NATIVE LANDS.

Waipa Post, Volume I, Issue 23, 4 July 1911, Page 3

NATIVE LANDS.

[Contributed.]

Just prior to the sitting of the Parliament of ' this Dominion, there is a pause. The gathering 1 ogether of these electoral fixtures requires firm adjustment. The biggest and the most clumsy of these questions is the settlement of Maori lands. It is stated here that the Pukuweka case, which has been before several Land Courts covering many years of litigation, is not yet settled. The case is now being appealed in regard to the last judicial finding at Rotorua. In this case the loss of time to witnesses, the loss to the Crown, the Mao.-i, and the European o< cupier must have been enormous. From this and other instances of the kind, it would appear that some more complete machinery or means of adjudicating definitely upon Native land titles is necessary otherwise, wholesale bother must crop up as it did in the matter of the Te Akau Block, which is now the subject of the final Court of Appeal in England. The appointment of a Colonial Judge to advise upon appeals of the kind, adjudicating in England may leave a beneficial effect; the lines of the Imperial Conference seem to pull in that, direction, It must, however, be admitted, that there is something that wants more mere casual attention, because these appeals are not the outcome of a proper understanding of an adaptable law fit to regulate the details of land claims. It is to be hoped that Sir James Carroll will add still further lustre to his name by taking a course which will ensure a safe title every Maori scie within this Dominion.