MAORIS URGED TO USE LAND OR IT MAY BE LOST

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23116, 1 December 1949, Page 6

MAORIS URGED TO USE LAND OR IT MAY BE LOST

Comment on the present position of the Maoris is made by Mr. Thomas Todd Gisborne, in the following contributed article to the Herald: — , “I have been thinking over this problem and it seems to me there is a striking similarity between the history of the Scottish Highlanders and that of our Maori people, a similarity with a warning in it. When the Romans over-ran the south of Scotland it was inhabited by a people akin to what we knew until recently in Wales and the Scottish Highlands. They were a warrior race of Celts and they spoke Gaelic. “Some centuries later there began a drift into the east of Scotland of a people we now call Anglo-Saxons. Like a tide it flowed over the rich lands near the coast and what it once reached was Saxon forever. The Gaels were driven back into the mountains, always back and before long still further back, so that by the time that written history begins there was not one large district of fertile land left to the Gaels in all Scotland. Highlanders’ Experience “How can we explain that steady long-continued pushing back of the Highlanders. It was not that the Saxons were better fighters. Probably the reverse was the case. The Highlanders, living largely by hunting in wild country were probably unequalled in guerrilla warfare but from the beginning when they covered the whole of Scotland, they did not use it; they only occupied it, hunted over it and fought over it. The Saxon settlers cleared it, cultivated it and made homes in it. Gradually the axe and the spade proved mightier than the sword. “I think there is a lesson here for our friends, the Maoris. A hundred years ago the country was theirs, expressly guaranteed to them by the Treaty of Waitangi. But they did not use it; they hunted over it and they fought over it. The Pakeha wanted to use the land, to make a home on it, so it was worth much more to him than to the Maori and the land was gradually sold. “The lesson is clear. If the Maoris wish to retain what land they have left they must use it. There is no title, however, entrenched in . treaties that will enable them to hold idle land. that is needed. Neither courage nor skill in fighting can save them. Jf they do not use the land they will lose it.’