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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 252, 4 October 1884, Page 2

Our Auckland namesake, which has the credit of being to a great extent inspired by the Grey pary, and therefore ought to know all about it, says : —

Wi Pere's Native Lands Act is an important measure, as it proposes to enable natives to deal tribally with land. Clause 2 makes the Native Committees Act, 1883, in force throughout the North Island : clause 3 makes the central committee select five members from the other district committees as assessors to sit with the Judge of the Native Lands Court at any sittting of Court. The Act then goes on to provide that whenever the Native Land Court shall adjudicate upon the ownership of any piece of native land, and the list or lists of owners shall be given to the said Court, there shall also be handed in to the said Court by such owners the names of a committee of not less than five, nor more than fifteen persons, who shall be the first committee for such land. All dealing with such land or any part thereof shall be conducted by such committee only, and all dealings with any individual owners shall be penal. The owners of all lands now held by more than ten natives under any title whatever made by the Native Land Court of New Zealand under any Act or provision of the General Assembly shall, within three months of the passing of this Act, appoint and send in to the Registry Office of the district in which such land is situate to a committee in like manner, and with like power as aforesaid. All proposed proceedings of a committee shall be consented to and ratified by three-fourths in number of the owners at a meeting, properly called a Runanga of the owners, to be named by the chairman of committee, and the committee shall have no power to deal in any way whatever with the land or any part thereof, except by and with this consent and ratification. The remaining provisions are merely to render the Act workable. The object of the Act is to throw the main onus of determining the title on the natives.