THE IMPROVEMENT OF MAORI LAND TITLES

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.