SUMMARY OFMINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE SELECT COMMITTEE ON NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 35, 7 June 1845, Page 2

SUMMARY OFMINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE SELECT COMMITTEE ON NEW ZEALAND.

Lieut. T. M'Donnell commenced by explaining- his connection with New Zealand, in purchasing from the assignees of Messrs. Raineand Ramsay certain lands at Hokianga, of which he took possession, and had remained in undisputed possession from the natives upwards of thirteen years : had made roads and cleared lands to the extest of morethan*ix square wiles, and has had a great deal of Jabour done. "If I had jundoretood- the object of- my examination, I would have been prepared for it ; it is of very serious consequence, not only to myself, but to the public, to the nation, and to New Zealand itself." Has, at a rough guess, about 150 square miles at Hokianga, about 300 head of cattle now wild, and perhaps 20 tame ones. His establishment consists of 25 persons, including his own family. Does not raise sufficient wheat for their consumption, " we found we could get it much cheaper from the natives ; we suppose at Hokianga we can give laws to New Zealand ; our chiefs are the most enlightened." Never was in apprehension for his own safety from the natives, " on the contrary, I took special care to prevent our people going to any of the wars; I possessed an influence over them, and if it did not appear a little egotism, I should say I am as well known in New Zealand as Rothschild was at the Royal Exchange." The witness then takes some credit to himself for his efforts in ameliorating the condition of the natives, and in directing the attention of the British Government to New Zealand. States the amount of European population of the district at from 250 to 300 ; — describes favourably the entrance to the Hokianga, and the timber of the district, which is principally Kauri ; that there is some of the finest land round the Hokianga, at all events, far different from that at Wellington and Nelson. Complains of the want of support from Government, not as against the natives, but the dregs of society that have filled the land. That a mere magistrate, unless he has a force to back him, is a valueless thing,, but admits the necessity of a "sufficient force to keep the natives in order ; to keep their lands free from intrusion and, — that they are not perfectly correct. He then enters into a statement about his title-deeds, which he says are in the possession of his solicitors ; that only the attested copies were destroyed by the fire at his establishment at Hokianga, but afterwards admits the originals to be in the possession of the New Zealand Company. He describes the natural capabilities of the district ; will not say it is the best in New Zealand, but is far superior to Auckland as an agricultural district. He then enteis into an .account of his acquiring land at Kaipara, and of his sending to Van Diemen's Land a vessel, of which the crew had mutinied and murdered the captain. In a cross-examin-ation by Mr. Roebuck, he enters into a long statement of his original purchase of land at Hokianga, and subsequent purchases from the natives, and his negociations with the New Zealand Company, " in which they failed to perform, on their part, certain arraagements to be carried out between us ; and, in fact, it was merely a ruse of theirs to lock me up, and pre- *

