APPEAL COURT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13484, 25 July 1907, Page 5

APPEAL COURT.

TE AKAU NATIVE LAND CASE

Per Press Association.

WELLINGTON, July 24. Continuing his argument in the Te Akau case, Mr. Morison contended that section 26 of the Maori Land Claims and Laws Amendment Act, 1906, had been passed on a wrong assumption of law by the Legislature, and was therefore a dead letter. He claimed that the issue of a Crown grant for land had extinguished all tribal, or hapu boundaries, and all Native customary title, and that, therefore, in referring the question of tribal boundaries the Native Appellate Court, the Legislature had wrongly assumed that these boundaries still existed. That, being so, it was the duty of the Appellate Court to decide that tribal boundaries no longer existed. The Appellate Court had decided that tribal boundaries were still in existence. This decision was in excess of the jurisdiction in respect of which the writ of prohibition was claimed;

Mr. Earl then addressed the' Court, contending that, after the taking of the Te Akau block and the consequent extinguishment of the Native customary title, there was no abandonment of the land by the Crown under the New Zealand' Settlements Amendment and .Continuance Act, 1865, and "tna*C therefore, the block remained Crown land.' The part of the block returned to the loyal Natives was given as compensation, and was not an abandonment of the land. It might have been given out of any other block, and it was a coincidence that it was a part of the same block. It was plainly Crown land that was given to the loyal Natives, and all tribal boundary lines had gone. After Mr. H. D. Bell, K.C., had replied, the Court intimated that it would give judgment on Friday morning^