THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1906. I; THE GALATEA LAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13095, 7 February 1906, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1906. I; THE GALATEA LAND.

However opinions may otherwise differ upon the Galatea land case, we can all cordially and harmoniously agree that the situation which has arisen does not do credit to the colony, and should be equitably ended as quickly as possible. As wo have maintained when previously commenting upon the case, as Mr. Justice Edwards yesterday morning emphatically impressed upon the natives implicated in the charge of forcible detention of land, there must be no hesitancy upon the part of private citizens— Pakeha or Maori obeying the law, or upon the part of officers of the law in enforcing it. Whatever may lie in the past of the Galatea case, and upon this there are undoubtedly two sides and two opinions, the fact remains that there exists a title dependent upon the same foundation and upon the same principle as those under which the great bulk of the lands in the colony is held, and that if this title is not maintained no landholder and no settler in the colony can consider themselves safe. • We may sympathise with Maori occupiers who claim that they have been wronged by an ancient decision of the Native Land Court, upon the equity of which doubt has been thrown, and we can particularly sympathise with those few of them who are generally admitted to have reasonable cause for complaint. But this sympathy should not blind us to the actual issue at the present moment. Whatever happened when the title Was secured, whether or not the Native Land Court was justified in granting it, the fact remains that by act of our own colonial Court, by decision of a judicial officer of the State, a certificate of title was issued which passed in the ordinary course of business through the hands of various innocent parties, the last of whom claims the possession for which payment has been made and which the State pledges itself to givo to all lawful owners. Upon this, as Mr. Justice Edwards made the Galatea natives thoroughly well understand, there cannot be any doubt. The legal owner must be and will be supported by such force as is necessary to establish the decree of the Court, which has ordered possession to be given, by the sheriff's officers, by the police, by the " small army of Europeans" hinted at by His Honor. There can necessarily be no other point of the case considered until the law has been vindicated. And those who are advising the Galatea natives will serve them best and help them most by convincing them of the criminal folly of opposing the King's Writ. For the time has come when native resistance to the Pakeha law can only harm the native, and when a native wronged by error of law may gain from the European sense of juslice what he can never hope to gain by defying a law which, in spite of occasional errors, is as much for the Kood of the Maori as for the good of the Pakeha.

But while it must be insisted that, notwithstanding the somewhat technical point upon which the Grand

Jury, with the full approval of Mr. .lustion Edwards, threw out the Unlalen indictments, the defied order of the civil Court must be scrupulously and unhesitatingly obeyed, every European must feel ashamed if the Government docs not take steps to compensate those whom its own Native Land Court appears to have wronged. This wrong may not. hove been a general one. Some of the original native owners, possibly tlio majority, appear to have been paid, while others, possibly a minority, but most certainly others, were not paid and did not consent to the Hale. After this lapse of time it is very hard to say exactly what did take place and to separate the Maoris who are justly entitled to our sympathy Mid to compensation by tiie State from those who are merely taking advantage of the confusion to make a further claim. But in a case like this, where some wrong has clearly been done, it is ten thousand times better that we should pay too much in making redress than that, we. should pay too little, and the public generally will be well disposed towards bearing the expense of any settlement which satisfies all parties to this most unfortunate dispute. Special consideration on the part of the Crown is imperative in the matter, for not only has the passage of many years obscured the original transaction, but the claim which might have been made upon he Assurance Fund, formed to cover just such land disputes and thus to effectively guarantee all land titles, has long lapsed by effluxion of time. We may leave to the interested parties the form that an amicable arrangement should take, only urging upon the Government that for our national .honour we should not grudge any equitable payment out of the public funds, knowing that sufficient money will solace either the Maori for the loss of his "ancestral home"' or the Pakeha for the loss of a good bargain. For though we wish to see the Maori Lands unlocked and pass into the hands of European settlers, we do not wish to act unfairly towards the Maori or to take advantage of his ignorance of our laws and customs, least of all do we like to see him suffering through what has been stated from the Bench to be " a grievous wrong " imposed upon the Galatea Maoris by the action of the Native Land Court.