MAORI LAND QUESTION

King Country Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 28, 3 May 1907, Page 3

MAORI LAND QUESTION

Some of Its Features

[by " ICahikatea."]

To begin, I, myself, am a freeholder to the back-bone, and think that leasehold is an excellent stepping stone to the freehold. When dealing for Native lands, I would like to treat t\,r a freehold title, and would gladly buy the acres I now have under lease. Then I should be free of rent paying, and know that every improvement I made was my own, or the property o1 those to whom I willed it prior to my death. But against that, let me bt what all my life I have aimed to be — honest. I-do not think it is to the best interests of either Pakeha or Maori that the remaining Native lands should be sold, either to the private individual, or the Government of this country. If it is right for the State to buy, then the private person should not be debarred. The State does not pay the price the private person will pay, but when the State sells the land to the private individual, it raises the price straight away, thus showing that it has acted in an unfair manner to (the original owner the Maori. This should not be ! The Maori, not being allowed to sell privately, but compelled to sell to the State only, is starved into subjection. This is most unfair, and some day will tell against us, as a people. Therefore I say, let no more Native lands be sold, but allow them to lease for long periods, at fair rentals. To sell all their lands is to pauperise them. They are so improvident, and will, when landless, become paupers on the Pakeha's rates and taxes. Many there are who say (and I give them credit of being honest in their opinions), " That it will be the best thing that can happen the Maori, that.they should not have any land; that they will then have to work in order to live." I am afraid that those who think and say these things, have not had very much to do with the Maori. They may think I they have, and believe they know all about the Maori, but to the closest observer he is, more or less, a sealed book. One thing alone is palpable : he is lazy ; his cry is : " Taihoa, taihoa, apopo." What is best to do with such as he ? "Will they take to farming ? They may, but the change will, I am afraid, be too sudden. The chance for them to do so, should have been given them many, many years ago, when the authority of the chiefs was broken down by (if I am right) the Act of 1874, and the people were set adrift in the same way that Czar Nicholas set the Serfs free in the fifties of last century. Up to the passing of the Act as above," the Maori was subject to rule, but when that Act was passed, he was put _ entirely 011 his own, and proved an irresponsible person ever afterwards. Had he been led in those days to break away from the pah, and go forth with his family, and fence his own piece of land, either as an agricultural or pastoral farm, he would, I believe, have done well. He was used to rule, and would be easily led, but who took interest lin him? Certainly not the Pakeha. Neither did his chiefs. They had lost all further interest in him, for he was then their equal. He could go to the Land Court, and contest titles with those who, a year or two ago, would deal death to him if he

was so presumptuous. And so tliat fine old class of Native passed away, living long enough to see hU children grow up to man and womanhood; as lazy and improvident as it was possible to be. :No, they won't make farmers! At least that is what I think. It is too late, but all the same they are a fine people, and, as such, should have the chance given them. However, it will iake a great deal to eradicate the inbred idleness of thirty-three or more years. Some think they can be regenerated in a year or two. Perhaps ! The Native Minister thinks they can be taught to sheep farm, by having their properties worked by White managers, who will teach the Natives how to work stock. This is quite a feasible scheme, providing good, honest, capable men are given the task —■ men in whom the Maori will have confidence, and to whom they can look up with respect. Men who, having passed the hey-day of youth, know how to comport themselves at all times before their pupils, and who know thoroughly their business of stock raising. But if the positions are given to " pets " of the " powers that be," then we shall see miserable failures. I have known men of the Maori race do good work, but look at them, the Pakeha blood shows strong in them. They were raised differently to the majority ; they were cared for by their European father, and educated as Whites, as far as circumstances permitted, and have turned out successes, taking to business and keeping to it. But there are not many of them; they bear a small proportion to the Maori race. I would advocate the Native being allowed to sell or lease direct to the private buyer, and the form of obtaining a title simplified, but when he sold he should not have the spending of the proceeds. All monies for lands sold, and all monies for lands leased, should be paid into a distinct account and administered for the benefit of the Maoris. The 1900 Act is a good thing in some respects. To me, it seems the Government did intend to administer the Native lands well, but when the Councils were instituted, they were not given sufficient power. They should have had the handling of the blocks, and their experts should say in what sized areas they should be divided. This was not allowed. The officials centred in Wellington, did that, with the result that the land was so cut up, and so over-surveyed, that the survey charges amounted, in some cases, to the best part of the value the Government were willing to pay for the land in purchasing it. This was not fair to the Natives. Lands worth from £l per acre upwards, have been taken under survey liens, for a few shillings per acre, thereby getting large areas under the survey mortgages or liens. Again, about the 1900 Act. The Maori did not know fully that Act or its consequence, and when he handed his land to the Board to deal with, he could not understand that the fee simple was gone from him for ever ; that he had no more control over it. But he

