G.—lc

15

Viewed from this standpoint the Native-land question at the present juncture cannot be dissociated and considered apart from the well-being of the Maori people. It is not for us to state, but indications all point to the conclusion that for good or ill the next few years will decide the future of the race, when the Legislature has determined not only how its surplus lands shall be disposed of, but how the reserves shall be secured against further encroachment, and utilised in a manner above the reproach of those who do not appreciate all the difficulties the Maori has to face in following in the wake of a rapidly advancing civilisation. To our minds, what is now the paramount consideration —what should be placed before all others when the relative values of the many elements that enter into the Native-land problem are weighed —is the encouragement and training of the Maoris to become industrious settlers. The statute-book may be searched in vain for any scheme deliberately aimed in this direction. The Legislature has always stopped short when it had outlined a scheme or method of acquiring Maori "lands or rendering such available in different ways for European settlement. The necessity of assisting the Maori to settle his own lands was never properly recognised. It was assumed that because he was the owner according to custom and usage, and because the law had affirmed his right of ownership, he was at once in a position to use the land. He was expected to do so, and to bear the burdens and responsibilities incident to the ownership of land. Because he has failed to fulfil expectations and to bear his proportion of local and general taxation he is not deemed worthy tojawn any land except the vague undefined area that should be reserved for his " use and occupation." But the causes that have conspired to the failure have not been investigated with a view to remedial measures. And where in spite of supreme difficulties the Maori has succeeded in making good use of his land the fact is not sufficiently recognised. The spectacle is presented to us of a people starving in the midst of plenty. If it is difficult for the European settler to acquire Maori land owing to complications of title it is more difficult for the individual Maori owner to acquire his own land, be he ever so ambitious and capable of using it. His energy is dissipated in the Land Courts in a orotracted struggle, first, to establish his own right to it, and, secondly, to detach himself from the numerous other owners to whom he is genealogically bound in the title. And when he has succeeded he is handicapped by want of capital, by lack of training he is under the ban as one of a spendthrift, easy-going, improvident people. The land-settlement policy of the colony is framed in such a manner that the Waste Lands Boards undertake all the preliminary work of putting the titles to selections in order, of surveying them as far as possible with a view to practicable fencing-boundaries, road access, and homestead-sites. The selector concerns himself only with financial arrangements to effect the necessary improvements. Here again the State comes to his assistance and lends him money on easy terms. He claims such facilities and assistance as a matter of right, because he is a valuable asset to the State. Under the Land for Settlements Acts we sometimes spend as much as £13,000 for the settlement of one settler, and we suppose that the average cost of settling one settler on land under these Acts is not much less than £1,500. In dealing, therefore, with the lands now remaining to the Maori people we are of opinion that the settlement of the Maoris should be the first consideration. And it is because we recognise the impossibility of doing so on a comprehensive scale by the ordinary method of partition and individualisation that we recommend the intervention of a body, such as the Maori Land Board, to be armed with powers sufficiently elastic to meet the exigencies of the situation. We were directed by Your Excellency to inquire and report as to what areas could or should be set apart, inter alia, for future occupation by the descendants and successors of the Native owners, and how such land can in the meantime be properly and profitably utilised. In our recommendations as to the leasing of the surplus lands we were influenced largely by the necessity of