PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1881. RAILWAY SURVEY.

Patea Mail, 24 February 1881, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1881. RAILWAY SURVEY.

The survey of the railway section from Waverley to Patea has just been revised, with the object of joining on the main line to the harbor section near the Station, without working the harbor section as a branch. This joining on at the harbor end is found to be so easy, and the deviation of route is so convenient to the levels, that the amended survey may be expected to commend itself to those in authority. The advantages would be groat. Without going into details at this stage, we may say the saving in cost of construction would bo very large. The intended bridge across the Patea river, four miles up the valley, would not be wanted. The Junction Station up the valley would not be

wanted ; and tbe extra cost ot working a junction and branch line to the port would be saved perpetually. Large sums would be saved at other points, as the new plan will show when officially adopted. May we not hope that this large reduction in cost will make it so much easier for Government to continue the Waverlcy line up to Patea in the present year ? But instead of trusting to hopes and chances, let the people show their interest by united action as the Session approaches. If the Hawera section cannot be also got by petitioning, the south line might be easily continued up to Manutahi. NATIVE MUDDLE. Whkn Parliament meets, there ought to be serious inquiry as to how far the method of apportioning reserves to natives on the West Coast has had the effect of solving the native difficulty. A new question has arisen. If it is found that reserves have been given to the first claimants who chose to appear before Sir William Fox, and that other claimants of greater power and stronger tribal right have held aloof from this division of the spoil, refusing to recognise the Government as owners of the land—if this is found to be the result of “ settling ” the native difficulty, what will the Government ask Parliament to do next ? It would be absurd to tell Parliament that the Commissioner has carried out the provisions of the West Coast Settlement Act by apportioning reserves among natives, and giving them Crown grants for ever. The heart of the native difficulty will not have been reached. So long as the most powerful of the natives remain with Te Whiti, refusing any share in gifts of land, the very parties whom the Act sought to propitiate will nflt have been got at. Nor will that be the worst, for the lands to which these sulking leaders have naturally the best claim will have been given to other greedier claimants by the wise Commissioner and Mr Parris. These two official agents of Government are in a painful fix. They are sincerely desirous of getting at the right claimants, but they have the misfortune to be imposed on by wrong claimants, in the absence of the real sulking owners ; and so tbe Crown grants are made out for parties who, in some eases, are impostors according to native usage. Thus the leading natives who were to be conciliated by large gifts of land to be inalienable for ever, will find a new grievance in what they regard as this new stupid injustice of Government. Reserves arc being given to the first claimants. Nothing is being given, and nothing is being reserved, for those stronger claimants in the background who are the real “ difficulty,” because they have refused all along to deal with Government. So far as these mistakes are being made, they are deplorable. They will bo the sure fruitful source of trouble in the future. They will form a new native accusation agaisnt the pakeha Government. The Act for “ settling” the West Const was wisely conceived, by aiming to be just and even generous to the native race within the confiscated territory. Yet how painfully certain it is that in trying to apply this Act to the native case, our officials are doing it in such a way—through no fault of theirs —ns to inflict fresh rankling injustice on the only natives who can cause any trouble, the followers of Te Whiti. The chief article of Parihaka religion is to have no dealing with land—neither to lease nor soli to the pakeha. So that these believers will not claim reserves, and will not accept them in any shape. They are getting nothing out of the Government bounty, while ; the Commissioner is pushing on with his work, and giving away all the land left to give. He calls for claimants in a particular district. Some appear, give in their names, and get a Crown grant for reserves in that district. The fact that no other natives come from Parihaka with a counter claim is taken as evidence that the native difficulty is settled in that district. But is it ? Enquire deeper

than that, and what do you find ? That j a native fraud has been practised on the Commissioner, and that lie has put the Government seal to it u for all time.” When Tc Whiti’s influence breaks up, and those present followers leave him to follow their own way and assert their own rights what will happen ? Will it not be found that the reserves are mostly in the wrong hands ? * WHO IS LIABLE / Hksvkctino the collection of the dog tax, we are informed that before bidding at auction for the Hawera Riding, the clauses of the Dog Tax Act were read by the auctioneer, one clause providing that the Government might suspend the operation of the Act in any district. This being so, it would follow that the contractor for the Hawera Riding took the risk of interference by bidding with a knowledge of this condition, and it is not easy to see what remedy he can have for the suspension of the Act in part of his district, when that suspension was a condition under which he purchased the right of collection. To bring an action against Government for the recovery of say j£2o would be an expensive form of getting satisfaction, for it is likely that several twenties would be expended in legal procedure before a verdict was reached, and then it might and probably would be against the plaintiff. The County Council appear to have been saved from an actionable position, by refusing to interfere with the collection until the Government stepped in. Sir William Fox, who is a law onto himself, wrote to the County Council requesting (which means ordering) that the collection should be stopped north of the Waingongoro. If the Chairman had risen to that bait he would have hooked himself; for it is quite clear that the County Council, by stopping the collection of the tax merely at Sir W. Fox’s request, would have rendered itself liable to the collector for damages. His case is hard as it stands, because his collection has been stopped by Government, which had statutory authority to do what it did. The Council sold him the right of collection over the whole Riding, subject to a power of suspension by Government; and as the Government did suspend the collection in part of his district, it is a nice point to define where his claim for compensation comes in. He has a shadowy right against Government, but a shadow is poor eating.