Native Land. Laws.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 173, 24 July 1888, Page 1

Native Land. Laws.

An Auckland writer makes the following si-nsible remarks on the native land question:—The law at present stands as a bar to the extension of settlement over a large area of country, on which we have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in the construction of a railway—in the construction of a a railway, be it observed, for the accommodation of settlers whom our present laws prevent from establishing themselves in the country at all. Truly, New- Zealand has done many mad things in its day, but nothing more deserving the name of downright lunacy than this. Then, if it be the case that we are likely to have some of the capital that has been flowing so plentifully into Australia, wbat more likely way that it should be invested than in the purchase and settlement of native lands ? It would be far better that it should be invested in this way than in town allotments, or in business in the cities. There are many men in Australia who, if they could procure moderate-sized farms, would come to the fertile soil and genial climate of New Zealand, and make here their homes. It will be a great misfortune if the Ministers allow the trouble and annoyance which are inseparable from all native Bills to frighten them in this matter, or to deter them from pushing these Bills through this session. There is nothing that this part of the colony wants io much ; there is nothing that we know of that would do the colony as a whole so much good.