NATIVE LAND QUESTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15196, 15 July 1911, Page 5

NATIVE LAND QUESTION

"For tho canto that lacks assistance For tho wrong that needs resistance, For tho future in tho distance. And tho good that wo can <lo." BY C. A. Youko. 11. In a former article two considerations were advanced to show the extent to which tho pakeha race lias failed to extend tho principles of justice ajid . the laws of civilisation to Ihe Native race. Further considerations may be stated as below: — 5. Who can assert that the _ Native Affairs Department lias done or is doing anything for tho benefit of tho Maori people'/ The Maoris are still being left ill tho outer darkness of Communism. British subjects are they, under equal laws! \viiat a travesty of tr-utli even to mention this! The 'actual truth of the present state of tho Maoris ought to make every AngloSaxon British subject in tho Dominion blush for shame, if they be British subi'ecte, why should tho Native policy of the )ominion persist in segregating them'/ Why should they be treated as a people apart from the benefits of civilisation'/ 4. The Maori has a separate Native school system, with a syllabus differing little from that of the pakeha board school, but the little pakeiia knowledge ' lie acquires in attending these schools is soon forgotten, as it cannot be applied when ho returns to his communistic life in tho k&ingas. Ho is taught, though, to forget his own antecedents and language; is disturbed in his faith Ln his race; and is left stranded as a wastrel in a desert of doubt, useless alike to tho community at large and to his own people. Tho only result of this separate system of education is to add to tho numerous parasites battening on the work of tho Native Land Courts.

5. A reoent case before the Supreme Court has shown the illegal and absurd proceedings attending the election of the four Maoris who are supposed to represent their people in Parliament.

6. Tho machinery for obtaining a census of the Maori people is haphazard, and tho result not to be relied upon as being correct.

7. Up to tho presont timo _ it has _ not been compulsory for the Maoris to register births, deaths, or marriages, and, in consequence, many straago things happen in tho kaingas. Considerations connected with Native land settlement have recently suggested to Government the advisability of legalising Native and mixed marriages in accordance with the civil laws; but apparently this is with no intention of improving tho moral and' social condition of tile Natives, as marriages according to Nativo custom are not prohibited, although tho offspring will now bo ■ considered illegitimate in succession to real or personal- estate. The sinister significance of this law may appeal to the clergy, ln the act (" Native Land Act-, 1909," sections 190, 191, 192) no mention is made of marriages in accordance with Nativo custom, and in the case of a Native dying intestate after tho date of this act, who has married according to Nativo custom, and leaves Teal or personal property as well as a beneficial freehold interest in Native land, tho complications .will provide much amiusing employment! for the lawyers. In fact, the Natives are left where they were —in their communistic kaingas,—but their Teal or personal estate will bow pass to the Government instead of to their illegitimate children, should they die intestate. 8. Tho Native' Department plays shuttlecock with the Nativo Health Department, and an efficient and expensively educated Maori health officer is persuaded by tho Nativo Minister to become an inefficient representative of the Maori people in Parliament. This Nativo Health Department is understaffed, and is altogether inefficient, and that it should bo permitted to exist in any way separate from the Health Department of the Dominion is a, disgrace to tho Legislature,' because the insanitary condition the Maoris aro permitted to live in is a constant menace to tho health of the general oommunity. 9. Up to the present time no serious effort has been attempted to utilise the Maoris in the Defence Forces of tho Dominion. There were no Cadet corps formed in the Government Nativo schools, now wero there any Maori Volunteer .corps, and thus it seemed a first class fighting material was boing neglected. Apparently wiser counsels now prevail, as a recent notice has been published- in the vernacular language calling upon the Maori to report himself, with his pakeha fellow British subjects, for scn'iec in the Territorial Defence Force. This is as it should be. ■ The Maori may be requircd. 10. Notwithstanding tho large areas of land which have been in possession of the Maori people, the Native Department has never made any attempt to have the youth of the race trained in! agriculture. No honest effort Iras ever been made to individualise titles and settle the Maori people on their own lands; nor, beyond granting 6mall subsidies for the purpose of tlhe few religious denomination school?, otherwise supported by endowments of land, has anything been- done to train the Maori youth in a knowledge of the various handicrafts. And although these Church Mission 6chools and tho Government Native Schools have foi many years been educating the Native youth in tho English- language, with the result of the formation of the Young Maori party, from which so much is expected ; and despito the fact that the Maoris who have never beeif to any schooj yet-m their daily intercourse with their white neighbours have also learned to speak and understand the Eniglislh language, the Government, in its desire to retain the disposal of the Native lands, refuses to remove disabilities from the most intelligent of the Native Land! Bill of 1909 was being discussed in tho Howe of Representatives Sir Horries moved 1 that tho Maoris of status and education should not be subjected to tho general disabilities. It would not bo reasonable," ho to debar the Hon. Mr Carroll from selling an acre ot ■land, or taking away a 'bottle of bop from an hotel." Mr Carroll replied that the law (?) should remain eis it stood until the number cf the class of Natives referred to was larger." Dr Eangfhiroa, a leading member of the Young Maori "thought that tho proposal was somewhat thus appear that tlie enemies of the Maori race are those of the Tap who havo been educated, and that the laws of Christianity and civilisation wall only be extended to the Maori people to tho extant that the doing so may facilitate the settlement of the lands by tho pakeha,.and the protection of tho white community from epidemics arising from the insanitary conditions of life in the Maoris' communistic 38 Indeed, it may well be asked for what TTurpose does tlio Native Department exist'" Obviouslv, as a channel througn which tho Nativo land may be conveyed to the pakeha. Those who run may read this. Else why the immense parasitic, multitude which begins with the Native Department and extends through t.lx> Nativo Land Courts and its employees t» the Native Land Boards, the numerous Native interpreters, and the endless roll of agents, all battening upon tho unfortunate Maori's lands, but doing little or nothing in the way of individualising his title to land or otherwise enabling him to become a useful member of the igenera.l community. Presumedly the idea of establishing a. Native Minister at the head of a Native Department originated in the desire to administer Native affairs ro that in timo t.he Maoris should be induced to settle upon and cultivate their Jands, If so, tho idea has certainly been 6hrewdly perverted to become a means to another end, and the Native Minister—good, rosy man,—instead of wisely administerine; Nativo affairs so as to improve tho physical, fooial, and political status of his people, has become tho convenient member of the Cabinet to supply his oolleaguo-s of the Ministry with mora and moro Native land, as the presrure of the pakeha voter demounts and the state of the public exchequer permits. Can he believe he is administering las trust wiselv in the interests of the' Maori people when ho encourages them to sell to tiis department vast areas of land for large slims in cash, which he is aware is liable to be immediately squandered in drunken and _ riotious ex-. trar#gaaire? Or can he believe lie is acting wjsily in encouraging the Maori ix'ople to totrnst vast amss of ihoir land to the Maori lend Boards and Public Trustee, to be leased to tho pakeha for a term cf ye.T's? It is impossible that he, or any Ftudenl of 'New Zealand iiisiory who is oeqiuuntrd will tho disastrous \rcrking of the Weft Coar.t Settlement 'Rriwrvs Act-, 1892. c-in believe that leasing the Maori lands to th" pakeha is eventually to benefit tiio Maori rwx?.

