Honouring the Treaty of Waitangi means upholding the law, writes Joseph Dougherty of Dunedin.
Allegations have been made through this newspaper by Colin Rawle that Ngai Tahu has a prospect of receiving undeserved payments for Treaty of Waitangi breaches.
Mr Rawle stated (11.4.12) that he believed Ngai Tahu's grievances were "invented" and so was its history.
He also wrote that a full and final settlement had been made with the Crown several times before - in 1868 when Ngai Tahu was awarded 4930 acres (1995ha), and again in 1906, 1944 and 1973.
In fact, the Crown's agents themselves have stated that they had not acted fairly and honourably towards Ngai Tahu and the government itself concluded that its actions deprived Ngai Tahu of the means to provide for themselves.
Did Ngai Tahu invent a history of grievances?
Ngai Tahu lands were bought by the Crown in several "blocks".
One such purchase was called the Kemp block, after the Crown's negotiator, Henry Kemp; covering much of Canterbury and Otago, it was signed in 1848.
Some local chiefs did not sign, but the British proceeded as if all had.
Under article 2 of the Treaty, Maori could retain rangatiratanga (ownership/control) of any lands they so wished, and in discussion with Kemp, Ngai Tahu chiefs who wished to sell also specified many areas of good land, plus of mahika kai (food gathering places), kainga nohoanga (temporary camp sites) and kainga or residences, be kept.
There were dozens of these. However, after promising to set these aside, Kemp did not specify them in the deed and, when translating the deed to English, he deliberately changed the wording to set aside only small areas and to do so at the governor's discretion.
He later admitted this deception.
He also wrote that Ngai Tahu were rightfully due much larger areas than the government had allowed subsequent to 1848, at the Smith-Nairn Commission hearings of 1879 .
In his negotiations he was acting on the instruction of Governor Grey, as was his successor, Walter Mantell.
Mantell was told by Grey to allocate reserves "only around pahs [sic], residences or cultivations" and to promise Ngai Tahu that "the Crown will hereafter mark out ... additional reserves as may be considered necessary for their future wants" (additional reserves never materialised).
Ngai Tahu chiefs would not accept the lack of specificity of reserves to be later allocated, proposed by Mantell, until he also promised them schools and hospitals (during a raging measles epidemic).
They were so aggrieved at the under allocation of reserves they travelled to Wellington later that year to complain to Lieutenant-governor Edward Eyre, but he refused to discuss the matter.
Ngai Tahu retained just 2640 acres within the Kemp block. Mantell's actions were endorsed by Grey.
Hospitals and schools also never materialised.
Has the Crown made full and final settlement several times?
Ngai Tahu restated its grievances over the Kemp purchase to the Native Lands Court in 1868 and the court agreed that the Crown's failure to allow Ngai Tahu to keep the best lands of Canterbury, the Waitaki and elsewhere (eg Moeraki) was a breach of the Treaty.
The court ordered the return of only about 4930 acres - not enough to feed the hundreds of dispossessed people.
A single station is typically that size.
That 1868 judgement also did not make redress regarding mahika kai or kainga nohoanga.
It also did not address underallocation of reserves in all the other areas of the South Island, where, according to Mantell, "they wanted the best lands reserved for themselves".
He wrote "I reduced these lands as much as possible."
Indeed: from hundreds of thousands of hectares to just a few thousand hectares!
At the 1868 hearing, Mantell conceded that he had "acted with a high hand".
A government inquiry found in 1891 that "only 9.1% of Otago Ngai Tahu had sufficient land" to feed themselves.
The 1906 South Island Landless Natives Act sought to make some redress, but the lands conferred were remote and uneconomic for farming.
Even a government MP denounced it.
In 1944, Ngai Tahu was awarded compensation of 10,000 per year for 30 years, which, spread among thousands of people, was very little.
Also, although the Act which arranged this was entitled "to effect a final settlement of the Ngai Tahu claim", Ngai Tahu was not consulted at all, until after it was passed by Parliament.
Can it be considered a "settlement" at all?
The 1973 Act merely continued this annual payment. By then, it was worth 1 per person.
In the 1998 settlement signed by Ngai Tahu, compensation was estimated at roughly 2c in the dollar of the value of resources wrongly taken.
A 1991 valuation of one Canterbury block Ngai Tahu wanted kept was $370 million.
These lands could have allowed Ngai Tahu to build the kind of economic self-sufficiency that European settlers have enjoyed - for more than a century.
Does $170 million shared among more than 20,000 iwi members really achieve just compensation?
The foreshore and seabed is an example of an area not covered by settlements with individual iwi. The statute of limitations does not apply to such matters, so, until all outstanding matters are dealt with, this process will continue.
How much irritation or frustration is caused to those subject to this "delayed justice"?
New Zealand's legal framework
The Treaty was an agreement between peoples: Maori and British.
The agreement extended the protection of British law to Maori and facilitated British people's settlement here under British law - if the Crown upheld its part of the contract.
As it did not, do Maori have to regard British law as valid?
Anyone arguing the Crown has no obligation to make agreeable compensation to Maori is therefore suggesting a very dangerous basis for our society: conquest, murder and theft.
James Dougherty, an environmentalist, drew on information from "standard history texts" by Harry Evison and Bill Dacker.
