NATIVE LANDS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 39, 26 May 1910, Page 5

NATIVE LANDS.

ONLY 7>/> MILLION ACRES HELD BY I MAORIS. MINISTER OF JI'STICE COMMENTS. | By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. Dr. Findlay Minister for Justice and Attorney-Ueneral, who arrived by the main trunk train from Wellington This morning, loaves to-night for Whangarei, where he s'peaks on Friday. Speaking on the subject to an interviewer to-day, the Minister remarked that nowhere in the Dominion did there seem to be such misconception on the question of native laud settlement as in the north, where so much native land was situated. It seemed to be a favorite complaint in the mouths of a certain section that the Government was not opening up the native lands for settlement as quickly as was expedient, and yet if those same folk wouM takfi the trouble to look up facts and figures they would find that in the last twenty years hhe Maoris had got rid of their iand in the North Island, and that the total area of native land in the North Island at the present time, including what was leased to companies, amounted to only 7'/.> million acres', which should go to convince malcontents v ,hat th» Government hud not been idle in forwnrdiiur the owning up of Maori land for setth-ment.