Maori Rates a Knotty Problem

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 168, 6 October 1927, Page 11

Maori Rates a Knotty Problem

REQUESTS BY COUNTIES CONFERENCE TO BEHELD (THE SUN’S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day, With the object of having legislation brought down to put the Maori landowner on the same footing as the European for rating purposes, a deputation, representing the Rural Counties’ Association, waited upon the Minister of Native Affairs, the Rt. Hod. J. G. Coates, to-day. While appreciating the difficulties;, Mr. Coates said he would do nothing unfair toward the Maori. It was pointed out by Mr. W. Broadfoot, Mayor of Te Kuiti, that the amount of native rates outstanding in various counties was £IBB,OOO. It was thought that the easiest solution of the difficulty was to put all native lands in the borough on exactly the same footing as European lands for rating purposes Mr. Broadfoot suggested a number of improvements to the Rating Act to facilitate the machinery for collecting native rates, and urged that idle native lands should be brought into production. Mr. Coates said that if practical effect were given to what the deputation was asking for a state of affairs would arise which would shock the whole of the country, for it would pass on to the market hundreds of thousands of acres of land which had belonged to the Maoris since before the time of the pakeha. Such a precipitate act would not be in the interests of the Dominion, but he would be prepared to consider effective legislation, with the co-operation of local bodies. At Mr. Coates’s suggestion a conference between representatives of local bodies and the Native Affairs and Lands Departments is to be held this afternoon.