Sixty-three signed. Taiaroa afterwards claimed that these sweeping powers were conferred on him by 'the whole of the Ngai Tahu'; however, a number of prominent Ngai Tahu leaders did not sign the covenant. Taiaroa's support came predominantly from Otakou and Murihiku: relatively few of the covenant's signatories were from north of Otakou.On 14 July 1874 Mantell wrote to Taiaroa, after some prompting from Taiaroa himself, stating that at the time of the Murihiku purchase (1853) he had privately promised Te Matenga Taiaroa a personal reserve of 100 acres at Anita Bay, Milford Sound, the well-known source of bowenite greenstone. On the strength of Mantell's statement, Hori Kerei Taiaroa for the rest of his life claimed personal title to the whole bowenite resource at Milford.Ngai Tahu at this time had a staunch ally in Alexander Mackay, the commissioner of native reserves. Ngai Tahu's original title to Kemp's block was being questioned on the grounds that 20 million acres was too vast an area to have been occupied by Maori. Mackay reported to Parliament that the Ngai Tahu customary title to the land was 'good on all three grounds' of heredity, conquest and occupation. He also declared that at Otago, Ngai Tahu should have received the New Zealand Company tenths, with a calculated value of £29,920, plus interest. Taiaroa suggested that the government pay Ngai Tahu £2 million as compensation, a figure Mackay thought too extravagant for the government to consider. In October 1876 Taiaroa issued a trenchant reply to Chief Judge F. D. Fenton, who had criticised as unfounded a Ngai Tahu petition regarding the Otago purchase, Kemp's Purchase, and the Native Land Court hearings of 1868 (at which Fenton had presided).By the end of 1877 Taiaroa had banked some £3,000 collected from Ngai Tahu. He moved an amendment to the Crown Redress Act 1871 to enable the claim to be taken to the Supreme Court. In October the Atkinson ministry lost office. The native minister in the new government, John Sheehan, had more sympathy than his predecessor, Donald McLean, for an inquiry into Maori land purchases of the kind Taiaroa was seeking.In the winter of that year the visionary religious leader Hipa Te Maiharoa of Arowhenua, assisted by Horomona Pohio, led over 100 people to Te Ao Marama (near Omarama) where they occupied a settler's leasehold land to reaffirm the Ngai Tahu claim to the interior of the South Island. Taiaroa saw this action as a threat to his leadership and to his attempts to win the sympathy of the government for the setting up of a commission of inquiry. In October 1878 Pohio went to Wellington, where Taiaroa arranged an interview with Sheehan. The following month Taiaroa accompanied the native minister to Te Ao Marama to try to persuade the people to leave, but without success.The Grey government agreed to pay Ngai Tahu £5,000 as compensation for the back-rents from the Princes Street reserve in December 1877, and in June 1878 £1,000 was paid to Ngai Tahu claimants assembled at Kaiapoi. Two years later Taiaroa and Patuki accepted the other £4,000. Although the Legislative Council in 1885 cleared Taiaroa of any improper action in regard to this money, the belief continued at Otakou that he did not distribute it properly.In 1878 Taiaroa and his family moved to a large new house, Te Awhitu, which he had had built at Taumutu, one of his father's ancestral places. There, when Parliament was not in session, he lived the life of a country gentleman. In February 1879 he was called to the Legislative Council. A commission consisting of T. H. Smith and F. E. Nairn was appointed to inquire into the Otago, Kemp's block, Murihiku and Akaroa purchases. In April, on the eve of the commission's hearings, at the government's request Taiaroa travelled again to Te Ao Marama with Topi Patuki and Rawiri Te Mamaru to try to persuade Te Maiharoa and Pohio to leave and await the outcome of the SmithNairn commission. He was again unsuccessful, and the people were later evicted by armed police. Taiaroa appointed the legal firm of Izard and Bell to assist him at the SmithNairn commission's hearings, which extended over a period of 12 months. While the commission was sitting, the fall of the Grey ministry brought John Bryce to office as minister for native affairs, and he refused to extend the commission's funding to enable it to complete its work. Its interim report was sympathetic to the Ngai Tahu claim, but the report was eventually rejected by the government. The commission had taken detailed evidence from many Maori witnesses who had been present at the land purchases, and this, together with the detailed record of mahinga kai (places where food was produced or procured) and the associated kainga nohoanga (seasonal settlements) which Taiaroa collated from meetings of elders, constituted a priceless record of the Ngai Tahu view of the land purchases and of their traditional way of life. It was perhaps Hori Kerei Taiaroa's most lasting achievement.In the Legislative Council on 20 July 1880 Taiaroa attempted to criticise the government's policy on the appointment of native assessors. In response the attorney general, Frederick Whitaker, drew attention to the fact that any salaried government official was disqualified by law from sitting in the Council and claimed that Taiaroa had never formally resigned his own assessorship. Taiaroa thereupon ceased to attend the Council, although he denied either having drawn any pay since taking his seat or knowing that he was technically disqualified.