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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 77
Proceedings in the Court of Appeal
Proceedings in the Court of Appeal
In the judgment in a recent ease before the Lords of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council—Wallis and othersv. the Solicitor-General—a direct attack has been made upon the probity of the Appeal Court of New Zealand. Though it is, I believe, unnecessary to make any reference to the criticisms of their Lordships to those who know the facts, and the Appeal Court, yet there are many who are ignorant of both, and it may therefore be expedient to refer to the attack.Protest of Chief Justice.
What the Action was About.
In 1848 there had been reserved out of a block of land ceded by certain natives to the Crown, inter alia, a parcel of land called Witireia. This the Ngatitoa tribe, by a letter dated the 16th August, 1848, addressed to His Excellency the Governor, consented should be given to the Bishop of New Zealand (Dr Selwyn) for a college. The Lieutenant-Governor accepted this consent, and on the 28th December, 1850, a Crown grant of this land was issued to the Bishop of New Zealand. The main parts of the grant are as follows:—
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"Whereas a school is about to be established at Porirua under the superintendence of the Right Reverend George Augustus, Lord Bishop of New Zealand, for the education of children of our subjects of all races, and of children of other poor and destitute persons being inhabitants of islands in the Pacific Ocean: And whereas it would promote the objects of the said institution to set apart a certain piece or parcel of land in the neighbourhood thereof for the use and towards the maintenance and support of the same, which piece or pared of land has by a deed from the natives been ceded for the support of the same school."
"To hold onto the said George Augustus Lord Bishop of New Zealand and his successors in trust nevertheless to and for the use and towards the maintenance of the said school so long as religious education, industrial training, and instruction in the English language shall be given to the youth educated therein or maintained thereat."
An attempt was made to open a school on the land soon after the grant was made, but though o schoolmaster was appointed a school was not maintained.
In 1858 an Act was passed by the General Assembly called the Bishop of New Zealand Trusts Act 1858, which enabled the Bishop to transfer to trustees any land vested in him in trust. In pursuance of this statute Bishop Selwyn, on the 24th August, 1859, transferred the Witireia land to trustees. Since that time it has been under the management of trustees.
In 1898 the trustees had accumulated £6430 from rents and the investment of rents. They asked the Government to approve of the utilisation of these funds and the future rents of the land in founding scholarships or exhibitions at church schools, with preference to Maori children, etc.
The Government refused to agree to such a proposal.
In order to get judicial sanction to the scheme, the trustees began an action in the Supreme Court, making the Solicitor-General the defendant in the action.
The Court of Appeal, before whom the action ultimately came decided that the land had reverted to the Crown, and the Privy Council overruled this decision.