MAORI LAND LEAGUE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1402, 30 March 1881, Page 2

MAORI LAND LEAGUE.

A New Zealand correspondent of* the 1 Edinburgh Scotsman writes On the, south-west coast of the North Island of New Zealand, at a mouth of a river of the game name, is situated the town of Wanganui (that is, as we learn from Maori song, ‘ finding it was wide, he called it the great mouth’—Wanganui,the great mouth.) The bed of the river is evidently a long volcanic fissure perpendicular Cliffs on either side occasionally rising to a height of many hundred feet. The district of Wanganui—i.e., the whole watershed of the Wanganui River, flanked on the east by the active volcano Tongariro 6000 ft. and Raupehu, a snow-capped mountain 9195 ft.—embraces some of the finest agricultural and pastoral land; in the country, and is still in the posV Session of native owners The Maoris, by nature the finest savages in tile world, are no exception to the rule thai, in contact or conflict With savage nations are more readily in-’ fluenced and demoralised by the failings, and immoralities of low-caste; whited than benefited by the civilization which naturally accompanies the intro-, duction to a: new country of aaiy superior people. Lately, however, inter- ; marriage, education, and the adoption* to a large extent, of European mariners andcustoros have caused a Stirringampng the dead leaves of Maori ideas. They are waking up to a sense of their own position in these islands—to a sense of the value of lands Which the freafty of Waitangi secured to them as their birthright, and to the trickeries and impositions which during all these years have been practised on them by land speculators and unprincipled agerits &€' the Government. They have resolved henceforward to manage their own affairs, and the Wanganui tribes are marshalling themselves in the van of progress. They have made a choice of Te Keepa, alias Major Kemp, as- their administrative leader, and to him, assisted by a council of native chiefs, they mean to cede their lands (about two million acres) by deed of trust for sale, lease, and settlement. They have devised a crest, A Maori (the drawing has been executed from a photograph of Kemp himself) stands on the summit of Tongarito, stretching forth a native spear over the country ; and the motto “ Hetoi te tangata, hetoi te whenna,’’ being translated, reads thus, “ Salva* tion for the people, salvation for the laud.” This, too, is their flag, with the loyal addition of a union-jack in the corner.