The Dominion. Wednesday JUNE 24, 1908. THE NATIVE LANDS MUDDLE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 232, 24 June 1908, Page 6

The Dominion. Wednesday JUNE 24, 1908. THE NATIVE LANDS MUDDLE.

We printed yesterday some particulars concerning the latest difficulties that have sprung up around the administration of last year's Native Land Act. This, the public, may remember, was the measure which the Government, during the session of 190G and the ensuing recess, promised to bring in early during last session. The ltoyal Commission had got speedily' to work, and it v;as not long before a series of excellent reports began' almost to shake the public's conviction, born of years of experience, that the settlement of the Native lands problem was impossible under, a Parliamentary system chiefly ,remarkable. for its extraordinary indifference to its responsibilities and for its innocence of most of the principles of sober statesmaship. The public's doubts gradually revived when week after week passed last session without any sign of the Bill. It was not until the House was utterly demoralised and. worn out, and too weary either for criticism or effective protest, that the ■ Bill was brought' and rushed through- in one sitting. Is it to be wondered at that this measure is now discovered to be as futile as its predecessors? Would it not, on the contrary, have been remarkable if the wild shot of a bad marksman in the dark had scored a. bull's-eye J

There is reason to believe - that the Royal Commission's work has been extensive and useful to the point of reflecting much credit upon the Commissioners.The Act, however, contains a flaw that obstructs' the carrying out of tho Commission's recommendations, and on the slender chance that the next attempt of the Government to unravel the tangled skein will be successful depend our hopes for an. parly solution of a problem that has defied a dragooned Parliament for more than half a generation. That the new obstacle to settlement created by last Act is a serious one is the only conclusion that can bo drawn from the conflicting' statements that have been issued by the Prime Minister and Mr. Carroll. Sir Joseph Ward says that there has been " some technical difficulty regarding the matter of titles" and that " a little flexibility " is required in the ■Act. -Mr. Carroll, in a statement published last night, would have the public believe that it is not Ministerial and Parliamentary blundering that is at tho root of the trouble, but " physical features, previous" negotiations for sale to the Government, and so on "—anything, in fact, but the inadequacy of tho law. Like the Prime Minister, however, he feels that the Act io too rigid, but he prefers to call the missing quality "elasticity" rather than " flexibility."

The public will have no difficulty in understanding that this talk of " elasticity " and " flexibility " is simply the Ministerial manner of avoiding the plain truth that our complaints of last year respecting the indecent haste with which the Act was forced through Parliament have been abundantly justified. The quotations that wo made from last year's debate on. the Bill make interesting reading to-day. Mr. Carroll exclaimed that " every wasted year meant the sotting back of the country and the retardation of Native land settlement." Sir Joseph Ward indignantly rejected a proposal of Mr. Herries'B on the ground that it would " retard settlement ; for twelve months " ! What is the public to deduce from this strange alliance of a Ministerial recognition of the urgent and .important character of the problem with a Ministerial indifference to ordinary caution in framing its laws? What hope docs this latest fiasco hold out of escapo from a chaos that grows yearly more profound ? Mr. Carroll last year held out the bait of " a large and comprehensive measure " to be introduced during the coming session, it is perfectly certain

that wo.shall not have that Bill this year, A largo and comprehensive measure is assuredly greatly to be desired, sincc it has been demonstrated that nothing short of a complete wiping out of the failures of the past will free the question from the damnosa hcreditas of Parliamentary ignorance and apathy. The country has already suffered great injury from the locking up of the Native while the Government has been blundering along from error to error, and it is a grave scandal that settlement should be further retarded as 'a result of bad legislative methods. We hope that, during the coming sessioi), a spirited protest will be made against the policy that has done practically nothing towards solving an urgent national problem. "