NATIVE LANDS COURT.

Patea Mail, 13 July 1880, Page 2

NATIVE LANDS COURT.

The Court which was opened at Patea on Friday has been adjourned sine die. This moans, however, only a few days. Mr Parris left his work on the Plains (directing survey parties) to preside at the Native Lands Court. He commenced the business by opening one case of cross claims to a block of land agreed to bo purchased by the Government ; but as the natives knew that an assessor usually sits with the judge at these courts, they objected to his deciding the case alone. Mr Parris yielded at once. The natives objected ; therefore he succumbed, in accordance with his gentle nature. Mr Parris never does anything which the natives object to. It is his delight to distinguish himself as the one Commissioner who always thinks as they think, and acts as they would have him to act. This is making things pleasant all round. The natives are pleased ; Mr Parris is pleased; and the natives and Mr Parris arc cvetbody. Will Mr Parris forgive us for a little plain criticism ? It shall be friendly and fair. He came to Patea to open a Court for enquiring into native claims to certain blocks of land, on which the Government have advanced part of the purchase money. Ho opened the Court, intending apparently to hear and decide, as per the ancient “ oyer and terminer.” The only thing ho determined was, not to go on with the business which the Government had instructed him to undertake. Now what does this mean ? Is it to be supposed that he opened that Court knowing that a judge cannot determine any case without an assessor ? That would be too palpable a farce. Then it must be taken that the Government appointed a judge who understood the duties and powers of his office. If

so, it must be taken also that he commenced the business knowing that he had power to hear and decide cases without an assessor. Bub when two natives objected because they had seen an assessor sitting with the judge in some other Land Court, Mr Parris bowed, to the objection of natives who did not know the powers of ajudge. He admitted, by his act, that it is not the duty of a judge to exercise the judicial powers conferred by statute, but that a judge better discharges his duty by collapsing at the prick of an ignorant native objection. Is that the way the colony’s business ought to be done ? Our opinion is that this timid tenderness for native objections is part of a policy of weak vascillation that compels natives in the long-run to form a contempt for official pakehas. Can any thinking person say that Mr Parris has set before the native mind a proper example of the wisdom and majesty of the law? It must be evident that they consider they have either defeated the law in the Patea Court, or that they have prevented an attempt to hold a court in an illegal form. And it is to force one or other of these conclusions on the native mind that the colony pays for a system of Government which is one long tissus of blunders. This Ministry is, we believe, better than the last in its methods of business, but both are dear at any price.