NATIVE LAND LITIGATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 420, 20 May 1902, Page 3

NATIVE LAND LITIGATION.

By Telegraph —Press Association

Napier, last night. At the Supreme Court to-day, tho Native ease of Pihikete Takerci againsl

Shrimpton and others was continued. The evidence for the plaintiff’ went to show that the plaintiff was not born when the Court sat at which the Matipiro block was put through. All those who were present in the Court at the time were dead. Mr Bell objected to certain evidence on the ground that the witness was not present in the Court at the time, and that the evidenco was inadmissable. His Honor said that the evidence was of occupation and of non-inclusion in the certificate of title, and in his view this

was the only kind of evidence which was possible in order to ground an attack on the title. If the Court's duty was to put all the owners in, and only put in ten of a number living on the land, there was a prima facie case to go to the Native Land Court.

Mr Bell said : The real question is, What did the Court do'? The present evidence is of those who were not in the Court, and is of a kind that wo cannot meet, and had no notion of in the pleadings. Although the occupation is relevant, the relationship cannot be. His Honor: I don't think I can exclude this evidence.

For the defence it was stated that thero were native cultivations on the land since

I 1874, when Mossrs Rich and Shrimpton took possession, though Mr Rich and others had been in possession prior to that date. Natives had been employed on the property from hapus at Oniahu. At no time until the present had objection ever been made to Mr Shrimpton’s possession ; £37,000 represented tho improvements effected over the whole property. Mr Baldwin’s application for the right to examine Judge Smith and Judge Munroe, of the Native Land Court, was granted. His Honor made a note of Counsel’s application for an issue directing the Nati vo Land Court as to who was the lawful owners of the land at the dato of the investigation. This closod the case. Leave to move the whole of the evidence in each of the three cases into the Court of Appoal in Wellington was granted, all questions of cost being reserved.