<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side one <&>4:08 in nineteen hundred the government passed two quite important statutes these being the maori councils act er nineteen hundred and the maori land administration act <,,> er of er nineteen hundred <,,> tut and er this one set <.>up the maori councils act set up er these maori councils <,,><&>3 um <,> which initially seemed to have worked well apart from favoured way the government wouldn't fund them properly <,,> the other act the maori lands administration <&>5:00 act <,,><&>6 um <,> set up er maori land councils tut <,,><&>11 now from the act anyway it seems that these councils were to have the same powers as the land court er itself <,,> provided <.>that and here is the catch <,,><&>3 that the council shall not proceed to exercise its powers in any matter unless and until directed so to do by the chief judge <,,><&>3 of the native <&>6:00 land court tut <,,><&>9 um probably the most important provision of the act however was section thirty <,,><&>6 which allowed owners of maori land to <,,> set themselves up into a body corporate <,,><&>12 now and <.>this this was a rather broader and more flexible <,,><&>3 um <,> procedure than the earlier <,> er um <,> legislative um structure allowing incorporation <&>7:00 which had been in eighteen ninety four first statute which allowed maori land owners to form themselves into corporate bodies had been the native land act eighteen ninety four but with the maori land administration act there was a much simpler <,> procedure <,,><&>3 which had rather less control of and by the court <,,><&>3 the act also set up a procedure for setting up er pahetihu block committees <,,><&>3 that <.>is er pahetihu land that is land that hadn't gone <&>8:00 through court <&>writes on blackboard twelve seconds word anyway um these um for the first time um <,> owners of land which hadn't gone through the court <.>we were able to form themselves into committees that had certain powers er under legislation <,,><&>3 now the <,> maori land councils never amounted to anything but incorporations and block committees <,> are quite important <,,><&>12 um a vastly more durable <&>9:00 treatment of the liberals was the native land act nineteen o nine <,,><&>10 and this was a massive er consolidation effort <,,><&>9 er the statute was drafted by john william salmond <,,><&>7 er who was a professor of law <,> er right here what was then called victoria university college <,,><&>3 he's the same salmond who's the author of the <&>10:00 famous textbooks on torts and um jurisprudence <,> er and he also became council to the er law drafting office while he was simultaneously a professor and council to the law drafting office er that he was given the task of rewriting er maori land law <,> later on he became solicitor general and then became a judge anyway er he was a lawyer of real ability <,,> and his consolidation and distillation of the statutory morass into one act <,,><&>3 nineteen o nine act which was more or less the same act we have now was really an AMAZING feat <,,><&>7 er and his explanatory note um which was published <&>11:00 with the act the very model of conciseness and clarity <,,><&>7 um still um it was basically er the same old land court all the same <,,> didn't change the law structurally much er but it certainly made it a lot tighter and tidier and clearer <,,><&>5 one particularly useful thing the nineteen o nine act did was to clarify the law relating to alienation <,,><&>6 generally er the sale of individual shares was brought to an end <&>12:00 <,,><&>10 and no like um clears throat say in the urewera area um the crown had gone about buying up individual shares until er the crown had controlling interests in many of the urewera blocks well this is um not just the crown did that <,> anyway with the nineteen o nine act only management committees or an assembly of the owners could sell management committees or what <.>semi <{><[>word <[>or an assembly meeting house there wasn't a formal management committee in existence <,,><&>5 <&>13:00 which there wasn't normally <,,><&>6 okay so nineteen o nine act well the liberal government also set up an important commission <,> to investigate maori land <,,><&>6 and this was the stout <,> ngata commission <,,><&>10 that issued a sequence of reports between nineteen o seven <,> to nineteen o nine <,,><&>8 well members of the commission sir <&>14:00 robert stout was the chief justice <,,><&>8 apirana ngata the other member was in nineteen er o nine thirty five <,> he was from ngati porou university graduate in law <,> and political science <,,> both degrees at canterbury and he was member of parliament for eastern maori <,,><&>5 ngata held eastern maori from nineteen o five to nineteen forty three <,,><&>4 er and then he was biffed out by <.