TAUPO TIMBER LANDS

Evening Star, Issue 20556, 7 August 1930, Page 3

TAUPO TIMBER LANDS

INVOLVED NATIVE LEASE ENORMOUS CLAIMS SUBMITTED [Fsom Our Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, August 0. Claims exceeding half a million sterling have been submitted to the Aotea Maori Land Board in connection with the affairs of the Tongariro Timber Company, which some years ago entered into a contract with the Natives in respect to timber tights on a large area of the West Taupo timber country An amendment of tho Native Land Act last session removed the embargo that liad been placed on Natives seeking to enforce their contract with tho Tongariro Timber Company, and appointed the Aotea Maori Land Board as their agents for the purpose of recovering the lands affected by the agreements with the company. Tho Aotea Land Board, according to a statement tabled by the Native Minister in the House to-day, gave notice to the Tangariro Timber Company on November 19 that the contract would be terminated unless, within six months it paid £26,662 due in respect to royalties, and completed a railway which the lessees had contracted to build. In the meantime, claims were received by the Aotea Land Board, arising out of the past proceedings or the company, as follows: —Morrison Spratt and Morrison. £100; Sir J. PHoufton’s estate, £14,000; Cammed, Laird, and Co., £20,720; Bertram Phillips, £29,700; C. W. Neilson, £569; W 11. Grace, £4,500; Te Heuheu Grace party, £62,326; K. D. Duncan (inclusive of £2,000 in another claim), £13,800'; Armstrong, Whitworth, Company, £15,000; Anglo-French and Belgian Corporation, £1,787; Tongariro Timber Company, Ltd., £330,000; Egmont Box Company, £31,000; total, £523,503. . The board was advised that most of these claims were mad© as creditors of the company, and therefore could not be considered. A further question had arisen, regarding the Egmont Box Company, which was mixed up with the claim of Bertram Phillips, to whom the Egmont Company agreed to sell timber rights in 1919 for_ £13,000, and tlie board is legally advised that the Egmont Box Company has some claim upon the owners. The hoard, as agent for tho owners, may, it_ states, find some difficulty in recognising such a largo claim without some judicial pronouncement, but the matter appears to bo eminently one for amicable arrangement. It proposed, therefore, to place all file documents before the Native Affairs Committee.

On the Minister’s motion the papers were referred, as suggested, to this committee.