The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 1887. THE LANDLESS MAORI.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2566, 6 April 1887, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 1887. THE LANDLESS MAORI.

The Hawke's Buy Herald in ut reoein issue calls attention to the " landless Maori."| Quoting an official return it affirms that, to begin with, the Maoris still possess 7,493,680 acres which have not yet passed tho Land Courts, and nearly the whole of which lies absolutely waste. In Auckland there are .4,452,200,'acre5, in Hawk'o's Bay 370,272 acreß, in Wellington 1,742,814 acres, and in Taranaki 928,400 acres, Then come reserves made under tho Confiscated Lands Act, 1867, These are sonio hundreds, Most are small, tho majority being from 50 to 100 acres, but thero are a considerable number of from 200 to 900 acres, and several extensive blocks, such as the Otape reserve, Tauranga, which contains 20,787 acres; the Matata reserves, in the samo district, which total over 55,000 acres; the Mount Edgecumbo reserve, 12,710 acres; Warahoata, 9,458 acres, and so on, Then there are many reserves made under other 4ots, and lands held in trust, amounting to hundreds of thousands acres more. Then there are hinds which have passed through the Courts, but which have been made inalienable, amounting in the North Island alone to 1.872,605. Speaking roughly, thero are some ten millions of rctes held by the natives which is for the most part uncultivated and unimproved, This vast area is a talent hid in a napkin which might, if rightly used, maintain in comfort half r million of people, Why persons who aro making good use, of their: land.should be dispossessed while millions of acres are lying waste is ono of those problems which Sir Robert Stout or Mr Ballanceought.lo solve. The Premier has declared that natives should be placed on name looting as Europeans, but if he meant what he said, all would be well, and the vast native territories would soon be turned to - profitable account. If native lands were brought under the operalion of thd Property Tax, and made, to pay direct .rates to counties or road boards, it would soon cease to be an unproductive estate. No objection can be raised to the natives obtaining-ton millions of acres of land, if their vast estate' contributes its fair proportion towards the cost of governing llio colony and developing its lesourees, No one would grudge them the unearned increment which now makes their estates so valuable, but the existonce of this very unearned increment suggests that their property has responsibilities towards tho colony which ought to be discharged. Now Zealand cannot afford to allow ten millions of acres of land to remain not only permanently idle, but also permanently exempt from the. charges Which are Lined for. public purposes on other land, If Mr Ballance wero to alter his Bill for the acquisition of private estates, to one for the resumption of Maori estates, he might yet prove a benefactor to the colony. There is some reason for the State interfering when land lies dormant, which does not exist where it is producing all that can reasonably bo obtained from it. Bringing waste areas into cultivation is a more Statesmanlike project than merely transferring cultivated areas from one owner to others.