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Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6073, 16 September 1881, Page 2

THE WAIPAWA tkWt) DISPUTE. T&B Pbsl of Monday contains a summary of the Waipawa Land Dispute Bill recently introduced into Parliament by the Native Minister, It sets forth in the preamble that a dispute has long existed between some Maoris and Mr John Harding respecting the 6. wnersiii}} of about 20 acres of land feeat Waipawa, in Hawke's Bay, a.iid that, from tho evidence given before a Select Committee, five acres of a native reserve appeared to have been erroneously included in a Crown flfctnt of these 20 acres to Mr Harding, While the natives believed that the other 15 acres also belonged to them, and had hot been sold to the Orowh> on the strength of which belief they persisted, in occupying it against Mr Harding,, and both parties refused to settle the dispute. The bill, therefore, on the ground of it being " expedient to avoid complications," enacts th&t the Governor may take the disputed lands, paying Mr Harding full value arid compensation for disturbance, and may make such grant to the natives as shall seem fit,. Our Wellington contemporary pertinently says of the bill :— Because certain natives forcibly resist the occupation by Mr Harding of land sold by them to the Crown, and granted by the latter to Mr Hurding, it is how proposed to give way to them and allow them to wrest by force what they are not lawfully entitled to claim. This is what we deem to involve a wrong principle and an objectionable change of policy on the part of the Government. There is no doubt at all as to the merits of the ease. Mr Bryce-,. when Native Minister, put that beyond question by one of his forcible find lucid reports. In his memorandum dated 9th March, 1880, and written at Napier immediately after a full investigation of the case, Mr Bryce says : — "There is no dispute as the legal boundary of Mr Harding's land, nor is there any as to the boundaries of the native reserve, Waipawa. The present boundaries, as described in the grants, were laid out substantially in accordance with the original, and no breach of faith or accidental error has been committed by the Government in the issue of the Crown grants in question. It is possible that some of the older natives concerned may have supposed that some portion of the original traverse lines, run at some distance from the true boundary, was, in fact, the boundary, and this possible misconception on their part constitutes their only claim to consideration. Mr Harding appears to have a perfect right, equitably as well as legally, to erect his fencing on the boundary of his land as defined in his Crown grant, as well as the gn»nt of the Waipawa reserve, and also to receive possession of the land which he claims." After reviewing the offers made by Mr Bryce, the JPost continues : — The natives resist the police and set the European Court at defiance. It is admitted that they could be turned off and the law enforced without any difficulty, but the Government, apparently, shrunk from their course, and now ask Parliament to sanction their conceding to the law-defying natives all they demand, and forcibly depriving Mr Harding of his land. Failing any adequate explanation of this timid and retrograde policy, we entirely dissent from the course proposed to be adopted as likely to encourage turbulent or disaffected natives in setting the law at defiance. We hope, therefore, that the Waipawa Land Dispute Bill will be among the " slaughtered innocents " of tho session. It is much to be regretted that it was brought in at all, as even its mere introduction is calculated to produce an undesirable impression on the part of tho natives that the law itself can be made to sanction their unlawful actions.