CONFISCATED LANDS.

Waikato Times, Volume II, Issue 100, 19 December 1872, Page 3

CONFISCATED LANDS.

• / (From .the.Napikb Telegraph.) Another rumour of war reaches us from the North, and though we are not inclined to place much reliance upon the truth of reported conversations between Maoris, there is much in the telegraphic intelligence we received on the 2nd instant, concerning the few words of the Maori King, and the opinion of Hone-te-One, that is worthy of consideration. The King Tawhaio is reported to have said that there nover can be peace between tbo Europeans and the natives, until the confiscated Waikato lands are restored as far as Maungatawhiri. There is no doubt that the act of confiscation was, and will ever remain a rankling sore, but the restoration of the Waikato is as likely as that the moon will fall into the Earth. There is no chance of the King party ever becoming reconciled to the humiliation they were forced- to submit to when, after being driven from stronghold to strongbeld, their country was finally confiscated and settled by Europeans. No punishment that could have-been devised could have been more complete or salutary than when the Waikato triben thus learned that a British cotony was not to be dictated to by a handful of savages. No'tribes in New Zealand were more arrogant and turbulent than those on the Waikato river, and by the occupation of their country by industrious settlers, thoir pride received a fall which this generation of Kingites will certainly neither forgive nor forget. Happily for the colony, it matters very little whether they do or not. The action the Government took in confiscating the territory of rebels, was not with the object of acquiring valuable lands, but solely with a view of teaching barbarians that they could not make war with impunity upon Biitiah subjects. If it were possible to restore those Waikato lands, most of which are held by settlers with Crown Grant titles, nothing would tend more to sop the seed of rebellion and war than by doing so. The mere statement that there never can be peace till those lands arc given back, can bo treated with the indiflerenco or contempt it deserves. It is sufficient for us to know that peace reigns throughout the island at the present time, and we can afford to take our chance of another war. The act of confiscation has been beneficial to the colony in moro ways than one; ft not only answered the purpose of punishment for which it was intended, but it opened up a block of magnificent country that till then —and without it wouldhave been so now —was a mere wilderness of fern and bush. To give a ainglo acre of that land back would be the height of folly and imbecility, for the gift would confer no benefit on a single individual native, and so much land as might be returned would be permanently lost to the cultivalor. It has been maintained by certain philoMaoris, that tho act of confiscation has converted the most powerful tribes in the island into everlasting enemies of the colonist; but, even granting this, which we deny, it will hardly be asserted that the liuppiness and comfort of more families would have been promoted if the Waikato country i had not been occupied by Europeans. The duty of a Government of a young colony is quite as much to further the interest of the country in every possible way as to rigidly preserve the waste lands for the possession of a few hundred savages, and we maintain that in confiscating tho Waikato territory, the colony was cnriched, and a peace ensured that without that act could not havo been obtained. We should not have felt called upon to make these remarks did we not believe that a certain amount of pressure iB being brought to bear in order to secure tho restoration to the natives of some of the confiscated lands in the Waikato. It should not be forgotten that the Maori is far differently situated to the hunting tribes of American Indians, who can only obtain their living by freely roaming over uninhabited country. In America, as European settlements encroach on the hunting grounds, game disappears, and with his chief means of sustenance so does tho Indian ; here, on the contrary, tho Maori has no game to hunt, and he must lead a comparatively stable life around his cultivations in order to live at all. A tribe of New Zealand natives might supply all their wants from a few hundred acres, but the same number of Indians would require as many hundred square miles. The presence of Europeans enriches the one, but is the sure precursor of starvation to the other. • A race of people debarred from getting their living by the confiscation of their lands, would command the sympathy of every honest man, but the Maoris have no such claim upon us. They still hold by far the largest portion of the island, not a thousandth part of which can they possibly make use of, while apparently, the principal luxury the Kingites enjoy from the possession of the soil is the right they exercise of keeping Europeans from turning it to account.