NATIVE LAND COMMISSION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3742, 24 January 1907, Page 2

NATIVE LAND COMMISSION.

It is a gratifying thing that besides the Chief Justice, who has a deep knowledge of the Native Land question, the Commissioner, set up to enquire into this most intricate matter is Mr Ngata, the distinguished full-blooded Maori scholar, to whom the present day Maoris look for fair-dealing from the pakeha. Everybody knows thot the present settlement or nonsettlement of native lands in New Zealand is in a most unsatisfactory condition, that Maoris are usually loth to cultivate their lands because of /the uncertainty of tnk. communal interest and the cult y of doing anything a race when folding, much

retrogressive. The Native Land Commission will, ot course, discover what is already known. That is the scope of all the Royal Commissions of the past and Government has not always listened to the recommendations of Royal Commissions. The fact that there are many millions of acres of native lands in New Zealand, unsatisfactorily held, and mostly a mere hotbed lor noxious weeds is a reason why a vigorous policy of native and pakeha settlement should be recommended by the commission and adopted by the Government. As we have before pointed out the Maori is dying of dry-rot. He is an unsatisfactory landlord because his careless ways make it easy for the pakeha landshark to victimise him. He takes no thought for the morrow and this being so the pakeha has to think for him. It is of course possible for all the Maoris in New Zealand to live in great comfort on quarter of the land they now hold if the land was under the cultivation it cries so loudly for. The only hope for the Maori race, which despite all alleged censuses is dying out, is being forced to work. We know there are plenty of fine steady Maori workers but you will find that most of the workers are of the ‘ landless ’ type. It is a necessity of life to them to work. The Native Land Commission has a job before it that would turn most men pale for anyone who knows aught of Maori land matters will acknowledge that it is extremely difficult to define communal interests, more difficult to get any Maori commune to agree among its members and most difficult of all to convince the Maori that cultivation by the pakehas is better than neglect by the Maoris. The wholesale leasing of native lands would of course increase the wealth, position and idleness of the big native owners and because it is unnecessary for the wealthy Maori to work, it will be unnecessary in time for any provision to be made for natives merely, because there won’t be any natives. As it is the pakehas duty to preserve the fine race it is the duty of the pakeha to make the fine race work as hard as the pakeha works.