RATING NATIVE LAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18939, 10 February 1925, Page 8

RATING NATIVE LAND.

In reporting on the rating of native lands in the East Coast districts, the committee set up by the Minister for Native Affairs has touched upon many principles of general application. One thing has been done thoroughly. The difficulties of the question have baen thrown once again into bold relief. Land not suitable tor occupation or cultivation and communally owned areas l'or which individual liability can hardly be established enter into and complicate this problem as they do most of those affecting native land. Two considerations stand out most clearly. It is not fair thatnative property should go free of rates in districts where road improvements and similar works increase the value : yet, where there is prospect of hardship on the native, precipitate action should be avoided. The instinctive devotion of the Maori to the land is no more dead to-day than it was when it sent the tribes into battle. It cannot be ignored, even if it must not be allowed undue weight where the effort is to hold the balance evenly between native and European interests. Taking all the circumstances into account, the recommendations of the committee can be generally endorsed. Where rates could be paid and should be paid, a reminder that lie owes a duty to the community will do the native no harm. The risk of forfeiture by strictly legal process is the argument likely to appeal to him most forcibly. Where, on the other hand, there are conditions calling for modification of direct procedure, the Native Land Court appears the body Ijest. qualified to adjudicate. If, as the committee has suggested, it were given wide discretion, and called upon to determine the equity of proceeding to the recovery of t native rates, good progress should readily be made in grappling with a problem in which interests are so interwoven as to make them almost inextricable.