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payable, and upon ascertainment of the said sums this Court shall, if necessary, make such order for payment thereof respectively as shall be required in the premises. 17 It is further ordered and decreed that the cost of boundary-fencing between the said freehold and leasehold lands of the said Charles Seymour and the lands of the said Maori owners shall be borne equally between the said Charles Seymour and his assigns and the said Maori owners and their assigns. 18. And it is hereby declared that upon due ascertainment by this Court of the said relative interests and ownership in the said 16,950 acres, and upon the making of the said several reports, if required of the said Eegistrar upon the said matters referred to him as aforesaid, and upon the decision of the Court upon the matters so referred, this Court shall from time to time make such other and further decree or decrees in the premises as shall be just, and meantime all matters in difference between any of the parties interested in this Whangara Block, now before the Court, and not decided by this decree, shall be deemed open for future decision upon further evidence, to be adduced by any person claiming to be interested in the premises. 19. It is further declared and decreed that the said Charles Seymour has no claim for the costs due and owing to him against the Natives of the Whangara Block in any past proceedings before other Courts, and that the said Natives have no claim for costs against the said Charles Seymour due in any of the proceedings before any other Courts. 20. And it is further declared and decreed that, except as is shown or otherwise provided for by this decree, no party to these proceedings, whether applicant or objectors, has or have any right, interest, claim, or demand whatsoever against the other or others of them in respect of the matters in difference in the premises, or arising out of any part of same. Leave is hereby reserved for all parties to move this Court for any further order or decree in the premises which they or any of them may consider themselves entitled to. Witness the hand of his Honour George Elliott Barton, Esquire, Judge, and the seal of the said Validation Court, this 6th day of September, 1894. G. E. Baeton, Judge.

PANIKAU No. 1 BLOCK. In the Validation Court at Gisborne. In the application of Edward Murphy, of Te Aeai, sheepfarmer, claiming validation of ten contracts for the sale of the freehold in certain undivided shares and interests of Natives in Panikau No. 1 Block. Tuesday, the 4th Day of September, 1894. Upon reading the application filed herein, and upon due proof of service thereof upon the objectors named in the said application, and upon reading the documents exhibited and hearing the evidence adduced before the Court, and upon hearing Mr de Lautour, of counsel for the applicant, and there being no objector present or represented, the Court doth hereby order, declare, and decree as follows: — 1. It is declared that the several contracts made by the following Native owners in the said Panikau No. 1 Block, —that is to say, Eopata Taita, Kateinia Wairoro, Emi Miria Pu, Hoana Angina, Peta Kahure, Hataraka Temepara, Hare Noanoa, Emere Ngahue, Huhana Whakarau, and Henare Euru, —for the sale of their respective freehold interests in the said Panikau No. 1 Block, are contracts invalid and incapable of being enforced without the assistance of this honourable Court, by reason of their having been respectively made not in accordance with the requirements of the statutes then in force (but now repealed) regulating the sales of the said interests in the said block. 2. It .is further declared that the said several contracts are contracts which, irrespective of form, had they been made between Europeans concerning lands held under Crown grant would have been valid and binding contracts, capable of being enforced in the Supreme Court. 3. It is further declared that the said contracts were not in any respect contrary to equity and good conscience. 4. It is further declared that the said several contracts were fully and perfectly understood at the time they were entered into by the contracting parties, and were fair contracts for reasonably sufficient and lawful considerations at the time and under the circumstances under which they were made. 5. It is hereby ordered and declared that the said applicant, Edward Murphy, is entitled to an estate in fee-simple in possession, free from encumbrances, in a block of 1,160 acres 3 roods, more or less, part of the said Panikau No. 1 Block, situated in Blocks I. and 11., Whangara Survey District, and in Blocks XIII. and XIV., Uawa Survey District, to be hereafter known as Panikau No. Ib, being all that parcel awarded by the Native Land Court of New Zealand, on or about the 3rd day of February, 1887 (on a division then made between sellers and non-sellers), to the several Native persons the said sellers, whose sales to the applicant are hereby validated, and being that parcel known as Panikau No. Ib, containing 1,160 acres 3 roods, as the same is more particularly delineated on Plan No. 356, deposited in the District Survey Office, Gisborne, and which said parcel of land is shown on the plan endorsed hereon, and thereon edged with red lines, to hold the said parcel of land to the said applicant, his heirs and assigns, absolutely 6. It is further ordered and decreed that all other titles to the said parcel of land known as Panikau No. 1b above particularly described shall henceforth be void and of none effect in so far as they affect the said Panikau No. 1b Block, whether the same titles be now vested in the said applicant or in any other person whomsoever , and that the registration of all the said other titles shall be cancelled and of none effect in so far as regards the said Panikau No. 1b Block. Witness the hand of his Honour George Elliott Barton, Esquire, Judge, and the seal of the said Validation Court. G. E. Baeton, Judge.