DISPUTE OVER LAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 23, 23 December 1932, Page 6

DISPUTE OVER LAND.

HARBOUR BOARD AND MAORIS. NAPIER Dec. 21. One of the results of the Hawke’s Bay earthquake last year was to raise from the shallow sea-bed a large area of land in the Napier Inner Harbour. That, land together with three 6mall islands in the same area, is the subject of a dispute between the Napier Harbour Board and the Maoris of the districts adjacent to Napier and Hastings. It seems likely that interesting historical and legal issues will arise, and especially since the Hastings Borough G’ouncil has joined in with a claim to part-ownership. A leading Maori asked how the local bodies could claim ownership when the Maoris themselves had never known to whom the islands and the land surrounding them belonged. W 7 as it, he asked, by a legal transfer or by legislative action that the local bodies derived their title; and to whom, and on what authority, was the purchase money paid? The crux of the matter is that the Maoris, not knowing the Maori owners, cannot see from whom the pakehas who now claim the land derived their title. The Maoris say that there is no record, either by document or by tradition, of any transaction in connection with the disputed land, and that in their view the matter will have to be settled by th® Native Land Court.