THE TE AKAU BLOCK.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2141, 25 July 1907, Page 3

THE TE AKAU BLOCK.

THE APPEAL COURT CASE. Press Association. : WELLINGTON, last night. Continuing his argument in the Court of Appeal in H e Akau case Mr. Morison contended that section 26 o; the Maori Land Claims and Laws Amendment Act, 1906, had beer, passed on a wrong assumption of lan by the Legislature and was therefore a dead letter. He claimed that tin issue of a Crown grant for the land had extinguished all tribal or liapu boundaries and all Native customaij title, and that therefore in referring the question of tribal boundaries to the Native Appellate Court the Legislature had wrongly assumed that these boundaries still existed. That being to it was the duty of the Appellate Court to decide that the tri bal boundaries no longer existed The Appellate Court had decided that the tribal boundaries were still ill existence. This decision was in excess of the jurisdiction in respect oi which the writ of prohibition war claimed.

Air. Earl then addressed the Court contending that after the talking of the Te Akau block and the conse quent extinguishment of the Native customary title there was no aban donment of land by.the Crown under the “New Zealand Settlements Amendment and Continuance Act I 860,” and that therefore the block remain cd Crown Land. The part of the l)lock»returnod to loyal Natives wat given as compensation and was no! an abandonment of the land. II might have been given out of any other block, and it was a coincidence that it was a part of the same block It was plainly Crown land -that wa; given to the' loyal Natives and aU tribal boundary lines had gone. After Mr. 'Bell had replied thr Court intimated that it would give judgment on Friday morning.