NATIVE LAND RESERVE

Southland Times, Issue 17786, 15 July 1916, Page 5

NATIVE LAND RESERVE

REPORT •OF WAIAU COMMISSION. <Special to the Times). WELLINGTON, July 13. The report of the Commission of Inquiry held by Judges McCormick and Rawson, of the Native Land Court, into a claim made by certain natives to an area of land on the west bank of the Waiau River, Southland, has been presented to Parliament by the Minister for Native Affairs, Hon. W. H. Henries. After reviewing- the evidence the Commission answers the enquiries in the Commission as follows. — (1 and 2) The award made at Dunedin by Judge Fenton on May 26, 1868, as recorded on page 59 of the South Island Minute Book IA, has been satisfied by the substitution of an award for land at Tautuku. A note at the bottom of page 245, voL 2, of Mackay’s compendium, says:—“ The land is situated in the Tautuku district, bounded towards the north 9000 links or thereabouts by Crown land; towards the east by a road reserve along the banks of the Tautuku river; towards the south by the sea; and towards the west partly by the sea and partly by Crown land so as to include one thousand acres.” We would note, however, that in a letter dated May 16, 1911, from the Chief Surveyor, Dunedin, to the Registrar of the Native Land Court at Wellington, enclosing a lithographed plan of Tautuku, it was stated that the land was subdivided into sections in 1896 and that the block, exclusive of reserves made by the Surveyor, contains 1021 acres 1 rood 27 poles, not including roads already surveyed. This letter and plan are attached to the Native Land Court file for Tautuku Otago—3l. (3) The award or authority for the grant of the block of land known as the Tautuku native reserve appears to us to be an order of the Native Land Court at Dunedin on May 28, 1868, under the jurisdiction conferred by an order of reference made under the 83rd section of the “Native Land Act, T865” as validated by the “Ngaltahu Reference Validation Act, 1868.” We have been unable to find any such order in the minute books of the Native Land Court, but have inferred the existence of such an order from the frequent references to a reserve at Tautuku contained in the reports of the Court referred to beretaFull details of this order are given in the return on page 245, volume 3, Maokay’s Compendium, and the note at the bottom thereof. (4) ' The land situated on the west bank of the Waiau River was not withheld from sale by reason of any award of the Native Land Court, hut in accordance with instructions contained in letters dated June 28, 1892, from Wm. A Barron, of the Surveyor-General’s office, Wellington, to the Commisisloner of Crown Lands, Invercargill, to mark off this land as specially set aside for native and half-caste claims and not to deal with it In any other way pending further instructions.”