NATIVE LANDS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5680, 13 June 1879, Page 2

NATIVE LANDS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sill, —No man laments more sincerely than I do the present unfortunate aspect of native affairs, and while fully conscious of the bungling policy of the Government which has to my mind steadily and surely led us into this position, I nevertheless deprecate the tone of correspondents who write in the stylo of “ Norman,” whose letter appeared in your issue of Tuesday, and who are I fear but throwing obstacles in the way of what people of all shades of political opinion ought now to strive for, viz., an amicable and final settlement of the whole question. I do not intend to follow “Norman” through his account of the doings of the Ministerial party at the Kopua meeting, for be his statements true or otherwise, I fail to see that he has done much to enlighten us as to what really took place, or as to the results to he anticipated from the meeting. I should not have noticed the letter at all but for a few lines which occur in one of the last paragraphs, in which he advocates what I consider to be a most dangerous policy, and would, I will endeavor to show, if adopted, prevc a fatal drawback to the grand policy of public works so ably inaugurated by Sir Julius Vogel, and which has done and is doing so much towards placing New Zealand _in the first ranks of the British colonics. I refer to his suggestion of encouraging the purcln.se of native lands by the general public (which, of course, means the capitalist and speculators), and doing away with the Government's’ right of preemption within proclaimed districts. Before going into the general effect of such a policy on the Public Works scheme, I should like in passing to show by what illogical reasoning be tries to sustain his cause. He states that there is a growing desire amongst the rising generation of natives to part with their land, and that they are only deterred from so doing by the influence of their .elders, whose sway they will doubtless shortly throw off. From this he deduces the absurd argument that if we do not at once allow private individuals to purchase the land with good, bad, or indifferent titles, we shall probably not get it at all, and he further states—which would of course (if his argument were sound) be incontrovertible—that the retention of the land by the natives would give them an influence which thef are entirely unfit to wield.

Without intending to impute wrong motives to “ Norman,” I cannot help fancying I recognise in him one of that class who are ever eager to pounce on the native lands without giving the bulk of the ratepayers or the working man a chance of sharing in the profits. It is time for those who really have the cause of the people at heart, who have no view to private advantage, and who have, virtue enough to prefer the general good of the community to the gratification of personal gain, to interpose. If the policy indicated were adopted, and the large and fertile tracts of our interior bought up by speculators, could we conscientiously ask the Government to borrow further large sums of money—for which the whole of the ratepayers are answerable—to open up and enhance, for the benefit of these speculators, the value of the lands which they had been fortunate or cunning enough to delude the natives into selling ? Many of our now paying railways would never have been undertaken but far the indirect profit the Government, and consequently the general body of ratepayers, derived from the enhanced value of the waste lands through which they passed, and upon which so many

of our immigrants are now living in prosperity. I must now conclude, as it would take up too much of your space to here bring forward all the arguments against the change proposed by “ Norman but should ho (“ Norman ”) feel inclined to contest thoquestion I shall have much pleasure in continuing the discussion on a future occasion.—l am, &c., Nn, Desi-erandum.