Invading Pakeha

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 426, 7 August 1928, Page 8

Invading Pakeha

Maoris Sit Tight on Orakei Land

BETWEEN 40 and 50 Maoris —the remnants of a long line of fighting tribes—are all that remain of the native community at Orakei Peninsula. State purchase of their land has confined them to a narrow strip of eight or ten acres of the once-famed victualling spot, and the retention of their possession is the subject of continual negotiation with the Crown. Parliament is considering one phase of the dispute at the present time.

In its desire to settle the Orakei block of 640 acres, part of which was sold recently in building lots at unexpectedly high prices, the Crown has so designed the lay-out of its reserves and roads that serious infringement upon the native property will become essential if the programme of development is to be carried to fruition. In the early stages of settlement no difficulty was experienced in securing the land from the natives at an upset price, and although this acquisition necessarily was accomplished slowly and amid the embarrassing tedium of the law, successive .Prime Ministers refused to hasten the sales for the benefit of pakeha enthusiasts. As settlement became more intense, however, and as land values increased

in sympathy, greater difficulty was encountered in settling the terms of purchase from Maori owners, until now the State is faced with a very determined party of natives, possessing the inherent fighting spirit of their great forefather chieftains, and refusing to relinquish this treasured corner of the former battleground. Persuasion and promise have failed to shake the resolution of the dusky landholders, who consistently reject the overtures of the State for the transfer of suitable plots elsewhere for residential purposes and restricted agricultural activities. WOULD TAKE CIVIC SQUARE In fact one Maori, in order to im-

press the Government officers with the futility of further argument, named a site in the centre of Civic Square when asked to select a holding as an alternative to his Orakei section. Sixteen natives on the peninsula petitioned Parliament last week for the ownership of certain land there, while conversely the State is negotiating for possession of the land already held by the Maoris, and which on the map bears the mark of the surveyor’s pencil as a well-ordered and completelyroaded reserve. - The education of the Maori to a healthy appreciation of increasing land values has intensified the difficulties of the Government, and incidentally this fact probably has influenced the plea of certain natives that their holdings were sold to the Crown at figures lower than true value. It cannot be expected, of course, that those who sold their land ten years ago could hope for to-day’s price, nor could they at that time anticipate the rapid extension of the city environs in residential popularity. Their protests, therefore, are voices as of those crying in the wilderness, for after all, it cannot be deemed the responsibility of the State that the purchase price has long since disappeared into channels of a greater or less extravagant nature. HAPPY COMMUNITY It is difficult at the moment to anticipate the result of the negotiations at the peninsula. Partial development only is possible while the unified remnant of the great Ngatiwhatua tribe lives happily upon the fertile flat, and basks in the sunshine of the Orakei basin; yet compulsory retrocession is not acceptable to the native mind. Every piece of land that so far has been offered as compensation has been rejected as unworthy of exchange, and the Maoris are figuratively sitting tight upon the last small strip of their once big holding. A number of Maori petitioners also have represented a case to the House of Representatives seeking heavy compensation for the sale of land where the township of Rotorua now stands, and which they claim was sold many years ago below its equitable value. This petition, so it is said, has not the official backing of the chiefs of the Arawa tribe, and for this reason alone will probably carry little weight with the authorities. Meanwhile the pakeha and the Maori walk side by side toward closer settlement and more intense cultivation—the pakeha extracting what he can, the Maori retaining what he may. In the history of New Zealand settlement it is truly written that the Maori has won every inch of his way toward attaining the affection and respect of his pakeha brethren.