The Daily Southern Cross.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXII, Issue 2663, 30 January 1866, Page 4

The Daily Southern Cross.

LUOEO, NON T7RO. " If I h»TB bean extinguished, yet there rise A thouiwid befccons from the spark I bore."

TUESDAY, JANUARY 30.

Few of our readers can have forgotten the lucid explanation of native land tenures and claims given by the humorous writer of " Old " New Zealand :" how one man claimed land because his ancestor was a lizard and inhabited the spot ; and how another considered his right indefeasible in virtue of his ancestor having eaten an original proprietor on the land ; while a third claimed on the ground that it was his ancestor who had suffered mastication. Despite the ludicrous aspect which all this does unquestionably present, it has, and it has many times in the history of the colony been felt to have, a very serious side indeed. The endless variety of claims which the exuberant powers of Maori imagination have been able to conceive has proved the very greatest barrier to the peaceable settlement of the colony. We are not about to renew the foolish scandal so often propagated by enemies of the colonists, and indiscreet or unscrupulous friends of the native race, that improper attempts have been made to wrest the land from the natives on behalf of the settlers. Without for an instant giving credit to so unfounded an assertion as this, we must return to the statement that the endless complications of native land tenures has been the most serious obstacle with which this colony has had to contend. It was felt that the natural result of admitting the native right to the soil was the admission of the right to sell it to whomever they chose. The difficulty of deciding upon the nature of the tenures was a barrier which the powers that then were saw no way of surmounting, except by preventing ,the Europeans from buying the land which they were determined to acknowledge the right of the natives to sell. They judged, with no inconsiderable show of probability in their favour, that the license to purchase land, if conceded to every settler, would lead to difficulties of the most serious kind possible with the natives. The course they actually pursued appeared the only course to prevent an endless train of quarrels and heartburnings between the settlers, who thought they had bought land, and the natives, who might declare that they had never sold it, while, as part proprietors, they UUglll/ W liavc UCBII ui/aouUod firot. £iii/»k was the difficulty under which they laboured ; and the plan of making Government the sole purchaser of land seemed the only way out of the difficulty. That plan was tried, and it has failed. We do not say that in all respects it has failed, for in some, no doubt, it has answered its purpose ; but we do say that it was overthrown at last by the deep-seated impression, which had been gradually gaining ground, that any advantages which it possessed were more than equalled by evils by which it was surrounded. It was evident that the main evil feared by the opponents of direct purchase was the complications that might arise from the hasty purchase of land from one party, which belonged wholly, or in part, to some other ; and it was felt that, if this were once rectified, the rest would be a trifle. The plan taken, as everyone knows, was the commonsense one of defining the native titles before any legal sale could be made ; and so far the thing was done wisely, and may be regarded as pretty sure to work well. The constitution of the Land Court, however, was a thing by no means so easy to arrange, and one which it was easy to make a mistake about. To people at a distance, imbued with the common notion of the inherent injustice of sentiment entertained by the European towards the native population, the mistake most likely to arise would seem to be on the side of carelessness. It would be supposed that we Bhould have been content with something a long way short of securing the interests of the natives, by scrupulous arrangement, with checks and counter-checks for making quite of the justice of an award. By people in the colony, who have for years seen the current of feeling in New Zealand amongst the settlers and the colonial statesmen, the opposite danger would 'naturally be the one most feared. Experience would have taught them that in cases where native interests were so very nearly concerned, any error likely to be made would be found to arise from over anxious eagerness to provide against the remote possibility of a native having just cause of complaint. The fears of the man of experience would have been those realised in the arrangement as it stands. It is true that great care has been exercised in framing the law to provide against any injustice to the natives ; it is also true that the effort to do this in extraordinary completeness has given rise to provisions in the Act which, if we do not greatly mistake, will be found to be no trifling barriers to its usefulness. In spite of the well-meaning expressions of fear which some people at a distance have given utterance to, there can be no reasonable doubt that the greatest possible advantage would accrue to the New Zealand native from the sale of his land. The notion that thirty thousand acres or so was by no means an excessive quantity of land to be in the hands of each Maori was founded, if founded on any common sense principle at all, on the erroneous idea that hunting grounds were needed by the New Zealand native, as they were by the American Indian. We know of course that this was an absurd blunder, and that to confine the natives, so as to force them into near contact with Europeans, is the only way in which we can hope to influence them greatly for good. When, therefore, the law permitting direct purchase was brought into force, it should have been the main object of our legislators to make it work as simply and as smoothly as possible. No one can blame them for an anxiety to secure the very bestmeans of placing the titles to native land on a sure footing. It

was not more necessary to do this on account of the natives than of ourselves. A war might spring out of a neglect in this direction at any time ; and our experience of war has been enough to make us view it with no indifferent eyes. But the need of care in selecting the best men to judge of native titles, &\i\ the necessity for supplying these men with all the most perfect machinery for carrying out their inquiries, ought not to have made our rulers lose sight of the grand necessity for not dawdling over the work. The savage is proverbially the most unstable of mortals. He has one desire which fills his mind this week ; that desire has grown cold next week, and has found a Successor in the third, which engrosses all his thoughts and wishes. With all his advancement, the Maori is in many respects only the savage after all. He cannot hold to the same thing for any considerable length of time, and any long legal process is certain to tire his patience out and disgust him. Now, we do accuse the machinery for the settling of "native titles to laud of being very seriously open to this objection. The native, who is willing to sell his land to-day, would very likely be equally ready to sell it next month, if his title were gone into at once, and decided upon without delay; but if the examination of his title cannot be finally settled within one m&nth, or perhaps six — for there is absolutely no limit, saving the will of the chief judge of the Court— then it is more than likely that he will have grown cold in the matter, and will not move in it again. This, we say, is a very serious evil ; and although it does, to some extent, rest with the chief judge to rectify the evil in practice, we are not sure that he can do so altogether, and we are certain it ought to be left to the discretion of no man whether he will do so or not. For the sake of the natives, far more than of the settlers, we would fain see each man's title to his land made clear, and himself invested with the dignity of a proprietor ia his own right ; and in their interest, we ask every one to watch the working of the Act, that it may appear where it is faulty, and that its faults may be the sooner amended.