THE LAND DIFFICULTY IN THE NORTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12547, 14 April 1904, Page 7

THE LAND DIFFICULTY IN THE NORTH.

OUR Koliukohn correspondent writes:—'The question of opening up the native lands ii» this and other Northern coimtiei is becoming of "such vital Importance to us that it occupies the foremost place in the thoughts of most of the settlers. It is evident that the present Native Land Administration Act is not going to give much relief, notwithstanding that the Minister for Lauds assures tie that a block of 60,090 acres has been successfully clor.lt with at Wangotiai. Wait garni i is not llokiangw, nor are the natives the same. • One thing stands eat clear and plain —that the native owners are extremely desirous to sell or lease, and the Europeans are equally anxious to lease or buy: and vet, owing to the cumbrous machinery of ilia Act, and the niggardly manner in which the Government furnish the Native Lands Court., we are kept at a deadlock. Formerly a judge of the Native Land Court used to spend laborious months in each district in ascertaining titles, but now we are in the other extreme, and wo have an S.M. who rushes round three counties administering iuslioe and snatching time to bold Native Land Courts and to preside on the Licensing Bench. The efficiency of the magistrate in beyond praise, but human nature has a limited endurance, and the thing to be done is impossible. The Ministers of the Crown do not appear to thoroughly tiers tan the surroundings of the case, and have reduced the position now to this, that whereas formerly the native lands for the most part were valueless to the owners, because they did not, know tow to pat- them to use, but were available for. them to dispose of to the Government or the European, now they are valueless to everyone. • They cannot be sold or leased, or the Umber taken from them, or utilised in any way; or, if they can. the purchaser has to obtain tins signatures of from 50 to 300 owners before a magistrate and an interpreter, effectually preventing a poor man from dealing. As there are nearly a quarter of a million acres of native land in llokianga Comity alone, the interest in this question centres here more than elsewhere. I say, without fear of contradiction, that the Hoitiitnca and part of the Bay of Islands Counties contain an enormous stretch of some of the best land in New Zealand, and that the bar to settlement, the bar to progress and to prosperity, lies in a native land difficulty created by the Government.