"FIRES GREW COLD."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 231, 29 September 1928, Page 7

"FIRES GREW COLD."

CLAIMS BY MAORIS. . _____ i NATIVE LAND CASE. CONCLUSION OF HEARING. A sitting of the Native Land Court before Judge C. E. MacCormirk was confumed at Te Kuiti yesterday in connection witli a claim by native# for halfinterest in the Kaipiha block of 20"0 acres, near Pirongia. The claimants, a< they put it, "allowed tlieir lire* to grow eold" in that they did not assert their claims until statute barred, the ease being reopened by legislative authority. Continuing his address to the Court, ilr. T. S. Withers, of Auckland, representing the claimants, stated that tin? present European lessees would be in no way affected in the event of the Court deciding in favour of the claimants, who would, however, thereafter be entitled to a share in the.rental*. Referring to the interpretation of the term "occupation," upon which the claim of the plaintiffs was largely founded, Mr. Withers.stressed the fact that the evidence as.to the occupation of the block by the .present claimants and by their common.ancestor. Here Mokena, should be interpreted by the Court according,to Maori customary law as it existed not, to-day but in 18S0. It might be argued by the defendants, said Mr. Withers, that, in the event of the Court deciding in favour of the plaintiffs, many othev claims would be received throughout the King Country 011 similar grounds. Any such argument was entirely irrelevant and was negatived by the action of Parliament in directing that the present should be investigated. Nor could respondents argue that the failure of the claimants to appeal over a. period of some forty years should be held against them. The reference of the claim to the Court by Parliament implied that the case of the claimants should be investigated entirely upon its merits and that due consideration should be given to the difficulty of establishing such a claim after so long a lapse of time. It was unnecessary for him to* prove that the occupation of the claimants prior to 1886 had been equal to that of the natives to whom the block was then awarded. His task was done if he could show that the Court, had it been aware of all the facts in 1886, would have considered the occupation of the claimants and their ancestor to have come within the definition of the term "occupation." as interpreted according to Maori customary law at that time. The Court adjourned at the conclusion of Mr. Withers' address, intimating that it would forward its decision in the matter to the Chief Justice of the Native Land Court.