Conclusion.

And yet a few words before concluding my subject. I cannot too strongly impress upon you the necessity of having a law which secures to the Natives a good and valid title to their lands, and at the same time afford them a means of dealing with those lands to the best of their advantage. Let me again reiterate, that those means are not to be attained by enacting that blocks of land shall be partitioned into parcels, owned by not more than twenty owners, and that to restrict any dealings with the land, if the same is hold by more than twenty owners, is oppressive to the Natives.

If to this is to be added a multitude of arbitrary and harrassing conditions, necessary to validate such dealings, you increase considerably the cost of acquisition, and lessen the value of the land to the Natives.

"A flea
" Has smaller fleas, that on him prey,
"And these have smaller still to bite 'em,
"And so, ad injinitem."

I have endeavoured to treat my subject in an impartial manner, certainly from a standpoint tending to the interests of our people. The Native Land Court does not give that satisfaction to the people that it should do. This has not arisen altogether from the action of the individual Judges, but has been partly caused from defects in the law they have had to administer. Much of this dissatisfaction would be remedied by amending the existing law, defining the interest of each individual owner, and lessening the fees payable to the Court. From these causes may be partially traced the desire of the Natives to frame their own land laws, and for Parliament to give effect thereto. Laws so framed, however, would be a sight for "gods and men,"—a change from King Log to King Stork. I still hope to see a law page 14 which will be workable. If, however, that hope is ever to be realised, it will not be effected by such legislation as that of last session—a return to some of the worst features of the old repealed statutes. If it is true that it requires a sledge hammer to drive a joke into the head of Scotchmen, how much the more would it require a Nasmith's hammer to flatten out the moaning of some of these enactments. He who attempted to master their intricacies often only succeeded in finding that the more he read the less he knew.

With the experience of the last twenty-five years there should be little difficulty in framing a measure which would secure to the Native the highest benefit attainable from his lands, and at the same time afford ample security at a minimum cost to the European when dealing with those lands.

I have taken upon myself to draw your attention to this question, one, indeed, of vital importance to that race with which we as half-castes are so closely allied, and whose interests are identical with our own.

Although you may not be prepared to accept in their entirety the suggestions which are hero offered to you by me, it suffices me to know that you are fully alive to the responsibility which devolves upon you, to devise or support any measures which will render more effecient the present statutes relating to Native affairs. For my part I am content if my usefulness in that direction is as the "guide-post which points the way itself cannot follow."