13

Or.— ld

for such a man to negotiate successfully all the leases he may require, and even to set up in business as a medium for obtaining leases for less fortunate, if bona fide, settlers not so well versed in the underground methods of dealing with Native lands. It is an art unknown to nine-tenths, if not more, of those who are searching one end of the colony to the other to find land, and because of their ignorance make the Native lands the butt of their indignant complaints. There is freedom of leasing to the man who knows, and unlimited scope for operating. To the disappointed frequenter of the land - ballots the way is practically closed." Further, it has to be remembered that the large Maori blocks are communal or tribal lands, and therefore in one sense they may be said to be impressed with a trust. To allow the present possessors to destroy the tribal land means that they should destroy the tribe, and what has happened in the past would happen in the future—that certain persons, adepts in what was once termed " Oriental finesse," would become the possessors of Maori land for nominal sums. The only fair thing, in our opinion, both to the Maori owners and to all would-be purchasers or lessees, is that the latter should be put on an equality, and this can only be attained by allowing the highest bidder to become the purchaser or lessee, but limiting the persons who can become competitors according to the extent of their land-holdings at the time of sale, so as to accord with the policy of the country in respect of Crown lands. Guarantee of Title. But no such scheme as is indicated in the last paragraph is possible unless at auction the title is guaranteed to the highest bidder. And here the nature of the Native title places insuperable difficulties in the way. You cannot control the wishes of numerous individual owners, each of whom is given the right to dispose of his interest as he thinks best. The son will differ from the father, the sister from brother. No auctioneer under such circumstances can give satisfactory assurances. It has been suggested that to meet the difficulty the lands should be partitioned so that the interest of each owner is defined by survey on the ground. We are of opinion that, even if the number of Native Land Court Judges were increased twofold, even if partitions were promptly surveyed by an adequate staff of surveyors, and the whole cost of these proceedings borne by the State, the task would be impossible of achievement within such limit of time as to satisfy the impatience of the country for the speedy settlement of the unoccupied Maori lands. Our researches have convinced us that this minute subdivision of land is not in the interest of the Maori people as a whole; that it is in many cases unnecessary, in some merely wasteful. It is inimical to speedy settlement, and impossible to carry out in a practical and effective manner, apart altogether from the enormous cost that would be entailed upon the land and its owners. We have quoted examples in our reports on lands in Wairoa (Hawke's Bay), Whanganui, and the King-country to show the cost that has been borne by the Maori owners in the past for the subdivision of their lands, and pointed out that after twenty or thirty years the process of individualisation is far from complete even in districts where the Court has been most active. It is a recognition of this position that has called into existence schemes based upon the principle of consolidating the ascertained interests of individual members of a family, hapu, or tribe under such control as to insure to a purchaser or lessee a good title, secured with little expense. We have already referred to some of these schemes in our introductory review of legislation. They fall under four heads :•— (1.) Administration by the Public Trustee as in the case of the West Coast and other reserves. But we are of opinion that the concentration of control in a Department not in close touch with the Maori beneficiaries and their needs, whose paramount duty is to secure revenue from every part of the estate vested in it,