NATIVE LAND TITLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 218, 3 December 1927, Page 10

NATIVE LAND TITLE

TATUA EAST BLOCK VALIDITY CHALLENGED (Prom Our Own Correspondent J HAMILTON, Friday. Legal proceedings tracing back to an order of the Native Land Court in 1569, were instituted in the Hamilton Supreme Court before Mr. Justice Ilerdman today, when Hira Rangimatiri, petitioned for a motion of writ of prohibition, against a partitioning order subsequently made in the Native Land Court concerning the Tauri and Tukakau areas included in the Tatua East Block iu 1569. It was stated that an order was made for the issue of a certificate of title to the Government on behalf of the natives as no European could hold the land except in the name of the Crown. Years afterwards, apparently, the title was disregarded by the Native Land Court at Cambridge. There was a provision in the 1869 order concerning a survey which had evidently been overlooked and the title for the Tatua East Block had never been actually issued. Counsel for the petitioner said the essence of the case was that the land was subsequently partitioned as if there was an original title to the Tatua East Block when there was none in existence, and that was the object of Rangimatini’s motion. His Honour held that the matter had repeatedly been investigated and the native appellant court had considered the claim groundless. Section 14 of the Native Lands Amendment Act, 1925, validated, in effect, the decisions in 1869, and subsequently of Judge Brown. He had no course but to dismiss the application and give judgment for the defendants with costs on the lowest scale.