Native Land Court Judges.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 15, 14 July 1887, Page 2

Native Land Court Judges.

THE REMOVAL OF JUDGE WILSON. The following from the Napier Telegraph will be read with interest by nearly all:—Mr James Carroll's candidature for the East Coast Maori electoral district will be immensely strengthened by the recent extraordinary action of the Government in removing Judge Wilson from this district to Taranaki. The Native Lands Court has a good four months’ work in Hawke's Bay alone, and anything by which that work is hindered naturally acts as an irritant to the native mind. By his recent judgment in the Owhaoko case, Judge Wilson gave further evidence of a clear-sighted intellect, and a thorough knowledge of Maori custom. And so strongly has he impressed the natives by his fearless and impartial decisions that his presence here was accepted as an earnest of the intention of the Government to get through the work of the Court. And we may here remark that it has not been every Judge of the Native Lands Courts who has inspired complete confidence in the minds of the Maoris, for it is not every man who has had the opportunities of acquiring a through knowledge of native history. In the Owhaoko ease, even the principal claimant who was dispossessed— Kenata Kawepo—has, we understand, expressed his complete satisfaction with the judgment. That is to say, he acknowledges the justice of the decision, and though, perhaps, he may feel a little disappointment at his claim being wholly disallowed, he is not going to cry over a judgment that is based on grounds that he himself cannot dispute. Renata knows, as well as we tell him, that it is for natives to put in claims to ownership of lani that will stand very little close enquiry into, and which may be bettCU described as “ iry-ons ” When such claims are allowed, as they often are through bounce and liberality on the claimants’ part, and indifference and good nature on the other side; the real owners suffer. It is generally those who have the least cause to complaitl at a judgment who make the loudest outcry when they find that neither bounce not liberality has won for them the sympathy of their fellows when their claims are disallowed. If we mistake not, however, Renata is one of those grand old chiefs who, well knowing the altitude of his position, would scorn to show any of tbe littleness of petulance at any adverse decision. He is not one who claims an ownership in land here, there, and everywhere, in order to show that he is a real chief. He has his lands acquired by conquest, ancestry, and occupation and he wants no more. They are his proud possessions, and the time has gone by when by war one tribe would drive another off its land. We do not think Renata is the mao to make use of the modern weapons supplied by our civilisation to seize what does not belong to him. Timo was, and not so distant either, when the greed for money, and the things that money could buy, urged the petty chiefs of Hawke’s Bay to sell or mortgage every acre they could lay claim to. In those days the greatest enemies of the natives were their own chiefs, who, in the lust for wealth, parted with their lands wholesale, and pa after pa disappeared from the face of the country. Where now are Waipureku, Pakowhai, Karumu, and many other large and flourishing native settlements on these plains? There was plenty of land and to spare for both the Maori and the pakeha, but where is the Maori gone ? He is gone because his chiefs did not protect him. A drunken debauch was about all the Maori people had out of the sale of their tribal lands, while the half-dozen chiefs rolled in comparative wealth, mimicking the luxurious living of the Europeans. A true chief is he who preserves his own as well as his people’s rights, and it speaks well for Renata that he still lives surrounded by those who are proud to acknowledge him as their head.