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Otago Daily Times, Issue 13861, 26 March 1907, Page 4

THE INDOLENT MAORI. The Native Land Commission has cncoiintore'l at Wanganui a problem which was bound to present itself sooner or later in the course of its investigations. It would bo idlo' to pretend that the typo of Maori who has an apparently constitutional indisposition to work is a rare one. It may bo mot in overy part of tho colony where the aborigines are lo be found— is somo districts, Certainly, to a, much smaller degree than in others, for there are Native settlements of which the inhabitants arc, upon the whole,, an energetic,and industrious set of people. But to some extent the typo is to be found in them all. No one with any extensive acquaintance with the Maori character can fail to havo become painfully aware of the existence of large numbers of the Native race to whom contact with tho higher' European civilisation lias proved to be the reverse of a- blessing: they have readily enough acquired tho vices of tho white man without showing more than the slightest inclination to practise his virtues. The Maori who spends his time lounging about' the hotels and billiard saloons of tho country town is, indeed, a familiar spectacle in the North Island. His chief interest in life seems to lie in the backing of horses at race meetings : for serious employment of a healthful kind lie has absolutely no taste, and so long as lie has no direct incentive to work this class of Native may be expected to continue wasting his days in idleness. By some persons who have observed the deterioration of the Maori tho habits he has formed are attributed to the possession by him of an innate craving for adventure. Among those who take this view is Dr l'omare, tho health officer to tho Native race. "Tho Maori having been an active race, 1 ' Dr Pomare wrote in his last annual report, "and having always been kept in a state of excitement by wars and the rumour wars, can now only find vent for bis feelings on tho racecourse, in gambliug and billiard-playing, with an occasional bout in the Land Court." It is suggested in the same report that if tho Native of this class were employed in the permanent army of the colony his love of excitement might bo gratified, while the effect would bo to keep him a great deal out of doors and thus' to place him somewhat nearer tho condition lie was in when New Zealand was colonised by British people. But it cannot bo doubted that a more desirable plan waa that at which Dr Pomare hinted in his previous report, and which Sir .Robert Stout now strongly emphasises. The only avenuo to tho physical salvation of tho Maori, Dr l'omare insisted in his report iu 1900, lay in tho provision for him of an incentive to work. Wo are pleased to think that a probable outcome of the investigations which the Native Land Commission is making may be tho creation of this necessary incentive. It will bo tho duty of the Commission, it lias been explained, to determine what area of Native land will be required for the individual occupation of the Native owners for purposes o'r cultivation, what area will be necessary for descendants for use in tho future, what area will be required for the landless Natives, aud what area it may bo neccssary to preserve communal blocks iu every instance to keep tho tribal instincts and customs alive. And' it will be, it lias been implied, an .essential element- in the settlement of the Native land question in tho way which the Government has in contemplation that the titles of all Native lands shall bo individualised, so that each Maori owner may be placed on bis own holding and that ho may be instructed Ity the laws of necessity to be industrious and self-reliant. Tho race that is nob trained in industry, as Sir Robert Stout informed the Wanganui Natives on Saturday, is doomed to extinction. We fear that a heavy responsibility lies upon the European population of tho colony in respect of the comparative indifference it has exhibited in the past respecting the needs of the Maori. For many years the Clovermiient and t-lio Legislature have merely trifled with the Native laud problem, upon the solution of which depends the future of the race. All this time six millions of acres of Maori lands', held under a communal system, that- has boon destructive of any real incentive to individual exertion on the part, of the Natives, have lain idlo and unproductive, a. propagating ground for noxious weeds such as have apparently over-run one of the blocks to which the attention of the Commission lias been directed at Wanganui. " Individuahsation and the settling of Native lands," according to Dr Pomare, " are the pivot upon which the salvation of the Maori race rests." It is to be hoped that the result of the investigations of the Commission may be to inspire the Native race as a whole with a nobler conception of lifo than many of them now entertain, and to secure that the Maori may he placed upon a generally higher piano than is occupied by him at the present time.