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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 6025, 16 December 1890, Page 2

Me W. L. Reks has got a little scheme for opening up the King Country for settlement.. Mr Reofl has discovered that to get tbe signatures of native owners to deeds of conveyance causes vexatious delays, and ho might havo ndded expense. \Vo do not know how Mr Reoa proposes to overcome these difficulties created by law. It may b'! that his scheme resuscitates the system that was employed in the early days of tha colony, a system so thoroughly well understood by the Maoiis that it should never liivo been altered. By recognising the absolute power of the chiefs to dispose of tho land with the consent of tho tribo, it left to tho chiofs tho trouble and worry of obtaining tho tribal consent. It was not until Parliament introduced democratic principles into nativo land legislation, find taught the Maoris that tho taurikarika was

as good as the >wmjtrtir<i, that we began to muddle. One muddle has led to others till now our liiws relating to nativo lands aro a muss of hopeless confusion out of which tho country will never emerge till the lot is abolished.