King Country Chronicle Saturday, September 10, 1910 WANTED: A SANE NATIVE POLICY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 293, 10 September 1910, Page 4

King Country Chronicle Saturday, September 10, 1910 WANTED: A SANE NATIVE POLICY.

The annual contribution towards our insane native legislation this year has already roused the long-sufl'ering residents of native townships to emphatic protests, and it seems likely to direct more searching attention than usual towards the greatest question our legislators have to face. Unfortunately this seems to be the only benefit destined to accrue from the passing of this year's Native Townships Bill. The chief features of the measure have already been dealt with, and the people most vitally interested are united in proclaiming the Bill a retrograde step. Unfortunately our legislators evidently think differently, or at least act as if they did. In discussing the measure much twaddle \va3 uttered, and the obvious conclusion forced upon us is that but a small percentage of our representatives have any real grasp of the Native problem. It suits toe Native Minister and his following to toy with the fringe of the question, as each year of delay means something gained for some of his people at the expense of the general public. That it is also at the expense of the genera! body of his people Mr Carroll is apparently too short sighted to discern. For years past the Maori has been suffering from too much coddling and as an inevitable result signs of race deterioration are apparent to the most ■ casual observer. Session after session, longing, anxious eyes are turned , towards Parliament by those affected I by the native question, and each session sees hope get less and less, until at length the puerile attempts cf our representatives to handle the most im- ; portant question in Dominion politics ; gives rise to nothing but contempt. The only people in Parliament who appear to understand the situation are ■ the Native Minister, and native members, and it is a tribute to Maori brain j power that these gentlemen are able | to make the majority of European j

members dance to Maori fiddling. Nothing outside the realms of comic opera could be more grotesque than the spectacle of well-meaning pakeha members endeavouring to discuss the measures annually presented to them by Mr Carroll. When the Native Minister visits a centre where the question is understood from the European point of view he is careful not to indulge in flowery rhetoric or vague generalities. On the occasion of his visit to the King Country, in the capacity of Acting-Premier, he was presented with a straight-forward, businesslike aspect of the question. His reply to obviously reasonable requests was direct and unconditional, and included the highly important pledge that provision would immediately be made for bringing native lands under the provisions of the Kating Act. How that pledge has been redeemed is known only too well to our settlers. Other pledges have met a like fate, and instead of statesmanlike action towards solving the problem, Mr Carroll takes refuge in a paltry side issue, and placidly presents Parliament with something which makes our position rather worse than it was before. That the ridiculous and inadequate measure is accepted as the product of genius is but added proof of the ineptitude of the majority of members, and of the galling unconcern of our political leaders. But a change is fast approaching, and it needs no Daniel-like vision to read the writing on the wall. Time was when the political situation was dominated by the southern members; when the native townships were but dots on the map, and when the votes recorded in native districts were hardly worth the counting. The native districts are fast becoming populated with Europeans, and are assisting to swell the rapidly increasing northern majority in Parliament. It is unfortunately true that even the northern members, accustomed to regard the native problem as a bogey to be shunned, have consistently fought shy of the issue. But the question, by reason of its growing magnitude and importance, is forcing itself, and it is not too much to hope that the occasion will produce the man, big enough in heart and brain, to demand in the public interest, and secure by the public voice, finality to a situation which is, however regarded, inimical to the public welfare. A colossus is not required to fill the breach; the mere application of common sense to the subject, and the realisation of the importance to the Dominion of a definite policy on the question should inspire our politicians to at least agree as to a settled objective. Dominion lands should be ' made productive to the last acre, 1 irrespective of ownership, European i and Maori. Dominion citizens, parJ takers of her benefits, sharers in her i prosperity and in her adversity

; should be made equal under laws. I Thus only is the Maori destined to become his own man, and to help j intelligently to attain for the Do- ! minion the bright destiny which we ] fondly hope is to crown tho efforts j of patriotic New Zoalanders. The j insurmounttable difiiculties which, i according to Mr Carroll, bestrew the j path of native legislation, and con- , strain him to seek refuge in procrasi tination are vaguely referred to as . hardships and iniquities, while com- ■ plex and intricate problems are popularly held to stud the fence which has '. been erected round the question by the Native Minister and his friends. Such i are the convenient bogeys that are ; utilised to scare off uninterested politicians, and others who are only too [ willing to escape anything which requires independent thought, and spells responsible action. From time immemorial, when laws were first made by progressive people, the same arguments have been in existence, but surely they have never been used with such effect as in the case under review. The spectacle of a body of civilised legislators being toyed with, and held in check, by one or two members of a race which little more than a half century since was in the deepest depths of barbarism, is surely unique in the history of civilisation. Presumably the moral responsibility of the pakeha to the Maori, so glibly referred to by surface theorists, is the dominating sentiment which contributes to such a ludicrous effect, and apparently the average politician is content to admit such responsibility, and accept Mr Carroll's suggestion as to tho best method of fulfilling it. How long, O Lord! How long? Apparently the idea has never occurred to our legislators that cases of hardship, and iniquities, have been created by the enacting of all laws of more than passing importance. In like manner the knowledge has evidently never reached them that cases of hardship, and iniquities, are occurring every day to both Europeans, and Maoris, by reason of Mr Carroll's unquestioned domination of the situation. It is regrettable that our Parliament lacks men with knowledge enough, or courage enough, to probe to the core Mr Carroll's bogeys and balance the result with the hardships and inequities on

the other side of the question. To a conscientious and judicial mind, there would be little doubt of the result. The interests of the Dominion as a whole—a phrase beloved of the Prime Minister —demand that finality shall be given to the question, and finality will never be reached while the administration of the Native Department is left in the present hands. We hold no special brief against Mr Carroll, against any political party. The responsibility of the present ridiculous state of things rests with our Parliament as a whole, which is apparently too much engrossed with fighting party battles to give due and reasonable attention to the greatest question which figures in the domestic economy of our country. Well may the residents of our native townships, and of our native rural districts exclaim with the afflicted prophet of old: "How long, OLord! How long?"