The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1882.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3527, 27 October 1882, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1882.

It is reported at Auckland that Judge Fenton retires at the end of the month, and will become the agent for the London and New Zealand Native Land Company. We referred last week to the formation of this company, that has for its object the settlement of the native difficulty and the acquisition of large profits ; a company that proposes, as a mere matter of course, to buy up ten millions of acres of land from the natives at 8s per acre, and to sell at 40s; a company that, while deploring the existence of wicked and unscrupulous land sharks who have robbed the poor Maori, proposes to strip the natives of ten millions out of their sole remaining fifteen millions of acres, and at a price that no land shark would have the impertinence to offer. For it is not poor land that thia righteous company is going to buy: it is the richest tracts of the Kiogeountry into which they hope to send their agents, and of which they hope to despoil the Maoris at 8s an acre. Amongst the promoters of this God and Mammon Company we notice three bishops, and, of course, Lord Shaftesbury throWß the mantle of sanctity over the whole scheme. The London Daily News of September 4, in a leading article, says:—"lt is not generally known in this country how large the Maori land question is. The Maoris themselves are a mere remnant of the aboriginal population of the islands. They were reckoned at about 140,000 when the colony was young; but the decrease for more than twenty years has been very rapid, though it is now believed to have been arrested. Their numbers at the last census were 44,000, and that is believed to be an increase on the return in 1858. Theae 44,000 people, of whom more than 40,000 live in the North Island, own between them some 15,000,000 acres of land. Aβ the colony increases in population, this land comes more and more into the market. It ie bought by " land sharks," who cheat or cnjole the Maoris in the purchase : while the small price they are paid for it is quickly spent, and tbe poor people find themselves landless and in want. There are endless difficulties in showing the title of individuals among them to lands which belong to their tribe as a whole, and the soil is often sold io large blocks at a nominal price, a great part of which is eaten up in expenses. The chiefs have tried to meet this difficulty by a combination not to sell any land, and their refusal which is only partly carried out, is at the bottom of the late quarrel between the colonists and Te Whiti. This policy of isolation and refusal to part with the land cannot be maintained. The poor Maoris want to sell, and the rich colonists want to buy; and it is impossible to step in between the two and stop the bargain. We believe that the chiefs who have been in this country see that isolation cannot possibly be kept up, and that they are going back with a scheme in their hands for regulating a movement which cannot be hindered, and for securing to the natives the benefit they ought to derive from the sales. We believe that this scheme took shape at two meetings which were held in the Conference Koom of the House of Commons towards the close of tbe session. It has been accepted by the three chiefs, and has the support io the House of Commons of

Mr Mundella, Mr Alderman Fowler, Mr Alderman McArthur, and other me tubers, a« well as of Lord Shaftesbury, the Bishops ol London, of Liverpool and of St. Asaph, Canon Liddon, who accompanied the three chiefs on their visit to the Prince of Wales, and the Deans of Canterbury and Peterborough. The scheme is to form an agency or association to buy ten million acres of land from the natives; and to invest the prime value, which is reckoned at eight shillings an acre, in permanent inalienable annuities, to be granted by the Government of New Zealand, in favour of the individual owners of the land and their heirs as long as they have any. The land thus bought would be sold to settlers at an enhanced price, rising to forty shillings an acre." The above places the whole scope of the scheme in a nutshell. That which is so difficult to do by coloniate, and which when done by them is only the result of greed and wickedness, is the easiest thing in the world for a sanctified company to do, and when done is a holy, righteous, and most profitable transaction.