Commissions of conscience? Governments, Royal Commissions and Māori Land Claims, 1920s-1940s

Abstract

This thesis examines officials' views on settling Māori land claims through the records of four mid twentieth-century royal commissions of inquiry. These were the 1920 Native Land Claims Commission, the 1927 Raupatu Commission, the 1938 Orakei Commission and the 1946-48 Surplus Land Commission. Previously, historians have attempted to understand commissioners' and counsel's actions through the commissions' self-censored reports and records of Māori-government negotiations. This study draws on the commissions' internal records in addition to this material, to provide a fresh perspective. The four commissions, it is argued, were 'commissions of conscience'. Their 'conscience' reflected the Pākehā sensibilities that dominated governments and the legal profession at the time. Although the commissions were pragmatic responses by politicians to Māori claims, commissioners were independent from governments and exercised their freedom in significant ways. The four commissions were crucial moments for Pākehā-Māori relations, as they represented the first twentieth-century government attempts to come to terms with large-scale colonial expropriation of Māori land. Although the commissions did not create durable or full and final settlements, they created and publicised new histories and powerful views of nineteenth-century Māori political authority. They left a significant legacy, particularly for Pākehā views of Māori.