TOOK THE ROOF OFF.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16663, 17 February 1925, Page 7

TOOK THE ROOF OFF.

TARANAKI LAND DISPUTE. NATIVES AND A PAKEHA. An extraordinary occurrence' took place last week at G'iiawe Beach, near liawera. For some time past there lias been a Tued between a section of the natives and a white man over tho proprietorship of the laud upon which the pakeha had built his house. Early in the day the natives began to gather, and from their koreros it was evident that something unusual was in the wind. Some of the natives were in favor of allowing the white man another oppor-tunity-to vacate the, land,! but,one influential old Maori, said they Had been humbugged long enough, and his log>c was generally accepted. llumors Hew around the township that the police had been sent for, and tho'atmopshere was tense with expectation. During the afternoon police were seen to arrive, and the natives were immediately galvanised into action. Upwards of a hundred Maori men, women and children, armed with a weird miscellany of weapons, such as hammers and crowbars, formed up into column of route. The crowd of holiday people gathered at the beach, stood at a respectful distance, agape with amazement, and' heads appeared at every window and door in the township. The column of natives, looking like a well-organised bodv of engineers of. some dusky army, marched off in the direction of a house on a hill overlooking tho beach. The attackers, scaled the fence surrounding the house and mounted the roof. Instantly a woman clad'in, black rushed from tho house and was seen to expostulate wildly with the police, then to jump in a motor-car, disappear up the road in a cloud of dust in the direction of Hawera. As soon as the car was out of sight tho Maoris set to work on the roof with hammer and bar, and in a very short space of time the roofing iron was entirely stripped off and piled up a hundred yards away. Later on the woman returned with an adviser, and an excited conference took place between them and the Maoris. Subsequent developments should at least prove interesting.