Native Question.

It has been said, "Oh, it is all very well for the Premier to address a meeting in Dunedin where the Maori is as rare as a comet, but if he will only go to a North Island audience and talk about the Maoris there, he will learn a lesson that he will not forget." Well, I am here before a North Island audience, and I am before an audience that in times past I know has taken an intense interest in politics, and I cannot forget the many facts of which I have read as to what has taken place in this town of Marton. I like to approach the Maori question before an audience that knows something of it. (Cheers). I believe the Marton people know something of it, and if there is any one of them that can point out a single fact that I shall state that is inaccurate, I shall be glad of correction, because I want to know the history of my adopted country. (Cheers). Now, let me sketch what our policy has been in dealing with the natives—let me point out the position the colony was in, so far as the Maori question was concerned when we took office, and, in doing so, I wish to reflect nothing on individuals. If I have even to mention individuals' names, I shall only have to do it to illustrate a point I care more for a right view of politics than dealing with persons, (Cheers). Now, what was the position of the Maori question? I say when we took office there was peace. There was no war; nothing was threatened, but I appeal to anyone who was acquainted with the Maori mind,—not in one isolated district of the colony alone, but throughout the colony—were the Maoris in a state of contentment and happiness so far as regards the whites? And I venture to say this : that if you had gone to almost any district in this colony, or even if you had gone to districts in the South Island, where the Maoris were few, and may have been said to have little cause for complaint against the Europeans or the European Government, you would have found this feeling existing among the Maoris. I am not saying whether this feeling was justified or not, but that this feeling did exist I chal-lenge contradiction, and it was this : That though there were no signs of war, no signs of any uprising against the colony, the Maoris were not only dissatisfied, in many districts they were more; they were sulky, and in none of the native districts, so far as I could ascertain, was there any feeling of kindness and amiability towards the Government of this colony. (Cheers). Throughout the length and breadth of the colony there was unrest amongst them, there was discontentment. Now, I have already said, I do not care whether this feeling was justified or not, but I say that if the Government of this colony is such that a large number of people as the Maoris are in this colony are in a state of discontent, then there is something to blame besides the Maoris, because I apprehend it is the duty of the Government so to govern the colony that every one in the colony, be his skin white or brown, shall think of the State as his Government, and have feelings not of enmity but amity towards it. And if you found the Maoris profoundly discontented with their position—afraid that their lands would be taken from them—that the chiefs were to be, some of them, degraded, and their pensions lost. If you had this feeling of discontent amongst them, then I say the Government in the past has been at fault that that feeling had not been altered. Now, what did we propose to do? We proposed as far as we could, to impress upon the Maoris this : That we should not only treat them with justice, but treat them with kindness, and that we should page 4 also see and preserve to them the rights that this colony and that the Queen had guaranteed to them in days gone by. For you must remember the rights of the Maoris do not merely depend upon what is termed the Treaty of Waitangi; but the rights of the Maoris depend upon the Maori Rights Act, 1865, whereby it is declared by the Parliament of this colony that the Maoris were to have equal rights with Europeans. Of course some people may say they were not entitled to equal rights. Those people who aay that would not have voted for the emancipation of the African slaves. It is the same feeling that exists amongst a dominant race. "You are not equal to us, and therefore we shall not give you equal rights." I say that it would be a great blot upon our history as a nation that if towards this race, that I am afraid is dying—that I am afraid is condemned—-it was to be said by the future historian that we, as men, had forgotten all those lessons of the brotherhood of humanity that we hear preached, and that we were to say to our brown brothers you are not entitled to the rights we possess, and we shall treat you differently, Well, we found the Maoris profoundly discontented. How was this discontent to be remedied? It had to be remedied by kindness, by considerate treatment, and it had also to be dealt with in another way. Their lands had to be dealt with, because to a primitive race not accustomed to the industrial arts, having practically no property, no personal property of any value or amount, the land is the Maori's all. And if you will read the history of this colony, those who are young amongst you, and if the old will only recall it to themselves, you will see that in the past almost all our Maori troubles have arisen in reference to our dealing with their land, or their dealing with their land. We had, therefore, in dealing with the Maoris to be kind and considerate and just to them, and, at the same time, we had so to proceed in dealing with the native lands legislation that whilst we saw means of providing for the settlement of this country the Maoris' rights had to be protected and not invaded. Well now, how did we proceed? I say we proceeded in dealing with the Maoris, to show them consideration, to show them kind treatment. We went and met them. The Native Minister met them and argued with them; was not cruel, was not domineering to them. He argued with them as he would argue with Europeans, and tried to get them to come to his way of thinking. And when we came to deal with their land we showed them that not only did we wish to discuss with them the proposed measure of native lands legislation, but that we wished it fully discussed by them. We gave them every opportunity to discuss it, and we