The Grey River Argus FRIDAY, September 21, 1945. GREYMOUTH NATIVE RESERVE.

Grey River Argus, 21 September 1945, Page 4

The Grey River Argus FRIDAY, September 21, 1945. GREYMOUTH NATIVE RESERVE.

A trust in the interests of those members of the Maori race and their descendants belonging to the West Coast, the Grcymouth native reserve, has inevitably' prompted from time 1o time a comparison between land tenure here and that in all the towns of such dimensions elsewhere in the country. The reserve has doubtless its disadvantages for the community as well as its advantages for the tenants and the native owners. Agitations for a change to the freehold have on occasions been staged, but by no means unanimously. It is conceivable that many occupiers are persuaded that the reserve has had the effect of preventing too great a speculative increase in land values, owing to the impossibility of alienating the title, as distinct from the use of the land. Xow that there is a law designed to prevent undue enhancement of values through the speculative factor, however, the native ownership may not be so essential a regulative influence in this respect. On the other hand, Greymouth may be on the eve of one of its periodical, booms in regard, to land transfers, and the reserve maythus remain something of a check upon uneconomic, if keen competition. The Borough Council is, nevertheless, finding the reserve something of an obstacle in the matter of street widening and improvement, and its proposal for legislation to remove that obstacle appears to be quite reasonable. The Government, whilst it ob-

viously has by this time acquired a very tangible vested interest in the reserve, ought to be willing, even on that account, to facilitate measures of town improvement and development. The native owners nowadays may derive little, if any, more Revenue than the State from the endowment, but it remains for them something of an economic anchor, and they might be unwilling to let go for the sake of some lump sum equivalent. Therefore the local body must make the best of the situation, and that certainly ought to mean that street widening and improvement will be facilitated in any reasonable way t rendering legislation necessary. The Native Department would presumably cooperate to the utmost so long as (lie interests of the owners and also those of the State were duly safeguarded. Possibly the Borough Council will once again take a sounding as to the possibility of a liquidation of the debt to the unlives. Wore they now to be willing io trade the area, the Government might- deem it advisable to institute the freehold, but meantime it should be prepared to sanction such amendments as will enable the Council to attain the objects it has immediately in view.