The first and most important step which you will have to take with the view of introducing a regular system with respect to the disposal of land, will be to ascertain distinctly the ownership of all the land in the colony. The extent and limits of all which is to be considered as the property either of individuals, of bodies politic or corporate, or of the native tribes, must in the first instance be determined, and the whole of the remainder of the territory will then be declared to be the Royal demesne. The results of this enquiry must be carefully registered, and a regular record henceforth preserved, showing to whom all lands in New Zealand belong. This measure has been repeatedly and earnestly inculcated on your predecessors, and I cannot too strongly repeat the same injunction.
Chapter XIII. of the Royal Instructions was devoted to placing into legal phraseology the Minister's policy for "the Settlement of the waste lands of the Crown" and Clause 9 of that Chapter more particularly dealt with the method by which the native titles were to be ascertained and recognised.
(9) No claim shall be admitted in the said land Courts on behalf of the Aboriginal inhabitants of New Zealand to any lands situate within the said islands, unless it shall be established, to the satisfaction of such Court, that either by some Act of the Executive Government of New Zealand as hitherto constituted, or by the adjudication of some Court of competent jurisdiction within New Zealand, the right of such aboriginal inhabitants to such lands has been acknowledged and ascertained, or those from whom they derived the title, have actually had the occupation of the lands so claimed, and have been accustomed to use and enjoy the same, either as places of abode or tillage, or for the growth of crops, or for the depasturing of cattle, or otherwise for the convenience and sustentation of life, by means of labour expended thereon.
The newspapers in England which supported the New Zealand Company published with undisguised exultation Earl Grey's Despatch, and hailed him as a Daniel come to judgment.[185] The Maoris regarded the matter in quite a different light. Here they were being asked to submit for ratification, by an extraneous authority, their lands which they and their forefathers had fought for, and which they had ever guarded with a jealous care that only death itself could terminate; lands which they had been told by Captain Hobson and the Missionaries were to be theirs to loose or to hold as they pleased; lands of which the Treaty of Waitangi had solemnly recognised them as already the indisputable owners. Was this then the much vaunted honour of the Queen? was this to be the unhappy end of all her high-sounding promises? The fire of indignation ran through the Maori veins as they contemplated the deception; the rumble of discontent grew as the tidings spread; the breath of battle was in the air.