AN IMPORTANT MAORI LAND CASE.

Evening Star, Issue 7363, 8 November 1887, Page 4

AN IMPORTANT MAORI LAND CASE.

The case of Te Ara, Te Kana, and others v. Alexander and Annie M'Donald was commenced at Wellington yesterday. Plaintiffs sought to obtain from defendant Alexander M'Donald a statement of accounts in reference to a large block of land near Feilding, in his dealings with which plaintiffs alleged that he was acting on their behalf. They asked that two deeds of mortgage and a deed of conveyance held by defendant M'Donald should be declared null and void; that account should be taken of all rents, etb,,

received by M'Donald in respect of the land in dispute; that an inquiry might be held to ascertain what portions of the land were sold by M'Donald, and account taken of the moneys received for the same ; that account might be taken of the money due by M'Donald for principal and interest under the deeds and mortgage mentioned: that said defendant be ordered to pay plaintiffs the moneys received in respect of rents and profits of sales; that the defendant be ordered to re-convey to plaintiffs the portions of land unsold ; that, notwithstanding the deed of conveyance mentioned, defendant be declared trustee for plaintiffs of the lund remaining unsold; that an injunction be granted to prevent M'Donald taking possession of the land pending the hearing of the case. It was urged that M'Donald, while acting as agent for plaintiffs, had unknown to them secured their land for himself by mortgages. The statement for the defence denied that an agency existed as stated, and the Statute of Limitations was relied upon in respect of moneys claimed, it being urged that plaintiffs had forfeited thenright to recover. Defendantheldalease which had not the assent of Mr Common, to whom the block had been mortgaged. As the Natives would not provide for this mortgage, defendant (after using every means to endeavor to persuade them to do so) proceeded to Napier and made arrangements for the transfer of the mortgages to himself. Defendant also relied upon the acquiescence of plaintiffs in all his acts in connection with the land until the date of the writ of the present action. The case is one of the most important dealing with Native lands ever hald in the Colony. Defendant has been connected with Native affairs in Wellington provincial district for more than thirty years, and so far" gained the confidence of the Ngatikawhata hnpu as to have been appointed one of their chiefs, assuming the title of Kawhata, the name of the ancestral head of the tribe. In 1874 he was imprisoned for having shot the leader of Mr Andrew Young's mail coach in its passage through the Awahura block, regarding which the present action arises. The case is likely to occupy some little time.