NATIVE LAND’S COURT.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 32, 12 August 1867, Page 3

NATIVE LAND’S COURT.

Greytown during the greater part of the present week has been crowded with maories from different parts of the district who either have an interest or take ■an interest, in the present sittings of the above Court. Owing to the absence on Thursday of two principal native assessors Wi Tako and Heme Te Miha, and the non-receipt from some of the surveyors of the necessary plans and documents, but little progress lias been made at present in any of the numerous cases set down for hearing. We cannot too forcibly impress upon the authorities, General and Provincial, the policy of •removing all removable obstructions to the successful operation of the Act which we again repeat, if carried out in good faith must prove alike beneficial to tbe natives and settlers of tbe valley. There is danger that the Court may prove a Court of Chancery as in the days of the “ Bleak House,” and not as the Court of Chancery which now happilv exists in England". While hasty and inconsiderate adjudications are to he deprecated, the Court ’may err in the opposite direction.

Friday, August 9. Judge, T. H. Smith; Assessors, Ihaia Whakamairn, Manihera llangitakaiwaho; James Hamlin, Interpreter. 11. S. "WardeH, Esq., acted as counsel on behalf of the Crown. The Court opened at 12 o’clock, and after a claim had been read over, the court adjourned, to give the natives time to agree which claim would be called first. The Court resumed its duties at 3 o’clock, and the first called was Wi |Waka's. The Mairiri Kauf eka after hearing the evidence of Wi Waka, hakas and the surveyors, the [Court then asked if any one opposed the claim of Wi Waka, when two or three came forward, and objected because their names had been left out of the crown grant, and because some of the land included in the boundaries named by Wi Waka was not his, The case was then adjourned until to-morrow.