THE MOKAU LEASE.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 163, 27 October 1883, Page 3

THE MOKAU LEASE.

Mr " Mokau Jones " called on us on Tuesday last, .and diverted our attention to two letters over his signature in The Budget and The Taranalci News. These letters are written in reply to previous communications in The Budget, signed " R. S. Thompson," referring to Mr Jones' land dealings in the Mokau district. The latter writer charges Mr Thompson with having been the author of " several concoctions of a similar character," and " fabrications." He goes 011 to accuse Thompson, who is or "was a licensed native interpreter with a Maori wife, of associating himself with " another individual of Sepoy hue — well-known in Taranaki — a mixture of both races," for the purpose of demanding a share in the Mokau lease, as a bribe for ceasing to agitate the Maoris. " I have no doubt," he says, " that had the black-mail business been a success, the public would have heard nothing of the present patriotic achievements of Mr Thompson and his dusky confrere.

The notion of Mr Jones being blackmailed in respect to a lease which, we have good reason to believe has never been legally completed, executed, or even approved by the Frauds Trusts Commissioners, is one of the richest jokes we have heard for sometime. He admits in the letter from which we quote that Wahanui is opposed to the lease, and that he is at loggerheads over the question with Manga and Wctere, who claim to exercise their man a over the Mokau lands to the exclusion of any right of interference on the part of Wahanui. With the petty dispute ot' two or more pakeha-Maoris the public has no re;il concern, except in so far as it may affect Auckland's future commercial prosperity. Jt is known that an extensive coalfield exists in the district — a thick and" well-clcfmcd seam of hard coal cropping out on the very banks of the Mokau river. l)r Hector has pronounced this coal tobeof superior quality. The land is also known to be fertile. There' is, therefore, within easy reach of Manukau

remote future, may become a valuable field of industry and wealth ; and it is a subject;- for regret that the opening of this district and the development of its resources should be retarded by the jealousy of meddlesome and mischievous pakeha-Maoris.

There is, however, some consolation in the fact that the old story of the Kilkenny cats is being; revived in New Zealand, that it is a case of diamond cut diamond between Jones and Thompson on the one hand. Wahanui and Manga and Te Wetcre on the other. There is always & Nemesis hovering on the heels of this landgrabbing. It is the old adage again, " when, rogues fall oiit honest men come by their own.'* It is not our business to indicate the rogues or the honest men. The reader can be safely left to. his own judgment in this matter.

To our knowledge, however, the material progress and welfare of the country has been fatally retarded by the wretched squabbles of pakehaMaoris and the tools of the land-sharks. The Maori is keen enough at a bargain, but he is naturally far less mischievous than his European prompter. A face-to-face, straight-forward policy will always succeed with the Maori. It is the " forked tongue " he distrusts and hates. The pity is that the Government has no legislative* means of making a salutary example of some vicious, mischief-making European renegade.