Page:The Tarankaki question.pdf/10

 10 the Money in wexshich they became entitled by the Treaty. Corporale feropu used, I think it will not be disputed that these distinctions may appears that the ascription to the natives of a right to have the title to their lands thus qualified and restricted, dealt with according to the laws defining the rights of real property in Walka zhuliano England, is as wircazonable and unfounded as would be the right of a lease holder to insist upon his title being dealt with as if tres called forn Kistent with all the rights and privileges of British subjects to it were a freehold Nor is such a restriction in any sense incon- are Minim Having before observed that there aro no such words in the Treaty " Tribal richt." and no definition of the distinction rebral rushl" between the property in land held collectively and that held indi-, of som properly sol gi : be no objection to the classification of all the untouched forest unded udenlands in the country, and of all the waste lands which have been cleared and cultivated, but abandoned after their fertility was dualized exhausted by cultivation, as lands held collectively by the tribe or mdorsual belle to land, if not in those portions which a man or his forefathers community. In what then are we to recoguize the individual title there has subdued from the forest, and enclosed for cultivation, and in Uhel Kadet- which the land marks which separated the cultivations of indi- viduals still exist. It is asserted by Sir W. Martin that though these portions of land may belong to an individual to possess, they do not belong to him to transfer. Having no knowledge of Taranaki, or the agents of the Government there, and considering that the only security for the duo fulfilment of the Treaty, consists in the selection by the Govemor, as representing the Queen, of such agents as from their tenure of office, and their personal character, may be raised as high as possible above the influence of local prejudices and of private interests, I wish to guard myself against any thing which I may say being construed into the ex- pression of an opinion whether the provisions of the Treaty have in the case of Waitara been carried out with integrity, or not. The statements made upon this subject are so contradictory as to make it very difficult to come at the truth; and I believe I have not had an opportunity of reading all the statements which have been put forth. But assuming, as I do without hesitation, that the natural right of a man to land which he has subdued from the forest, to the uses of man, is not only well founded, but approaches to that instinctive sense of right which a man possesses in his own children, the next inquiry is whether the assumption of a right thus held by Teira and those who joined with him in their application to the Government to purchase the rights thus held, conflicted with any prior right existing in other parties. le Vransfer certainly