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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1368, 13 October 1883, Page 2

The present sitting of the Native Lands Court in Gisborne will shortly close, as His Honor Judge Brookfield will soon have to leave in order to preside at Tologa Bay on the 12th of next month. Though the sitting has only extended over some six weeks it will be remembered for a long time to come as one of the most eventful and important ones ever known to the district. Looking to the desirable and beneficial results attained under the operations of the Amendment Act we are tempted to ask where are those dervishes who sent forth such a howl of despair against a measure which they dubbed “ viUanous ” and were too shortsighted and narrow-minded, and too blinded by prejudice, to see would ultimately prove of immense benefit to all alike. These persons, or the majority of them are now ranked amongstjthose who are loudest in their praise of a measure which has—in the hands of a clever and fearless judge—tended to facilitate, with ease and justice, the settlement of some of the most intricate and complex claims and disputes that ever came before a Lands Court. The power to dispense with all formalities and to deal with cases entirely from an equitable point of view, without regard to clogging intricacies and subtle points of law, has done more to clear our Lmd Court from that dense fog of legality in which, cuttle-fish like, so many false claimants took shelter, than any other thing vet ••onecivc l. Wo. know there are certain

persons who bewail the departure from the old routine, but they are those whose deeds will not bear the clear light which this new reform aheds upon those despicable transactions which have made the very name of the Company which they represent a “ by-word and a reproach.” This Reform, as we predicted when strongly advocating it, and which our fatuous opponents foretold, would have “no other effect than that of locking up the Native lands in this district for years, ” has already proved itself to be of immense advantage in opening up the land, but it will not be until the lapse of a year or two th t the full importance and benefit of the most salutary and necessary laws which the Legislature of New Zealand ever passed, will be fully felt and appreciated, and the fact realised that “ Honest John Bryce ” deserves the warmest thanks of the settlers of Poverty Bay for having carried through a measure which has so immensely benefited this place in particular, and the whole colony in general, in spite of the strenuous and determined opposition of those who would wish to be thought so very solicitous for the welfare of my district. We would ask whether “my district” in this instance, is not synonomous with “ my company.”