Northern Advocate Daily With which is incorporated the Northern Mail Daily. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1916. LOCKED-UP LANDS.

Northern Advocate, 16 December 1916, Page 2

Northern Advocate Daily With which is incorporated the Northern Mail Daily.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1916. LOCKED-UP LANDS.

Registered for transmission through the post as a newspaper.

A pronouncement of considerable interest to the North was made at Te Awaniutu cm Wednesday by the Hon G. W. Russell, when speaking at a conference on the responsibilities of native landowners. While not committing the Government in any way, he gave it as his private opinion that the natives must be prepared to bear the full responsibility of citizenship and pay all the rates and taxation of both local and general government if they desired to take advantage of the general facilities. Should that view materialise into a statutory edict more drastic than the regulations now in vogue, it would be hailed with satisfaction by

every operative local body whose lot is cast in areas where native settlement obtains, for the inability to extract due payment of rates out of the native owners in the past has been a very serious financial handif;>|> to the administrative bodies. In some instances a mere tithe oi' the amoiints justly-owing has gone into the coffers of the local bodies, and the aggregate amount thus fjone by default runs into many thousands of pounds. Any further legislation on the subject might equitably take into account a retrospecivo collection of .the amounts owing, since there is no fair reason why the native debtor should : have differentia) treatment as against the white settler, who has to

meet his rating and taxation obligation to the utmost farthing. Mr Kussoil stressed the point that the time had fully arirved when general settlemen ciud development should no longer be hampered and hindered by the natives and their lands, and he regarded it as an intolerable suggestion that the purpose of the law, the interest of settlers, and the welfare of the country as a whole should be thus defeated. That sentiment will find an echo throughout the North, where expansion is' checked by !oeked-up areas that do iro uood cf themselves and stand in

the war "of conn»i'tivo continuity of progress Any act ion, of course, pre-'.vu|-po:<es .ii'st 'm.mHmjl: with the native proprietors, yet should Inke into contrniplativii ■whether it a;:i ords with the ideal of .Dominion growth if the option of disposal is left with the natives • <uch an attitude is not necessarily harsh and autocratic, but lomes within the true measure of commercial, ethics as best' befitting the country's lequirements.