NATIVE INTERPRETER FINED.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1433, 7 May 1912, Page 3

NATIVE INTERPRETER FINED.

EXCEEDS HIS POWERS. (By Telerraph—Press Association.) ( Auckland, May 3. An offence of a most unusual nature was tho subject of a Poiicc Court action before Mr. Cutten this morning against a Maori interpreter named GcdVge It. Hamilton. Tho accused is a Native interpreter of tho second grade, and ho was chargcd with acting as a Native interpreter of tho 'first grado under the Native Land Act. Only an interpreter of the first grade can interpret and witness leases to land tinder the Act. a leaso was presented to the Waikato Native Land Board, and it was found to bo signed and witnessed by tho accused, whose signature was accompanied by the words "No. 1," and something else not easily decipherable. It was known that Hamilton was only a second grado interpreter, and therefore not competent to witness and interpret a lease, and an investigation brought to light several other cases of leases signed by second grado interpreters. The result was that those who were parties to the leases had to liave the documents prepared again and go to the considerable expense of engaging a first grado interpreter to obtain tho signatures of Native owners and interpret tho agreement. In consequence Hamilton was prosecuted. Hamilton gleatfeff guilty. His Worship said that if lie made the penalty commensurate with tho possible serious results that might flow from the defendant's act he would have to impose a very heavy penalty. "He did not want to do that, because tnis was the first time any such case had come before him, but it had to be madr- quite clear to the defendant and to everyone else that an act of this kind might have serious results. The defendant would bo convicted and fined •£!(! and costs.