GRIEVANCE OF MAORIS

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23001, 22 April 1940, Page 8

GRIEVANCE OF MAORIS

Ngaitahu Claim Unsettled DEMAND FOR DECISION Dissatisfaction With Treatment

Describing themselves as now desperate, South Island Maori leaders said yesterday that they felt that the Government’s failure to announce some satisfaction of Ngaitahu land claim had marred the otherwise successful centennial celebrations at Akaroa. They came to the celebrations expecting that the Government would make some important and favourable announcement, they said. The replies of" the Ministers have left them highly dissatisfied. A spokesman yesterday insisted that a settlement be reached before the celebrations ended. “Here you will find before you all the principal leaders of the Ngaitahu people to make a request to you .and to your Government.” said Chief Temairaki Taiaroa, paramount elder of the South Island, in his address to the Governor-General and his Ministers at the celebrations on Saturday. “They especially require that the resolution passed at the round-table conference at which Mr Langstone presided should be given effect to. Under this resolution a sum of £12,500 a year was to be paid to the Ngaitahu for 30 years, thus giving effect to the recommendation- of the commission which investigated compensation for the confiscated land. Waiting a Lifetime “The Maori people assembled here are hoping to receive from your Government some reply to the requests they have made about the Ngaitahu claim. As you see, I am grey-headed. Since I was a boy I have waited for the Ngaitahu claim to be attended to. You will see how long I have waited. My people are very anxious indeed that a reply for or against be given us to-day.”. Mr E. T. Tirikatene, M.P., said that deputation after deputation, had taken the matter up, but the reply was always. “Wait a while.” The Maoris were now making a new application at the beginning of another 100 years. Bishop Bennett, the Maori Bishop of Aotearoa, associated himself with the statement of Chief Taiaroa. ' The Prime Minister (the Hon. P. Fraser) said that the claims of the South Island Maoris were engaging the attention of the Government at the present time.. The Government was anxious that all differences should be smoothed away and relegated to the remotest background pf the history of both races, and that they should then march forward together on a greater scale than ever in the past. The Hon. H. T. Armstrong asked whether the Maori claim t6 the land was really any greater than the pakeha. He asked where were the original owners of the land, and who did really own the soil. The Government wanted Maori and pakeha to live side by side as brothers, and would always treat Maori and pakeha in all problems on an equal footing. The Government could not offer anything fairer than that. On that basis the ciaim would be given all the consideration it was entitled to. “Hurt Ua Deeply” This closed the subject at 'the official ceremony, but South Island Maori leaders discussed the claim throughout the week-end. A men to “The Press” was made by Mr P. H. Mac Donald, leader of the Ngaitahu delegation to the Ministers. “The Maori people are desperate now,” he said. “Particularly they are dissatisfied with the reply of . the Hon. H T. Armstrong, which has hurt us deeply upon this occasion. At least we did hope for greater sympathy, especially because the spot on which the Minister spoke has been held sacred to the Maoris for nearly a century. “Furthermore, from the deliberations it appears that the principle has been set up by previous Governments —and not ..° re * tained but intensified by the present Governmerl—that not so - much the rights and wrongs of their cause as the numerical strengths of the claimant tribes should determine the consideration given. Mr Mac Donald said that Commissioner Mantell in a letter to the secretary of the Imperial Government in 1856 clearly stated that the Ngaitahu , claim on the day the agreement was.,,' signed in 1848 v/as worth £2.000,000. In the same letter the commissioner said he regretted that he had been the channel through which the land was obtained from the Maoris, for he considered it the greatest crime committed under the British flag. He had been informed by members of the Imperial Government that 'they had no intention of paying the and that they hoped an epidemic would come along and exterminate them, relieving the Government of its liability. . “Now, however,” said Mr MacDonald,’ “it appears as if the present Government has a similar attitude. It has given ;us no proof that it intends to give us satisfaction. , There has never been a greater representation of the Ngaitahu than at Akaroa to-day, and upon this centennial • occasion we expected that the Government would consider it fitting to announce a settlement. In not doing so is has left us. desperate. “The Maori people are most grateful to the Government for hospitality given to ,us at Akaroa. It is not in a Spirit of ingratitude that the claims are pressed at this time. It is because - such an occasion will never come again. Surely the celebration should close with an announcement from , the Government of its decision. We must have an answer by the end of the week.”