vent my going before the public with my lands, in opposition to their Company ; " but I have carried out everything on my part." He then describes the extent of his land, but is unable to state the amount of the purchase money, except that, on one account, there was £400 paid ; that he was six years in making his purchases, and obtained possession without an atom of dispute. In explaining his assertion, that he could give laws to New Zealand, he states it was by his . -great influence with the Hokianga tribes he had preserved peace, and had prevented a good deal of bloodshed in New Zealand : and thinks he has influence enough now to take those, men (the Hokianga tribes) to perform the same duties. In continuation, after incidentally mentioning that it was within his own knowledge that the petty chiefs of Port Nicholson, who were the legitimate proprietors of the soil, were not consulted in the sale of that district, he proceeds to state his own grievance — the great grievance of New Zealand — the non-settlement of the Land Claims. On this point the evidence appears to be very confused and contradictory. The witness says there is no doubt of his titles, he had paid his money, and has-a right to tfe£ soil; but requests the Comissioner in New Zealand that his claims might not be adjudicated upon, but remain in slaty quo, until he had made his case known to the British Government at home, who referred him to the Land Commissioners, who referred him back to the Court of Claims in New Zealand; he admits this delay not to arise from any fault of the Government, but from his not having his title-deeds. After complaining of the fees in the Land Claims' Court, he admits of opposition to his claims by some of the natives who had sold him the land. He admits it was from no fault of the Commissioner, who gave every facility, but from his own special reque st, that his case was not decided upon ; but yet complains that the nonsettlement of the Land Claims was a source of great mischief to him, — " for some of my young friends, who came out with £1,400 to £1,500, could not get any land." He states as the three principal evils of the Land Claims! Court, the heavy fee, the delay, and the opinion created in the minds of the natives, by " the dregs of human society — the recent importation, as well as the old settlers of bad character, — six of one, and half-a-dozen of another," that the Commission Court was intended by the Queen of ' England's orders, to restore to them the land they had previously sold ; and in consequence of the covetousness inherent in the savage, who will stick at nothing to obtain his object, "putting those men on their oath, who were not sufficiently advanced in Christianity* tot- know what would be the consequence of falsifying it, was .to make them ten times raore4he~chttdi3ea' of the Devil than they were before, and -that they have perjured themselves in many instances right and left with the Commissioners." They say they have thrown away the land, that they never knew its value until now, and if they thought by coming forward to upset the sales, they could get the land back again, they would do it instantly ; which has been the cause of so much perjury amongst them ; and he would " rather have to do with a pristine savage any day, than he would have to jdo with a native missionary now." He considers one half New Zealand to be waste land, which nobody claims, and recommends to the Government to register every chief's title, which would place in the hands of Government nearly half of New Zealand. After some evidence, relating to Land Claims at Hokianga, the question of slavery is brought forward : and in answer to a question from Mr.Roebuck,he states thatGovernorHobson being hard pushed by some tribes to the southward, and not having sufficient military force at his command ; in this strait he (Mr. M'Donnell) naturally thought it would be advisable to cripple the native strength, by dividing them, and thus to weaken its power throughout the whole of New Zealand. He advised the Governor to proclaim that the slaves were to have their liberty ; mentioned that the British flag never flew over a nation of slaves, that there could not be two laws, and that he would either get the chiefs or the slaves. That in this attempt, he would have the feeling of the public enlisted in liis favour, t and that " very few in England know that this sort of thing exists/ But in his subsequent examination, being hard pressed as to having himself purchased slave labour, he declines answering the question ; "it admits of so many constructions ;" and justifies his own conduct by the example " of the Wesleyan Church, and the Church Mission, both of whom, he has heard, employed slaves." Mr. Gordon Gardner's evidence merely relates to the production of certain official documents in evidence ; after which Mr. Walter Brodie is examined : He first visited New Zealand (the Bay of Islands) in 1.839, and had continued there till June, 1843, with the exception of twelve or fourteen months passed at Tahiti and the South Sea Islauds. Had been over almost every inch of New Zealand — perhaps more over the island than any European there, except Bishop Selwyn. There were one or two places on the west coast he had not been to. Thinks Auckland (though against his interest to say so) the best situation for a capital, from the extraordinary communication it has with the east and west coast. Has been to Port Nicholson ; it is a fine harbour, and that is all he can

say about it, should say, a dangerous harbour for a stranger : its agricultural capabilities are very trifling. In December, 1 842, he went up the Hutt, and remained there a few days, the j whole quantity of acres under cultivation was about 50 acres, including^potatoes ; about the same time he should think, although he was very little there, there were some hundreds of acres in cultivation altogether in the neighbourhood of Auckland. The only available land anywhere about Port Nicholson, that he could see, was upon the river Hutt, which was beautiful land, but an immense expense to clear it. The natives denied a part of the land to have been sold ; believes a great deal of this land bought by Col. Wakefield was bought out and out, and the natives got what they asked ; but there were parties down there that put the natives up to demand much more for the land than they originally asked, and that, in a great measure, has caused great dissatisfaction among the settlers. Disputes Mr. M'Donnell's assertion, that half of New Zealand was not claimed by the natives, means to say every inch is claimed by them. ■i That ,^he right to the soil is not considered to ► rest with the individual, but in the community ; that a very small quantity of land is cultivated compared with the quantity in the country; that each individual cultivates for himself a small piece of land two or three years, and then leaves it for another piece to get the virgin soil ; that there is a large class of the community, the slaves of the country, who labour in the cultivation of the soil, but are not considered as proprietors ; — that the proportion the cultivated and occupied land bears to the waste land is very small, perhaps not one acre in a thousand. Docs not think Mr. M'Donnell's suggestion of a registry of the native lands, as distinct from waste land, could be adopted. After some discussion as to the operation of the treaty of Waitangi on the minds of the natives, in connection with the land question, he relates, at some length, the Manganui case, in which he accuses Mr Clarke senr. of having been the cause of more bloodshed, and of having done more injury to the country than anybody else, having by wrong advice counselled Captain Hobson to purchase the right of a man of the name of Noble, a missionary chief, to the land at Manganui. This Noble, or his father, was the original possessor of the soil, but had subsequently lost his right, having been conquered by a very strong tribe, who had sold the land to some white people. The natives from the Bay of Islands joined the tribe opposed to Noble (who were heathens, and tried to be imposed on by Mr. Clarke on account' of their religion) because if Noble was allowed ,to go to war, because his tribe got stronger, and he had the authorities of Government to back him, -^which he certainly had) no nativesland would be safe to them. In the war which ensued, on account of Captain Hobson purchasing the land at Manganui, by Clarke's advice, as many natives were killed as in all the little affairs that have taken place on the coast. The witness then enters into an explanation of the delays and expenses of the land claims, and the difficulty in obtaining a crown title, not one having been granted to anybody. The delay was partly attributable to the commissioners, and partly owing to the declining state of Captain Hobson's health, who had three strokes of paralysis before he had been six months in the country. He had been a good deal abused, but did not deserve all the censure that had been cast upon him ; " Mr. Shortland is the man who ought to be abused, he is the man who has done all the mischief in the country. He was formerly a mate in the navy with Captain Hobson, and a man, probably, for whom he entertained some little regard; and when Captain Hobson was visited with these attacks he wrote home, and recommended Mr. Shortland to Lord Normanby, who was then in office, as a fit person for the Colonial Secretary; and I suppose the parties in this country put confidence in Captain Hobson, and believed that he was a fit person, or they would not have appointed him ; but Captain Hobson being taken ill, the reins of government fell into Mr. Shortland's hands, a man who could hardly write his own name ; why, what education could you expect Mr. Shortland to have, when he went to sea at the age of nine years, and a man who, I know, was concerned in land-jobbing in the country ? When Mr. Shortlund went to Auckland, Sir George Gipps had sanctioned, under Captain Hobson's wish, that all Government officers should have a certain allotment of land in Auckland to build their houses upon immediately, and that they were to pay a portion of what the section sold for, but with a proviso that no Government officer should sell that land within a period of two or three years, which was required by Sir Georgs Gipps, thinking that the parties might buy land for the sake of speculation. Mr. Shortland was the first man who broke through this regulation j he bought an allotment of land, I forget the number, but it is mentioned in the Blue Book of 1842, for about £300, and sold it to Mr. Porter for £1200. Just before I came home there were accounts received, that Lord Stanley would not acknowledge these grants, but that was what induced me to make the remark which I did about his being a land-jobber; and- not only that, but Mr. Porter, — I do not mejujt to say that Mr. Shortland offered him his^tuation, or offered his son a situation on account of his purchasing the land, — but the. fact was, that Mr

