TE H. TUKINO.]

17

I.—3b.

this timber; I might have £500,000 cash for it; but, no, you want to take the ball out of my hands and give it to the pakeha. I say this: Remove the restrictions from the timber; let the law affect the soil alone, and I say that flax also should be removed from all these restrictions. 8. You do not admit that timber is land?—No; I say it is a chattel, not land, because you can cut it down, and you can take it up and carry it away, and you cannot do that with the land. I will tell another story to the Committee by way of explanation of what I say. Some years ago —I do not remember the exact date —this Committee called upon a European, who had been working together with me in certain timber transactions, to appear before them here. The Committee desired that this pakeha and I should appear before them, but I did not want him to come. The Committee having had this pakeha before them, and having cross-questioned him in regard to a transaction I had entered into with him, was satisfied that 1 had been fairly dealt with by him. Well, then, when we went away after having completed this transaction and tried to get people to take up the idea, there was one question that put an end to the transaction, and that was this: "Is the title to the land referred to in this deed clear?" and, of course, the only reply that the pakeha could give was that it was not, and consequently the thing fell through, and all those thousands of pounds that he and I and my hapu would otherwise have we were debarred from enjoying simply througff that fact. Now, I wish to say something in regard to the papakaiugas referred to by my friend Pepene yesterday. I desire to support what he said in regard to them. He said that the lands set apart as papakaingas should not be liable to rates and taxes, and I desire to add this to his statement, that the colony should contribute to the cost of administration of the Councils. I say that I can only describe this Committee, or this Parliament, or this Government, or whoever is responsible as being most miserably miserly if they do not contribute to these two things as asked, and I will say why I feel justified in using that expression. Within the Ngatimaniapoto Rohe Potae many lands have been sold to the Crown, sold for from Is. 6d. up to 4-s. and ss. per acre, 7s. per acre being the largest price ever given, and these lands have been resold by the Crown to the pakeha settlers for from £1 to £2 10s. per acre. How many millions of pounds have the Crown received of profit over and above the price at which they purchased these lands from the Maoris ? Now, will you not take into consideration the immense advantage that the Crown has scored over us in these transactions, and give us these trifling concessions for which we now ask? Now, speaking about myself and my tribe personally, there are two blocks belonging to us called Taurewa and Waimarino. Taurewa was sold at 2s. 6d. per acre, and Waimarino was bought by the Government for 2s. 6d. an acre. Now, simply because I do not know the actual figures I cannot tell you how many thousands of pounds or millions of pounds the Government have received for the timber on Waimarino since they have bought it. Take that as a case in point: the Crown bought that land from the Natives at 2s. 6d. an acre, and they have timber standing on it worth £2,000,000. 9. Does that apply to all the large blocks of land bought by the Government from the Natives! Do you say the Government has made such enormous profits out of all these? —What I say is this, that the Crown bought these lands for 2s. 6d. per acre, and there they have timber to the value of £2,000,000 standing on the land which they bought for 2s. 6d. 10. But they have not made that profit out of all the lands which the}' bought for 2s. 6d. 1 — There are other blocks of land that the Crown purchased for Is. an acre. The Kaingaroa Block they bought for about 6d. per acre. 11. There are some lands they bought for 6d. an acre that are not worth a farthing?— The Government will get £1 an acre for Kainsjaroa yet. There is no land in the Ngatimaniapoto or Ngatituwharetoa district that they will not get at least that amount for. As to the money asked for by my friend Pepene for the expenses of the Council, and that there should be no rates and taxes leviable upon papakainga lands, I would point out this, that the money he asks should be given is really the property of the Maoris themselves. There is another matter I might add to that: there are a number of coach-roads and mail-routes through the Maori lands in regard to which the Natives do not claim payment for having allowed the Government to take those roads— they have given them for nothing. 12. They have benefited by those roads?— That is so; but remember this, that if those roads were made through lands the property of European owners they would want compensation at once. The same refers to what was done at Haereawatea, when the route of the Main Trunk Railway-line running through the Ngatimaniapoto district was given by the Maori owners to Sir R. Stout. I saw myself, and personally heard what was said by my own matuas at Haereawatea when Sir Robert Stout went up there, and I heard Manga and Wahanui saying there to Sir Robert Stout, " The backbone of our ancestor Turongo —that is, the Main Trunk Railway route —we will give to you for running the train-wheels on, right through the Ngatimaniapoto district. We will not ask for* any payment; we will not ask for any tax or consideration at all; there it is; we give it to you for nothing; take it." We having considered you people, and been generous to your people, you are not cenerous to us in return. I must say this, that your pakeha rangatiras are tutuas; that is proof b of it. Wahanui and Manga said to Sir Robert Stout, "Do not bring in the land-pur-chase system within the Rohe Potae," and Sir Robert Stout said, "Yes, we will undertake that your lands will be absolutely protected and not interfered with, but give your lands to be investigated by the Court " ; and the Maori rangatiras thought the pakeha rangatiras were the same as they, and the Court was allowed to sit there, and as soon as the Court sat there in came the Government Land Purchase Officer. That was the way we were treated. We kept our part of the bargain, but that is the way those professed pakeha rangatiras kept their word. 13. Mr. Hone HeJce.] You have told the Committee that you were one of the delegates selected and appointed by the general movement amongst the Maori tribes some years ago, which was called by the name of the Kotahitanga, and you were specially sent down here to Wellington to interview the Government and lay before them certain proposals to obtain certain legislation that would be satisfactory as affecting the Maoris and their lands?— Yes, on every occasion I was one of those selected by the chiefs of the various tribes throughout the Island for this purpose, 8—I."8b.