A NATIVE PETITION.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 January 1922, Page 4

A NATIVE PETITION.

THE NGAMOTV BEACH. GRANT OF LAND WANTED. A request from Natives for a grant of land at Moturoa for a fishing place and boat landing was recently embodied in a petition to the House of Representatives. Yesterday’s meeting of the New Plymouth Harbor Board received Ji a communication from the clerk of the Native Affairs Committee, asking for the board’s opinion on the request. The petitionee's wore Ueka MOipai and another, who set out that they were “of the Ngati-te-W'hiti liapu, and are petitioning your honorable House on behalf of the hapu.” The boundaries of the land prayed for were the Tutu stream, the Hongihongi stream, the railway line, and the ocean, and the petitioners desired that the area would be not less than 1A acres. “This was a kaianga of our ancestors (the petition continued), “and remains so to this day. Our houses are still standing, and our fishing boats are still at their moorings. . . We are the remnant living of this hapu Ngati-te-Whiti, and it was our ancestors and parents who befriended the first Europeans who settled in this district, Ngamotu, and the Europeans here know that thia was the hapu which they found residing here at Ngamotu on their first arrival.” The board passed a resolution regretting that they must oppose the petition, as the frontage to the land referred to was to be reclaimed, and the Railway Department had notified, the ' board of their intention to take the balance. The board also asked that they be notified of the date when the petition was to be heard by the committee.