases, anticipated the first part of those instructions. With regard to the latter part of them, it is, I conclude, very improbable that any European will have had time or opportunity to make any substantial outlay on-the extended portion of those grants in reliance on the expectations arising from Governor Fitzroy's measure; but, should this have occurred in any case, it would appear desirable to allow the claimant every facility to acquire the property, provided he can furnish the Government with the means fully to satisfy every Native having a good claim to the land, and provided also that the whole, amount paid by him, whether for compensation to the Native or as a price to the public, does not fall short of the established minimum price for so much land as he is allowed finally to acquire.
I have, &c.,
Grey.
Governor Grey, &'c.