NATIVE MEETING AT KIHIKIHI. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Kihikihi, Friday.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1973, 28 February 1885, Page 3

NATIVE MEETING AT KIHIKIHI. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Kihikihi, Friday.

Thk native meeting m lefeience to the main trunk line still continues.. The principal subject of discussion is whether the land foi the line .md stations shall be Rnen for nothing or payment taken font. Some are in f.ivoar of the former, some of the latter, while otheis suggest that the l.uid should be leased. All sorts of absmd suggestions are being made. Whiti P.ttato gravely suggested that no money should be taken at all, but that the owneis should take it out in shares in the railway ; each man might get £5 or £15 a year as dividends The income he thought infinitely better than the compensation for the land lequued. I watched Wahanui's face j-art of the tune, and it was amusing to see tho smile of pity that would flit over it occasionally when some speaker would make some absurd suggestions. The old chief is too much of a man of the woi Id not to see the folly of the remarks of the speakeis. Thp natives aie wise and clever enough in some iratter-, but in some things they are theveuest childien; they know perfectly well that the line will be taken thiough, and they accept the inevitable, but when it came to a question of finance it was too much for them. One man said the line .should be gnen with everything on it, \i/., timber, coal, gold, m short, the land as it is, anothei said he was quite willing that the land should be given, but the timber, coal, gold, &c, should be his. Fancy a, coal mine or a saw - pit in the middle of the railway lino ! Wahamu and Rewi addrebsed the meeting the day befoie I got there, so I cannot saj what their suggestions were. But it is not piobable they would be characterised by the came absurdity as the other speakers While I was there Mr John Oinisby <poke His Kusrgestiom were the only ones woith listening to. He said thry owed the (Jo v eminent £KiOO for the boundary snrxev, and instead of the compensation for the line being paid to individuals or ha pus, let it go towards paying that debt. This is the most sensible way of disposing of the money. The Government cannot tell the owners to whom compensation will be paid until the land in put through the couit, and many of the natives are by no humus anxious to have their lands adjudicated up. The general feeling at the meeting is against the land couits. Mi Ormsby's plan would suit all patties It is the f.me-t way of making all contiibutc atcoidnig to the amount of land they own. The moie sensible of the natives are aware that they canuot stein the tide of European population, and they aie only waiting for ,1 favouiable oppoitunity to put then land through the coin t. Thoio is at pie-ent a geneial fooling of nnitu il distuist among them, and if one 01 two lead off and put then land through a good many moic would fol l< >w .