LATEST FEOM MANAWATU.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXI, Issue 2492, 14 March 1867, Page 4

LATEST FEOM MANAWATU.

Mr Bulleii, E.M., arrived in town by Cobb's coach on Tuesday evening, having left Pukctotara the previous day. There is no truth in the rumor that the natives had stopped the survey of the .reserve. It is true that Parakaia and his friends, to the number of fifteen or twenty, were on the ground during the whole of the time, and endeavored to interrupt tho work by knocking down the surveyors' Jlagpoles, snatching away their billhooks as opportunity offered, and attempting to smoke them out by , firing theferii ridges. They stated that they were .doing this under legal advice, by way -of protest, in order to keep alive their alleged claim to the ceded land ; and in justification of their conduct, they prdduced a letter from Mr Rolleston, the Under Native Secretary, (dated January 26), stating that Dr Eeatherston would be requested not immediately to commence any survey there. Neither party lost temper for a moment, the Bangitane men who were cutting the lines understanding clearly that the act was simply one of protest, and that no actual resistance to the survey was intended. The work went rapidly on, and at the end of a week the boundary lines had all been cut. The reserve is quadrangular in shape, with a- frontage to the Manawatu and Oroua rivers, and contains one thousand acres. On the completion of the survey, Mr Stewart, the Chief Surveyor, prepared a plan of it, and on Monday the llangiiane were left in quiet possession of the reserve, Mr Buller and the Ngatiraukawa opponeuts coming away together. The statement which appeared m our contemporary, that the B-angitane and Ngatiraukawa carried tho work on conjointly, is only correct in this sense, that two Ngatiraukawa men, who have no interest in the land, and who belong to the Survey Department, were put on this work by Mr Stewart to assist the Rangitanc, who were not in the pay of the Government. Mr Buller and Mr Stewart remained on the ground till the work was finished.

We miderstand that the survey of the other reserves will be immediately proceeded with, those for the Ngatiapa being defined first, and afterwards those for the Ngatiraukawa.