THE MAORIS AND THE NATIVE LANDS ADMINISTRATION BILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7657, 7 June 1886, Page 5

THE MAORIS AND THE NATIVE LANDS ADMINISTRATION BILL.

[FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Kihikihi, Saturday. Mr. Ballance's Native Lauds Bill of this session, so far as its provisions are known, is not more acceptable to the natives than was that of last year. It is the working of the Native Lands Courts that they are disgusted with, such cases as those at which Sir Robert Stout's Bill points at, and others where the real owners have been deprived of their land altogether. Another great cause of discontent is the ease with which bogus claims are admitted ; and that, in some cases where the claims of certain natives have been rejected by the Court, the names of those natives have been put into the certificates afterwards. It is the administration of these Courts that they object to as altogether unsatisfactory, but on Mr. Bailances' Native Committees they look with even greater distrust. They would far sooner trust to the judgment of a European than a Maori tribunal. In the case of the native committee at present existing, the writer haa heard a certain European speculator in native lands declare that he could command by his own influence and his wife's relations, two-fifths of the whole committee. In no case can it be said that Mr. Ballance has met their wants or removed the objections of the natives which stand in the way of a settlement of the land question satisfactory to both races.