THEIR TRIBAL LANDS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 18 July 1925, Page 3

THEIR TRIBAL LANDS.

MAORIS DISPUTE BISHOP’S TITLE, ORDER FOR EJECTMENT. (per Press Association.! AUCKLAND, July 18. i Alter the Rearing hi the Magistrate's Court before Mr Cutten, S.M., Counsel for defendants agreed to an order for the ejectment of several Maoris from laud afcJTakapunu leased by H. H. Adams from the Roman Catholic Bishop, a similar action against other having been disposed of in the same way on the Magistrate’s decision, which was subsequently upheld in the Supreme Court. The order in the p#sent case was suspended for fourteen days, pending the decision of defendant’s petition now before Parliament. Counsel said 1 some of the Maoris, who were the Bishop’s parishioners, had been settled at Maori Point at a cost of £2OO for housing, and others had received £6OO at various times, which he had ibeea told had been spent m legal proceedings. The present defendants, with the exception of two, were a new lot. Temete, an interpreter, said the Maoris admitted the land had been Grown granted, but stated the condition had been that it should be used for the erection of a college for educating Maoris generally, and particularly for teaching them agriculture. As this had not been fulfilled the land reverted to. the Maoris. They had petitioned Parliament to this effect. Defendants resented being called squatters. They were all blood relatives of the original owners of the land and direct descendants of the people who had lived and died there, and some were born there. It was their tribal home and in, terms of the provision under which tha grant was given they were’ on the land as agriculturalists. They conceded the point that their quarrel was not with Adams, but with the Bishop or with Parliament. If Parliament decided that the original Crown grant held good, then they would not need to be put off the land. They would walk off.