In Kawhia County.

Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 309, 26 April 1907, Page 3

In Kawhia County.

THE BLACK BLOT. HOW THE DISTRICT IS HELD BACK. The following article ia by the special reporter of (he Auckland Heira'd, and is re published ns it appeared (in accuracies included) : To-day Kawnia is a lonely outpost of civilisation. Some day possibly it will be one of the greatest centres of the province of Auckland outside the city.. At the moment of writing I have just come through with the Minister for Lan'L, uiid he han expressed the opinion that nowhere else in the whole colony is there such a vast unbroken stretch of country 30 eminently suited for close settlement as the lauds surrounding Kawhia and Aotea Harbours. To begin with, Kawhia township is a sort of “off the map” one-horse village, with a crazy sort of wbarf, a store or two aud a hotel. Behind it and all around its harbour and all around Aotea Harbour is beautiful rich land, lying idle. The deep, dark shadow of “Taihoa” broods over these great valleys aud bills for the country is the real King Country native land, the greatest, widest, black blot the map of the North Island has io show. Kawhia has a splendid harbour, with 80ft. of water on the bar at high tide, but to show just one instance of the anomalies the residents have to suffer under it is interesting to note that the freight on goods from Onehunga is 17s 6d per ton while to Waitara it varies from 10a 6d to 12s GJ, and Waitara is some 90 miles further down the coast, and it is oily possible to enter the harbour at full tide and in daylight. Thus vessels enter Kawhia Harbour with cargo for Kawhia atl7s,sd per ton, and yet carry cargo on (after lying there perhaps for days waiting for the Waitara bar to bec ime workable) a further distance of 90 miles for a total charge of 10s 6d or 12s Gil. On the whole frontage of Kawhia Harbour there areonly two or three lut e specks of freehold land; all the rest bel >ngs to ths Maoris, hundreds of thousands of acres, a great wide stretch ch' king settlement on every hand. Behind this belt are some white sett ler< who are struggling to develop their lands. Imagine a group of hardy pio neers settling down in the midst of n jungle surrounded by wide belts of thiBdine p.r.bless bush owned by nativewho d > nothing, and never will do any thing under present conditions, to add to the wealth of the State. By and b the settlers, by sheer hard “bullocking” lay the bu.-h down with axe and saw, and put the lire through it and sow grass set d. The pr mises to road

the sec.ions, under which promises the .-etiltrs were i iduced to take up these lands seven years ago, remain unful filled, and Hour and stores and too's have to be taken in swung on the back of pack horses, and wool and flpxfibr must be brought out in the same way No tracks or roads can be taken through the wide fringe of native lands to tbe water front, because the County Coun cil is poor, through receiving no ra'es from the greatest areas of the country and it cannot afford to make roads through the non contributing area, even if allowed to do so. The energy of the white settlers struggling to improve their holdings is sending the value of tbe native lands up, and some day the State will have to pay more and more and more heavily for these lands, and settlers who go on to them in the future will be loaded all their lives with the increased increment. The settler now who has hewn out a home for himself is also in a curious position. The bush has got him in its grip, tbe silent remorseless bush, and tbe native land question is sitting on bis chest and squeezing out bis strength and his energy. It’s got him whichever way he turns, and the State is tinkering with the problem.

Stand on the shore of the inland sea called Kawhia Harbour, and in front and behind and on either side are ranges of wooded bills, wide valleys, and broad stretches of beautiful land, where every acre might be contributing to the wealth of the state and adding to tbe processes which produce food for our own people, and for people across the sea, but now never the ring Of an axe is beard, never anything but the sigh of tbe winds in a pathless jungle of forest or the cry of a lonely pigeon. And on tbe edge of this inland sea is perched a hamlet where live a handful of white people with a native village on either side.Tbere does not seemto be much energy in the place; probably tbe “Taihoa” fever is in the air. The harbour teems with fish, but everyone seems too tired to catch fish, no one ever seems to bother much about anything. In the Moorangi and Matakow hai blocks alone there are over 45,000 acres of country which should be supporting dozens of butter factories and growing hundreds of tons of apples and other fruits, but solitude reigns supreme. That land sweeps down to Aotea Harbour, and to travel between Kawhia and Raglan it is actually necessary to await low tide, and led by a guide, pass over the beach, dodge quicksands and risk one’s life on an abominable road up from the shore to Pakoka.

That’s Kawhia as it is at present. Next door is its neighbour Raglan, and in that county tbe white settler is at work, and his indomitable energy has subdued the forest and turned tbe jungle into fertile dairying land and smiling homesteads. It is well with Raglan n w, but still it, too, has native land and the value of that has gone up and up and up, and is still going up Every day’s’work of the white settler is 'itbancing tbe value of tbe idle Maori holdings.