>ratana by the ratana candidate <&>15:00 <,,><&>5 now development and settlement of maori land by maori farmers <,> was <,> er ngata's life work <,,><&>8 he was a committed politician <,,><&>6 one who never lost contact with his own community <,,><&>8 and also a successful and knowledgeable <.>farmer sheep farmer <,> he knew all <.>about <,,><&>6 <&>16:00 and er on this on farming in particular he had drawn on his ngati porou background and on ngati porou initiatives <,,><&>9 and ngati porou had held on to their lands <,,> well most of them especially the best part which was the waipu valley <,,><&>8 and from the late eighteen eighties ngati porou <,> with no government assistance or indeed interest <,,> er had rapidly expanded <&>17:00 sheep farming <,> er in their area <,,><&>5 by nineteen hundred ngati porou owned about ninety flocks of sheep <,> big flocks <,,> and had cleared and grassed about fifty thousand acres <,,> of land <,,><&>11 and word <,> ngati porou chiefs who had encouraged and sponsored ngata er er he had acquired the opinion that only by developing land could the maori hold onto it <,,> and <&>18:00 developing it meant <,,><&>3 in essence clearing it for farming <,,><&>13 um ngati porou's successful farming ventures had come about as a result of a long struggle <,,><&>3 er and there had been many setbacks for them <,,><&>5 on one occasion for instance the local government stock inspector had ordered all these maori flocks of sheep to be destroyed because they had scabby <,,><&>3 might infected the flocks of the pakeha farmers you <&>19:00 see can't have that <,,><&>5 er obtaining capital <,,> er to buy stock erect fences and farm buildings to clear and sow the land and so on <,> had been a perennial problem <,,><&>7 um and er the williams family who were pakeha station owners in waipu assisted with capital <,,><&>3 voc in giving loans to ngati porou since <.>none well no capital was available from the banks <,> or from <&>20:00 the state <,,><&>7 two reasons for that firstly <,> er problems with security banks would NOT lend <,,> er on maori land titles <,> they were inadequate security <,,><&>7 that's still a problem the other <,> the other reason was sort of maori image held by bankers that was <,> voc <.>w feckless and wouldn't pay so a sort of racist assumption as well <,,><&>3 laughs yeah <,,><&>3 so ngati porou <&>21:00 nevertheless with some loan support <.>and and by their own fundraising <.>they they sort of actually had to sort of stage something <.>at <.>th at the marae in order to bring them money and this would get a few thousand pounds and they'd go and buy some sheep <,> right it was a VERY um sort of determined <,> er effort <,> <.>th <.>th their interest in farming was accompanied by um interest in doing something to surmount the problems caused by congested titles <,,><&>8 ngati porou were worried about government land purchase policy in the east cape region <,,><&>3 so <&>22:00 in the eighteen nineties er the government was fairly aggressively expanding purchase of maori land for the pakeha settlement <,,><&>8 er ngati porou therefore withdrew all of their blocks from investigation by the native land court in eighteen ninety four <,,><&>3 until an undertaking had been obtained from seddon <,> the prime minister richard seddon <,> that the crown would keep its clutches off ngati porou land <,> and so <&>23:00 they just pulled their land out of the court <,,><&>6 and from the <,,> early eighteen <,> nineties late eighteen eighties really ngati porou had begun to develop a system later be <.>called later to be called incorporations <&>writes on blackboard nine seconds which is still quite an important <,> method of maori land organisation <,> it's been overtaken in more recent years by um other techniques such as um trusts under section four three eight of the maori affairs act <,> um but incorporations are still used <&>24:00 relatively widely and er i believe are still the main form of organisation along the east cape <,,><&>7 um the first incorporation seems to have been set up as early as eighteen eighty nine <,,><&>3 clears throat which therefore predates by five years <.>the the legislature actually setting up some machinery er whereby you could incorporate <,> except perhaps in the eighteen ninety four act later expanded and made easier in the nineteen hundred <.