UNDER WHICH KING?

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 843, 15 June 1910, Page 4

UNDER WHICH KING?

- {. MAETJTA'S EOTAL TITLE CHALLENGED. (By Telegraph.—Special Correspondent.) Auckland, June 14. To a small but determined minority of the Maoris present at the Waahi Conference, the subject of Mahuta's powers and authority as King is as.a red rag to a bull; They argue that there cannot be two Kings in the Dominion, and as King George V is the King it is as sheer mockery to give Mahuta the title as it is to surround him' with a fictitious semblance* of royalty. They regard him as a chief to whom his own immediate followers owe the allegiance due to a rangatira. He is to his own people what To Heu Heu, for instance, is to his, but no more. M,ahuta's own action in accepting a seat in the Legislative Council is, they say, proof enough of his subsidiary position, for by accepting that seat he practically denied his royalty, and gave his ad'hesion to the real King. Led by Mr. Kaihau, M.P. the great majority present at the conference favour the kingly state, so that the .minority is unable to alter matters, though they lose no opportunity of advocating their views.