AUCKLAND'S INLAND TOWNS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13537, 7 September 1907, Page 7

AUCKLAND'S INLAND TOWNS.

TE KUITI.

■:V: FINE PASTORAL COUNTRY. MAORI LEASES. 0? Otm SPECIAL COMMISSIONER.,] 111. I AFTER travelling over tho Waikato railways and seeing the solid progress which is apparent everywhere, it is somewhat depressing to take a journey down the Main Trunk lino and see a beautiful and promising country lying under the blight of bud legislation. From Frank ton to Te Awamutu, or where \ tho lino runs through country settled under j government land tenures, one can see in every direction labour and capital being employed in the improvement of the land. .Stamps aro being drained, fern land ploughed, roads mule, homesteads built. Beyond V: the Puniu, where Maori ownership begins, "• the scrub and lent come in most places right up to tho railway line, and surround j • nearly every railway station. It is not I until one crosses the great ur.drair.ed I swamps, and the broad scrub lands, and ', reaches the forest country, that any real | figus of industry are apparent, and then | it is invariably the timber mill, with its stacks of weatherboards and its screaming ; saws, and tin; mill is built on ground leased from the Maoris and draws its timber from Maori forests. There is scarcely a township on the first hundred miles of tho '■■' Main Trunk line which is not built on Maori-owned land, subject to short-termed Maori leases. There is scarcely a freehold farm from Te Awamutu to Taumarunui, or far beyond Taumarunui for that matter, .'ffheroa European can hold his own homei stead or farm his own land. How can one expect to see progress depending on human labour and human enterprise when every- , thing that can be is done to prevent enterprise and labour winning its just reward? Even the individual Maori owners of this stretch of fair country dare not improve it, because if they did the fruits of their industry would be claimed by those of their tribe, who had done nothing and given nothing towards its encouragement. INJURIOUS LEGISLATION. When I travelled through this country a, score of years tigo, and saw its rolling limestone hills and its broad fertile val- '•;. leys, I prophesied great things concerning wilk future development. The chiefs of the land and the leading people were of their • own accord breaking down the barriers of .■exclusion which had long shut off Robe $ Potae from European communication I '•heard Whaonui, and Taonui, and other great nun among the Mania welcome the advent, of new times, when the Maori ; of the King Country would be lifted to the •l'f level of the white man, and tho lauds far on v each side of the railway would bo settled and made productive by men of both races. Who has spoilt the high dreams of these old chiefs? Who has kept these vast areas of rich land idle and worse than idle? Who j|lhas thrust the Maori down to trickery, and ".. chicanery; to lazy, dissolute ways, when.ho V might be leading a free, honest lite on his own land, and winning from it riches that would go to swell the yearly output of 1 national wealth? Who has kept the white : man from covering the hills with herds and "'flocks and from turning the flats and the swamps into rich farms? Who, but those who have had neither the courage nor the skill to settle this Maori land ownership question in a manner beneficial to both peoples, bet who have rather preferred to see land and people fettered with stupid laws ; r for whit sordid reasons only their* own consciences can tell. ■ ; ,; TWENTY YEARS AGO.

Twenty years ago 1 saw To Kuiti practically a Maori village, the only signs of ■European occupation being the railway which terminated there, and the engineers at work on the Waitete viaduct just be- . yond. • The carved wharepiuu of the Ngati- :: maniapotos stood at the mouth of a picturesque gorge, and around it stretched the native houses. The painted invitation, "Ko Waho" stood out iu clear, relief over the door of the wharepuni. It reads "Ko Ru. Waho'' now I notice, but it was sincere a score years ago, and I well remember the aiders of the tribe relating to their pakeha, °risitor the stories and legends of their race written in the strangely carved panels of the walls. At the end under the great j!gable is the history of that famous rebel, To Kooti, told in pattern pictures of dyed reeds, and To Kooti himself stood by and ; heard a very flattering version of his own. |'deeds, or some of them, and smiled grimly I; as he listened. . The old wharepuni has been moved from its old position, the new invitation "Ko Ra .Waho" has been repainted, and the modern township of Tc Kuiti stretches right across the valley now, and is already climbing the slopes of the hills. I doubt whether any township in New Zealand has made such progress as To Kuiti during the last few years, and I am certain no other township has grown under inch adverse conditions.