>n act <,,><&>3 now how it works is basically the owners of a block would meet <,> to elect a committee of <&>25:00 management <,,><&>7 which would formally incorporate itself <,,><&>11 now the owners and their families would form the incorporations and labour force <,,><&>7 and dividends would be paid <,,> on the basis of respective shares in the land <,,><&>8 okay so if one family had bigger shares in the land they would get a bigger dividend <,> so <&>26:00 it was related to <.>your <,> your status as landowners how much income you'd get <,,><&>3 voc but it's also related to the land then <.>ac in nineteen sixty seven by a stupid blunder the <.>legislatur the legislature changed that um <.>and and made the shares share in the <.>org incorporation itself like a company which had the effect of making incorporations <{><[><,> a lot less popular in nineteen SIXTY SEVEN maori affairs amendment act nineteen sixty SEVEN of ill fame <,,><&>9 voc <.>the the committee the incorporation would appoint a salaried farm <&>27:00 manager <,,><&>6 um <,,> who would have quite wide powers <,,><&>7 so these developments were ngata's background he was familiar with all this he knew what was going on um these ngati porou initiatives and that was the model that he <.>was he worked on when er he became involved in <,,> er <,> national political life <[>sorry would you repeat that excuse me word can i just check when you say <.>forming create themselves does that mean that they would do it as themselves or do they word er <.>i i assume that before the eighteen ninety four act which allowed the court <.>you you'd actually got a court a court made the <&>28:00 incorporation but you'd set yourself as an incorporation in the incorporated societies act something like that so you'd simply use <.>the <,> if you like the pakeha legal emphasis to call yourself an <.>incorporat an incorporation THAT way <,,><&>6 um they would do it by an order of word <,,><&>3 right well back to the stout ngata commission <,,> um the commission toured all round the place <,,> um and made a number of separate reports of each region <,,> and these are all in the h a a charter they make pretty dismal reading i must say um <,> you know we're so accustomed to thinking of the early twentieth century as sort <&>29:00 of an age of reform and modernisation er and yet it makes us realise <.>how <.>how um the extent of <,> rural policy and um difficulties with lands development were actually so widespread <,> er <.>at at this time and you <.>read particularly read the reports on um the north are we talking here <.>about mainly <.>about about maori land <{><[>and maori er and maori the maori context <[>about maori land right yeah yes yes sorry yes <,,> um but one area reported on in detail was waiapu county <,,> which was ngata's home turf of course <,> and the successful farming experiments of ngati porou were described at some length <,,><&>5 and the <&>30:00 report <,,> er describes the ngati porou incorporations as follows and this will give you some sense of <.>how how it was working <,> <.>now <,,><&>4 now one block has been successfully carried on under the incorporation system since eighteen eighty nine and the members of the committee that has had the control of the block and the farming operations have held office with few changes during all of these years <,> this block or group of blocks has been properly and securely FENCED and subdivided and it has suitable farm buildings for the work word <,> the buildings are equal to similar buildings of EUROPEAN pastoral lands and the stock are reputed in the district to be equal to the average on lands farmed by europeans <,,> presumably it's necessary to say all this to convince a sceptical parliament <,> <&>31:00 still didn't believe that maori could successfully do anything <,,> the management is equal to the most approved pastoral farming labour is supplied by maoris and generally by the owners or their families <,> all the details of the farming operations are carried out and settled by a competent manager who is paid a salary <,> at the end of each financial year the accounts are made up and adjusted and the profits divided amongst the owners according to their respective interests in the land <,> er the committee is responsible for the general policy of the improvements <,> has general supervision of the finances and <.>is <.>has is the sole authority for bearing a dividend but the details are left to the manager <,,><&>3 er <.>and and words which have the true stamp of ngata himself the maoris are a communal people and THIS system which preserves a community of interest but also <&>32:00 allows and rewards individual exertion may be the best means of creating a better industrial life amongst a communal people <,> if anything sums up ngata's ambition it is that a better industrial life amongst a communal people <&>32:16