Chap. X. STIFLING OF THE NATIVE RESERVES. 249 
of the leases by Captain Hobson to the short term of 
seven years had stifled their production of revenue. 
In the letters from the Colonial Secretary to Mr. 
Halswell, the most mean and spiteful jealousy lest 
the Company should interfere in the management of 
the Native Reserves had been displayed. And yet the 
Company had purposely avoided having anytliing 
whatever to do with them, until they could be handed 
over to trustees appointed- impartially. In one letter, 
Mr. Shortland pointedly inquired whether it was not 
the fact that the grossest abuse had been committed 
in one or two instances by the Company's Agent, in 
disposing of native claims by persuading natives to 
settle on their Reserves ; and he stated that no such 
arrangement could receive the sanction of Govern- 
ment. This was in answer to a report from Mr. 
Halswell that some natives on the Hutt had made an 
unjust claim to the land on which some White man 
had settled ; but that he, not the Company, had 
since induced the same natives to locate on a Reserve. 
Mr. Halswell, with very shrewd notions of letting 
some of the Reserves of greatest European value to 
White people, and of inducing the natives to settle 
upon others more esteemed by them, had thus been 
completely frustrated in both his excellent intentions. 
All that the Government ever did for the Reserves 
was to render them useless, and then to employ that 
very uselessness as a weapon against the Company. 
They prevented, by their own restrictions, the accruing 
of any revenue from the Reserves, or the furnishing 
of any location for natives wishing to remove from 
places which had been allotted to White people ; and 
then they called out that the Reserves were worthless 
for letting to White people, and useless for the occu- 
pation of the natives. They took great pains to make 
