Page:The Tarankaki question.pdf/9

 9 whether or not the Government was bound by its having guarani- , and of their lands and other properties which they may collectively or this guhaniky same." L quote from Sir W. Muutin's pauphlet, not from the maplus a me guolelunaithe Treaty, which I have not before me. « This tribal right (says Sir William) is clearly a right of pro- pard Mildeselen perty, and it is expressly recognised and protected by the Treaty of Waitangi. That treaty neither enlarged nor restricted the then existing rights of property. It simply left them as they were. At that time the alloged right of an individual member of a tribe to alienate a portion of the land of the tribe was wholly unknown." page Upon which I would remark that the words tribal an offertion of right do not occur in the Treaty;"nor is there any definition by the force or min which to fix authoritatively, what constituted the collective, and ing; the sight, what the individual possession of the lands which are gizaranteed cnlarged nor restricted the then existing rights of property." But cupteshed brilla how is such an assumption to be reconciled with the clause of the really, tyraled to Treaty, which yields to the Queen in return for their adoption into ben. Keur diepiral the British family, and the inestimable privileges thoroby con le haghy dit ya dispose of their hands to individuals as theretofore, and restricting efect this epula, that right to a sale to tle Qucen, through agents to be appointed ite dhe te perpsida Hlas, then, the Government violated the trends in center mod cubainly! with respect to the land at Waitara, which has occasioned this ad celople! that the title of the natives to their land ought to have been the subject of Judicial investigation before the resistance of the natives to the survey of the land was met by the employment of a mili- be ermed bedbafe, unde ander eller I am convinced that Sir W. Martin would not for a moment maintain that a specific provision in any instrument could be over- ruled and avoided by general words contained in the same instru- The specific provision with respect to native title in the Treaty of Waitangi is, that the natives should thenceforth relin- quish their right to sell their lands to individuals, and sell them only to the Queen, when, by voluntary negotiation between the owners of the lands and an agent to be appointed by the Queen, both parties should agree upon the terms of transfer. In technical language this is called the right of pre-emption; and it established in New Zealand, by treaty, a power which not only Great Britain, but all other Colonizing powers had previously assumed, of pre- venting the transfer of an aboriginal title to a subject. To me it by her the voor were tary force ? Gout ment. entendly.