MAORI LANDS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2188, 12 May 1908, Page 2

MAORI LANDS.

INDUSTRY OF THE NATIVE.

THE CHIEF JUSTICE INTERVIEWED.

Press Association. AUCKLAND, May 11. The Chief Justice, .Sir Robert Stout, chairman of tbe Royal Commission on the Native Lands, which had recently been sitting in tihe Tauranga district, arrived in Auckland on (Sunday night.. In the course of an interview today, Sir Robert said that the natives were found to be quite willing to set aside considerable areas for sate, smaller areas for lease and to keep up their present cultivation. “Some of the natives,” he went on, “are exceedingly industrious. On one block they -had four, hundred milking cows and are taking large quantities of -milk to the butter (factories. They are also- raising oats and maize and some of them a little wheat. From what I could gather, their farming is not- so good as that of some Europeans, but from what I learn.t- the district lacks farming enterprise in some rer.peots. The Maoris seemed anxious to get good till’es to the land so that they might improve their holdings- and display-, ed every willingness flo co-operate with the efforts of the Commission to settle Hie native land difficulty.” Sir Robert Stout leaves Auckland to-morrow for Wellington on business connected with the Commission. After .a brief stay in the capital, _t-lie Commission wiY deal with the land in the Rotorua, Waikato, 1 bailies and surrounding districts.