NATIVE POLICY.

Patea Mail, Volume III, Issue 296, 16 February 1878, Page 4

NATIVE POLICY.

[From the Taranaki Herald.'] The Hou Mr Sheehan, in Ills banquet address at Now Plymouth, spoke as follows on the native vouev. In native matters be had the advantage of Sir George Grey’s advice. At the banquet that day he (Mr Sheehan) hod mentioned the two leading points in their policy, and he would try to amplify them now. In the first place, ho hold it to be essential upon all possible occasions to make every reasonable sacrifice to maintain the peace of the country. There were people who would say, because a survey was slopped here, or a theodolite taken there, that under all Circumstances the law should be carried out. As a civilised people who were forming a great nation, they could afford to make some small sacrifices of that kind for the sake of the maintenance of peace. What would be the effect of an outbreak in any part of the Forth Island? The effect of an outbreak, no matter ’now small, would lie the danger of their credit at Home, and the stoppage of their public works. Bearing in mind that the population was increasing so rapidly, and that in the course of three or four years all chances of war would have ceased, they coolU ttf’ord to be patient. Xfc was not a flour and sugar policy, but it was a policy that recognised the important fact that every day of peace we had was so much gain to us. The second feature ol ids policy was a- feeling that animated the breast of every young man bom in the colony. The natives wore not to be looked upon as a cow that was to be milked, hut let them try and raise the natives' in the social scale ; let it not simply be the divestment of all the natives had. If they made them a landless people, they would likely make them a depraved people as well. Lot them trv by means of schools, and right training to enter on the old path of progress that the natives trod before the war. make them tillers of the ground, growers of whea* and corn, and by these and other ways get them to copy the Em opean models, CONFISCATED LAND. It was not the intention of the present Government to yield one inch in regard to ihe question of confiscated lamb They took things as they found them. Thu native people had chosen to go into rebellion. They had gone into rebellion with the full knowledge that if they rebelled their land would be confiscated, ft was not their intention to give back the confiscated land fro the people from whom it was taken by the authority of the law. While acting in that way they would give the natives reasonable reserves, tracts sufficiently largo to put their people on, and they would endeavour to rescue that land a * ;r ins t stlien atlon to other porsoas. lb knew that at the present day t here were a number of persons waking for those reserves to bo made, and advising Gia natives ro get vei y largo i c.vervcs wiu. the quiet mieiuiou of mopping up those reserves for lii'iriselves. It was no part of the ]). !lcv of the present Government, to I *: jvcat the occupation and settlement of t;> > country. If they wore allowed sufficient time to do it in, he thought tii y would be found to take a broader vi;iv of .IkT question than any preceding Government. Un to the present time the Native Lands Act had not been woikod in the interests of settlement; it had been used for the purpose of putting through large blocks of land which had fallen into the hands of capitalists, and would make in a few years the Forth Island a vast pastoral district. Now they meant to put a stop to that. That practice was first of all unfair to the owners of the land. He had been behind the scones, and for years past the native market bad not been a market. A few people who spoke the Maori language hud been the only means of communication between the European and the native. Tlie great bulk of persons could not approach them. The remedy would be to allow the Maoris to have their lands dealt with in some public way —by tender or by public auction. (Secondly: Suppose the Government were to occupy a block of sixty thousand acres near their settlement, would they allow the Government to dispose of that laud to a single person ? They would require the laud to ho cut up into moderate sections ; so the Government think that native land should be out up. These were reforms not easy of accomplishment; there were so many Europeans with selfish motives would oppose them—men of that kind were traitors to both races. They would have to depend oa the public for support against these pec pie, and he would, tell them the course upon which they had resolved, which would help them to carry out the proposed, changes. He knew it to be an absolute truth that many of the troubles that had arisen in the past was owing to the fact that many persons holding native appointments had used their position for the purpose of acquiring haul for themselves and their friends. That was a system they meant to put down entirely ; and a circular had been issued to himself and the other officers of the department that if they traffic in native land while holding office they should get their discharge. Every officer in the department now understood that he should not traffic in native lands for himself or his friends. There was this immense benefit in it. There had

rown up in the native mind a deep and

profound distrust of tbe Native Lands Court, so deep that in many places it wouhi be a work of difficulty to get them

to go into tlio court again, owing to men in the court having worked on their own account—but now they know the officer cannot buy for himself, they will go to them, ho hoped, with confidence. Some two months ago he gave instructions for the holding of a Native Lauds Court in New Plymouth. He was sorry to find that the Court had not been held yet, but be had communicated with Auckland, and very soon bo trusted they would have the Court to hear a number of outstanding cases.