The Crown is a party to the statute. It is difficult to see how, when rights which expressly affect pre-existing rights of the Crown are created by statute, the Crown upon the passing of the statute can disregard the rights so created, and exercise its pre-existing rights as if the statute had not been passed. EDWARDS, J.--In support of his contention that the bed of the lake cannot be the subject of a Native title under Maori customs and usages, the Solicitor-General relies upon the inherent improbability that there was any intention, either by the Treaty of Waitangi or by the statutes relating to native lands, to recognise any such right. To hold that there is such a right would be, the Solicitor-General contends, to destroy the right of navigation in all non-tidal waters to the great detriment of the public. Such considerations might well have induced those responsible for the Treaty of Waitangi to have so framed that document as to preclude any claim by natives to the exclusive possession of land covered by navigable non-tidal waters. It may even be suggested that the words of the treaty, which guarantee to the Maoris "the full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of their lands and estates, forests, fisheries, and other properties," were intended to reserve to the natives merely the right to fish in non-tidal waters, without recognising in them any property in the land covered by such waters. It is quite possible--indeed not improbable--that there never was any Maori custom or usage which recognised any greater right in land covered by navigable non-tidal waters than this. That is a question which neither the Supreme Court nor this Court can determine. If there never was any such custom or usage prior to the Treaty of Waitangi, then the Crown will get the advantage of that when that question has been determined by the Native Land Court, or in the last resort by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. But if there was such a custom or usage, the treaty, so far as it is effective, is sufficient to preserve it. The treaty, like every other instrument, must be construed in accordance with the plain legal significance of the words used, and the Courts cannot speculate as to whether or not those words were used in another sense not apparent upon the face of the instrument, or necessarily to be inferred from the subject with reference to which they are used. A lake, in contemplation of the English law, is merely land covered by water, and will pass by the description of land. _Bristow v. Cormican_ (3 A.C. 641); _Johnston v. O'Neill_ (1911, A.C. 552). Whatever rights were conserved to the Maoris by the Treaty of Waitangi were fully recognised by "The Native Lands Act, 1862," which recited the treaty, and was enacted with the declared object of giving effect to it.... In my opinion it is clear that if the Crown desires to set up its title, as a bar to the investigation by the Native Land Court in its ordinary