Why Don't they Lease?

Patea Mail, 28 August 1882, Page 3

Why Don't they Lease?

A deadlock in the management of native reserves on this Coast requires some exposure, in order that the public who are interested may protest against it. There are about fifty thousand acres of native reserves in this district ready for the leasing process. Many of the natives are known to be anxious to lease their lands, and others need only to be consulted on the matter to get their consent. The Government have laid down a policy by which the lands of natives may be leased, in sections not exceeding a certain area, under control of a Government officer, whoso duty it shall be to receive the rents, and hand them to the natives whose ownership is recorded in the Crown grant. That officer is called the Trustee, and Mr Thomas Mackay has been appointed to that position many months. What has the Trustee done to carry out his duties? He is now in Wellington engaged on affairs connected with his former office in the South Island, __ and has not yet done a stroke towards out his duties on this Coast. There is no sign that he intends to begin. Probably no single person is to blame for this state of things. A Trustee was appointed who had other duties unfinished ; and until he does begin the work of leasing on this Coast, there will be no outward sign to show what work the West Coast Commission has been doing, nor whether it has been doing anything besides issuing official reports. To show what the Trustee ought to be doing—in fact, what he ought to have done already—we will offer some suggestions based on ascertained facts. The Trustee ought to follow up the work of surveying the reserves, in order to. carry out the main object of the Commission. He ought to take each block as soon as it is surveyed into portions allotted to particular hapns; and by calling a meeting of the natives interested, he can ascertain whether they will have the bulk of it leased in sections under the Act, and whether they require any parts to be reserved to themselves. Natives want rents, we all know, and as soon as the leasing process begins, they will all be impatient for their land to be put under the renting system. They do not part with the title ; and their sentiment of ownership won’t be hurt by their being made to feel that they are landed proprietors living at ease on rents trom their farms. The Trustee ought-to have ready for leasing at this moment the greater part if not the whole of the following reserves, which the Commission has surveyed and done with:—Tirotiromoana, a large reserve inland of Normanby; also W.hnreroa, inland of Hawera ; and the Continuous Reserve of 30,000 acres skirting the Wairnate Plains. These make a total of about 50,000 acres 5 and there are other smaller reserves near Patea. The surveyors working under the Commission have finished with these reserves, and it is the dnty of the official Trustee to follow up the surveys and arrange for the enttting up and leasing of these reserves in sections of 200 or 300 acres. The Trustee should the land blocked out for leasing; as soon as the lines are cut, he conkl the sections as open to public competition. He has not begun any of these processes. He has been in the district only once, and then he did nothing. The Trustee’s inaction now blocks the way to the settlement of these reserves. He prevents the natives from getting rents which should now be coming in, and he prevents Europeans from getting land which they want for occupation. The surveyors working under the Commission have finished their work np to Oeo northward; but all they have done amounts to nothing until the land is put into practical use. That is what the Trustee has to do, and it is what he has not even commsnced doing. The Trustee represents a system, and it is the system we are trying to expose.

The Trustee may say he is waiting till the Crown grants are issued to the natives. This plea is shallow nonsense. The Trustee can do what most Europeans in a new district have to do—buy and sell upon a certificate of title. Land on the Wairnate Plains has changed hands several times on a certificate of title, the Crown grant not- being issued to the original purchaser. Same with these Maori reserves : let the Trustee go to work as soon as the corticate of title is made out by the Commission in the names of certain native owners. What more does the Trustee want ? Europeans have to buy land from Government without a Crown Grant being handed over; and why should they not lease native reserves from the Government Trustee under a certificate issued in the same manner? Heaven only knows when the actual Crown grants will be ready, for a grant, has to pass through several official processes before the Governor signs it. The Trustee is creating a deadlock by pretending that his duties do not begin until all the Crown grants are issued to the natives. For goodness sake, don’t keep this native question raw and unsettled for two or three more years, waiting for Crown grants. Get to work on the certificates of title, and put Europeans on the land. When the land is actually occupied, there will be no ghost of a native question left to squabble about.