MAORI V. PAKEHA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 453, 3 April 1912, Page 3

MAORI V. PAKEHA.

NATIVE LEASE AND OTHER THINGS. THE TE KUITI COMPLAINT. The chairman of the Te Kuiti Chamber of Commerce recently sent a letter to Sir Juseph Ward in which he stated that -'the town of Te Kuiti is progressing so fast that a water supply, sewerage, street formation, etc., have become urgent necessities," and then went on to complain. that "the native owner who has done absolutely nothing to make the town, and who paid no rates theron, will reap a large proportion of the benefit of this large expenditure." "Why should this statement be made just because the owners are natives?" asked Mr F. M. King, honorary secretary of the Land Values League in a letter to the New Zealand Herald; and, in reply to strictures on the Maori Land Board, he pointed out that the members of thy toard "are only agents for the natives," and pertinently asked "what land agent would take any step 3 to prevent local bodies spending the residents' money to increase the (unearned) unimproved value of the land?" "This same thing," added Mr King, "is done in Auckland, Remuera, Mount Albert, Mount Eden, Northcote, and Birkenhead, but there is no letter sent to Sir Joseph Ward from our Chamber of Commerce, nor would there be from the Te Kuiti Chamber if Te Kuiti were owned by white men. If the residents were to levy the rates on the unimproved value the Maoris would pay rates on those sections which were not used, and the owners of thn lands benefited by the expenditure would thereby pay back to the public some interest on the public money spent. If black landowners should not receive unearned increment, why sho Id the white speculator pocket the plunder without a murmur from any Chamber of Commerce or other orthodox organisation?"

This letter evidently hit those concerned "on the raw'"; and both Mr James Boddie, Mayor of Te Kuiti, and Mr Mostyn Jones, honorary secretary of the Te Kuiti Chamber uf Commerce, wrote indignant letters to the Herald in which both, quite unwittingly, demonstrated the truth of Mr King's contention, that if the owners of Te Kuiti were white instead of black there would have been no murmur of complaint from the Chamber of Commerce. NO QUARREL WITH THE NATIVES AS SUCH! "Let me tell Mr King," says the Mayor, "that neither the Te Kuiti Chamber of Commerce not the white ratepayers have any quarrel with the natives as such." Well, no! It would be rather absurd for them to quarrel with the natives simply because they are natives! "But," he adds, "that there is abundant need for an alteration in the nature of the tenure, so far as the native township is concerned, no sane man with the least knowledge of the facts will deny," thus showing that the quarrel is with the natives as landowners, "who have (in the words of the original letter) done absolutely nothing to make the town, and who, paying no rates thereon, will reap a large proportion of the benefit of this large (public) expenditure." With the sole exception that they do not pay a very small share of the rates that they ought to pay —£6 instead of £ll7. for instance, in a case exposed at Gisborne, in the course of the successful campaign for the rating of unimproved values in February of last year —this is exactly the position of scores upon scores of white speculators in and around all our centres of population that have not yet adopted the rating of unimproved values. Yet, as Mr King points out, the Chambers of Commerce raise no protests.

WHITE SPECULATORS AND MAORI LANDLORDS COMPARED. In fact Mr Mostyn Jones goe3 so far as to say that, "the Maori owners of township lands vested in the Maori Land Board pay no rates, unless the lands are leased, and then, of course, the lessee pays them, but the speculator pays full rates whether his speculation is paying him or not. Mr King will therefore readily understand that his remedy of rating on unimproved value doe 3 not in the least meet the case." But, surely, Mr Mostyn Jones is aware that where the lessor is a white man the lessee pays the rate", and, therefore, so far as that point is concerned there is nothing peculiar in the position of the lessee of Maori land.

Th° speculator does not ''pay full rates"; and his opposition to the rating of unimproved values is due simply to the fact that it will make him pay his fully, fair share of the rates. And, further, would point out to Mr Jones that his specualtion can only pay the speculator to the extent that he, "doing (as speculator) abso lutely nothing to make the town, and paying (little or) no rates thereon, reaps a large proportion of the benefit of this large (public) expenditure." In short his specualtion can only pay him if, and to the same extent that his position approximates to the position of the Te Kuiti Maori landowners complained of by the Te Kuiti Chamber of Commerce! The rating of unimproved land values tends to check the pakeha holding land idle, as the pakeha speculator knows right well; and if the Maori were made to pay rates on the unimproved value it would tend to prevent the Maori holding land idle. It would not absolutely "meet the case." Mr King did not pretend that it would. Nothing short of the full Single Tax can meet the case." But as Mr King pointed out, it would secure that "the owners of the land benefited by the expenditure would thereby pay back to the public some interest on the public money spent."

As to the difficulty of levying rates on the Maoris, uf which Mr Boddie and Mr Jones both make so much, that could surely be very readily met by requiring the Maori Land Board to pay the rates as trustees for the Maoris, the funds needed for that purpose to be raised by the board leasing at least as much of the land as would yield enough to pay the rates. Where there's r. will there's a way.New Zealand Times.