The Poetry Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 815, 21 June 1879, Page 2

The Poetry Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1879.

Again has the Native Lands Court adjourned its session and removed to another place* Again has the usual farce been played. Again have we been subjected to the customary mockery i We appfear to 1 be as far as over from any 'solution of the many difficulties .that have so long beset us and which seem on the increase. A writer in our columns the other day, " X.y.Z," pretlicts that the present unsettled state,pf things existing here in Native Land matters will continue until a Native Lands Court sits here continuously, for the subdivisibn 6i disunited Blocks, and he is perfectly right. In 1869, large and numerous Blocks, were passed by the Commiasion.wiucU.then sat here : and awarded to certain owners. Then and there the Court was asked to proceed to subdivision ; but the labors of the Court being extremely heavy, the applicants were told to proceed with their subdivision surveys of internal boundaries ; make written applications to the Chief Judge in Auckland ; to get the same: gazetted,' and then the Court would return to subdivide the Blocks. Immediately surveys werejemploy ed, andVery expensive surveyrwefe'matle* ; the Chief Judge was applied! inland /the applications were gazetted— but the Court came not. There was some frivolous excuse made when the time of session passed, and then there was a great talk of iudividuallization, as subdivision was then' called. The Natives were temporarily deluded ; subdivision surveys proceeded ; there was further gazetting of Courts tb sty, " and all went merry as a marriage bell." But there wa» being enacted r quite unknown to the parfciegln^sted, «- & rce which was to culminate in a tragedy. There was some little trouble sibout a form for the Crown Giants of the lands awarded by Commission. It is said that those whose duty it was to see to the drafting of the Grants, from some personal pique, or jealousy, so common amongst,; almost inseparable from, Government officials, neglected or refused, to perform their functions, and the result was that in despair an office clerk copied thefirst Grant he got hold of— by accident which made the grantees joint tenants, and entailed 4>n them and the. purchasers from them

no end of trouble, loss, and litigation. Directly the first Grant was seen, and the mistake discovered, the Native Minister was written to, the error pointed out, and he was begged in order to save wrong, and endless trouble, to prevent the issue of any othei'S, to l'ecall the grant, and have the same rectified, and to change all not yet issued to a tenancy in common. But such a reasonsble act would have been much too straightforward for the Native office. Even if a mistake Jwd been made, it would never -do to admit it. A little or a great injustice mattered nothing, although they had not the least idea as to. the difference between a tenancy in common and a joint tenancy-, or the least intention of oreating the latter. Sttch ignor- ■ ance or misadventure must not be acknowledged, and ao joint tenancy, with all its injustice and complication, was allowed to remain. If,, however, the Government had taken the earliest opportunity to send a Court or a Commission here in order to subdivide the Blocks, the matter might have been straightened out ; purchasers might have been put in possession of a piece of land entirely their own ; and the Natives would each have had his piece, which he could have dealt with without in any way injuring the rest. The consequence would have been that numerous small farms from 40 to 100 acres would have been now thriving in our midst. How many excellent settlers have endeavored to obtain such farms, but, alarmed at the nature of the title to them, and to most people incomprehensible, have invested in other ways .far less remunerative and far less beneficial to the Bay generally. We have no hesitation in asserting that had a Court sat within a reasonable time, and subdivided the lands for which application have been made to- the Native Lands Court Chief Judge, any time these ten years, the population would have been doubled,i if not trebled, and for every one holding now existing there would have been at least two, if not three. It is simply a disgrace to all parties concerned that so hollow a mockery shall continue. Public meetings have been made ; petitions sent to the Native Minister ; the County Council has passed resolutions andforwadec them to the Government \ the Chie: Judge has been almost implored to grant subdivisions] the Court has been gazetted to subdivide, and the particular cases published. The Court has come; has sat for a length of time, has tried cases more or less trivial in comparison with subdivisions ', has never even looked at the latter, and has closed its doors and gone away. Reviewing, then, till these facts we can come to no other conclusion than that the Native Lands Court Office is frightfully out of gear ; and we think that all of our readei's^ JqcaJ— s2?^ jtberwisj^jsJM agree with us all that ieifyears is rather a long time, even for the Native Lands Co\irt, to delay the hearing of an application. We think tho Government should demand an explanation of the Chief Judge, and if he cannot manage his department better, they should appoint some one who can. There can hardly be any reason why the functions of the Court and the service of the public [should be delayed.