Landless Natives and Illegal Occupation.

Otago Witness, Issue 2818, 18 March 1908, Page 104

Landless Natives and Illegal Occupation.

to the editor. Sic. —Re the report which appeared in your columns event the half-castes for illegally occupying lands on the west side of the Waiau, I may say that I was present in Rivorton at the Council Chambers when Mr Cadman, the then Minister of Kative Affaire, promised a large meeting of Natives to set aside 2000 ecies as lands for landless | Natives. This was done, but from its first setting aside the then Minister of Landß, Sir J. M'Kenzie, docked off a large area for a special settlement, and so it has been going on for years, till the lands supposed to he set aside are now about 40 miles from the original lands, and most unsuitable for the object, as no Native is likely to take up the land. It is totally unfit for settlement, and inaccessible, with the exception of c. small fringe along the sea-coa^t. The balance is rough, steep, and uninviting. The fact is that the Natives are simply being played with in this matter of reserves. Part of your Bub-leader in a print of January 30 makes slight reference to the Princes street reserve, but not, I think, to the sale of the Murihiku block. With your permission 1 should like to put in print what I learned from Te Au, the recognised chief at the period of the sale effected by Mr Maniell on beb*lf of the Government. Te Au has asserted to me that all the moneys they received was £600, and this as payment for over 3,000,000 acres. Mr ITantelPs promises and setting aside of reserves has not been carried out. A reserve of 10 acres on the east side of "Wai*u has been absorbed and surveyed into a section leased under perpetual leas* to a settler. One of 80 acres, on the -west side of the same river, at the mouth, has been leased to a settler, the Southland Waste Land Board drawing the rent. Honi Ma-tewai. who was Te Au'e halfbrother, was awarded a blook of land at the mouth of the Waiau. and I was present when Mr Beker. the chief surveyor of Southland, told him that the land should be surveyed for him, and he then pointed in the direction that it would take. We were then standing at the peg that was put in by Mt Man-tell. When Mr Spence became chief surveyor this rijrht was ignored, with the remark that he did not believe in the sympathy expressed on the Natives' behalf, and tol-d the surveyor who he<3 clravm hie attention to the fact that this land bad be«n set aside for Honi Matewai to mind his own business, and proceeded with the survey. Again, under the Stewart Island purchase, the Natives, besidte » cash payment, were promised hospitals, medical attendance, etc., as being part of the payment. How has this been given effect to? Where are the hospitals? Echo answers where? Medical attendance was granted some years ago, but now a medical man gets about £30 per annum, but even this is so edged round with red tape that the schoolmaster has to wire to the Native Offic© toefere the doctor can be sent for from-iiiverton, and in many cases the patient has died before the doctor reaches the scene. The above is part of the treatment the Natives south have had meted out to them by successive Governments.—l am, etc., Pakeha Maori.