NATIVE LAND DEALING.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4261, 4 November 1892, Page 3

NATIVE LAND DEALING.

A Wellington Man's Expw- 1 ience, Mr W. J, Hunt, solf-desoribed as a; commission agent, but perhaps better known as Mr Hunt, of Samoan fame,, was adjudicated bankrupt in Welling-! ton on Monday last upon his own petition, and yesterday filed with the OfHoial Assignee a statement of the causes of his failure. According to his own account he is a victim oi the confused and uncertain state of Native land legislation, and as his narrative forms instructive reading, we give it in his own words :—. " The cause of my bankruptcy is owing to lobs sustained through the erection of a large Bawmill at.Waikanae at a cost of nearly £2OOO, tho acts being that in the year 1887 I entered into an ; ngreoment for a lease with certain Natives in Waikanae, whereby they agreed to give raea lease for 21 years over 10,000 acres oflandatbMper aero per annum.. I enterod into this agreement with the advice of my solicitor, and was assured that the agreement for the cutting right was perfectly binding, and that the agreement for lease was onforoible as soon as the title .was issued to the Nativoo. Some short time after the mill was erected in 'BB the trouble began .between various other Natives over! the title to the

land, tho result- being that, al--1 though the lam) bad passsd tho Nativo Lund Court twice and the Judge had refused a rehearing, tho Government, despite'all this, appointed n Royal Commission in 1888, and . afterwards Parliament passed hii Aot granting tho rehearing; the result being tho matters wore in dispute nearly four years, and when the Natives would have been in a position to bavo granted me a lcuso in terms' of their agreement, the Government, stepped in and purchased the land over my head, although the Govern* inent knew of this agreement. When the Natives found that the Government were prepared to ignore my agreement, they took proceedings at law to dispossess me of tho mill site, tho result being that although my agreement was to pay 6d an acre per annum for the three acres of mill site, .620 was awarded as mesne profits by the Judge, together with £7O costs, resulting in the whole property falling info the hands of the Natives, as I was unable to pay the amount of the award and costs ,vithin tbH time (80days) fixed by the Judge for compliance with hid order, I petHiODod the last Parliament for consideration, but have been unable to get any redress. I have struggled for four years to get a title to the land, which would havo onabled me to have raised money at low rates of interest in order to liquidate all my debts and carry on my business with success, I estimate thut had tho lease been comploted it would have been worth £IO,OOO to me for sawmilling and other purposes, I regret to say that I am one of the m.my victims of tbo confusion and uncertainty of. tho Native land legislation of this colony, tho laws enabling the Maoris to repudiate agreements which, if made between ono white man andanoiher, would be perfectly legal, the law being that you bfigiu n negotiation under one act | which is rendered illegal by another I Act before you havo completed your negotiation, thus landing people into all sorts of and other difficulties, Hiid destroying the morality of the Natives. My profit and loss account shows losses and expenses £3BOO, and with hook debts on which there is an estimated loss of £790, making in all £4500.' Apropos to the above. Bays the N.Z. Times, it may be mentioned that the land to which Mr Hunt refers formed part of the Ngarara block, which was bought by the Government for the Wellington Fruit Growers' Associa* tion,