The Natives and Their Lands.

Hastings Standard, Issue 127, 22 September 1896, Page 4

The Natives and Their Lands.

[N.Z. Herald.]

Everyone that remembers the tenor of events ever since the foundation of the colony, and the frequent controversies and quarrels over the land, knows that this has been uniformly the burthen of the native cry. Individuals and even tribes have parted with their lands under temptation or the desire to gratify real or imaginary wants, but selling their lands has at all times been repugnant to the race in general, while at all times, unless when maddened by disputes with the white race, they have shown the utmost willingness to lease their lands. This has arisen not only from national sentiment, but from seeing how the process of selling their lands has left them destitute and helpless, while the money received has only given them the ephemeral gratification of squandering it. It seems a singular thing that this readiness to lease their lands has not been taken advantage of by the Government, as a substitute for, or at least as a subsidiary to, the practice of devoting large sums of money from year to year for the purchase of native lands. The time is near, if it has not come, when borrowing money for this purposa must cease ; and even if it were not so, there are solid reasons for substituting leasing for purchasing, in utilising the lands of the natives in their own interest and for the promotion of settlement. Though but a fragment of what the native owners once held, there are many million of acres in the King Country and elsewhere in the hands of the natives. These areas are in many cases among the richest lands within the shores of the colony, and while they are bringing almost no profit to the owners, the natives cling to them as with the grip of a dying people, reluctant to part from them, and incapable of turning them to practical use. If ever there was a case appealing to the humane instincts of a superior race it is this, and apart from all interest in turning these lands to profitable use for settlement, it would be humane to indulge this sentiment of a dying race, and turn it to account for their benefit. These lands, after setting apart large and sufficient reserves for the settlements and cultivation of the Natives, could by conciliatory negotiation be leased by the State from the Natives at rentals, and for a term that for settlement purposes would be practically equivalent to freehold. The sentiment of ownership would be preserved to the race, while the revenues held in trust and administered for the benefit of the natives would constitute an endowment that would keep them and their descendants from want, and not only so, but give them educational and other advantages that would enable them to hold their place with the superior raee. Assuming that these millions of acres should be obtained by the State, to be taken as required, on leases of 99 years or 999 years, at an average rental of say sixpence per acre, they could be released to settlers at say a shilling per acre for similiar terms, the difference being available for such Governmental or administrative purposes as circumstances might demand. That lands so rich as many of these arears are would be taken up eagerly if offered to immigrant capitalist settlers is beyond a perad venture. They would be in all practical respects equivalent to freeholds, and the system would embrace the obvious desideratum of not creating or a landlord class in a colored race. That a system so simple yet effective, and one so entirely in Wfflowi with the native sentiment, as well as the highest and most permanent interests of the Maoris themselves, should not have been long adopted, is much to be regretted. It is wrt

maintained that as a race the Natives of New Zealand have been ill-treated. Although in individual cases and they have been too numerous—natives have been wronged and despoiled, history shows no case parallel to that of New Zealand in which public sentiment and public administration have been so humane and just in the treatment of an aboriginal race. At the same time the result has shown a very large number of the natives reduced to a landless condition, and their state of impoverishment is a dishonor to the race that has occupied their country. There is a remnant of their lands remaining, which, if administered in this way, would almost, if not altogether, redeem the evil and the wrong that have been done. And while a scheme like this might not work into the hands of the speculator, or meet the wishes of those who can look at this question only from a selfish standpoint, there can be no doubt that it would rapidly promote the settlement and wealth of the country, by presenting an irresistible attraction to the very best class of industrialcapitalist settlers from home and elsewhere, who would be like lifeblood to the colony."