TREATY OF WAITANGI.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 56, 24 July 1912, Page 5

TREATY OF WAITANGI.

NATIVE RIGHTS. Bj Telegraph—Pres3 Association. : Wellington, Tuesday. Argument commenced in the Appeal Court to-day in the special case Tamihana Korokai and others v. SolicitorGeneral, raising questions as to the native rights over Lake Rotorua. Plaintiff is a native of Rotorua, acting on behalf of himself and all the others who are owners according to natire custom and otherwise of the land covered by water known as Lake Rotorua. It is claimed by the natives that the bed of the lake, or some part of it, is land held in freehold tenure by those natives as accessory to their freehold title to the land adjoining the bed, and is included by implication of law in the Native Land Court certificates of title which have been issued, and in the freehold titles obtained by virtue of these certificates of title, or in the alternative that the bed of the lake is customary native ■land, in respect of which the Native Land Court has jurisdiction to make freehold orders under the Native Land Act, 1909, or that the lake is subject to certain customary exclusive rights of fishing, navigation and other uses, vested in those natives, and that those rights are capable in some manner of legal recognition and enforcement by this court or the Native Ijand Court. All these claims and allegations are disputed by the Crown. Wellington, Last Night.

In the Rotorua Lake case Mr. Skerrett submitted that the real issue to be determined was whether the AttorneyGeneral was .right in saying that the Native Land Court had no jurisdiction to determine native customary rights to the bed of the lake. It had been assumed and recognised by the Legislature that before the settlement of New Zealand the Maoris were in permanent occupation of all lands in the North Island at all events, and these rights were expressly reserved to them by the Treaty of Waitangi, which recognised the native title and sovereignity. It was, he contended, contemplated that the native rights secured by the. Treaty of Waitangi were to be invesigated and determined by New Zealand courts, and the whole system of native land legislation is a recognition and machinery for the investigation of those rights. Argument was unfinished when the court rose.