Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume 6, Issue 605, 21 January 1879, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1879.

A. no inconsiderable amount of injury is done to the Bay, or rather is attempted to be done, from the fact of certain people declaiming against the validity of titles to lands originally owned by natives. While such assertions cannot possibly do any good, we are sure they are calculated to do mischief. It will be found that in the face of all protests the lands which last week were alienated by the executors of the late Captain Read possess both holding and selling titles. And so with most other lands which have been or may be purchased by Europeans. Men are not so foolish as to go in for estates without first ascertaining the nature and validity t)f the titles, and the laws bearing upon lands held by the Maori are clear and well defined. We do not know why the spirit of mischief should actuate people when talking with each other at street corners or in hotel parlors they seek to depi'eciate the value of properties by hints and inuendoes that titles are insecure, and not worth the parchment they are written on. This is fouling one's own nest j and has the effect of leading on natives to the belief that they have only to employ a lawyer to threaten an action in order to get back lands they have parted with and for which, in nearly all cases they have received full value.