THE GREAT QUESTION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 12, 11 January 1907, Page 3

THE GREAT QUESTION.

Native Lands in the Rohe Potae. The question of the hour, as far as Rohe Potae is concerned, is, undoubtedly, that of Native lands. Of course it has a far wider reaching influence, and mere intimately concerns the ultimate prosperity, and future of the colony, and of the North Island, in particular, than the great majority imagine. Probably no question of moment is so little understood, or is viewed with" so little interest by the great mass of people. Smug politicians shrug their shoulders, and hold up a deprecating hand when the~subject is mentioned ; townsmen simply don't know anything of it, and the fact that so many million acres in the North Island are Native-owned, and restricted, means less to them, than catching the 5 o'clock tram for the suburbs. At election time, whenever the matter is alluded to, it is disposed of, where possible, with a few glib sentences, and an illusion to -- the Treaty of Waitangi, which is as well understood by both orator and audience, as sanskrit. For the settlers within the Rohe Potae, however, there "is no escaping the question. _ It is ever with them, and, under existing conditions, faces them in all directions with sinister, menacing aspect. This is no reproach to the Maori, or to the land. Simply, the fact is that, under existing conditions, the Maori-owned land is cramping industry and enterprize, both public and private, and staying progress in every direction. Moreover, it is not only staying the progress of the district, but of the province, and, in a wider sense, of the colony. Of these facts, some are cognizant, still they will bear reiteration, if, by that means, the townspeople and politicians can be awakened to a sense of what is being lost to the country,,by reason of their own apathy and ignorance. _ In dealing with the question, as it affects the King Country, it may be stated that, roughly, there are about three million acres of land within its borders. Of this, about a million and a-half acres are Native-owned, including the majority of the townships, and lands abutting the railway and main roads. The Crown lands, which have been settled, are, for the most part, situated a long distance back from the railway, and access is obtained thereto by roads, traversing Native lands, which are not rateable.

The County Councils are unable to derive any revenue from the restricted lands, as it has been held that these, not being saleable, have no market value, and cannot be assessed for rates. Occupiers of sections adjoining Native lands have also to bear the cost of all boundary fences. Nominally, the Native owner is liable to pay his share of the cost, but it has been found that to enforce the Fencing Act is practically impossible. If the Pakeha attempted to do so, the cost of the proceedings would be as great as the cost of the fence, and there would be no security of getting the money at the finish. In consequence, the Act is practically a dead letter, and great would be the temerity of the settler, and unbounded the confidence in the power of the law, of him who endeavoured to enforce it. The roads thus remain quagmires in winter, and apparently will do so until strong, united action is taken to alter the condition of affairs. The Native lands at present are little more than breeding grounds for noxious weeds and rabbits, and the unfortunate settler is helpless to cope with the evil, which is constantly growing, despite the efforts of the Department of Agriculture to cope with it. The officers of the Department know; the settlers know; even the Maoris know, that the only thing which will effectually deal with this double curse is quick and close settlement. Still the conditions remain unaltered. Desperately the settler clings to his holding under these, and other disabilities, while the question is discussed in the abstract by people who have glimmerings of, and possible aspirations to statesmanship, and flung aside by parochial politicians, whose horizon is limited to their own constituencies. And the lot of the settler is as hard as ever. Nay even worse, for the pfests increase, the roads become worse, improvements have to be made on the sections, and the settler finds it impossible to get any decent return, in some cases not enongh to pay his store bill, and is mcney out of pocket instead of prospering. Within the Rohe Potae, during the last four years, the Natives have been given the right to lease their lands to Europeans, and a number of deals have been completed, while a still greater number have been hung up for various reasons. This sj r stem, however, as it stands, is, to say the least, entirely unsatisfactory to both parties. As far as the Pakeha is concerned, he is faced with the contract of securing the consent of all parties interested in the block, and anyone conversant with Native characteristics knows what a precarious proceeding that usually is. Such a work commonly means a large expenditure of both time and money. When signatures have ibeen obtained, there is more tedious waiting until surveys are approved, the application passed, or other legal technicalities complied with. Happy indeed is the man who gets his lease through without a hitch. After all his labour, the settler has only become possessed of a title much less satisfactory than the lease proposed by Mr McNab in his Land Bill. The work of the Pakeha is hampered by the process of administration, and by the many new clauses and amendments introduced into the Native land laws each session, and each year sees greater difficulties in the way of getting the land settled. Better for the settler, better for the Maori, and infinitely better for the country in general, would it have been had the land remained locked up, until some comprehensive scheme had be&n adopted for dealing with it, and • decent main roads had been made and metalled through the country. However, conditions being as they are we have to treat with them as tjiey exist, and in future articles we shall further deal with the matter from both the settlers' and the Maoris' standpoint,