THE LAND QUESTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13486, 13 May 1907, Page 6

THE LAND QUESTION.

SPEECH BY THE NATIVE

MINISTER.

DEFENCE OF THE LAND BILL.

[BY TELEGRAPH.;PRESS ASSOCIATION'.]

New Plymouth, Sunday. The Hon. J. Carroll, Native Minister, addressed a meeting at Omata last night, in the interest of the Government candidate for the Taranaki seat. He maintained that this was a party fight, and that the Government had a claim on the seat (which was so long represented by a Liberal), such as the Opposition had rightly held on the Manukau seat 'after the late Mr. Kirkbride's death.

The Opposition, he said, was centering the fight in connection with the present election round the Land Bill, but their criticism was based on misrepresentation. Mr. Massey had told the electors that the lease-in-perpetuity leases terminated with the death of the tenant. That was untrue, and the statement was made to frighten the wives and dependents of the lessees. The heirs of lessees succeeded in the ordinary course, and the trustees could even sell to another tenant, provided that the terms of the lease were fulfilled. The Opposition also gave out that the Land Bill was a direct attack on the existing freeholds, and that no freehold was safe, but that they > were all in danger of confiscation. There was absolutely no foundation for such a statement. The Bill provided for nothing in regard to existing titles, but only lor tenures of the future in respect of Crown lands yet undisposed of. No contract could be violated, and no Government could attempt to do so, except in cases of resumptionunder the Lands for Settlement Act. The only existing tenure at all affected by the Bill was the occupation with right of purchase, and in that case the State merely gave tennants the choice of another tenure lease, with the opportunity to pay off 90 per cent, of the value. He defended the limitation of area proposals, with which, he said, none could disagree unless the victims admitted . selfishness and covetuousness. There was nothing in the proposals for farmers to run their heads against.

Mr. Carroll defended at length the endowment ' proposals. The Opposition said it would be better to sell the land and fund the money, but if the lands were sold it would be at the present-day value, and only to-day's value would be funded and producing interest. If the land were set aside, its value would increase with the opening up of- the country and the growth of population. ■ It might be open to question whether the whole or only a part of the Crown lands remaining should be set aside, and that was a fair subject for debate. There was nothing in the Land Bill, continued Mr. Carroll, to frighten anyone, but the bogeys raised by the Opposition put fear into the settlers' breasts. He only desired to set aside misrepresentations, and show that the Bill was not the fearful ogre that people were being led to believe, and that there was plenty of room between all opinions to arrive at a workable basis. THE NATIVE LAND PROBLEM. Dealing with the natives and the native land question, Mr. Carroll said that he was greatly impressed, since coming to Taranaki, with the need of bringing the Act of 1892 abreast of the times. Representations made to him by native and European depu- \ tations impressed him with the fact that there was room for an adjustment of the inequalities which existed on both sides. He had impressed upon the natives that the time had come when they should pay rates and taxes the same as Europeans, and have a voice in the affairs of local bodies. - The Maori would speedily be educated in this way. He had found that .the majority of young Maori minds in Taranaki favoured such a reform, and ' were prepared' and anxious to accept a responsibility of that nature. Regarding the desire of holders of native leases for the freehold," he acknowledged that it was quite a natural desire, but the Maori had an equal right to have his side of the question pre sent and to say whether he wished to sell. The Government could not with equal justice take the freehold of one man and give it to another if the owner did not wish to part with it. When put to them in that light the tenants had to admit that it was only justice, and such as they would expect were the positions reversed. ' Regarding the waste Maori lands, the Minister said that most of these lands were not in parts where the natives wished to live. He was willing to sell these lands and purchase good land , for the Maori owners in localities preferred by them. This would' do much good, because the noxious weeds nuisance, for much of which these lands were responsible, could be got rid of. The colony should make , every effort to raise the Maori in the social scale and make him a useful settler. It was not because the Maori was incapable that he was not a successful farmer. He was a husbandman. by ancestral instinct. When in a state of Maoridom the native was a thinker and' cultivator, with the interests and concerns of his family at heart. He.had never been given a chance since the war. He had passed through a long period of sullenness, thraldom, and hallucination of mind, encouraged by the so-called "prophets." He had been a negative all this time, and not an active-minded man throwing the weight of his. energy on the side of progress. While the colony had been spending hundreds of thousands of pounds in assisting the small settlers nothing had yet been done for the Maori. He proposed, when the Native Land Commission's report was available, to settle the Maoris on the land set aside for them, and to open the door of financial institutions to them the same as an ordinary settler. The sooner this was done' the better it would be for all concerned. Ho granted that al' would not be successful, but sharing the responsibilities of the State with his pakeha brother he would, in most cases, succeed and the trial should be made. He regretted that Mr. Okev, the Opposition candidate, had shown such an entire lack of sympathy in saying that he did not believe in the aspirations of the Young Maori party, and that he did not favour lending young native farmers money under the Advances to Settlers Act. The land was the Maori's, and lie had not been over-paid for it. When the young Maoris now_jshowed a strong desire to get on the land —their own landand wanted to raise money for stocking and improving the land, he thought only one in a million would deny him that privilege. ■