A STRANGE APPOINTMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10038, 12 July 1910, Page 4

A STRANGE APPOINTMENT.

Apparently the Government could not, by the wildest stretch of imagination, have conceived a better way of doing itself injury than by the appointment of an ex-police officer to the position of President of a Native Land Board. At first it was thought that there had been a mistake in the announcement, but as no contradiction of Mr Dinnie's appointment has yet been made officially, it may be taken for granted that the Government actually made the appointment. Whether they will be able to maintain it is another matter. Meanwhile the criticism in many quarteis is severe, and the Christchprch Press pertinently points out that "the President of a Maori Land Board should, one would think, be able to understand and speak Maori, he should certainly be well acquainted •with the Maori ways and customs, and he should know as much about Maori land teriure as is possible. We do not know that Mr Dinnie has any of these qualifications; it is practically certain that he cannot have any wide or deep knowledge of the native race, and, therefore, whatever other office in the Government service he might have adorned, he is out of place on a Maori Land Board."