WANGANUI RIVER BED QUESTION

Grey River Argus, 28 September 1949, Page 3

WANGANUI RIVER BED QUESTION

P.A. WELLINGTON ,Sept. 26. Authority was given to-day for the issue of a writ prohibiting the Maori Land Ci urt and the Maori Appellate Court from proceeding further upon t m application for investigation of th;.- tit»3 to the bed of the Wanganui River from its tidal limit to a point four miles from its source.

A judgment by Mr. Justice Hay, upon winch the writ was based, concerned a case which occupied 11 years His Honour found that the bed of the river was, under Section 206 of the Coal Mines Act (1925), vested beneficially in the Crown. The Crown sought at the hearing in May a writ of certiorari bringing the earlier Maori Land Court proceedings before the Supreme Court. It contended that the Maori Land Court and the Maori Appellate Court hail no jurisdiction over the beds of rivers.