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An Epitome of Official Documents Relative to Native Affairs and Land Purchases in the North Island of New Zealand

Reserves not purchased, but leased

Reserves not purchased, but leased.

  • 4. No purchases have at any time been made of any of the Native reserves by private individuals, but it has been the practice of the settlers here for some years past to occupy certain of them under leases for various terms. These leases have always been settled through the intervention of the officer for the time being in charge of this department, whose duty it has been to see that the leases were page 24executed by the proper individuals, with the consent of all parties interested in the land, and that a fair equivalent was secured to the Natives, as rent, under the leases. Hitherto the system has worked well, and has been productive of no annoyance or inconvenience to the lessees or the Government; whilst, from the dearth of land in the province, it has been found to be of great benefit to individual settlers by enabling them to extend their agricultural operations; to the community at large by the increased productiveness of the soil in the hands of English farmers, and to the aboriginal owners of the reserves by securing to them a regular income from land which they could well spare, as care was always taken to see that the Natives had sufficient land elsewhere for their maintenance before any leases of reserves were sanctioned by the Government authorities. Many of the reserves are now and have been for several years lying totally unproductive, and a desire has recently been manifesting itself on the part of the Natives to let them to the settlers. At the present moment negotiations are pending for the leasing of some of these plots of ground, and leases have recently been executed for others, on terms of advantage to both parties.
  • 5. The enclosed notice has appeared so suddenly, the Superintendent's letter of the 16th instant having been the first intimation which I received of the light in which the question is viewed by his Honour, that, if published, some degree of confusion and inconvenience must result from it, as pending negotiations must be stopped and a doubt thrown upon the title of several respectable settlers, who, upon the faith of their leases having been arranged in the Land Purchase Office, have expended considerable sums in improving the property; the Natives will become discontented, and claims will be made upon Government for compensation by the lessees.
  • 6. I have, therefore, the honour to request that I may be favoured with immediate instructions how to act in this matter, as well in respect to the leases now in existence as to pending negotiations and applications which may be made to me in future to arrange the terms of similar leases.

I have, &c.

G. S.Cooper.

The Hon. the Colonial Secretary.