SUPREME. COURT.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1830, 16 August 1913, Page 14

SUPREME. COURT.

MAOEI LAND ACT JUDGMENT. His Honour Mr. Justice, Edwards gave judgment vesterday in the Native Land Act case, 'fill-ey v. O'Neill, which, was heard in the Supreme Court earlier in the week. In dismissing the summons his Honour said that the question to bo determined rested entirely uipon tho construction of tho Native Land Act, 1009, Section 20U, which -read as follows"All Native land' which after tho commencement of this Act becomes European land shall thereupon become, and at times thereafter remain, subject to Part XIII of the Land Act, 191)8 (relating to limitation of area), in tho sanio manner as if it had been then first alienated by tho Crown, and all the provisions of that part of the said Act'shall-apply thereto accordingly." "Native land," in this Act, meant "customary land" or "Nativo freehold land" as therein defined. "Native freehold land meant land owned by Natives for a beneficial ostato in fee-simple, whether legator equitable. Plainly tho land in question in the present casa <lut not corao within these definitions. It had been owned, but was not now owned, by Natives. There was no diffculty, therefore, in determining that thero was not "Native land" within tho meaning of tho Act. But this was not enough. To como within Section 206, this land must bo shown to have become European land. It would lie found that European land meant any laud which had bam alienated from the Crown for a subsisting estate in fee-simple, ohlier than Nativo land" within the definition of the statute. To bring it within tho definition of the words- "European land" it had, thereforo, only to be shown that it was land which lmd been alienated from tho Crown in fee-simple. Tho argument ot counsel for the devisees was that this land had been alienated from tlio Crown in feesimple, when it became subject to tho provisions of tho Land Transfer Act. this argument was, in his Honour's opinion, quito correct, but upon this point it tokl against the devisees. In • his Honour 3 opinion, tho view of the meaning of Section 20G of tho Nativo Land Act, 1909, taken by tho District Land Registrar, was correct and must be upheld. The summons was dismissed, the applicants to pay the costs of tho Crown, fixed at JC7 7s.