THE LAND COURT AND THE KAWHIA BLOCK.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2289, 12 March 1887, Page 2

THE LAND COURT AND THE KAWHIA BLOCK.

♦ TO THE KDITOR. Sin, —A paragraph appeared in your paper of the Bth inst., sent you by your Alexandra correspondent, in which the Kawhia natives twitted for indulging in personal motives when trying to get a land court to sit in Kawhia, and he quotes the case of a native who put up a billiard table anticipating the arrival of court. To impute personal motives to disparage your opponents case goes for nothing, unless you prove the motives to be unworthy. We all act from personal motives, and the man is a humbug who denies it. Was your correspondent quite impersonal when he wrote the paragraph I refer to? I have reason to think not, but there is this difference between your correspondent and the Kawhia natives ; personal motives Jed yonr correspondent to advocate an unfair, harsh, and impolitic measure, while the natives claimed what was just, fair, and reasonable. The Natives, though intelligent, and though they know and feel they are in the right, from from want of training quite likely laid the greatest stress on the weakest argument in their favour. I think this would be the case about CowelPs table. The natives were certainly led to believe they should have a court in Kawhia; so confident were they that they clubbed to-gether and in the cource of a year collected £100 and built a court-house, that no question of want of accomodation should arise. Some individual nativeSj taking a lesson from what they saw in other places, put up a table; this swallowed the hard earned money of tho whole family, and I have no doubt was felt to be a sore matter by the speaker. Shortly this is the strong argument of the Kawhia natives: They have been living in undisturbed possession on the Kawhia block for 50 years. This land they, some three years ago, expressed a wish to deal with, and made application for a court. Then claimants living outside the block sprang up. The Kawhia natives claim that, until the court decides otherwise, they are the owners, and long and undisputed possession certainly entitles them to be so treated and considered. These natives now ask, why should those living outside the block be considered before themselves, the presumed owners ? Why should the court that sits to adjudicate on this block be held in another district? Your correspondent adds that there is very little drinking among the natives. I should be surprised if it were otherwise, but want of means is the reason, not want of will. The Kawhia natives, with one or two exceptions, are penniless, and their cattle and pigs, on which they chiefly depend, are, and have been for some time, almost unmarketable* While at home this does not affect them} They have plenty of potatoes, and fish arb easily caught. Now, these people are to be dragged 35 miles away from home. They niust either sacrifice their few cattle, or get into debt, or loaf on others, or go hungry, and why not ? It would be too bad to ask the officials of the Land Court to forego their (as your correspondent puts it) "decent accommodation after their arduous duties at an hotel."—l am, yours obediently,

Aethuii E. Langlev Hamilton, 10th March, 1887.