NATIVE LANDLORDS

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 387, 16 August 1911, Page 6

NATIVE LANDLORDS

WHO PAY NO RATES. \ POSSIBLE REMEDIES DISCUSSED An interesting discourse and debate i upon the native rating problem tool: 1 place on Friday afternoon at the Auck- - land Chamber of Commerce, when Mr } H. Marsland, of the Raglan County [ Council, at the invitation of the Presi- . dent of the Chamber, addressed mem--2 bers on this very important subject. - Mr Marsland first dealt briefly with i the position before the Native Land - Rating Act of IS9-I came into force. 3 Prior to that time, he said, there was i really no statute law allowing local I bodies to rate native land. Then when theActof 1594 found its way on to the statute book full rating authority wa3 - given, andt to get over the difficulty of dealing with numerous owners of the one property, provision was made - for dealing with nominated native 1 owners, in the ration of one per every *> 25 occupiers, so that wiiere 100 natives had joint interests in the one block, four nominated owners could be dealt with. The native rating trouble was not a local problem. European settlers had for years been sending up ' the value of unoccupied Maori land I purely by the:r efforts to bring about ! devlopment. Evidence of that was . forthcoming in a recent case in which ) 40 Europeans had borrowed £SOOO for I making roads. This was in 1906. A 1 large block of native land in the ■ 1 locality was then valued at 15s per 1 acre. * When the Europeans, without j any assistance from the natives, had completed their roads the Government stepped in and bought this native block at £2 per acre. When the 1894 Act first came into operation it was opined that the machinery had at last been provided for compelling the Maori owner to pay his rates, and so bear his fair share of road-making and other work. The rolls Were newly compiled, and at the end of the first year rate t notices were set out. The natives, as - heretofore, refusd to pay. In Raglan, ; Taranaki, Bay of Islands, and elsei where, legal action was taken, and judgments secured. The Act provided, however, that no judgment could be enforced without the sanction of the Minister of Native Affairs. That ■ sanction the Minister had always resolutely declined to give. Then in 1909 a conference was held in Auckland, 20 counties being present represented, and seven members of Parliament being present. At that conference a unanimous resolution was passed, asking for amended legislation. HOW LAST YEAR'S ACT FAILED. Next, said Mr Marsland, came the Rating Amendment Act of last session, which, now that it was in operation, placed the local bodies in just as unsatisfactory a positiun as ever. The Act was useless, owing to restrictions. Section 8 of the Act had the effect of making a judgment against one or

more of the nominated owners or occupiers equal, in all respects, to a judgment upon a summons or writ served upon each one of the individual owners or occupiers, and it was only reasonable to expect that the Judges of the Native Land Court would insist that a notice of such judgment be served on each of them, by the fact that it had already been entered up against them. Although there was no requirement in the Act in specfic terms chat a notice of the judgment should be served nn each of the occupiers, yet it seemed necessary that such should be done, as it was always the policy and rule of legal tribunals to demand, whenever possible, that the party proceeded against should always have knowledge of the fact. The Native Land Court would refuse to make an order until minutes of judgment had been served on every native interested. It would take month and months for a local body to loeate the owners in most blocks. To find four nominated owners in a. block owned by 100 Maoris would be easy enough, but to locate the other 96 would be an interminable proceeding. Under last year's Act, therefore, the local bodies were no better off,and the natives were still exempt from their responsibilities as landowners. When the local bodies did possess the power to rate these lands, the whole native land problem would be settled. POSSIBLE REMEDIES. In conclusion, Mr Marsland said that the only remedy, in his opinion, was to put the natives on the same footing as the Europeans, so that if they did not pay their rates the local body would have power to at once recover against their lands. If this was considered too arbitrary, then the Government should pay the rates to local bodies each year on blocks of over 500 acres, and charge the amount paid against the land with interest. Mr Pea,';oekc?: Th?n the sanction of j ■ the Minister for Native Affairs is no I : longer needed before judgment can be i < enforced? i Mr Marsland; No; the Act of \&ai session altered that. Mr Leo Myers: Have the local bodies taken a case before the Native Land Court to sec if the Act of last session wou'd fail in the way you have indicated? Mr Marsland: No: but we have obtained legal opinion, and know that it would be useless to approach the Court. Mr G. Elliott said he had made a close study of the Act of 1010, and was satisfied that Mr Maryland had stated the cause correctly. Mr L. J. Bagnall suggested that the best remedy in sight at present was to go on getting judgments against a property, year after year, so long as rates were unpaid, and then, when the property in question ultimately came to be sold, claims would have to be liquidated before transfers could be made. When the native owners realised this, and saw the liability mounting up, they would awaken to the fact that it would he best to pay I up. Mr Marsland: We iMght have i.o go ;' cu doing that for ye.ir;- and years, and : then get: no satisfactoi;. j A vote of thanks \v:-s passed to Mr j Maryland for his interacting nduves;;. j

the cr.-:> !icd, so the story goes, when one who iie.d L:t>c-:i o;;t -i in a few minutes before heart] the. tramp of heavy footsteps acn.ss the verandah and erjiniii;: into Hie kitehen. "Who's there.'.' What d'yrni want?" it was three o'clock in the morning. No answer was there," yelled one in the bunk, nearly overcrome by the suspense, "What's the matter?" Then the silence could bo felt as the two occupants of the bunk took another twist in the blankets, and recalled to mind—pretty vividly the stories they had heard concerning the Marokopa Maika track ghost who once played cards with a native on the top of Potaka hill, and chased a horseman for tivo miles a long the beach. "I wonder what it is," said one. At last he stepped into the next room and found it empty. The door was open. He walked outside. The moon was shining brilliantly, and the early morningmists covered the stump-bestrewn flats like a great gauzy white blanket. Everything close to the ground was obscured by the mist, and even the dead trees and upstanding pukatea stumps looked like so many weird spirits of the mist. The investigator stood outside, and sent a long, quavering yell echoing down the valley. A couple of horses feeding along the road struck out for the coast. Some turkeys roosting on the '.lills took up the sound with enthusiasm. The dog came around the house. "It must have been the blooming dog. He must have got inside when I went outside the first time. The door may not have been shut. It did give me a scare to hear them footsteps." It is freely opinioned that imagination coupledwith nightmare, and the temptation to tell a good story caused my narrator to describe the above circumstance.

Settleis are employed in fencing in paddocks, in preparation for the approaching busy summer season. There is some talk of securing second-hand instruments for a private telephone line through these parts.