TTio history of "The West, Const Si'ttlejnent Reserves Act, 1892." is briefly that, consequent on the Maori v.ur of IP6O-60, vast areas of native land wero confiscated, and, because their land was held under communistic (enure, the land cf thousands of Maoris who had remained loy;!.l wns also confiscated; and it won 30 years efte!'wards before compensation was made fo these, 200.000 odd acres being then allotted to them bv Grown «riint.

liyip wan limly jnstico. and. m fur. was v.'isn. lrat a. flovnrnnionf. acting on fHnncrciiao or socialistic principles was not lil-rly to bo permitted to orcato a number of froc

Ivoldcrs in this way. So, what had been given with tho right hand was soon taken ■back with tho left; these Crown grants wero dishonoured, and tho 200,000 acres handed over to tho public trusteo to administer to tho best advantage. Much .of this land was immediately leased to the pakehas for 21 vears, tho Maoris living upon tho rents. But, before the first term of loaso expired, the leasees found _ a complacent House of Representatives willing to pass an net giving them tho right of renewal; and now thev are clamouring— and tho Farmers' Union is supporting them —for the freehold: while it-he Maori owners cannot obtain sufficient of their own land to livo upon. And so, without inoentivo in life, they arc becomo despised of tho pakeha, bccauso they aro kilo, lazy, drunken, etc. If tho Native Minister suocecdod in leasing all tho nativo lands, and thus created what thts northern press calls a native aristocracy of rack-renting landlords, jvhnt would the Maori people becomo then? .Surely an idle and useless people, proud and discontented, living not within,, but as parasites upon the white man's civilisation —in fact, a separate people. Such a state of things would not bo tolerated in a. democratic country, and the West Const Settlement Reserves Act would soon becomo a precedent for further despoliation.