"SPEEDING-UP" THE MAORIS."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 357, 7 April 1910, Page 4

"SPEEDING-UP" THE MAORIS."

The nevrs that Native land matters are to be handled in a businesslike way, fey the process of "speeding-up" the Maoris, comes as a surprise. Nearly every living Maori has more or less interest in some Native land, and since ■his affairs have been conducted by the pa.keha the definition of these interests is so complex a problem that it seems almost impossible of solution. In the case of the transfer of Native land, it frequently happens that the remnants of a whole tribe are joined as owners. v The Maori of the day loves litigation. He spends his time and his money on it. fit is dear to him mainly because he is not so largely occupied with reproductive work as he ought to be. Naturally, the Maori is not indolent. He has become so chiefly because he, a born warrior, must not fight physically, because he is communistic in his tendencies, and because if he has nothing to live on he leans heavily on the rangatira who has. The rangatira does not object, and a proportion of our brown brothers are necessarily idle. The average Maori, although intellectual, i,s confused at our land Laws, and he generally winds up by squatting down in more or less idleness and saying, "What's the use?" The new method of .a definite schedule of days for Native Land Court .Judges looks good on the surface, but

it -will be some little while before the Maori can be induced to believe that he must get his case over in a given time. The new scheme may be welcomed by the Judges. At least, they nvill not have to put a couple of months jn trying to decide whether the ninetyninth member of a tribe really has any fright or title to the fiftieth part of a subdivision.