NATIVE LOYALISTS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 1707, 23 December 1919, Page 6

NATIVE LOYALISTS.

GRANTS OF LAND. ' EUROTEAN OCCUPIERS OF 20 YEARS I V: SECURE TITLES. ' (Pbb Pbesb Association.) ; ; ■ WANGANUI, Doy. 23. Tho decision of the Appeal Court in the case of Bradley v. the' Registrar General of Lands- in respect to the titles of three Crown grants to Native loyalists after the Maori War will have an important,, bearing on 'the titles of many thousand ucreS'-on the Wept Coast ns well as in other parts of Now Zealand. After the War, these grants were given to Native loyalists subject to conditions that tho land should be inalienable by gifts, sale, or lease for a longer period than 21 years, except by the consent, of the Governor-General. In a great majority of cases these lands were not occupied by tho Native grantees but by Europeans, who paid rates and taxes and generally exorcised rights of' ownership. Tho point which' the Appeal Court had to decide had never previously been considered in any Court higher than the Supreme Court, and will have the effect of enabling ’ the occupiers of such land for a period over 1 twenty years without interruption or protest ' from the grantees to apply for tho title under tho Lands Transfer Act.