THE HALF-MILLION CLAIM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 462, 24 June 1909, Page 4

THE HALF-MILLION CLAIM.

THE STORY TOED. AN INTERESTING CHARACTER. THE “KING OF WAIGU.” Auckland, June 22. In connection with the claim of half a million made by the American Government on behalf of one of its citizens against the New Zealand Government, it is admitted that it concerns a large area of land in the Auckland province acquired for a mere song from the natives prior to 1840 by a man named Webster, and the story is told as follows; —When the country was constituted there lived on the little strip of land inside the Coromandel harbour, and known as Herekino, a man who has been described as a big, stout, jolly individual, loud of voice and free of manner, possessing in addition to a strong American accent a personality that forced its domination upon all and sundry with whom he came in contact. He

had arrived some years’ before as a ships carpenter upon an American whaler, and seeing possibilities both pleasant and profitable in life ashore in New Zealand than an American whaler would never offer, he cast his lot among the small band of pakehas that were scattered here and there in the midst of the cannibal lords of the laud. William Webster was his name, and very soon from one of the simple "makers of nations” in New Zealand, he became dictator and arbitrator between native and European over a wide range of country, including the Hauraki Gulf, and all its neighboring lands. In short, without the medium of William Webster, no pakeha could obtain so much land as would suffice to give resting room to his tent or whare, and he was the bosom friend of the great Coromandel chief, Hooknose, whose daughter be was given in marriage. So Webster settled in the land and prospered. His busy mind, not content with mere idle proprietorship of the vast areas of native demesnes he had either acquired or of which he claimed possession, he established trading stations all over the gulf and Firth of Thames, and through these he reaped a rich profit, at the time of the influx of immigration to New South Wales, by buying shiploads of maize, potatoes and

other food from the natives and sending them across to New South Wales. His headquarters were 5t this little spot of Herekino, where he kept a boardinghouse for the convenience of the numerous adventurous spirits who came and went, and with whom money or kind was frequently plentiful. From the influence of power he exercised both over Maori and pakeha, Webster obtained the sobriquet of “ King of Waiou.” When the Commission was appointed by Governor Hobson into 1841 to enquire into and settle the question of these land claims and grants, Webster’s claim to landed property was found to fit with the enterprise of such a man. His possessions or claims of possessions, including big areas in the choicest spots bordering the gulf of Waitemata, having been an apparently favourite pegging-out place of his long before the New Zealand Government thought of making it the provincial capital, or even before any sign of European habitation manifested itself round its shores. He also, it is authenticall}’’ stated, laid claim to the whole of the Great Barrier Island, while the Piako country met with considerable attention. When these various “land holders ” were required to give an account of their proprietorship and its origin, Webster agreed to declare hlmserf a claimant as an Englishman, and not as .an American citizen, and when the allotments were made, his huge estates dwindled down to mere backyard sections by comparison. Apparently, with the majority of other dispossessed ones, he accepted the situation as philosophically as might be, and little or nothing was heard in protest from him until in the early fifties, when he left New Zealand for the Californian goldfields in search of further fortune. Some time after having left, the colony, a claim was received-.by the New Zealand Government from Webster, who was then in San Francisco, and either the original claimant or his heirs have at intervals been pressing their claims against the New Zealand Government for this dispossessed property. Some few Stout was commissioned to sift the years ago, however, Sir Robert whole matter and report upon it, and the result was that Webster as a claimant was ruled out of court. It is almost certain that Webster is the man referred to in the claim respecting which the Solicitor-General is going to England, but it also seems pretty clear that there is little likelihood of the claim being substantiated, for before the Crown : settled the rights of claimants to land, the native rights were variably extinguished first by purchase, so that in the event of a claim being disallowed the laud by right of purchase went to the Crown.