NATIVE AFFAIRS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 260, 2 November 1932, Page 10

NATIVE AFFAIRS.

On page 30 of the National Expenditure Commission's report, I read as follows: —"That native lands, whether already settled or still in hand (of the natn-es?), be deemed to be ordinary Crown Lands, subject to all the provisions of the Land Act, 1924." There are other absurdities embodied re native lands in this report—due obviously to the fact that there was no competent representative of the Maori people on this Commission. Were the members of this commission aware (as even most children with any elementary knowledge of New Zealand "history are aware) that there is such a thing as the Treaty of Waitangi? Thereby there was assured to the native people the full use and enjoyment of the lands, and the ownership thereof so long as they desired to retain them. How is that clause to be respected if this commission's recommendation is accepted? Is the treaty a mere "scrap of paper?" And are decisions of the Supreme Court and the Privy Council to the contrary to be heeded! Again, in respect of the survey of native lands (surveyed mostly in connection with their alienation for European acquisition) another extraordinary recommendation is:—"That no further surveys be undertaken unless an amount sufficient to cover the cost of the work is first deposited (i.e., by the native owners). But such owners arc (as a body) quite penniless. Tljey are not seeking the luxury of euch a survey imposed by law upon them and usually made to define boundaries and areas acquired by the Crown. On the commission's own showing, enormous areas of native lands have been "transferred"' to satisfy such survey liens to the Crown. In plain words, the imposition of such liens has led to the loss of those further areas to their native owners. Efficient management would have obviated this and those lands to-day would have been in Maori ownership and in profitable occupation. The reverse of that ideal is actually a landless people, many of them a charge on hospital boards and the Pensions Department, and hewers of wood and drawers of water. I consider part of this report is evidence of the lack of knowledge the members of that commission had of even the elements of the native problems involved. Whilst it has made some useful "recommendations" (one' of which undoubtedly is "that the further purchase of native lands should cease") all its recommendations are based purely on a strictly monetary review of those matters. The benefit and welfare of the Maori to be achieved by the administration of his sadly reduced remaining land areas does not enter into the commission's purview. GEO. GRAHAM.