IMPORTANT MAORI MEETING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2081, 16 May 1907, Page 3

IMPORTANT MAORI MEETING.

Press Association.' AUCKLAND, yesterday'. The committee appointed by the big Maori meeting at Waahi decided in favor of selling the Moerangi block of 10,000 acres to the Government, and devoting the proceeds, after defraying the cost of survey, etc., - to the fund for a Native Farmers’ Union. ' The decision will be forwarded to the Native Land Board for confirmation.

An unexpected development arose out of the Maori meeting at 'Waahi yesterday, when to the remainder of the natives about the pa (the Arawas having already returned home), the president of ”the meeting, Taingakawa, suggested an amendment of the resolutions arrived at. He pointed ont they had not nominated any one to act as leader of the movement for federation of the native race, and that Mahuta’s name had been omitted from the heading of the petition to Parliament. This action was condemned, except by the Kingites, as an unfair attempt to raise tlio mana of Mahuta above that of the other chiefs, and to revive the kingship which Mahuta was understood to have yielded on accepting an ayipoint- , ment to the Legislative Council, with Cabinet rank. This action, one outspoken delegate said, if persisted in, would render the attempt to secure a union of the Maori race nugatory. Mahuta, he said, was a chief, but not more than a chief. Any claim lie had to kingship he sold for the Legislative ~ mess.of pottage, and his creation as head of the union formed, among other things, to protest against the Legislative enactments promulgated by the Cabinet of which he was a member, would stultify the efforts of . the deputation. It was -urged that any defects should have been pointed out while the whole of the natives were present. Eventually the matter was allowed to drop till Wednesday. •