Seven or eight years ago the Govern- |: ment offered the natives the noble sum of ten shillings per acre for the block of laud : on which Tc- Kuiti is built. It would have ' been dirt cheap at that price even as a " sheep run, and for line limestone country I intersected by a railway and largely grassed ■Hit'was preposterous; no wonder the. Maoris refused. The Government which offered ; ten shillings an acre for the Te Kuiti block ; has since paid £120 per acre for a very inferior portion of it. Te Kuiti has grown, but like Topsy " it ;: doesn't know how." There is no organisation in the municipal sense, and its inhabi- ■ - : tants are handicapped in every direction whenever they attempt to bring their townShip under modern municipal conditions. After all, even eight or nine years ago Te ' Kuiti consisted merely of an accommodation house, a store, a railway station, and a ."Jew cottar. Now well-built houses fringe the railway line for nearly two miles, and are spread' over the iiat 'in all directions. When it has been in existence even half the,time that Cambridge and Hamilton have '}■■ been known, it will bo larger than either of these towns is now, and will, no doubt, vie with them in municipal enterprise. Te Kuiti stands in the beautiful valley of the Mangaokewa River, a. tributary of tho Waipa. ° The limestone hills fringing this valley are not high nor are they steep, and ' ,' to the South Island would bo looked upon more as rolling downs than lull ranges.. Both thy valley, which is hero about a mile wide, and the hills enclosing it, '. «ill make good agricultural country, for much of the hill country is ploughable, and ; ■• that which is not ploughable, as a rule, .■'.Carries excellent grass. There can be no doubt that if the Maori lands and the Crown lands in this part of Auckland were made easily available for settlement we 1 should see this line district leap to the front J in wealth production, and the township of To Kuiti would grow much faster even than, It is growing to-day. 'IV Kuiti has the advantage of being surrounded by an immense area of excellent, if;-country. Westward of the railway line it ': : ; ' : stretches for fully 30 miles to the West -■'Coast, and northward and southward for ' •'& an indefinite distance. There is also a very forgo area of good country to tho eastward ■ of the line, besides great blocks of excel- ,;' lent milling timber, coal deposits, and posi .'■'■'■ »jbjy other minerals. The working of the ■' limestone deposits is already in active ■/ operation. SOUTHERN SETTLERS',. j .;.- Unfortunately Aucklanders are not makI ing any vcrv vigorous attempt to settle tins [ H fart of their province. They arc leaving its ; Wonderful pastoral resources to be develop- , ■' & and exploited bv South Islanders, and i ;<y men from HuwkVs Bav and Taranaki. despairing 0 f ever getting access to these Te ' Kuiti lands, under a Government tenure, . Jianv people are leasing direct from the .. Maoris. A surveyor told me that during *** year fully 100,000 acres bad been dis- ■

posed of-in this yray, and taken up almost entirely by people who intended to. work it, and not for speculative purposes. I -went over a block of land which has been leased from the Maoris by a Southern syndicate, the rent paid averaging about 3s 6d per acre. There in no doubt that the syndicate has pot a. good bargain. Nearly half the land is ploughablc, but even if i'l. is kept altogether in grass it is estimated to carry three sheep to the acre, It has been carrying fully two to the acre all through tho winter, and the sheep look really well. Much of the hand fronting the railway Mas, until recently, covered with gorse, sweetbriar, and blackberry, and under Maori ownership these pests would have continued to spread, simply because the .Maori would not have, had the capital to expend on it. or would have been so hampered by laws and customs that he date not improve it. The syndicate has already cleared off a big extent of these noxious plants, and has broken up some of the flat land: lor crops, and. no doubt, in a ".little while will, be sending fat stock and wool to the Auckland markets. If the remainder of the hundred odd thousand acres taken up from the Maoris is anything like as good as that which I examined, and is worked anything like as energetically, Tc Kuiti will soon ho sending along the railway a very much larger amount of produce than it is sending now.

Occupation tinder a Maori lease is better than -occupation; but only those who have gone to the trouble of securing Maori signature?, and have paid the costs of a Maori lease, can form any conception of the difficulties and vexatious delays encountered.

I know something of the country surrounding Te Kuiti. I have ridden over it at various times in nearly every direction. I liavo seen beautiful valleys gone naturally to grass, and I have seen pasture creeping up the slopes of the hills without any assistance from man. I know that the only thing tho district wants is ordinary com-mon-sense legislation, which will give either individual titles to its Maori owners or simple and straightforward tenure to pakeha settlers, and then we shall see dairying carried on as actively and more profitably than in most parts of Taranaki, and sheep-farming yielding better returns than it does in either Canterbury or Otago. A little to the northward of Te Kuiti is a very large swamp, which has recently been leased from the Maoris for flax-grow-ing purposes, and which, it is said, will make good grass country when drained. I believe the transaction is held tip for a time because the Maoris after leasing the swamp are making difficulties about the outlet drain, and want a large sum as compensation for the disturbance of some eel weirs. Business arrangements, however, are not likely to be indefinitely blocked, and the draining of this swamp is only the preliminary to similar operations in other parts of the. King Country. The dairying industry is already being established. * Mr. Townsbend, one time Government grader at Auckland, is establishing a factory a little to tho south-west of Te Kuiti, and he informed me that he considered it one of the finest grass districts in New Zealand. There is scope for half-a-dozen dairy factories in this part of the King Country, but the chances arc that, under Maori lease, dairying will not have much chance to develop. The land will be taken up in large blocks, and sheep or cattle-raising will be the chief industry.