MAORI LANDLORDS AND ORAKEI RESERVE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 87, 14 April 1899, Page 2

MAORI LANDLORDS AND ORAKEI RESERVE.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—The letter published in your issue of Tuesday last from Mr Archd. Buchanan is such a mixture of. expediency and justice that one hardly knows how to arrive at.the principle which underlies his suggestion. He apears to dislike Maori landlordism; at the same time, he approves of white landlordism, because he wants to sell Orakei Reserve to white speculators. He also objects to having a few Maoris who will live in great wealth and in 'idleness at the expense of the toilers of the city whose industry will have created the wealth, but he does not appear to object to the white landlords of Auckland, Devonport, Ponsonby, and Parnell, etc., doing the same thing. He also says there are 'no allotments near the harbour as suitable for residences for those who love, the sea.' If he had said that the greater part of the water frontage was held by land speculators so that nobody can build a house near the sea without paying an exorbitant price for the privilege, he would have .been more correct. Mr Buchanan recognises the fact that whosoever owns the soil of the city and suburbs can live at the expense of the toilers of the city; then let us put a stop to it, and the only way to do it is by the single tax!—l am, etc.,

F. M. KING, Hon. Sec. National Single Tax League.