NATIVE LANDS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1183, 19 July 1911, Page 7

NATIVE LANDS.

SETTLEMENT IN THE KING COUNTRY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) Auckland, July 18. Somo important business connected ffith the settlement of various areas, of Native lands' in the King Country was transacted at a meeting of'the Wa katoManiapoto District Maori Land .board, which has just been concluded at Te Kuiti. The-number of dealings total 118, and the aggregato area of tho land is 48,733 acres. The board confirmed 33 sales, aggregating 37G9 acres, and 50 leases, totalling 17,847 acres.

A matter exciting • a good deal of interest at the Native mooting at Waahi to-day was tho election .of a committee to administer such lands or moneys—if money were given in lieu of land—set asido for the purposes of the Mana. The following five were finally elected:—Mahuta Te Marae (Mahuin's wifo), Henare Kaihau, M.P., Ahuriri (Mahuta's Prime Minister), and Jlori Herowini (a Wharua chief of the Central Waikatos, and next in importance as a Rangatira to Mahuta), ilahiita's, it was decided, should be a life appointment, while tho others should bo elected annually.

lie. Kaihau to-day received a telegram to the effect that fair James Carroll was leaving 'Wellington for Waahi on Friday next. ' In the course of .an interview, Mr. Kaihan stated that tho was to decide at this meeting tho procedure to bo adopted in connection with the sale of the lands—as specified in the Order-in-Council of December, 1910—to the Government'for settlement purposes, as well as to enable Native owners to decide upon the areas to be sold to the 'Government, those which wero to bo retained by themselves for Maori occupation, anil those which might be offered for sale to private individuals. Already it had been decided that tho Moerangi Block, situated between Aotea and Waipa, and embracing 45,000 acres, should be sold to the Government. Other large blocks would b6 dealt with.