ORAKEI LAND DISPUTE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22436, 24 June 1938, Page 19

ORAKEI LAND DISPUTE

THREE ISSUES FOR DECISION OF COMMISSION [THE PRESS Special Scrvlce.l AUCKLAND, June 23, A further effort to reach finality in the land dispute between the Crown and the Orakei Maoris will be made on July 4, when a commission appointed by the Governor-General and presided over by Mr Justice Kennedy will begin its sittings at Auckland. The commission will visit the Orakei settlement and view the areas in dispute. Broadly speaking, there have been three issues between the Crown and the Maoris at Orakei. One of these was settled by the Native Land Court last year, when a partition was made of 22 acres of land in which the Government had purchased the shares of a number of Maori owners. The Court assigned to Maori non-sellers 10 acres and 26 perches, situated on the side of a hill south-east of Orakei Flat. The second dispute concerns about four acres of land, on which- stands a house now blocking a road serving a Government housing subdivision. This area was a reserve granted originally by the Crown to Bishop Selwyn for a burial* site and the endowment of a native school. Legislation in 1925 authorised the sale of the area bad? to the Crown. In the third Issue a Maori settlement on the waterfront at Orakei is concerned. Some years ago Maori settlers petitioned the Government for a return of the 40 acres on which part of the settlement exists and which was originally held by the Crown. The future of about 60 acres of what is chiefly grazing land, which extends over the hills, is also in dispute, the Crown being asked to relinquish the land, which is valued at about £50,000 as building sites.