Shady deals laid city foundations

By WAYNE THOMPSON

The development of early Auckland was financed by the Crown's real estate dealings that reaped fat profits - such as an 8000 per cent gain on Maori land bought nine months before.

The Crown could not lose. Settlers were hungry for land, and the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi made it the exclusive buyer of Maori land.

But the Maori did lose. The Orakei hapu of Ngati Whatua lost 33,000ha of prime Auckland land within 15 years of signing the treaty.

The Crown resold much of this land within two to four years for vast profits.

These grievances are now being formally heard for the first time.

In a statement supporting its compensation claim to the Government, the Ngati Whatua o Orakei Maori Trust Board says the Crown abused its treaty position as protector.

"It was not taken at the point of a gun but by the point of a pencil - by decree," said board chairman Sir Hugh Kawharu.

He blamed the loss on a dereliction of duty by successive governors of the colony, starting with William Hobson, who took up two offers of land covering the present central business district, western suburbs and Mt Roskill, Mt Eden and Epsom.

Crown sales of some of this land to settlers fetched more than £90,000.

But the actions of Hobson's successor, Robert Fitzroy, had the worst effect on Auckland Maori land ownership, said Sir Hugh.

When Fitzroy arrived in Auckland in 1842, the colony was bankrupt. He sought to raise money by wresting more land from Maori.

Without the authority of the Colonial Office, he waived a clause in the treaty which promised to protect Maori interests from the unscrupulous.

Fitzroy's actions allowed individual Maori to to sell their interests in communally owned tribal estates to private buyers.

In 1844, Fitzroy met Ngati Whatua and other Maori from outlying districts at Government House in Auckland, and explained a new policy he was about to introduce.

He said the Government had aimed to prevent Europeans buying large areas of land at once before Maori knew its value. It also wanted them to have enough land to grow food.

But there was a difference between Maori selling all their land and selling small portions which they could spare.

In allowing portions of "a few hundred acres" to be sold direct to Europeans, Fitzroy added that one-tenth of the land must be "set apart for, and chiefly applied to your future use, or for the special benefit of yourselves, your children and your children's children".

Board historians believe Fitzroy saw the tenths as being managed by trustees providing money at least in the first place to be used for schools and hospitals.

In practice, the "Fitzroy waivers" did not protect Maori or provide the tenths, and did not allow competitive bargaining to achieve the market price.

There was evidence Europeans were on-selling land for large profits before the waiver was granted.

The board contends the Fitzroy waivers were a breach of the treaty and contrary to Colonial Office instructions to buy land from Maori in such a way that vendors would not be deprived in future.

Sir Hugh said that within 18 months of the waivers being set up, Ngati Whatua had lost control over the Tamaki isthmus.

Although the waivers were meant to apply throughout the country, they had their greatest impact in Auckland.

Board estimates of land lost under the waivers include 5665ha (14,000 acres) in west Auckland, 62,110ha (15,350 acres) on the North Shore and 4046ha (10,000 acres) making today's Auckland suburbs from Remuera to Southdown and Mt Roskill.

Sir Hugh said the Auckland suburbs area was the most valuable and desirable land available in the colony at the time.

It was fertile, accessible and in the seat of Government.

The waivers were abolished by the next Governor, George Grey, whose investigators found that more than half the applications passed London's requirements for confirmation of title.

But land in disallowed claims went to the Crown - despite Maori objections - and when Grey abolished the tenths, the land set aside was sold to settlers and the money went into Government coffers.

Sir Hugh said that if the tenths endowment had been set up as promised, Ngati Whatua would have been for the past 150 years receiving the income from 1618ha (4000 acres).

This was greater than the combined area of the city's big trusts - the Anglican, Melanesian, St Johns, Dilworth and Cornwall Park trusts.

Instead, Sir Hugh said, the hapu - without the protection promised by the Crown and later the Maori Land Court - had its social structure demolished and following generations were left without an economic base.