NATIVES AND THEIR LAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14971, 19 April 1912, Page 5

NATIVES AND THEIR LAND.

THE LAW'S PROTECTION. [Hi TELEGRAPH.— COBBESPONDENT.] Wellington, Thursday. In tho course of an important judgment delivered by the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) to-day in a case in which impropriety was alleged and considered to be proved, His Honor made some interesting comments relating to the law's view of Maoris. His Honor said: " The history of the law of New Zealand since the very first Act that dealt with tho lands of the aborigines has been to protect the natives against disposing of their lands without due consideration. Various modes of protection have been adopted. Though grants from the Crown have been made to the natives, these grantees havo only in rare instances had grants in fee simple. Conditions, either in the grants themselves or by statute, have almost always been imposed. In fact, there was ever a shadow, so to speak, of their customary rights cast over their lands. They could never alienate their lands at their own will by documents. ■

" The reasons for sucii legislation are apparent to everyone who knows aught of native ways. The aborigines have neither the foresight nor the business ability of tho white race, and to have given them freedom in disposing of their patrimony would have meant that they would soon have been left landless. They had more need of control than many of the white race who aro infants in the eye of the law. Further, the powers that the statutes have given to set aside wills and to award lands to successors, according to Maori customs, show that the natives have never been treated as owners in fee simple. So careful has the Legislature been of their rights that even in a case where specific performance of an agreement to sell land has been decreed the Court of Appeal reserved to the trust commissioner, under the Native Land Frauds Prevention Acts, the power to decide whether the decree was to be carried out.'!