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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1367, 11 October 1883, Page 2

In a previous issue we called attention to the case of J. D. Ormond v. Haromi Mokena and Nofeba Kiwi. Simple as the facts of the case appeared in themselves they had a vital and direct bearing upon a question of great interest to this district because of our numerous transactions in Native lands. . A great deal has been said and no doubt with much truth, about the inherent honesty of the Natives in their dealings with Europeans, but we cannot help thinking but what their dishonesty would be of far less occurrence than it now is were they not prompted to lend their names to such transactions as those which called forth such severe censure from the Judge of the Native Lands Court the other day. We refer to the unscruplous and shameful manner in which Natives are cajoled and coaxed into conveying their interests in certain blocks of land twice over, There is little doubt but what the natural honesty of the Natives would cause them to shrink from perpetrating such a base trick as that of selling one piece of land twice over, were they not persuaded that it was all right, and the money pressed upon them. The object is, of course, to enable these schemers to set up a claim for the laud. Now with respect to this case of Nofera Kiwi, can it be doubted for one moment but what this Native was prompted to act in the manner he did by some instigator iu the background. Is it feasible that he would have refused to endorse and sanction a transaction of which he was thoroughly aware, as was proved by his acknowledgment of having received LIO of the consideration money, had he not been prompted to take advantage of some nice subtleties of the law, the existence of which are entirely hidden from all save and except the initiated? Or would he, in the next place, have refused to return money which had not alone been obtained by false and deceptive means, but which he had been advised and cautioned to refund by the Judge before whom the whole transaction came in the Native Lands Court, and which advice he had promised to follow—had not some “subtle and far-fetched hypothesis” been instilled into him by some unscrupulous myrmidon well versed in those crotchets of the law, a comprehensive knowledge of which is indispensible to the successful accomplishment of any measure having for its object the baulking of honesty, truth, fairness, or justice. With characteristic shrewdness, and a keen sense of justice in its most comprehensive meaning our Resident Magistrate decided the case upon equity and conscience, thus wisely going through and beyond that atmosphere of obscurity which the law is made to shed around all matters which will not bear the light of justice—an obscurity which darkens and disgraces all the transactions of an unscrupulous Company through the dishonourable mode in which its agents seek to obtain their ends.