ORAKEI LAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23084, 8 July 1938, Page 16

ORAKEI LAND

CHUKCH SITE DISPUTE MAORI WOMAN'S PETITION AREA AND £650 CLAIMED SUPREME COURT PROCEEDINGS The Supreme Court wns filled with interested spectators, chiefly Maoris, yesterday, when the hearing was commenced of a petition of right by a Maori resident of Ornkei against the Crown. The case is being heard by Mr. Justice Reed, with Mr. J. J. Sullivan appearing in support of the petition and Mr. V. R. Meredith, with Mr. N. I. Smith, for the Crown. The matter in issue is the ownership of about four acres of land on tho hill at Orakci known as tho "church site," an area which has occasioned much dispute in recent years. Tho suppliant, Mrs. Whatitiri, set forth in her petition, that on June ( 28, 1859, this piece of land was given by Crown grant to Bishop Selwyn as a I site for a church, school and cemetery. It afterward passed into the hands of tho General Trtist Board of the Diocese of Auckland. The suppliant claimed that for more than 20 years prior to April 28, 1926, when the site was sold by tho Trust Board to the Crown, she and her mother and her predecessors in title occupied it openly as their own, so that at the time of the alleged sale she had acquired a prescriptive title to the land. Attitude ol the Orown The suppliant asked for a declaration that she was entitled to possession of the land and also for £650 damages against the Public Works Department for wrongful entry upon it. The defence denied that the claimant or her predecessors had ever had adverse possession of the property at any time. It claimed that tho Diocesan Trust Board had a good title dating from the Crown grant of 1859, and had sold the property in 1926 pursuant to statutory authority. In outlining the case for the suppliant, Mr. Sullivan said that the property in dispute was conveyed by the native owners to the Crown in May, 1858, and in June, 1859, the Crown granted it to Bishop Selwyn as a church trust. In 1922 tho position was that the Crown wanted the church authorities to put tho Maoris off this piece of land and the church authorities wanted the Crown to put them off. Both parties then had perfect knowledge of tho difficulties now being brought before the Court.

Long Possession Claimed Mr. Sullivan read correspondence between the Diocesan Trust Hoard and the Lands and Survey Department in 1922, and commented that they were "passing the thing back like a ball from one to the other." It was clearly recognised before the church sold the property that the Maoris were in possession, hut neither church nor Crown tried to get them out by ordinary process of law. It would be proved that the Maoris j had been in open, manifest and continuous occupation and use of'the area I for more than 20 years prior to the | Rale, Mr. Sullivan said. All went smoothly until last October when | officers of the Public Works Department came along and tried to get | through the fence. Ihe Maoris beat thorn off at the time, and then afterward, under advice, they allowed them to come through the fence. Excavations were started, fences were broken nnd it was made impossible for the Maoris to use the place for cropping. For this definite invasion of their right 3 they claimed £O3O. Judge Inspects Property "We submit," said Mr. Sullivan, "that in 192G the church had nothing to sell and the Crown had nothing to buy. It was the natives' property then." The Court adjourned at noon to enable His Honor to make a personal inspection of the property in dispute. A plan of the locality in question was sworn to by C. K. Grierson, surveyor. There were two places, he said, in which roadwork had interfered with the fence. In answer to Mr. Meredith witness said part of the fence when ho saw it last December was old and decrepit. The suppliant said she was born 83 years ago in the house where she was now living at Orakei. Last December men from the Public Works Department broke down the fence which had been there ever since she could remember. All her relatives lived in the houses near by, and she claimed through her mother, Pare Teunga, all the land inside the fence. Witness said her mother got it from Erana Pairimu, who got it from Hori Pairimu. They used the land for planting kumaras, corn, marrows and taro and for flax, peaches and pears. Only her relatives were buried inside tho enclosure. The fcnco round it was a good one. She did not remember any church people ever coming to talk to her about the property. Cost o! Restoration

Tho witness said that after they had beaten the Public Works men off they were advised to leavo them alono and it would bo all right. Then tho men oamo in and ploughed up tho peach trees and pear trees and flax. It would tako £2OO to put the land back again as it was. in answer to Mr. Meredith witness said she did not know that the Maoris at Orakei had petitioned Parliament for the return of the church site. She did not attend a commission of inquiry on the subject before Judge Acheson. She had never discussed this claim with anyone, because she knew it was her right to live on there. Questioned through an interpreter as to whether a document rend to her in Maori was a petition for tho return of the church site witness said sho did not know. His Honor commented that that did not say very much either for her honesty or for her intelligence. Direction to Interpreter When tho witness further said that she did not know whether her mother ever gave evidence before Judge Acheson. His Honor said to tho interpreter, "Will you tell her from mo I. don't believe her? It was discussed in the pa over and over again." Continuing, witness said it was an aunt of hers who hit the Public Works man 011 the head with a piece of wood. She had been there a long time. Air. Meredith said he was prepared to admit that no certificate of title under the Land Transfer Act had ever been issued for this property. The further hearing was adjourned until to-day.