Porter certainly was made a member of the Council a short time afterwards, and his eldest son 1 was, given one .of the best situations in the Colonial Office. Ido not mean to say that he promised' Mr. Porter those appointments for the sake of selling his land. I also know that he has bought land, and sold the same land again to' Mrs. Hobson." In a long cross-examination by Mr. Hope, who says " the statement is quite new to him," and has been contradicted by Captain Hobson, the witness confirms his original statement, says, that after the land had been sold to Mr. Porter for this sum, Mr. Porter took possession of the house, that the amount was paid partly in bills, one or two of which passed through the hands of a friend of his, and partly in cattle, and that the land was afterwards sold on behalf of Mr. Porter's creditors. After some qaestions from Sir R. Inglis as to whether the land is held in common by the different tribes, and Mr. Clarke's being the cause of more bloodshed m New Zealand than any other person, from the wrong advice given by him ,to the natives and Captain Hobson, which caused the battle, of Manganui, the examination proceeds as follows :—: — "'■Sirß, H. Inglis] You have stated that the acting Governor, Mr. Shortland, who, as you have also stated, possessed the confidence of the the late Governor, Captain Hobson, and also the confidence of the Colonial Department at home, is a person who can hardly write his name ; do you wish that that should remain as your evidence upon the examination before this Committee ? — I should wish to refer you, if there is such a thing, to some of the proclamations issued by Mr. Shorthand during the time he was at Port Nicholson. The statement made by you was, that the acting Governor could scarcely write his name; I wish to give you an opportunity to say that that expression was inconsiderate* or if you can, to sustain it by any evidence ? — I saw the proclamation which Mr. Shortland issued ; I certainly say that the proclamation he issued was a very bad grammatical proclamation ; it was written more like a man with no education. You may have a very good opinion of Mr. Shortland, and so had I, till I found him out ; from the heading of the proclamation, and the words put in it, you would say he was a very illiterate man. Mr. Wilson Patten.'] The expression which you made use of, that he could hardly write his name, was rather a hazardous one ? — I know ;that4&e greater part of his letters to this country Wr^^ot written by him, but by Mr. Freeman, bisjie&d. clerk. Bid j you ever receive any, letter from him yourself ? — No ; I think there are very few who "have. - Mr. Hope] Can you refer to the proclamation you particularly *efer to ?—lt? — It was in 1840."

We insert the following answer to our remarks on "Clodhopper's" letter in last week's Spectator. It is unnecessary for us to say more than that the facts connected with the rent of land in England, and the cost of wheat in Canada, were either within our own knowledge or furnished by respectable and competent authorities. We leave the matter with our readers, simply referring them to our previous observations on the subject, to the quotation from the Western Time?, af*d tb an extract in to-day's Spectator from the Launceston Examiner, April 26. — Ed. N.Z.S.