sees it now, and knows that he has not received adequate rents, after surveys and cost of administration are deducted. He saw lands suitable for sheep farms only, turned into dairy farms. The Maori has become, more or less, a fatalist : " What will be, will be!" He has seen his people go to the Pakeha schools, and shine there as scholars ; he has seen them return to the pah full of knowledge, and sink back to the mat; he has seen his people get into good positions, and still remain Maori; he has seen' Carroll become Native Minister ; he has seen Te Ngata, Hone Heke, Wi Pere, Henare Kaihau, Karaitiana Tomoana, Taiaroa, and others become Members to represent him in Parliament. All for what benefit to him ? Nil ! He sees another of his race traversing the country as a doctor ; he has seen others of his people ordained as Ministers of the Gospel; others, again, become lawyers ; others surveyors—all of them as capable as the Pakeha, who follow the same callings.

The Pakeha admits he is his equal in learning and intelligence, and still passes laws that denies these same men, whom I have mentioned, the private right to deal with their lands as they themselves would wish. Another part of the farce is—not to go outside the Rohe Potae —that we have men here who were considered fit and capable to sit as members of the Native Council and the Native Land Board, to inquire into the bona fides of the leases put before them. Yet these same men are bound down, not to deal with their lands as they would like, because they are Maori. Is it to be wondered at that, to most of us, the Maori is a sealed book ? With what scorn he must looifc-upon us, and with what suspicion, too. Here, let me say that we have present amongst us the Hetet's, the Ormsby's, Pepene Eketone and his son Anaru, besides many others, clever business men, and they are all debarred from dealing with their lands, in a way that would be profitable to them' Also, take Pomare, Te Ngata, H. Heke, and others who are prevented from dealing with their own lands. Why is this farce kept up ? Why are all those I have enumerated above, and why are so many more, equally intelligent, debarred from selling or leasing their lands, without all the formalities that have to be gone through ? Many have died waiting to individualise their titles. All are treated as children, not fit to care for themselves, until the Government Land Purchaser comes along ; then all are considered to be competent. If the Purchase Department thinks the Natives are competent to deal straight out with them, why not extend that right to them, to deal with private persons ? Why has the Native Lands Department become such an overgrown incubus that sits like a pall of the blackest night over the Native lands and "places bona fide settlers at a disadvantage. Thinking as they do, that they have acted in accordance with all the regulations and rules in such matters, the settlers wake up to find that some sections of the Act, under which they have taken their titles, are read differently by the officials in different centres. What is considered right in one district is wrong in another, and yet the same Act governs all. Away with such officials, and such faulty legislation. It almost makes one change his opinions, and call with the loud-voiced ones of the country: " Throw open the Native lands to private purchase, and settle the country right away, and let the Maori care for himself." The Maori is, by many, thought able to care for himself in all respects, and it is held by many that he will never be a charge on the Pakeha rates and taxes. Take the Wanganui Maori as an example. It is onfy a few months ago when this section of the Native race was foodless. The. citizens of Wanganui and other centres subscribed food for them, to keep them going until the spring and summer set in. The Government Land Purchaser went up and bought large blocks of their lands, paying them in cash. Where is that money now ? Ask the hotels, and cab owners ; ask the owners of the motor cars that ply for hire in the town ; ask the billiard saloons, but don't ask the Natives; they are as poor as ever. The same thing it going on now at Kihikihi and other places, and of all the thousands that have been recently paid, and arc now being paid to the land sellers of the Rohe Potae, I venture to say that in one short year, none will be left, either in cash or judicious purchases, in possession of the Maori. But I must stop, the subject is too far-reaching ; the phases of it are so numerous that, when one sits down to consider it, thoughts crowd each other along, and present themselves in so many guises, that, unless one forces himself to cease, he might, " like the babbling brook," go on forever.