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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Rare Volume

Appendix B

Appendix B.

In page 18 a confident persuasion is expressed, that no claim acknowledged and maintained by the Natives was of such extent as to justify the Government in disallowing it, on the grounds of its extent or value making its recognition "prejudicial to the latent interests of the community."

A cursory examination of the Return of Land Claims printed by order of Sir George Grey, and laid before his Council on proposing the enactment of the Ordinance, Session 10, No. 4, would seem to reveal to a person unacquainted with the details of the subject, a state of things which required a measure of a most stringent character; but an analysis of that return will prove that the claims sent in to the Government of proprietary rights to extensive territories, of which so much has been made, had no foundation in justice or truth.

For instance, it will appear
1.That the whole number of claimants was 459, and the number of tracts of land claimed, 1020.
2.That five persons preferred claims to 26 tracts of land estimated in the aggregate at 7,950,000 acres; but that of these five persons, four never made any attempt to substantiate their claims, and that the fifth does not appear to have made good his claim to a single acre.
3.That 25 of the claimants preferred 34 claims extending in the aggregate to 741,410 acres, none of whom ever attempted to substantiate their claims.page 54
4.That 11 persons made claims to 125,000 acres but withdrew their claims.
5.That 8 persons claimed 105,000 acres, but had so little confidence in their titles that they refused to pay the fees to the Commissioners for their examination.
6.That, on the whole, 143 claimants never attempted to make good their claims; that 27 withdrew their claims after having made them; that 12 did not consider their claims worth the fees; and that in 208 cases the claims are so vague, that the extent of land claimed is not even estimated.

On the other hand it is officially reported that out of 750 claims which had been examined, by the Commissioners, only 4 or 5 had been disputed. Had the printed Return before referred to, set forth the prices or consideration proved to have been given for the lands claimed, it would not only have appeared at a glance what claims were genuine and valid; but (and this is the most probable reason why so essential a piece of information was withheld) it would have excited astonishment, that any constituted authority should have sought to invalidate contracts of such a character as those admitted by the Natives.

It is shewn by these Returns, that while in every instance Sir George Grey endeavoured to deprive the large families of the Missionaries, most of them born in New Zealand and settled on their lands, of all the lands their parents had purchased for them exceeding 2560 acres—grants extending to 24,269 acres were made to one individual (or to his assigns) who never settled, and probably never intended to settle, in the country.