No. 9.
Mr. Mantell to Mr. Rolleston.

A reference to previous papers would have saved the trouble of noticing a communication from Natanahira Waruwarutu; a reference of his first letter to me would have saved the trouble which has been imposed on the Attorney-General.

On that gentleman's minute I must be permitted to remark, that the translation of the deed of 1848 submitted to him is erroneous;—that one at least of its errors is such as requires no knowledge of the Maori language to detect—that the signatures of the vendors are, although added at the foot of the paper, not placed in such a position as to seem to be what they are; that there seems to have been submitted to him no proof either that those who signed were the owners of the land, or that the marks were made by those whose names are written beside them, or that Taiaroa and Solomon had any right whatever to sign for men of superior rank and interest who were absent from and ignorant of the transaction; and that the translation in question does not show how, if at all, Colonel Wakefield is so identified with the Crown that land conveyed to the former should at once become the property of the latter.

I do not pretend to question the propriety or correctness of the Attorney-General's opinion, but as I distinctly remember that the Crown Law Officer (Mr. D. Wakefield), at the time at which the deed was made, having before him the deed itself as well as its translation by the officer who drew it, declared it to be illegal and "not worth the parchment on which it was written," and that the Government here shared that opinion. I do think I may be permitted to express my appreciation of the progress which we have since made in the application (when permitted by our Parliament) or adaptation of English law to questions of Native title to land. From that period of timid punctiliousness in 1848 we have now, unless the case before me be exceptional, which I have no reason to suppose, reached a time when it would seem that any deed drawn anyhow from any Maori to any European conveys any land "within the boundaries specified in the deed and plan" from whatever Maoris may have owned it page 242to the Crown. The high respect universally entertained for Mr. Prendergast's legal knowledge convinces me that it would be impossible to attach too great importance to the bearings of his opinion in the present case.

The validity of the document of 1848 being thus satisfactorily established, or rather its validity as conveying to the Crown all lands within the boundaries specified in it and the plan, but not clearly so in respect of the provision in favour of the Natives which it contains, I feel no difficulty whatever with regard to the eel-fishing question. Bound as I then felt, pending the execution of the new deed which the Government deemed absolutely necessary, to maintain the validity of that under comment, I treated with the Natives in all matters connected with their reserves with a high hand, and as if I possessed the unquestionable right to do so. At almost every reserve the right to maintain the old and to make new eel-weirs was claimed, but I knew these weirs to be so great an impediment to the drainage of the country that in no case would I give way upon this point, although unfortunately my difficulty was much increased by their knowledge that at a sale then recently made in this Island, a general reservation of this right to the Natives had been conceded.

At Lake Ellesmere (then called Waihora) I showed Maopo, Pohau, and others of the Kaiteruahikihiki interested at Taumutu that although years might elapse ere their old style of breaking the dam might be interfered with, the stoppage of the outlet must so seriously affect the drainage of so large an extent of country that the Government must be quite free to do as it pleased with regard to it.

All that I promised at any place to the Maoris on this subject was, that their rights of fishing on and beyond their own lands should be neither less nor more than those of Europeans; and this promise I hope the Government may for a time permit to hold good.