The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News,Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1922. THE UREWERA COQNTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 95, 22 April 1922, Page 6

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

SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1922. THE UREWERA COQNTRY.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that need* resistance, For the future in the distance, A.nd the good that we can do.

The appointment of Commissioners to carry out the provisions of the Urewera Lands Act has now been gazetted, and the work of opening up this famous district should be taken in hand promptly and vigorously. This is an important stage in the bringing into civilisation of a large area of country that has many historical associations, and forms the last great stronghold of the original Maori. The arrangements for the division of this district into Crown and Native land and its roading are the result of years of unsatisfactory tenure and negotiation, and the outcome does credit to Ministers and other persons concerned. For the Urewera Maori the division will be a test. One of the factors that caused the parties to come to this agreement was the claim of the younger' generation of natives to lie allowed to farm land on a satisfactory basis of ownership, something better than the clogging tribal and hapu system. It is hoped that the opportunity provided by this improvement will be seized. The Maori must emulate the industry of the European if he is to survive, and the cutting up of the Urewera (Country is another reminder to him of this truth. We think it necessary to repeat, however, that the highly-coloured visions depicted by many enthusiastic advocates of the policy of opening up the Urewera are never likely to be realised. Here we have an area of some 650,000 acres which at first sight may seem to present almost limitless possibilities for pastoral and agricultural development. Some people endowed with more imagination than common sense have pictured the Urewera as a second "King Country" which will respond as generously to settlement and cultivation as the original "Rohe Potae." But as Mr. James Cowan, who knows the district as few white men do, has. recently reminded us, "the Urewera is a hugely jumbled-up mass of steep-sided mountains split up by narrow valleys and ravines, each with its swift rockybedded'stream; and what cultivable land there is is only sufficient for the needs of the Maori owners." Far less than ten per cent of the land is "fit for human habitation."

Sir William Herries himself, when the Urewera Lands Bill was before Parliament, assured members that the Urewera could not be regarded as an "El Dorado," and gave them his carefully considered judgment that the lands to be openea up would "never be more than grazing country." But whatever be the amount, of land suitable for settlement, it is to be hoped that the commissioners— both, we observe, arc officials of the Lands Department—will take seriously into account the necessity for guarding against the worst evils of deforestation, and will take counsel with Captain Ellis and the experts of the Forestry Dspartment before deciding- what areas are to be cleared of the native bush.

Only two months ago Mr. Hockly, member for Rotorua, urged Parliament to remember that the greater part of the Urewera, Country is "not fit for settlement in any shape or form." According to Mr. Hockly the country is too steep and rough to _,ermit of clearing, and over a large portion of the areas to pc thrown open "the bush itself is certainly the best crop that it will ever grow." Mr. Hockly, supported by Mr. Field, then made an emphatic appeal to the House to take warning by the disastrous experiences of settlers on "the East Coast where reckless deforestation has produced destructive floods and the continual denudation and erosion of the hillsides till they lose their soil, and the valley flats in turn I are overwhelmed by Vile barren debris from the ranges. Mi-. Cowan has reminded us that the Maoris themselves,

realising the difficulties of the ground, have been careful not to clear the bush away from hills' so sleep that the soil can find no angle of repose when the trees are gone. If only such simple precautions as these had been observed in the past, New Zealand would have been saved incalculable losses and injuries. But so far the clearing of the. country and the processes of settlement have gone on without regard to these inevitable consequences. Let us hope that the Urewera Commissioners will profit by the bitter experiences of the past and will at least consult the Forestry Department in regard to these difficult and complex problems.