MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1904. WEST COAST RESERVES LEASES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8101, 3 October 1904, Page 2

MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1904. WEST COAST RESERVES LEASES.

The discussion in the House on Thursday afternoon on the subject of the West Coast Reserves leases is of considerable interest in Taranaki. Only new-comers to the district will need to be told that some years ago a most chaotic condition of affairs was brought about by the backing and filling of vaiious Governments with reference to the effect of certain confiscations arising out of the rebellions and wars and misbehaviour of natives on this coast. Some natives had treated the Europeans well, some were avowedly hostile, others were avowedly friendly, but in fact traitors. Land was formally confiscated, some was returned, and the return of some other informally promised, and actual promises and implied promises crossed and re-cross-ed one another until finally there was an interminable tangle which brought the district to the verge of another war. Government surveyors were bundled off land which was undoubtedly Government property, murder and outrage occurred, the Queen's writ Jailed in its currency on the Waimate Plains, and in truth the Government was afraid to occupy Us own. In 1879 the Hall-Atkinson Government in which John Bryce was Native Minister, grasped the nettle. They strengthened the armed constabulary, as our half-police and half-military force was called, to vindicate authority; they appointed a Royal Commission to enquire into the claims of the natives as a measure of justice and goodwill. The double-barrelled policy, firmly and honorably administered, proved successful Enquiry brought out, among other things, that the natives had substantial grievances, and the large reserves .made for the natives and handed over to the Public Trustee to be administered on their behalf were at once an acknowledgment of the justice of claims and a method of satisfying those claims. It is a matter of comparatively well-known history how these reserves were subdivided and leased in the interest alike of European settlement and native security. On the whole the administration of the trust has been a conspicuous success. There have been drawbacks, of course, and we should be sorry to say that the administration has always been perfectly just, either to Europeans or natives, but you must judge administration over a period of years as a vhole, and if, is* hard to conceive that any other arrangement would Jiave worked so well. The particular question raised in Parliament this session is the right, or rather the desire, of certain natives of education and intelligence to be entrusted with the control and management of their own. shares of this great property. The petitioners for this right — Airs Brown and Mrs Thompson— it is conceded are quite capable of properly and wisely managing their property, but it must be only too obvious to all with eyes to see that the bulk of the beneficiaries are not capable, and we appreciate the argument of the Native Minister that it is difficult, if not impossible, to modify the law to meet individual cases. As a general principle we are no more in favor of a Maori landed aristocracy than of a European landed aristocracy, and some day the question will arise as to what should be done with the lands in this trust. The trust is not likely to be an eternal affair. We do not think, however, such a question will really come up for settlement for some time yet. It is one of the great disappointments of the, past twenty-five years that, taken as a whole, the- beneficiaries in this trust show little intellectual, moral, or social improvement. They are almost as wasteful, ■as foolish, as indolent as ever they were.' They are undoubtedly incapable of wisely- managing their property, and we cannot understand any man with a sense oi responsibility advocating that they aliDuhj bp> allowed to attempt' it.. Per- j haps they jwvt grievance*, for (example, in respect of the cbtrg* lor management, and also in respect of the system on which they are charged land tax, but these qre altogether minor matters which can bp easily enquired into, and if wrong be discovered it can be Boon rectified. And in the cqurse oj that enquiry there ought

9 be an investigation of the circumstances nder which the natives borrow money nd incur liabilities in anticipation of their alf-yearly rents. There are some very urious stories current as to what goes on, nd we are by no means satisfied that he Public Trustee has done his duty in his matter. Transactions are going on, f what wo hear be true, that he ought o stop. If the law is insufficient to enblc him to act he should seek an amendlent of it. But instead of exercising he power he has or obtaining a power he ught to have, he is more or less by his naction countenancing these transactions. )n the main question, however, we are ;enerally in sympathy with the Native Minister's view. "It was in the intersts of the natives to preserve this policy or a while longer, until they saw what he rising generation was capable of. It rould be criminal on our part to give the iresent generation the opportunity of sacificing their birthright, which was the irst thing they would do. Some proecting power was required on their be-