THE NATIVE COMMISSION.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1883, 6 March 1880, Page 3

THE NATIVE COMMISSION.

[By Tkibghaph.] [FEOII OGB OWN COEHEBPOKDENT.] WAIT AH A, March 6. The Boyal Commission made good progress yesterday. About a dozen principal Natives were examined, and the Commission were very firm in not allowing witnesses to diverge into irrevelant matter regarding their ancestors. The principal claimants here belong to the Ngatuirangi tribe, whose place in all times was Waitara, Urenui, and adjacent places. Owing to frequent and murderous raids on them, however, by the Waikatos, they fled down the coast as far as Wakane adjacmt, and even there found no security from their ruthless persecutors. At last, in sheer desperation at finding no place of refuge, about three hundred of the Ngatuirangi migrated to the Chatham Islands. This must have been about forty years ago. In the course of time the memory of past defeats faded away, and the survivors of the tribe became possessed with so strong a desire to return to their old homes that the majority came back to New Zealand. This was before Te Kooti was sent to the Chathams. In the meantime a proclamation, which is attributed to Judge Fenton, was issued, announcing that all Natives not in occupation of land in 1840 would receive no consideration at the hands of the Compensation Court. Consequently when the Ngatuiranga came back here and applied for land to live upon, and failed to show that they had been in occupation of these lands in 1840, being fugitives from their homes at the time, their claims were not good in the eye of the law, and the Court. Accordingly the law excluded them, and the majority of these poor people have since been living on the lands on suffrage. The Commission have not intimated what their feelings are in regard to these particular claims. It is uncertain whether the Commission will finish here to-day, or hold any meeting in any contiguous place.