MAORI LANDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 25, 21 April 1927, Page 10

MAORI LANDS

CLAIMS FOR CONFISCATION COMMISSION AT NGARUAWAHIA GOVERNMENT FAIRNESS QUESTIONED (From Our Own Correspondent.) NGARUAWAHIA, To-day. The Waikato sitting of the Maori Lands Commission opened at Ngaruawahia yesterday, when the natives’ case was presented to Sir William Sim, judge of the Supreme Court, and the Hon. Vernon Reed. Mr. D. S. Smith, Wellington, who had associated with him Mr. D. Seymour, Hamilton, appears on behalf of the natives, while Mr. C. H. Taylor, Wellington, is conducting the case for the Crown. The commission has been appointed to investigate the confiscations of native land following the Maori Wars • f the ’sixties, and will take evidence bearing on the matter. It was occupied all day with the hearing of the case for the natives, when the King movement in the Waikato was traced, together with the cause of Government actions and unjust confiscations were alleged. Healing with the actual confiscations counsel pointed out that after professing to take the land for military settlements the Government made barefaced and unwarranted confiscations of large areas in the Waikato. Either Sir George Grey had, at first, only contemplated the first measure, or he had deliberately misled Wiremu Tamehana Into a surrender under a false sense of security. AN ADJOURNED PETITION MOTUKARAKA ISLAND CLAIMED A claim was put in by Hone Hare and others for the Motukaraka Island, four acres in extent, near Rawene, on account of the Ngapuhi tribe. The principal appellant was 90 years of age. Mr. B. Hart, Auckland, appeared in support of the petition and an application for an adjournment of its hearing was granted by the commission.