226 TUTIRA 



practice, its maximum twenty-one, its minimum about ten years. A 

 fresh lease was accordingly drawn up, the rent as ever after on such 

 occasions being doubled an immediate gain to the native ; the length 

 of time during which the European was to remain in possession also 

 doubled, twenty-one years instead of ten a gain to the tenant and 

 banker. Conditions otherwise were similar to those of the original 

 agreement. 



The natives whom we knew best signed, I do sincerely believe, 

 largely to do us a good turn. The immense majority, at any rate, once 

 more appended their shaky crosses, or signed their names in cramps 

 and schoolboy scrawls. A percentage, however, resolutely refused 

 to sign. They had no objection to our occupation of the land, they 

 merely believed that the policy of taihoa by-and-by, wait and see was 

 the proper policy in regard to all east coast native land transactions 

 whatsoever. By this time, too, the mere mechanical obtainment of 

 signatures had become a difficulty, the number of our landlords had 

 increased with the subdivision of shares ; they lived in every province of 

 the colony. 



There must have been well over a couple of hundred of them. 

 Although it is anticipating matters, an actual instance will show that 

 even in the simple life that Arcadian existence which was to preclude 

 everything disagreeable cares will arise, troubles will intrude. It was 

 the old, old story revived ; the reader will remember that terrible entry 

 in an early diary, " 30 per cent death-rate between 1st April and 31st 

 March." Well, deaths in the flock were still what worried us. 



For example, Raiha Pohutu, one of the original thirty-six owners 

 of the Heru-o-Turea block, dies ; we regretted his demise, of course, but 

 the greater grief was his eleven successors, three of whom inherited 

 one-sixth each of the original share, three one-twelfth each, three one- 

 eighteenth each, two one-twenty-fourth each. Well, we were barely out 

 of mourning for this sad event when bang would go another landlord 

 Karaitiana who had inherited one of these eighteenths of a share. 

 Again we were sorry, of course, but the bitterest pang of all was the 

 fourteen successors of the deceased. They lay very heavy on our hearts, 

 for three of them got five times as much rent as the remaining eleven. 

 In money matters one cannot be too careful ; by the native land courts 

 Ranapia Taungakore was appointed trustee on behalf of six of the share- 

 holders, whilst Te Huki Taingakore watched the interests of the three 



