NATIVE LAND PROBLEM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10256, 7 June 1911, Page 5

NATIVE LAND PROBLEM.

THE PROPOSED SOLUTION,

The Wairarapa Daily News of yes- ' terdav contained the following in its editorial columns: —Our Masterton | contemporary, the Age, recently made j a suggestion for finally and effectively I dealing with native lands which deserves consideration. Broadly, ' the proposal was that the Government should take over the whole of the native lands by way of lease from the native owners, .and reserve the right to sub-lease in suitaWe areas with option of purchase. This is somewhat on j the lines of the Government's abandoned proposal to take a pakeha's land and sub-let to settlers, who would ultimately pay the owner; rmt there is a considerable difference between this and the Age's suggestion. The native lands referred to aro to a great extent waste lands doing no good to anyone, not even the natives themselves. It would take a large sum of borrowed money to purchase these lands outright, but by the method proposed they would at once provide the Maori owners with an income, and finally with the money value of .them. Years ago such a scheme as this was used with good results. Blocks of land were purchased from the Maoris without the money required for them being paid over. The interest on the price only was paid until the Government saw its way to pay Hie principal. Under the Age's scheme the Government would never have to provide the principal, nor, as the land taken was sublet, the interest. Both would be paid by the settlers upon the land. The Government's responsibility would be confined to the administration, and the Nath-o Department \vould become an active and truly useful and practical part of the State's machinery. The natives themselves should warmly welcome the plan, as by it their idle lands would be of immediate value to them, producing an income to assist in their maintenance. The impetus to -settlement would be a substantial one. The details of the scheme , would need carefully working out, but it has a great deal to commend it, and it is worthy of the most earnest consideration of the Government. '