THE FIRST OF TWO ARTICLES

Te Ao Hou, June 1961, Page 14

THE FIRST OF TWO ARTICLES by KORE WHENUA In the previous issues of Te Ao Hou articles have appeared on the improvement of Maori land titles. The series has set out the various steps being taken in the attempt to prevent the rapidly deteriorating position that the titles of Maori lands were heading for. This article is intended to show briefly the position which title improvement has reached during the short period since the Maori Affairs Act 1953 has been in force. The J. K. Hunn Report on the Department of Maori Affairs provided some interesting information on the fact that fragmentation of land titles is not confined only to Maori lands in New Zealand. Minute fragmentation prevails throughout the Continent of Europe. It has been shown that the principal cause of fragmentation is undoubtedly the cumulative effect of the law of succession over successive generations and is aggravated by: (i) the increasing density of population combined with the scarcity of suitable land; and/or (ii) the lack of balance between agriculture and industry in the national economy of the country; and/or (iii) the indiscriminate purchase of small isolated parcels. Some years have now passed since the sections of the Maori Affairs Act, 1953, dealing with title improvement, have been acted upon, and it is now possible from the work done by the specialist officers employed on title improvement to make an assessment of the situation as it is and the future prospect of accomplishing permanent and suitable improvement. Everybody's land is nobody's land. That, in short, is the story of Maori land today. Multiple ownership obstructs utilisation, so Maori land quite commonly lies in the rough or grazes a few animals apathetically, while a multitude of absentee owners rest happily on their proprietary rights, small as they are. Fragmentation of ownership opposes a serious bar to the proper use of the land in the interests of the Maoris themselves, not to mention the national interest. Whereas European land is usually in the name of one person, Maori land often has hundreds, even thousands, of owners in minute fractions. The reason is that even the smallest interest in land will save that owner from being a “landless” Maori, a person without turangawaewae or standing to speak on the tribal marae. A growing number of Maoris would readily sell their fractional interests in land; but, to the remainder, turangawaewae is an important feature of Maori culture. This can be understood as it is not so long ago since the British electoral franchise rested on the property qualification. But the British version of turangawaewae changed with the times and now finds expression in universal adult suffrage. It would be a good thing if the Maori people, with customary realism, could come to regard the ownership of a modern home in town (or country) as a stronger claim to speak on the marae than ownership of an infinitesimal share in scrub country that one has never seen. Within a generation, Maoris will all have a decent home and nothing but a microscopic interest in land, so small as to be scarcely a token of ownership. Turangawaewae based on home ownership would be a realistic gesture of recognition of those Maoris who have proved themselves of some consequence as citizens and have demonstrated their love of a particular plot of land in a practical way.

If fragmentation were, indeed, the ancient Maori title system it would be easier to understand whatever reluctance there may be to part with it; but. in point of fact, it is a European invention imposed on them less than 100 years ago. It came into being when the Maori Land Court was set up in 1865 to transmute the vague Maori customary title into a title cognisable under English law (i.e. proprietary system). In the Hunn Report on Maori Affairs some interesting statistical data was published which shows quite plainly the serious position that Maori land titles are in today and the need for a determined approach to tackle the problem. The number of separate titles registered in each district is: District Succession Orders Whangarei 1,037 Auckland 1,064 Rotorua 1,961 Gisborne 1,314 Wanganui 2,402 Palmerston North 644 Christchurch 363 — 8,785 The number of successors (32,861) added to the titles in a single year is equal to 20 per cent of the total Maori population. While the titles are degenerating at this alarming rate, two measures have been tried, but have failed to arrest the deterioration. These are known as consolidation and conversion. Consolidation is the process of amalgamating all the separate interests that any one person may own District Consolidation Schemes Completed Whangarei 11 Auckland 3 Rotorua 6 Gisborne 6 Wanganui – Palmerston North 2 Christchurch – — 28 District Titles Whangarei 7,000 Auckland 9,455 Rotorua 13,000 Gisborne 6,167 Wanganui 10,000 Palmerston North 7,695 Christchurch 3,028 — Total 56,345 In Tokerau District (Whangarei) there are said to be 1,242,200 owners' names in the titles, or an average of 177 owners in each title. The corresponding figures for other districts are not known. The following table shows the estimated rate at which new owners are being added each year by succession: Average Increase in Owners Per Succession Order Annual Net Increase Number of Owners 0.91 933 7.0 7,522 4.4 8,508 0.31 338 4.5 10,800 4.1 2,582 6.0 2,178 — 32,861 1“arranged successions” in various blocks. His dispersed land interests are added up (in value) and relocated as a combined interest in one block. It is a long, laborious and futile process that has finally been abandoned. except on a small scale. It has been going on for 50 years (since 1911) with results, as follows, which can hardly be said to have justified all the time and money involved: Acreage Average Area 5,146 468 93,765 31,255 82,992 13,832 96,175 16,029 – – 9,596 4,798 – – — — 287,674 10,277

Some examples can be given of the effects of Consolidation, viz.: District Scheme Whangarei Waiapu North Auckland Pukemoremore Gisborne Waihaua Consolidation may look impressive on these figures but unhappily it is a treadmill effort, endless and hopeless. As soon as consolidation is completed, the ownership starts to proliferate again by death and succession, so consolidation is never really completed at all. Conversion is the latest device to be tried. It Interests Bought Purchase Price Average Value 10,874 £109,936 £10 The amount held in the Maori Trustee's Conversion Fund is £110,000 (revolving) but the conversion procedure is not usually resorted to unless there is a prospective purchaser in sight. (Interests bought up in “reserved lands” cannot, however, be sold.) Recourse to conversion should be stepped up, as will be shown. Through misconception, conversion has, in some districts, been called confiscation. In its aim of retaining Maori land in Maori ownership, it achieves the very opposite of confiscation. Conversion is a form of consolidation but is much simpler and speedier than the old-style consolidation. “Convert and hold; fragment and lose!” might well be the slogan of all who wish Maori land to be retained for the Maoris. Another device known as “the £10 Rule” was brought in by legislation in 1957. It enabled the Court to vest the whole of the interest of a deceased person in any one or more beneficiaries to the exclusion of any other, without payment, provided the excluded beneficiary's share does not exceed £10. One Judge has said it is a good rule but would be better still if the £10 limit were “pushed right up”. Again, there is statutory authority for “live buying” by the Maori Trustee; in other words, buying from living owners by agreement. It is not done casually, but with some utilisation motive in mind. It offers the greatest scope of all for simplification of titles. There is ceaseless conflict between the forces of integration and the forces of disintegration of Maori land titles, with the opposing forces lined up as follows:— Owners Completed Area Before Consolidation After Consolidation 1956 1,350 1,023 59 1958 11,000 694 400 1960 110,790 53,327 5,478 was introduced by statute in 1953 and is the process whereby the Maori Trustee buys small “uneconomic interests” (under £25) in Maori land and sells them to individual Maoris or to Maori incorporations. The progress with conversion so far is briefly this: Interests Sold Sale Price Average Value 5,930 £74,764 £12 ½ For Integration For Disintegration Consolidation Conversion Partition £10 Rule Succession Live Buying and the forces of integration are fighting a losing battle. It is a battle, however, that could be won with these same forces and methods if only they were reorganised and employed with more determination Dowson and Sheppard, in their book Land Registration (in the British Commonwealth) have this to say: “The evolution of tenure must be controlled by statute, and, if the best interests of the rightholders are studied, it must be a gradual process…