EAST COAST CONSOLIDATION.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 57, 4 September 1926, Page 12

EAST COAST CONSOLIDATION.

The new Native Minister had to face this problem in the Urewera Country and on the East Coast, Poverty Bay. He decided without hesitation to tackle it, and in the Urewera Country created an organisation, which in one month formulated a scheme covering 650,000 acres of land. On the East Coast the Waipiro, Tuparoa, and Waiapu Consolidated Schemes, the first completed and the other two nearing completion, were also put; in hand. The interests purchased by the Crown were consolidated into areas, that the Lands Department could handle, subdivide, and offer for ■election, while the non-sellers received titles to! surveyed areas on which finance could be arranged. Incidentally, the latter consolidation schemes provided for the settlement of outstanding Native rates. In , the Urewera Country it was no fault of the Native Department that the great bulk of the lands have been found unsuitable for settlement. A feature of the Urewera Consolidation Scheme was the acquisition by the Crown of the whole of the watershed round Lake Waikaremoana for water conservation and forestry purposes. Schemes embracing the Euatoki blocks, 20,000 acres, where the Native owners have been cultivating and dairying for many years, and the whole of thi Native-owned lands in the Eotorua district have been authorised, and are in the preliminary stages. When these are completed Mr. Coates will have cloared, up difficulties affecting nearly * million acres of Native land. Consolidation of intorests as a policy was promulgated in the Native Land Act, 1909, a fine conception of the Carroll regime. Its most vigorous prosecution .is taking place under Mr. Coates, who recognises that in districts where the circumstances are favourable there is no surer and better way of solving all outstanding problems relating to titles, rates, and settlement. The Crown and European settlers who wish to aggregate their purchises or to reshape • their holdings contiguous to Native lands on proper fencing boundaries find it to their advantage to take part in these schemes, and through them to derive title by orders pf the Native Land Court.