EJECTMENT ORDER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 18 July 1925, Page 7

EJECTMENT ORDER

SEVERAL MAORIS CONCERNED (United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, This Day. After a hearing it} the Magistrate’s Court before Air Cutten, S.M., counsel for defendants agreed to- an order for the ejectment of several Maoris from land at Takapuna leased by H. H. Adams from the Roman Catholic Bishop similar action against other Maoris having been disposed of in the same way on the. Magistrate’s decision, subse- t quontly upheld in the Supreme Court. The order in the present case was suspended for fourteen days pending the decision of defendants. A petition is now before Parliament. Counsel said that some of the Maoris, who were the Bishop’s parishioners, had been settled at Mauri Point at a cost of £2OO for housing, and others had received £6OO at various times, which he had been told had been spent in legal proceedings. The present defendants, with the exception of two, were a new lot.

Temete, the interpreter, said the Maoris admitted the land had been Crown 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, direct descendants of the people who had lived and died there, and some were born there. It waa their tribal home, and in terms of the provision under which the grant was given, they were on the land as agriculturists. They conceded the point that their quarrel was not with Adams, bui with tlie Bishop or with Parliament. If Parliament decided that the original Crown Grant held good, then they would not- need to he put off the land, thev would walk off.