WANGANUI NATIVES GET NOTHING FROM BIG WAIKATO GRANT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 94, 24 April 1946, Page 4

WANGANUI NATIVES GET NOTHING FROM BIG WAIKATO GRANT

CLAIM FOR WANGANUI RIVER UNDECIDED Wanganui Mauris have no financial interest in the grant in perpetuity being made to the Waikato tribes, and announced by the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, at a large gathering of Maoris at Ngaruawahia at the week-end. The grant, which will be £6OOO annually for 50 years, and thereafter 15000. is in settlement of a long-stand-inh claim for compensation for native iands confiscated during the Maori wars.

The claim has been the subject of negotiation and investigation for many years, and the present grant is the result of the ultimate findings of a commission set up in 1927 to go into the question. With the announcement of the grant to the Waikato Maoris, and the settlement tor £300,000 of the claims of the South Island tribes, the major native claims in this category have now been met. The claim of the Wanganui Maoris, to title to the bed of the Wanganui River, which would involve payments running into several hundred thousand pounds at least if it is ultimately sustamed, is still the subject of lengthy legal argument and court action. The Native Appellate Court ultimately found in favour of the Maoris on the question of their right to ownership of tne bed of the Wanganui River under tribal law and custom, but the Crown is taking the master further, and the case will probably come next before the Appeal Court of the Supreme Court. Nothing has been heard of it, however, for some months. Involved in. this claim are numerous waterway rights for which shipping interests, the Harbour Board, and possibly the City Council, would be called on to nay compensation should the case ultimately go in favour of the Maoris. ,Vhen the claim was decided by the Native Appellate Court in favour of the Maoris a suggestion was made that they would make a percentage of the compensation received available for port improvements. In the other Question, raised at the meeting of tribes at Ngaruawahia at the week-end, the request that the Government should give statutory recognition to King Koroki, as titular head of the Wanganui race. Wanganui Y Maoris have only an academic inter- ' est. Tribal representatives who were present at Ngaruawahia did, however, subscribe to the statement repudiating the claim made oi behalf of King Kot or.i.