The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1909. THE NATIVE LAND QUESTION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2568, 31 July 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1909. THE NATIVE LAND QUESTION.

i Tho pronouncement mado by the Acting-Premier at Papawai the* other day was the most important that has come from the Ministry for some time. Whilst failing to make definite proposals for solving the Native land problem, tho Hon. Mr. Carroll lias cleared the air, so to speak, by setting forth the difficulties that at present stand in the way of a solution, and by indicating—if only in vague terms —the lines that must be followed to bring about an improvement. The lion, gentleman’s speech, moreover, is memorable in that it admits tho weaknesses of the present Ministerial policy, and by inference confesses tho utter failure of the Government in the past. Of course, Mr. Carroll does not put this confession into explicit terms, but a few extracts from his spoech are sufficient 'evidence on the point. He tells us ‘‘the time has arrived for a consolidation of tho work achieved,” and adds: “If there is to be a revision of methods of dealing with the Native lands.” His subsequent statement infers that such revision is absolutely necessary. Then •we are told “That the Maoris should be increasingly thrown on their own resoruces” —a virtual admission that tho spoon-feeding methods of the past have proved inefficacious. “They should,” he adds, “be made to feel tho need of sharing increasingly in local and general taxation,” which is obviously the answer to the protest which has become more and more vehement of late against the iniquitous system which permits the Natives to keep large areas of land idle to the detriment of their European neighbors, and at the same time to escape..taxation. Mr. Carroll also foreshadows fresh legislation of a comprehensive nature and, taking a t line from the tenor of his speech, it is likely to constitute a marked deviation from the policy with which the Government has in the past professed to be supremely satisfied. However, as in the case of the retrenchment Scheme, it is futile to waste time ever the past misdeeds of the Government, and much more profitable to consider the merits or demerits of its future proposals. The Ward Government will he forgiven for a good deal of its. past extravagance as a result of its present wise economy, and the awful badness of Native legislation in the past will soon he forgotten if the Acting-Premier and his colleagues are sincere enough and determined enough in their efforts to open up the present waste Native lands, and make them available for general settlement.

In coming to some of the main features of the Acting-Premier’s address, we must commefxd the soundness of his contention that it is useless to reserve lands for the Maoris unless they are able to work them themselves. To meet this difficulty, Mr. Carroll asks that the Government in educating the Maoris should lay special stress upon the necessity of providing an agricultural training. This, too, is quite sound, for it is a fact that whilst the Natives at present retain the ownership of seven million acres of lands, only a handful of them have a practical knowledge of how to go about farming. Assuming that the bulk of the young Maori population were agreeable to become farmers, it must of necessity be many years before a system of agricultural education could fit them to make a living on the land, and the question arises What is to become of it in the meantime? Provided only a reasonable quantity of land were reserved for this purpose, and it was made available for European settlement in the meantime, a good deal might ho said for this suggestion, but it' is not without its drawbacks. So long as the revenue from these lands was available for the Maori owners, so long would their present indisposition to y learn farming or any other useful art coixtinue. As Sir Robert Stout declared when lie was round with the Native Land Commission,, the salvation of ;the Maori is work, hut he will never work so long as ho can collect sufficient revenue from pakeha farmers to maintain some sort of subsistence. At the present time the ownership of these vast areas of laiitt ■ by the Natives constitutes not only a serious drawback to the welfare of. the Dominion, but a curse to the Maori race. Apart from the question of abstract justice, there -is little doubt that if the Maoris were suddenly deprived of the lands frbm which at the present time they can derive, without prosonal exertion, an easy living, there would Ixo a much better chance of the permanent perpetuation of a magnificent type of people. However, nothing but good can come of providing a first-class agricultural education for those Maoris

who will avail themselves of it, and it seems to us that an institution similar to Lincoln College in Canterbury might with advantage be established for the young'Maoris of this Island. The cost of this and other schemes of a similar nature could easily be made a charge upon some of the areas which, later on, would bo available for those Natives who had satisfied tho Government authorities that they were capable of personally managing farms. Tho Acting-Promigr did not outline any dofinite plan for making the Native lands more easily accessible for general settlement, though ho did hint at the necessity: to “modify Native customs and usages, so that the holdings may, at the end of the investigation, bo available in convenient blocks and with sufficient titles for settlement purposes.” This may moan everything or nothing, and wo can only hope for the best. The bald fact which Parliament must face when it deals with Native lands is that in tho past any European • settlement which has taken place has been of a most restricted nature. The difficulties of obtaining titles, the great expense attached to same, and the uncertainty surrounding them when obtained, have all combined to keep any but a few comparatively wealthy persons from taking up Native lands. Some system should he devised, and can bo devised, if any Government chooses to take the matter up whole-heartedly, by which large areas of Native lands can be thrown open for general settlement on such terms as will make them available to any farmer in tho community who has the desire and capacity to become a producer. If the Hon. Mr. Car-Ji! had such an ideal as this in his mini when making his pronounceme.it at Papawai, then shall we await with the keenest interest the legislation that is promised when Parliament meets.