NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 13 July 1901, Page 2

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Our correspondent “ Zator ” in rather an amusing letter last evening, has hit upon a mode in dealing with the Native difficulty. No doubt he intended bis letter as a satire upon the present craze for municipalising acquirement, but there is a great deal of truth in his remarks. Greyraouth from being an almost valueless possession, liable to overflow at every flood and rainfall, has now risen to be a city of some importance and every year its value increases. The ratepayers and municipality are continually expending large sums of money on property over which they have not the slightest control, and not likely to have. Some years ago the subject of the Maori leases was the prime subject of agitation, but now all has died out. To be sure some relief has been afforded by a modification of “ the conditions of lease,” but still the evil remains the same—the Maori Trust will get the benefit of all the improvements without contributing one sixpence towards the improvement. To talk of syndicates, etc., purchasing the “ Maori right ” is as a matter of course an absurdity, for the Government dare not dispose of it in that direction as it would raise such an outcry that not even the present Government could resist it, but arrangements might be made by which those who made the property should be benefitted accordingly, to an extent more than covered by a 21 years’ lease, and a system of valuation instituted more in accordance with the just demands of the present honn fide occupiers of the leasehold sections.