Ownership Of Huge Slice

Maoris ’ Startling Clatm.

Of Pacific

UP to February 23 of this year no one had ever laid claim to areas of the ocean more than 300 miles off-shore.

But, on that date, an application for the hearing of a claim to the entire Moananui-a-Kiwa (or Great Ocean of Kiwa) was lodged with a Judge of the Land Court at Kaikohe, NZ. The judge granted the applica tion and the preliminary hearing was to commence at Rawene, in the north of the North Island, on March 22.

The claimants, descendants of the great Polynesian navigator Kupe, petitioned Parliament and sought ownership of the ocean several years before World War 11, but the petition was then considered frivol ous.

The present applicants are Tamati Peehikuru, his brother Te Iwa Peehikuru, and others.

Whether the matter is simply one of prestige or whether the claimants expect some material gain, will not be known until the case is stated.

Kupe’s descendants are confident that they can establish ownership by discovery.

The Great Ocean of Kiwa is a rather ill-defined area of the Pacific.

But it certainly includes the wate between Tahiti, the Cook Islam and the North Island of New Ze land.

The Land Court, in February, w checking upon whether its jurisdi tion extended beyond the New Ze land high-water mark.