A QUAINT PETITION.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 15314, 15 August 1923, Page 6

A QUAINT PETITION.

KAWHIA NATIVES' REQUEST.

FOR PROHIBITION OF NETTING

IN HARBOUR LIMITS.

The following petition was read in Parliament the other evening by the chairman of the Native Affairs Committee, Mr J. A. Young, who stated that the Committee had no recommendation to make. The petition is quaintly worded::— "To the honourable speaker and the honourable members of the House of Representatives of the Dominion of Now Zealand in Parliament assembled: Greeting.

"We your petitioners, aboriginal natives of New Zealand residing at Kawhia, in the provincial district of Auckland, humbly pray that —-(1) The Europeans be prohibited from netting fish in the Kawhia Harbour for the purpose of marketing same; (2) they select those fish which are suitable for the market and discard the sharks and stingray, which they leave on the shore to dry. Let it be understood that these are delicacies with the Maori race, and that they have been so from the days of our ancestors even to the present; (3) the Maoris fish for sharks and sting-rays in summer time, for in the winter they are allowed to spawn. We are therefore afraid that if the netting in the harbour continues it might considerably reduce our supplies of sharks and stingrays, for the Maoris consider them delicacies of the first order; (4) wo are desirous that the netting be confined to the ocean; (5) our petition to prohibit them has been brought by the desire to protect our exclusive rights to our fishing reserves. Enough. Good health to the Speaker and the Hon. Members under the blessing of the All Highest. Enough."