The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1935. The Government and the

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21414, 5 March 1935, Page 10

The Press TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1935. The Government and the

Maoris In a letter printed in " The Press " this morning the Wellington correspondent of the " Manchester •' Guardian " replies to our criticism of a recent article by him dealing with the Government's handling of the crisis in the administration of the Native Affairs Department. On one point, perhaps the most important in the discussion, we are in complete agreement with our correspondent. It is the point that the resignation of Sir Apirana Ngata has set back the schemes for raising the economic and social status of the Maori, and that consequently the Government is in danger of losing the confidence of the Maori people. The correspondent of the " Manchester Guardian '' evidently feels, and in this matter can count " The Press " an ally, that the urgency of the Maori problem is not sufficiently understood by the New Zealand public. What we cannot accept is his contention that the appointment of a Royal Commission was unnecessary and his suggestion that the commission itself was " an attack on the Govern- " ment and particularly on the " Minister." His view is, apparently, that the Government should have condoned the misappropriation of public funds voted for the development of native lands rather than take any action likely to make Sir Apirana Ngata's position in the Cabinet untenable. Once it had been revealed that money was going astray in large sums and once an enquiry had been demanded by members of Parliament, the Government could not, without damage to political morality, to its own reputation, and to the morale of the public service, have burked a public enquiry. It is beside the point to argue that other and worse scandals have not been investigated. If "Fiat justitia, ruat " coelum " is not tenable as a political maxim, neither do two wrongs make a right. On two further though less important points we disagree with the correspondent of the " Manchester Guardian." He says that there is no need for any further enquiry into the problem of native lands and that existing schemes for the development of those lands can safely be continued. Anyone who reads the history of native land schemes and studies Sir Apirana Ngata's own pronouncements on native policy must, we believe, come to the conclusion that there is a conflict of opinion which must be resolved before the Government can define the objects and methods of its native policy. Reduced to its simplest terms, the question is whether the Maori bias towards communal effort and communal ownership should be preserved or whether titles to native lands should be gradually individualised and Maori landowners encouraged to farm by European methods. Evidence given before the Native Affairs Commission went to show that even the Maori leaders have not decided this issue for themselves. Our final point of disagreement with the correspondent of the " Manchester Guardian " concerns his reflection upon the honesty and fairness of New Zealand newspapers. "I only regret," he says, " that the limitations of "the 'Guardian's' space prevented " me from saying a great deal more, " and, incidentally, that it should be " necessary to go so far away to say "what should be said here in " Zealand, but cannot for lack of a "medium." So far as "The Press" is concerned the imputation is ungenerous and unfair. We have done our best to awaken public opinion to the need for a more vigorous and enlightened Maori policy; and if the correspondent of the " Man- " Chester Guardian " has anything more to say on the subject only the reasonable limits of space and the law of libel curtail his access to our columns.