NATIVE LAND QUESTION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3148, 18 February 1911, Page 2

NATIVE LAND QUESTION.

——— ' VIEWS OF MR. A. L. D. FRASER. Speaking before the Hastings branch of Hie New Zealand Farmers’ Union on the Native, land question, Mr. Fraser stated that a great mistake had been made. The Maoris tc-day are treated as children and not as men. In the sixties lour Maori' members mere elected to Parliament for three years as an experiment. There are four members still, and they are not required either in the interests of Parliament or of their race. Special legislation for an insignificant majority is undesirable. The Maori as a people would carry greater weight if, instead of four representatives, each member of Parliament were to have a section of them among his constituents. At present ? by influence or other means, the Maori members are invariably drawn to the side of the j party in power, and it is no uncommon j experience to find them drawn from I their beds when the ruling party is in a corner. The' great mistake that has been made in late legislation in dealing with the native land question was that the assessment had been made on the area of the land, and not on (the value. Previous to the Act of 1909, a person could purchase or lease 640 acres of first-class Native land. At the present time one can only get 400 acres of first-class, and those who have leases of 640 acres, which they got under the old Act are debarred from alienating the good-will :;f the full area, as the Act provides that not more than 400 aerts of Native land can be acquired. The reducing of the statutory area from 640 acres of 'ilet-class land to 400 acres, is very iveaklv explained b- saying that it was vitli tlie object of bringing it into ine with the Land Act. But where is ;hat Act? It is certainly not on the statute Book, though floating in space through two sessions. Assessing the ml'uation of first-class land at £4 or iver is illogical and absurd, for it alows a person it© acquire 400 acres, say it £IOO net- acre; while if lie acuires 400 acres at £4 per acre lie is [charred' from purchasing or leasing acre,.