The Waikato Times. TUESDAY. FEBRUARY 20, 1877.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 730, 20 February 1877, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

TUESDAY. FEBRUARY 20, 1877.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political * # # # *

Here shall the Presi the People's right maintain, Unawecl by influence and unbribed by gain.

It ds somewhat disappointing to find that Rewi m his interview with the Native Minister, at Alexandra, on Friday, stopped short of the discussion of the Native Lands Question generally and confined his remarks 'to particular instances of sales of land m which he was, we may presume, more or less personally interested. It was expected that the question would have been •more generally handled and that we should have learned, dissatisfied as it is known the natives are with the principles of the land purchase arrangements at present m existence, what were their opinions rand wishes on a point, the satisfactory arrangement of which must necessarily underlie the whole current of our future relations with them. The. gale and the lease of . lands for, the purpose of colonisation are both matters which of the very nature of things must enter largely into our dealings with the native . race. The European needs land for settlement and the Maori has millions of acres he can never put to practical use, and of necessity there will be buyers on the one side and sellers on the other. The policy of the King has been to throw all possible m the way of the sale and lease of lands to Europeans, but this is a state of thingsin which the need of the individual will outweigh the prohibition of party. Doubtless, such men as Rewi feel this to be the case, and it was hoped that on the late occasion, admitting the-im-possibility of sustaining the prohibition policy, Bewi would have entered into the question with the object of discussing a basis of arrangement on which the law might be so built as to act fairly and justly m the interest of both races, and m such a manner as to give the least possible, room for dispute and misunderstanding m its operations, either between the natives themselves or the natives arid Europeans. Since 1865, we have had several Native Lands Acts, besides other measures referring mo.re or less to the disposal or purchase of Native Land, yet the I Legislature has altogether failed to allay the feeling of jealousy -and suspicion which has been kept alive m the native mind, and solely so for the. want of a fair and equitable basis of open, and unshackled business arrangement between seller and buyer. v The question of Native Lands Purchase must form an important feature m the coming session of parliament. Indeed, as our readers are aware, the consideration of the question by the Government was specially promised during the recess, the Legislature having so utterly impracticable a measure before them that it was, at once and unhesitatingly . *Ast ideas. Of theprinciple and details of the measure intended for consideration by the l late government; before ihe reconstruction of the present Ministry, we need say little. If the Maori on the one hand, and the capitalist on the other had cause before then to complain of Government monopoly of purchase, that cause of .complaint was increased, and the new Bill bore the impress, as the enemies of the Government accused it, of having been so framed as still more to restrict the facilities for private transactions, and really to prop up the finanoial resources of the Colony, at the expense of. the Maori. It carried its condemnation so fully on its face that Maori and European alike rejected it as latterly unsuitable and impracticable, and m itself beyond amendment. With this problem still to be solved, and

worked out it must be., it is, as we haye said, 'a matter for regret that Rewi's utterances should have glanced off from the main question at issue. Since writing the above we notice, that our Auckland telegrams, with what authority we know not, state that the whole question on its broad basis will be opened up at the meeting arranged to be held at Taupo after the wheat harvest.