SUPREME COURT-CIVIL SITTINGS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5132, 4 September 1877, Page 2

SUPREME COURT-CIVIL SITTINGS.

Monday, September 3. (Before His Honor the Chief Justice.) THE WAKA MAORI LIBEL CASE.

The hearing of this protracted case was resumed at 10 o'clock.

Mr. H. K. Kussell, the plaintiff, was called and examined at great length. He deposed that he had known Hori Nia Nia since 1853. Hori was then a great chief, but of late years his influence over the people of his tribe had departed in consequence of his dissipated habits. In 1866 he (witness) learned that Hori contemplated putting the Waipukurau reserve through the Native Lauds Court, at the instigation of some Europeans who were desirous of purchasing the land, and witness considered it of consequence to himself, if possible, to get the reserve, as it was bounded on three sides by his own freehold property. He had a conversation with Mr. Locke, and said that he considered £3OO or £IOO would be a fair price for the land, including the whole reserve. He was not present at Mr. Locke’s office in Napier with the native grantees, either at the time when the transaction was completed, or immediately prior to that occasion, or subsequent to it, so that Mr. Locke made a mistake in the evidence he gave on that point. When the meeting was held about this land nothing was said about a reserve , of 15 or 20 acres to be specially set aside for Hori Nia Nia; nor did Hori Nia Nia ever mention such a matter to him, either then or at any other time. There was included in the reserve a piece of ground in which the Maoris had at one tinie buried their dead, and this Mr. Kussell had fenced in and; planted with cypress trees and other suitable trees; but the ground was of no use, and could not be utilised in any way. The only reserve mentioned was one of 40 acres in another block about half a mile from the old pa at Waipukurau, which Hori Nia Nia wanted reserved for Mr. Purvis Kussell, to whom he was indebted in the sum of £SO to see him through a little affair of gallantry ; but wit-

ness absolutely refused to let the laud go. [Witness was examined at length as to the relations in which he had stood with regard to Hori Nia Nia, Arihi, and other grantees m connection with land transactions in which he had been interested.] Among other documents produced was some correspondence between Mr. Russell and Mr. Richardson (the Minister for Public Works) and Mr. Carmthers (the Engmeer-in-Chief) as to a contract for providing sleepers, Mr. Russell’being the medium through which negotiations with the native contractors were conducted. A good deal of evidence also waa taken hr respect of the Ileretunga Block purchase j in fact the whole of the transactions in any way bearing upon the case were fully entered into, and, as may be imagined, there was a amount of evidence taken, the examination of Mr. Russell lasting from 10 o’clock in the morning till nearly 5 o’clock. The Court then adjourned. ;