THE NATIVE LANDS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1404, 15 March 1905, Page 2

THE NATIVE LANDS.

(Auckland Herald.)

In speaking at Raglan upon the prospects of settling the Te Akau Black, Mr Carroll, the Native Minister, very soundly urged that while the Legislature should remove all obstacles to the settlement of the large areas lying useless and unused, the Maoris ought to refieivc'the same treatment as would be meted out to Europeans. This is excellent policy—on paper. The difficulty is that the Administration of which Mr Carroll is an eloquent member, does not treat the Maori in land matters as it treats the Europeans, and most unreasonably persists in its refusal to do so. If a European holds largo areas of pastoral land needed for closer settlement, and will not cut it up himself, it is resumed by the State at a valuation, but if Maoris hold, utterly unused, great tracts of virgin soil, they are not allowed to sell it, nor will the State resume 'it from them, paying a fair price. The law at the present time aims, at the leasing of the Maori lands to Europeans, whih periodic revaluation, which is the creation of hereditary Maori pensioners, tended by a bureaucracy, to the detriment of the European settler and the demoralisation of the Maori race. If the Maori were to be treated in any way as the European his surplus lands would bo resumed by the CrowD, or he would be allowed to sell thorn himself. Then as to taxes, Maori-lands, unused and idle, not Only impede settlement by throwing die« proportionate road-work upon our settlers, but pay no rates towards these roads. The Maori should be rated like the Eurcl pean, and should have not only the same rights, but the same duties and responsibilities. The Maori lands, so far as the Maoris can use them, should be Individualised, so that the lazy will not prey upon the industrious, as they do under the existing communal system. But they should be individualised upon a freehold basis, with limitations as to power of alienation, not upon a mere modification of the present communal method, which is notoriously the great stumbling-block in the way of Maori development. The village scheme, for which Mr Grace pleads, has not had a fair trial, and already it is threatened with discontinuance. And every year makes the situation worse, in spite of the philanthropic effoits being made to educate Maori boys and girls, who in the future may eduoate. their own people to better things. The cruel paradox of the problem is that in the aggregate the Maori people, owing to their landholdings, are really very rich; but they are like entombed miners who starve amid veins of gold. We should say that were they poor it would still be the bounden duty of the colony to spare no expense in the effort to so transform their social life as to save them from the fate that awaits them un'ess energetic action is taken. As things are, it is discreditable to our colony that we should not assist them to establish themselves under the conditions advocatod by Mr Graeo, if they can' be influenced by oxamplo and exporionco to cordially join in a-great eooial rafarm.-»-N.Z.JElerald._. .