The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1908. MAORI RIGHTS AND MAORI LANDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 69, 20 March 1908, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1908. MAORI RIGHTS AND MAORI LANDS.

Tor thm «•«•• that tacfc* «Mfeto»M, Fer the wrong ihmt nee&a retitUmoe, r«r the future in the iittanco. A*4 the good thmt we om 4c.

The two conferences held during the week at Waharoa and Ngaruawahia between a large and representative gathering of the Maori tribes on the one hand and the Governor and the Premier on the other, have been marked by several important and encouraging features. Hitherto one of the greatest difficulties that successive ministries have had to face in dealing with native questions has been the apparent impossibility of getting anything like a unanimous expression of opinion from the natives themselves. Local jealousies and the bitter traditional rivalries between the various tribes have long rendered an understanding almost impracticable; and one of the most reassuring facts about the two great meetings has been the evidence they have afforded of more amicable relations among the natives, and a more friendly feeling toward the Europeans. The assurance offered by a distinguished native chief to the Premier at the close of the Ngaruawahia meeting, that matters had been advanced twenty years toward a settlement, is well worthy ol consideration by those inveterate pessimists who assure us that it is impossible to get the Maoris to listen to reason, or to reconcile them to the position into which they have been inevitably forced by the course of events. It is, of course, premature to prophesy definite results from these conferences, but they mark a distinct step toward the establishment of that mutual confidence between Maoris and pakehas without which no permanent settlement of the Native Lands. Question will ever become practicable.

It is impossible to refuse some measure of sympathy for the complaint of Taingakawa and his people that they have been dispossessed of their heritage, and that they cannot get redress. The Treaty of Waitangi, on which they base their claims, was a plain and intelligible statement, securing them in the possession of their lands, and it has been strongly impressed upon the native imagination by the force of tradition, and by the constant appeals which have been made to it by Maori chiefs, political agitators, and European law makers. But it is extremely difficult to get the native mind to grasp the important fact that -c subsequent course of events has placed the mutual obligations between Maori and pakeha in an entirely different light. There is no need to dwell upon the deplorable wars that so long alienated the two races, or to adjust the measure of blame. The fact remains that after the wars it was impossible for the Imperial Government to treat the natives as if they had been universally loyal subjects of the Crown, or to deal with the Treaty of Waitangi as if its conditions had never been broken by the natives themselves. We appreciate the kindly tone employed ancj' the generous sentiments expressed by the Governor and the Premier in their replies to the Maori petition. But though the spirit of tlie Treaty of Waitangi must be carefully maintained in our dealings with the natives, the letter of it has been entirely abrogated by the natives themselves, and it would be a grievous error to encourage them still to stake their hopes upon a compact which they have broken with consequences that are necessarily irreparable.

No one who has paid any intelligent attention to the Maori problem during recent years will be likely to question the truth of Sir Joseph Ward's statement that the whole difficulty now lies in the proper administration of the native lands. If once the Maoris could see that they were able to dispose of their surplus land with advantage, while a sufficient area was reserved for them and their posterity, they would speedily cease to think about the 'Treaty of Waitangi, or to hark back to the war and the confiscation of their lands. For this reason we think that the Premier and the Native Minister did wisely in laying so much stress upon the value of our land legislation, and the efforts that are being made to ensure an equitable distribution of the Maori heritage among the natives and the Europeans. There was no lack of frankness and firmness in the advice offered by the Governor and his Ministers to the natives, that they must reconcile themselves to the inevitable, and that they must trust not to factious agitation, but to legislative methods for the conservation of their rights and the improvement of their prospects. The difficulties in the way of dealing with the native lands so a3 to

satisfy both Maoris and Europeans are, we admit, almost insuperable. But the leading natives themselves agree that the efforts made within the past two years to solve the land problem have produced highly beneficial results; and nfcthing is so well calculated to promote the policy of conciliation and. equitable adjustment of claims that our Government has initiated than the entirely amicable and mutually sympathetic character of the relations established between the natives and the representatives of the ruling race at the conferences held during the past week.