NATIVE AFFAIRS.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2711, 15 December 1882, Page 3

NATIVE AFFAIRS.

[>SESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.] WELLINGTON, December 14. With regard to the destruction of the bridge and tramway b.y Natives at Takapau,°Hawke'3 Bay district, the following further particulars have been ascertained. At daybreak on the 11th, about fifteen Natives from the Waipawa pah, armed with guns and axes, proceeded to the land known as Takapau and destroyed the bridge and a portion of the tramway constructed by Messrs Wilding and Bull, who •were cutting timber on the land. The damage had been done before the Takapau Natives knew what was going on, and the Waipawas had returned to their pah. A threat was given that they would return, and it was hoard that if they did there would be a serious conflict. It appears that the Waipawa and Porangahau Natives have lately objected to the timber cutting on this land, and they held several meetings on the subject, and in the end they determined to destroy the bridge and tram. On the Government being informed of this, they advised that the Natives should be warned that whatever their rights were, they cotild not be permitted to take the law into their own hands, as they were now doing. The land in dispute has not been passed through the Native Lands Court, and the Natives have been uro-ed to allow e\erything to stand over until the title is decided. They are also told if further violence be resorted to the Government would interfere. When this was being urged on Natives Messrs V\ liaing and Bull were sent for, and it was arranged that a week be allowed them to get the logs they had cut, after, which neither party was to go on the ground for six weeks. In the meantime application will be made to the Land Court to hear the case, and to have the whole matter decided by law. The Takapau Natives, who gave Wilding and Bull permission to cut the ! timber, have been in occupation for a i number of years. /