NATIVE INTERPRETER FINED

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 204, 8 May 1912, Page 5

NATIVE INTERPRETER FINED

EXCEEDS HIS POWERS. | By Telegraph—Press Association . Auckland, May 3. An offence of a most imusual nature was the subject of a police court action before Mr. Cuttcn this morning against a Maori interpreter named George R. Hamilton. The accused is a native interpreter of the second grade, and he was charged with acting as a native interpreter of the first grade under, the Native Land Act. Only an interpreter of the first grade can interpret and ( witness leases to land under the Act. Recently a lease was presented to the Waikato Native Land Board, and it was found to he signed and witnessed by the accused, whose signature was accompanied by the words "No. 1," and something else not easily decipherable. It was known that Hamilton was only a second grade interpreter, and therefore not competent to witness and interpret a lease, and an investigation brought to light several other cases of leases signed by second grade interpreters. The result was that those who were parties to the leases had to have the documents prepared over again and go to the considerable expense of engaging a first grade interpreter to obtain the signatures of native owners and interpret the agreement. In consequence Hamilton was prosecuted. Hamilton pleaded guilty. His Worship said that if he made the penalty commensurate with the possible serious results that might flow from the defendant's act he would hare to impose a very heavy penalty. He did not want to do that, because this was the first time any such case had come before him, but it had to be made quite clear to the defendant and to everyone else that an act of this kind might have serious results. The defendant would be convicted and fined £lO and costs.