The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Tuesday, January 20, 1891. RENEWED HOPE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 559, 20 January 1891, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, January 20, 1891. RENEWED HOPE.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country's, Thy God’s, and truth's.

There are indications that the new Parliament will do good work in the matter of native land legislation. In past years there have been so many North Island men sent to the House, with bad titles of their own to look after, that the Southern members have naturally been suspicious of any new legislation brought forward, and the colony has had to put up with a Government that thought more of the spoils of office than of the good of the people. This is proved by the fact that they were afraid to place before Parliament the recommendations made by the newly-appointed Commissioners themselves. The mode of action required is that recommended by Mr Joyce the other day, though perhaps the point was a little obscured by the other issues raised. He wanted to see the matter taken up by the people : in other words he wanted just what one speech would be likely to hinder. That speech was Mr Arthur’s. The position in which that gentleman is placed is so unfair that it must be acknowledged by his strongest opponents on political grounds. Therefore he would act wisely by leaving his case to sp< ak for itself, for directly he intrudes it in a persona! fashion, as he did on Friday, people are apt to look askance at it. He should remember that there are others who perhaps cannot afford to I ring their cases before the Commission, tiid as Mr Joyce pointed out, it is to such as these the attention of Mr McKenzie and others should also be referred. Diiectly Mr Arthur rose and made his own case the prominent feature, he began io defeat Mis own object, by narrowing the question down from one of common ju tice to all holders of defective titles, to a mere personal matter in which one man is left to fight his own battle. As Mr Rees said, the question should be lifted altogether from personal or party grounds, and we are glad to observe that Mich is the light in which it is being taken up by the Napier journals. The Telegraph reprints our article headed “The Native Land Maze,” and adds its weight to the protest against the present condition or things. The News also takes up the subject, and truly states “in Poverty Bay, a magnificent country, bad titles bk ck the way to settlement, and our Gisbcrne Contemporaries are naturally enough disappointed tha. the result of the mueh belauded Commission Is virtually bib Beth

papers are agreed upon this important subject.” The News thus continues :— “ Wnilst determinedly opposed to the validation of 1 rotten ’ titles and to the legalizing of transactions in native land which will not bear the light of day, we are perfectly certain that there are dozens of settlers on the East Coast and in other parts of the colony who have entered into land transactions with the natives in perfect good faith, who have spent hundreds and thousands of pounds in good cash in endeavoring to get clean titles, and who honestly deserve to get them, yet who, owing to the chaotic nature of the laws regarding native lands, are at the mercy of any scampish lawyer or agent who chooses to egg on a few natives to blackmail them. This state of things should be put a stop to. Landgrabbers should not be encouraged in evil doing, but at the same time genuine transactions should be legalised and honest men get their due in the shape of a ‘ clear ’ title. The native land Commission has failed—as we said it would fail. It may be no easy task to find a panacea for the present unsatisfactory state of things on the East Coast, but to find that panacea should be one of the first and foremost duties of the new Parliament.”