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Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 48, 25 August 1923, Page 6

Considerable stir has been created in Maori political circles by/the gradual materialisation of a movement which has been in a nebulous form for many years, says the "Waipa Post." It will be remembered that after the Waikato and Taranaki wars large areas of Native lands were confiscated by the Government both in the Auckland and Taranaki provinces, and it is, for tho recovery of this lost territory that the Maoris are now formulating definite action. Legal proceedings are to be instituted, first-in the Supreme Court of New Zealand, and subsequently (if necessary) the case is to. be taken before the Privy Council. A fund to cover the cost of such action is to be established by means- of a per capita levy of £1 for seniors and 10s for juniors, which is expected to realise £10,000, and the Natives are confident that the sum will be easily 'raised. The importance of the land involved may be gathered from the fact,that the whenua ruapati (confiscated area) comprises practically the whole ofthe Waikatp basin north of the aukati (frontier line) wliicli runs from the Aotea Harbour via Wailetiina and then eastward to Kihikihi,-em-bracing the Eaglan, Waikato, and Waipa counties, with certain reservations. About 100,000 acres (known as tho Te Akau block) was returned to Maoris who .had never participated in' the war, and a further area on its boundary ("rebel sections") was awarded to landless fighters.; Altogether, about 2,000.000 acres of what is now the most thickly populated portion of the Waikato and 1,000.----000 acres of Taranaki land are included in the claim. Most of the land was originally cut up into small sections arid nwnvdeel to Maori war veterans at the cyiiutiubn of litißtiljti*?, but litte eincu B«s«ed to otlwi hands* ■"■ '