Rees v. Wickham.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 961, 16 July 1881, Page 2

Rees v. Wickham.

The following is the information laid by Mr. Rees against Mr. Wickham, the Editor of the Free Lance. It charges him with — “ Contriving unlawfully, wickedly, and maliciously, to defame and injure one William Lee Rees, of Gisborne, in the Provincial district of Auckland aforesaid, barrister, to deprive him of his good fame, credit, and reputation, and to bring him into public contempt infamy, and disgrace in that he on the 26th day of March, 1881, unlawfully, wickedly, and maliciously did write and publish, and procure to be written and published, of and concerning the, said William Lee Rees, in a certain newspaper published and circulated in the'' Provincial District of Auckland aforesaid, called the Auckland Free Lance, a false, malicious, and defamatory libel, containing the false, malicious, and defamatory words and statements of and concerning the said William Lee Rees, the following, that is to say : —“ Months ago we warned Mr. G. M. Reed and the Belfast emigrants against dealing with Mr. W. L. Rees for land for a special setttlemnnt. To the Belfast settlers the warning note we then sounded we believe was not in vain. Recent events at Poverty Bay bear out to the letter the predictions we then made with respect to the Pouawa Block. Upon that block Mr. G. M. Reed, confiding in the title guaranteed by Mr. Rees, proposed to locate “the people from Belfast who came out in the Lady Jocelyn. Over six months ago Mr. Rees assured the public, amid the acclamations of a credulous crowd, that he had a perfect title to the Pouawa Block. Pouawa is a valuable block of land of about 20,000 acres, within a stone’s throw of Gisborne. Mr. Rees’ title to that block is absolutely worthless. Their Honors Judges Heale and O’Brien of the Native Land Court so ruled. An appeal to the Supreme Court confirmed that ruling. But on the strength of that worthless title and by means of false representations, Mr. Rees had endeavored to extract large sums of money from tjie strangers who came to our shores to cast in their lots with ours. The unscrupulous Mr. Rees was baffled. Had the Belfast people been swindled, the Colony at large would have had to share the odium. Foiled as he was in his questionable attempts, he equally failed in getting the block sub-divided. The Native Land Court declined to connive at fraud. Day after day, with inexhaustible patience, Judges Heale and O’Brien listened to Mr. Rees and his oft-repeated arguments. The arguments but thinly disguised the facts now apparent to everyone who knows anything of the matter, that he endeavoured to deprive the Maori owners of Pouawa of their just inheritance. The J edges of the Native Land Court are wiping and anxious to subdivide the land as required. The sole difficulty in the way is that Mr. Rees cannot show to the satisfaction of the Court that he is acting honestly. It is true that the laws relating to Native lands arp capable of much amendment, but it is nevertheless a fortunate circumstance that sufficient provision is found in the Statute Book of the Colony as to, in a great measure, substantially prevent the Maori people from being defrauded of their lands. We are of opinion that when the enactments now in force were submitted to the Legislature, and passed into law, neither Honse of Parliament ever contemplated that a solicitor of the Supreme Court would, as Mr. Rees has done, endeavor to contort the true meaning of the law. Mr' Rees initiated a system along the East Coast whereby the Natives conveyed to him, and to whomsoever he chose for a nominee, their property in trust. These properties, in monetary value, represent almost hundreds of thousands of By false promises, by bribery, and by threats, were the Natives induced to sign the trust, deeds. In the case of the Pouawa block, Maraea Porua, one of the Native owners of Pouawa, under the threat of having her share marked off in the graveyard, consented to sign over her land to

Mr. Rees. Interests in such places, when allocated in severalty, seldom exceed six feet by two. Filled with superstition and alarm, the timid woman signed the deed. Mr. Rees endeavored by all sorts of spurious arguments to evade the bringing of the deed in question before the Trust Commissioners, dreading any step that might possibly lead to the bonaJides of his acts being tested ; and well he may. Judges Heale and O’Brien remain, however, inexorable. No sooner are these trust properties obtained possession of by Mr. Rees than they are forthwith mortgaged. Sums of money are raised bearing usurious rates of interest, '-and.his Native clients are betrayed. In no single instance have the trust properties mortgagad been redeemed ; in no single instance have the trustees rendered to the owners a a true account of their trusteeship. This state of things cannot last—a day of retribution must come.”