NATIVE AFFAIRS IN POVERTY BAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7223, 12 January 1885, Page 5

NATIVE AFFAIRS IN POVERTY BAY.

[by telegraph.— OWN correspondent.] Gisborne, Saturday. • Great expectations have been formed in this district for a long time past as to the beneficial results of the sitting of a Native Land Court at Waiomatatini, Waipu, where there has been no Court for six or seven years, and where a vast amount of work has accumulated. 'It is stated, however, that under the most favourable circumstances only about three-fifths of the half-million of acres, as to which applications have been made, can be dealt with, owing to the want of surveys, but there is now a great danger that the work of the. Court will practically fall through for another season. The natives up the coast are just now very hard up, and unable to raise the Court fees, and after holding two large meetings at Major Ropata's settlement, it has been found that unless they are given credit for the fees all those cases in which Europeans are not interested will have to be withdrawn, simply from inability to provide the funds. They have, therefore, determined to apply to the Judge, Mr/ Alexander Mackay, when he opens the Court next Thursday, to allow the fees to remain as a lien on the land, as was formerly done. They will also address the Chief Judge on the subject. The natives are anxious to put the land through, and the Europeans ' of the district are very solicitous on the matter, and it is therefore hoped that the difficulty will be got over. The natives also complain that the fee for a succession order, 225, is unduly heavy, and is often more than the interest concerned is worth, and they say that an order, which takes only five minutes to grant, should not be charged as much as one, the hearing of which takes a day. . To this it is replied, that as the fees often remain as a lien for many years, it would not do to reduce them, unless for ready money, when it would pay to take half as much, or even less, and it is urged that the natives should be encouraged to pay. ready money, by a difference being made. The want of some more facile system of appointing successors is much felt in this district, and up the coast, and as successors 'are often obliged to wait several'years, before they can be appointed, European occupation and settlement is greatly retarded throng this cause. The natives urge that Resident Magistrates should be empowered to grant succession orders at short intervals, subject to the approval of the Chief Judge, if necessary. Surveys here are in a very backward state. There is a total of nearly 300,000 acres, the complete title to which has been hung up for years on account of surveys, in many cases the difficulty being merely technical. In some cases the blocks passed the Court in 1876, and yet there is no title for v« -.6 of the completion of the surveys. The local survcry department seems to be in a most inefficient state,-