AN INCREDIBLE CLAUSE

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 56, 3 September 1926, Page 6

AN INCREDIBLE CLAUSE

—4If there is anything which the Government, the Parliament, and the people of this country should guard with the utmost jealousy it is the security of its Land Transfer titles. It is a popular belief that these titles have the guarantee of the State behind them, and, whether that belief be legally sound or not, the security of these titles is surely one. of the very last things that any authority whatever should be permitted to tamper with. It is therefore with the utmost amazement that we find that liberties ,of this most undesirable kind are being taken by a Bill now before tho House which bears the name of the Right Hon. Mr. Coates. "Legalising rights of way over Native land" is the marginal summary of clause 13 of tho Native Land Amendment, Etc., Bill, commonly known as the Native Washing-up Bill. "Ripping up P'akeha Certificates of Title" would more clearly indicate its effect. By the opening paragraph this clause provides that where in the investigation of a Native title a right of way has, been granted by the Native Land Court, or "where upon a plan produced before the Court or approved by the Court" a right-of-way is shown as laid off, the Court shall be deemed to have had jurisdiction to grant or lay-off the road or way, and the right-of-way shall be deemed to havo been granted or laido:'" by the Court. This is surely a wonderful power to attribute to a plan which may, as the word 3wo have put in' quotation marks show, have merely been produced to the Court without obtaining its attention ■or approval. The full extent of,this retrospective power is defined in tho provisions which .follow: — (3) No right adverse to the use of such right-of-way shall be acquired or be deemed to have been acquired by the inclusion of the land whe.eon it is situate in any certificate of title, nor by the registration of any instrument purporting to deal with such land. ... (6) The jurisdiction granted to the Court under this section "may be exorcised notwithstanding tho land has , ceased to be Native land. '' ' So far as we can see, the effect of this incredible clause is to cast a blot upon every title to land which has ever been Native land. No change of ownership, no payment of purchase- money, no investment in improvements, will invalidate this retrospective blot, and it is expressly provided that a Land Transfer certificate will be no protection. Presumably an. old right-of-way to Te Aro pa may plough its track through some of /the best buildings in this city. .Why have not. the lawyers and the citizens risen in protest? One reason is that they were all asleep when this Bill was brought down at 1.30 yesterday morning. How far it has got now we do not know, but we are glad to know that Mr. A. Gray, K.C., the president of-.the New Zealand Law Society—there was no time to call a meeting—has entered a strong protest, and for the credit of our Government and our Parliament, and for tho security of our titles, it is to be hoped that it will succeed.