The Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. TUESDAY, JULY 22, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 841, 22 July 1879, Page 2

The Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. TUESDAY, JULY 22, 1879.

The speech of His Excellency, the Governor, "when v lasfc week he addressed Parliament at its opening, premises very important changes in the Native Lands Acts. It is a subject fraught with such large intei'ests to the settlers of Poverty Bay, that its discussion cannot be felt other than a most important one. The transfer of the bulk of .the immense tract of territory held by the Natives to European holders, as rapidly as it can be settled, should be the aim and end of all laws dealing with^ Native lands. A mere change of title from the. Maori obstmctionist to the European representative of jjhe same genus, would be without any advantage: whatever. The ultimate alienation of. Maori lands to bona fide settlers must fellow as a certainty. It is but a question of time. But the land speculating mbnopalist, as far as laws can accompolish it, must be shunted from the field. It has been

very truthfully observed by a contemporary, that it is through the land monopolist the constitution of Victoria is being subverted, and the Legislative Council of New South Wales threatened. " So, far," says an intelligent and well-informed writer in the Auckland Star, " the Native Lands Act now in operation countenances not private purchases at all, it permits only of the acquisition of land in very large blocks : and bad as the Act is in other respects, this is its most serious defect. Native negotiations are of so difficult aud costly a character that they can in that way only be made remunerative. The risks even then deter the investment of capital upon legitimate purchases for bona fide colonisation. A sound law would be | certain and unvarying^ in its application, simplifying the process of sale ao as to bring the Native as fairly into the market as any European vendor of land ;it would give him such a title that he could readily subdivide and sell at pleasure, enjoying thereby all the advantages of a free competition. Nothing will prevent the man of large means from purchasing more than the man with limited capital ; nor is it desirable to attempt to do so. But in a colony where the interest on money rules high, land to be lacked up unproductive, or held purely for speculative purposes, must be bought cheap, and a high current price for land may therefore be a blossing by compelling cultivation. The evil of large holdings is reduced to a minimum when the soil is cultivated — for the present, indeed, these holdings are a tangible gain, employing labour and contributing to the taxation and the wealth of the colony. The trouble of dealing with them will come later, when . population increases and agricultural lands available for settlement have become scarce and dear. But even viewed solely in relation to the big purchaser, the defects in the Native lands laws are injurious to the best interests of the North Island by deterring capitalists from making legitimate investments, and throwing speculation in these lands entirely into the hands of a few. A law that would render the disposal of Native lands in large or small blocks simple and expensive, would bring into play all the regulating forces of supply and demand that maintain an equable mean in ordinary transactions. "Is such a system beset with any insuperable obstacle, if the Government were sincerely desirous of inaugurating it 1 We think not. In the Native Lands Courts the principal part of the machinery is ready to hand. The amendments required in the Native Lands Act ought to take the direction of encouraging and assisting Natives to pass their lands through the Court and obtain Crown titles, and should promote individualisation, by empowering a majority of the owners to demand the apportionment of their several ahm-es. rinstead of making the Naoves dependant upon mortgages for the means of approaching the Courts, tlje Government should, upon the request of owners cfesiring to sell, undertake the re quisite surveys and other expenses, taking a lien over the land, with the right of satisfiying it either out of first sales or by appropriating land to the value before the issue of the Crown grants. - The" Native owner would '('then come into the market with, hs land in a saleable form. The competition thus excited would afford the best safeguard against monopoly, the welj-ascertained title giving confidence to the purchaser seeking a homestead. And though the European afflicted with earth hunger might still exercise his penchant he would enjoy no greater advantages than he now possesses in negotiating with white owners of land."