The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1911. NATIVE LAND.

Waipa Post, Volume II, Issue 53, 17 October 1911, Page 2

The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1911. NATIVE LAND.

ACCORDING to one authority the Natives own ho less an area than seven and a quarter million acres of land, and of this great total no less than five million acres are lying idle; about two million acres are leased, and the balance (somewhere about half-a-million acres) are supposed to be profitably occupied by Native owners. The important fact to be borne in mind is, that by far the greatest part of this vast area of land, about four million acres, is in the Auckland province. And we have to bear in mind that this land has increased in value during the last twelve or thirteen years from three million pounds to something like eleven and a half million pounds, or in other words, something like 300 per cent. That is to say, that during part of the term of the continuous Ministry, there has been allowed to grow up a condition of affairs, which is nothing short of scandalous. Everybody knows that it is not the Maori who has made the value of these lands rise so rapidly. While he has been contentedly pursuing the even tenor of his way, in many cases not troubling to toil, the pakeha has been strenuously employed giving capital and labour to build up a Maori aristocracy, which is today an accomplished fact. This was no doubt the object of Sir James Carroll's policy of "Taihoa." No matter who was kept waiting for land; no matter how many good settlers were lost to tire Dominion; no matter the toil and labour of white men and women ; no matter that they had to part with their sons, because they could not get land. Nothing matters so long as the Maori aristocracy is an accomplished fact. They must not be harrassed for rates; they must not be assessed for roads or bridges —let the white people find these to pay for them, which they have had to do; and the Maori wealth has accumulated until to-day finds him with lands valued at between

eleven and twelve millions of money, the value of which has all been added by the enterprise and push of the pakeha. No greater indictment of any Government could be brought than this. We have lost thousands of good settlers because they could j not obtain land. We are still losing them. Five million acres of land are lying idle, and yet the Government looks on supinely arid does nothing. Even Sir John Findlay knew of one man, who was disappointed at the ballot for land and left the country. We know of dozens, and the hosts of men who are leaving every week by the Sydney steamer bear eloquent testimony to the fact that something is wrong. We have no hesitation in saying that the method-of administration of the Native land is wrong —utterly wrong ; and the Government that has made such a muddle of this business, stands condemned. We are not in favour or against any particular party as such. But we say that we want the best Government we can get, by the best men of the country, in the best interests of the whole of the people^