THE PROCLAMATION OF THE NATIVE LANDS ACT.

Press, Volume VII, Issue 687, 11 January 1865, Page 3

THE PROCLAMATION OF THE NATIVE LANDS ACT.

Ebom the Auckland papers we learn that a proclamation was issued on Saturday, the 31st December, to the following effect:— " Now, therefore, I, Sir George Ghrej, the Gorernor as aforesaid, do hereby proclaim, and declare that the said ' Native Lands Act, 1862," shall, from the date hereof, come into operation and be in force, within the whole of the said colony.*" The Herald says :— Under the conditions of this Act, therefore, it is competent for Natives, whose lands are not included in the confiscation proclamation, to sell to whom they chose, whatever portion of their lands they may think fit, and for whatever price they may be able to obtain. We hope that in the Session of the Assembly that Act will be amended, so as to purge it of the restrictions it places upon the free trade in land, and to assert that which common honesty and common justice demands —the recognition of the Native title in our courts of law. The proclamation of this Act, which ought to have been made in October, 1862, will do more than any thing which has yet been done to get to the root of the Native difficulty. A report was going about the town yesterday that there was a doubt as to the Governor visiting the South after all. On enquiry we can trace no foundation for it at all. The Auckland and Wellington papers are silent on the matter.