THE AWAKENING OF THE NORTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12212, 6 March 1903, Page 7

THE AWAKENING OF THE NORTH.

HOKIANGA COUNTY. ' MAORI LAND QUESTIONS. No. VII. [et OUR special REPORTER.] The Hokianga County is one of the largest in New Zealand. It covers an area of nearly 1000 square miles. It is, as a whole, one of the most fertile regions in the two islands, and has immense resources in the shape of timber, flax, and gum. Its climate is exceptionally mild and genial. Frosts,. except of the lightest character, are rare, and snow is unknown. It is watered by innumerable fresh-water streams. It has a magnificent system of tidal waterways, connecting with a fine harbour. Its hills and valleys make rich pasture lands. Its poorest soils will grow all manner of high-class fruits, and wine grapes flourish marvellously well. Yet with all these natural advantages it has a population of only 1767, or less than two people to the square mile. It has no railway, only a few exceedingly bad roads, receives one mail pet week from the outer world, and appears to belong almost as much to New South Wales or the South Sea Islands as to New Zealand. Why this should bo the case at first appears to be a mystery, for Hokianga was known long before Auckland city was dreamt of. It has maintained a trade in timber and flax and gum for nearly a hundred years, and 70 years ago or more it exported greater quantities of wheat and flour and potatoes than any other place in New Zealand. The Maoris did all the cultivation then, and they owned all the land. From Opononi, near the West Coast, to Horeke, near the head waters of the harbour, a distance of nearly 20 miles, there were wheat fields and plantations. Kumaras, taro, potatoes were raised in large quantities, where to-day tail forest trees and stately manuka grow thick and dense. Where to-day is scrub and fern wore populous Maori villages, and evidence on evidence goes to show that less than a century ago the shores of the Hokianga Harbour swarmed with a race of vigorous warriors and husbandmen. And to-day the shores of the Hokianga are almost desolate. The ' beautiful slopes intended by Nature for pastures and grain fields are covered with jungle. The numerous broad, lovelv valleys, with their navigable tidal rivers and rich alluvial flats, ideal places for dairy farms and the raising of corn crops and succulent roots, are tangled jungles, with here and there a solitary Maori whare or group of whares on sites of idyllic loveliness.

This favoured part of the world, this great sweep of rolling country, with its long harbour frontage, its tidal streams, its freshwater creeks, its mild, beautiful climate, is desolate, whereas it should be carrying thousands on thousands of prosperous inhabitants.

Maori ownership and communism account for much of this desolation, though under Maori ownership and communism it was one of the most, populous and prosperous parts of New Zealand. The action of our Government pti'l previous Governments towards the Maori has had. and is having, ruinous results. • The Maori is not by nature, and never was, an idle, shiftless person. Under his old chiefs he worked and fought right well. The pakeha Government has taken away the power of the chiefs, and theoretically increased the power of the individual. It has killed communism, and at the same time put individualism under thrall. The present Government have been repeatedly asked to legislate more favourably on the Maori land question, and those Aucklanders who know how the progress of their province is hampered by Maori land ownership cry out against the injustice done to them, and their children, by this wretched system which keeps huge blocks of fertile country locked against settlement, and a bar to roads and railways. But the injustice done to the white settlers of the. North by this blind and ignorant policy is as nothing to the cruel and shameful wrong done to the Maoris. The Government, which theoretically acknowledges the right of the Maoris"to their lands, treats them as slaves in the disposal of it, and prevents them working it as surely as if they put armed guards upon it. The wrong done to the Maoris, the cruel injustice, inflicted, the degradation wrought, needs blazoning forth at home and abroad, so that pressure can be brought, by public opinion to alter the policy of the Government. The policy of the Government briefly put is fTiis: It prevents the Maori selling his lands to pakeha settlers. It will not buy the lands* through its State officers, and it will not individualise the rights and titles of its Maori owners, consequently neither Maori nor pakeha can work 'the around. The Government rulers may contradict this, and sav that the Maori has full liberty to work his lands. This is not so. We killed the Maori as an industrialist when we broke the power of the Maori chiefs and spoilt the tribal system of communism. I asked many intelligent Maoris why they did not cultivate their lands or rear stock. "If I cultivate a piece of ground." was the invariable reply, "other Maoris who do not work will come and-eat my crops." That is the point, that is the evil which is degrading and ruining the Maori, which hampers the industrious and encourages the thriftless. And it is one of the strongest arguments against the crude forms of land nationalisation or State communism now advocated. Under the present form of things th<s lazy and dissolute Maori has the same right to land and its products as the energetic and sober worker." The descendant of slaves, who, under the old system, would have been kept at work by fear of death or hunger, can eat the crops someone else has planted. Who but a fool will till the ground if someone else receives the produce? Let our Government individualise the rights of the Maoris to their lands, give them their titles so that thev can sell or hold. Such a step would add thousands of workers to our ranks of producers, for the best Maoris are farmers by nature. The thriftless would have to work their land, or part with it. and large areas must of necessity be open to pakeha occupation, for the Maoris hold far more land than they can possibly work. If it were only to raise' the Maoris to a better position than they now hold, to encourage the industrious among them, to spur the careless, it would be worth all the expense and trouble the legal task would cost. It would do more than raise the status of the Maoris and make them producers of national wealth. It would break up the barriers to Northern progress, give an impetus to the construction of roads and railways, and encourage settlement to such a degree that North Auckland, instead of being sparsely populated, would be the most densely settled of any part of New Zealand, and the Hokianga County, instead of having less than two persons to the square mile, would have dozens. The opening of the native lands would, as a matter of course, open the Crown lands to settlement. At present most of the Crown lands in the Auckland province are held back from occupation on account of surrounding or adjoining native properties. The Government is disinclined to settle small blocks of country and make • railways when such work would increase the value of Maori lands. County councils are disinclined to make roads which tap native lands while the natives pay no rates. So the whole North is handi- ; capped tremendously because we have no one at the head of affairs who realises the evils wrought by the present condition of Maori land ownership; or, at any rate, we have no one who cares about remedying these evils. So far as I can see, the Maori Council movement is slow, costly, and unsatisfactory, and is likely to prolong the evil rather than to end it. What is needed is some constitutional change lender which the Crown can compel the registration of all Maori titles. It has been suggested that ail Maori lands should come under the Advances to Settlers Act, a step which would net only force the individualisation of native land rights, but would supply the. natives with money needful to deal with their lands. Personally, I do not- think the Maori requires any compulsion to induce him to part with lands. If he did he must, where necessary, submit to the same law as the pakeha, and yield to the compulsory resumption_ of lands for settlement purposes. One.thing is certain—the Maori is injured and the North held back under the present system, and the sooner the Government take an active interest in the Maori land question and provide a solution for the difficulty the better for all concerned. ; . .';