AN IMPORTANT QUESTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 20, 18 October 1900, Page 2

AN IMPORTANT QUESTION.

e (KB KKBSS ASSOCIATION.) WsLLnroiov, October 17, In the ease Mueller v. Taupiri Goal Mines, limited, the counsel for the plaintiff (Commissioner of Orewa Lands) argued first that the view generally taken of the common law ef England, that the drown wen entitled to the soil of riven only to tho extent they ait both navigable and tidal, and that otherwise riparian proprietors are entitled te tho soil to the middle of the water is erroneous, and that the true view is that the actual navigability was the only test, the error having arisen from the fact that rivers in England were originally navigable only so far as they were tidal. Secondly, that if the common law was otherwise, then the rule is not the law in this colony, as it is not in that form applicable to the circumstances of the colony, there being many large rivets which always were navigable further than the influence of the tidrj were felt. Thirdly, that even if aprjioable the presumption that the •'•ream to the middle is included in the grant is rebutted by the oiroumstance that the river was of importance to the public for the purposes of navigation, and oould not have been intended to be eo include!