NATIVE LANDS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 18287, 24 December 1919, Page 7

NATIVE LANDS.

[Per Press Association.) WANGANUI, December 23. The decision of the Appeal Court in the case Bradley versus Registrar-Gene-ral of Lands, in respect to the. titles of the three Crown grants to Native loyalists after the Maori War, will have an important bearing on the title of many thousand acres on the We9t Coast, as well as in other parts of New Zealand. After tho war these grants were given to Native loyalists subject to the conditions that the land should be inalienable by gifts, sale or lease for a longer period than twenty-one years, except by consent of the Governor-General. In the great majority of cases these lands were not occupied by the Native grantees. but by Europeans, who paid rates, taxes and generally exercised the rights of ownership. Tho point which the Aip'peal Court has decided had never previously been considered by .any Court higher than the Supreme Court, and will have the effect of enabling the occupies of such lands for a period of over twenty years, without interruption or protest from tho grantees, to apply for a title under the Land Transfer Act.