also showed them that we were at the same time anxious to preserve their rights, (Cheers) Need I go into the history of Maori land legislation with you? Do you not know that private individuals have obtained land in this colony unrighteously? Do you not know that Maoris from time to time have been unrighteously robbed of their land? ("Yes.") Do you not also know that even when the Government has had to deal with Maori land and has even had to purchase Maori land,—that the records of the past show that even when the Crown itself was the purchaser the Maoris had been dealt with most unrighteously as to their land? And is this not a fact also? That in so far as dealing with native lands, if the existing law were to remain on the Statute Book there would be no provision for the proper settlement of this country; but, on the contrary, if dealings in Maori land were to go on as they had gone on before, the Maoris would have to part with their land in large blocks. No proper settlement of the land could be effected. The result would be, as was going to be the case in many page 5 districts of this colony, tl at the only person who could get an acre of Maori land was the person who had a long purse and a dozen agents and interpreters in his employ to hoodwink the natives. Now all that had to be altered, And how was that to be altered? Mr Bryce tried it. He introduced a Bill to deal with this Maori question, and unfortunately before I came into the House, but the records of Hansard will show that many of those who supported him were not his political supporters, and that those who opposed him and opposed his bill were those who were supporting his Government. The result was that from time to time demands have been made to put the land laws on a proper footing, and nothing had been done. Now what does our bill do? Our bill does this : It first says that there shall be no more of this private trafficking in Maori land as has existed hitherto—that if Maoris wish to sell their land—I shall come to a different part of the business by and by, but I am taking it in a wide way not wishing to omit anything—if a Maori wishes to sell his land, or a hapu wish to sell their land, or a large number of owners wish to sell their land, then they must sell it through a Government officer, and this Government officer also must proceed to sell the land the same as the waste lands of the Crown are sold. Now what does that do for the Maori? First, it prevents those disgraceful and degrading scenes that alas we know have been seen in this Colony, of Maoris made drunk to sign deeds and do other acts that I will not refer to at present. And it also provides this : that all people in this Colony shall be put on a level so far as the purchase of Native land is concerned—that it shall not be left to a Maori doctor, Maori interpreter or agent alone to obtain land, but if the Maori has to sell his land the sale of the land shall be open to all the people of this Colony. They shall be put on a level so far as the leasing or purchase of Maori land are concerned, so that in this Colony small settlements as well as large can be adequately provided for. And it does this for the Maoris : It not only preserves them from improvident bargains but provides a means by which they will be enabled not only to preserve some land for themselves but also preserve some of the money that they obtain for the land for themselves, so that in years to come they shall not be left in destitution or beggary. Now I am not aware of any objection that has been urged to this bill but one. It has been said—"Oh you have made the Maoris trustees, and having made them trustees they are unable to fulfil the trust." There is no such provision in the bill. What has been done is this: There may be committees appointed, and what was the object of appointing these committees? I will tell you. We will suppose that there are 500 Maoris owning a block of land. You cannot deal very well with the 500, but these 500 may appoint seven of a committee and those seven of a committee can then authorise the Commissioner to sell. So far as the committees are concerned, they are not trustees of the land, because the Commissioner is practically the trustee,. He has to deal with the whole question of the sale of the land. These committees are simply in the nature of attorneys or appointees to determine whether the land is to be sold or not. And if that is the only blot in the Bill, all I have got to say is that it is one of the most perfect pieces of legislation that the Assembly of New Zealand has ever passed, (Cheers.) Well I have said we dealt thus with the Maori land question; and we also insisted that whilst we were kind and considerate to the Maoris, they also must obey the law. And hence it was that when there was trouble up the Coast here, and when the Maoris committed an offence by assembling in large numbers and interfering with lands that did not page 6 belong to them, we put the machinery of the criminal law of this country in motion, had the Natives brought before the Supreme Court, tried, and sentenced, so that the Maoris would see that so far as we are concerned as a Government—that whilst we were prepared to deal kindly and considerately with them—whilst we were prepared to meet them in every way possible in dealing with their land—whilst we were prepared to consider the suggestions they made in the passing of the Native Lands Bill, we also said this—"There is one law for you and one law for the Europeans, you must obey the law, we cannot allow any riot or unlawful assembling amongst you anymore than we can amongst Europeans," (Cheers). Now I say again that here I shall only briefly refer to the past. That is the policy that should have been followed out in 1879, and that was the policy that was followed out in 1879 up to the time I left office. It was on my advice that policy was adopted in 1879, for I was then At-torney-General, What happened in 1879 you know. Then the Waimate Plains trouble arose, and the result was ploughing began, and a large number of natives—I forget the exact number; it was upwards of a hundred—were arrested and committed for trial. The question arose—had they offended in law? Most certainly they had. It was only after I left oflice, for I resigned before the session of 1879, that a bill was introduced—that I term a most unfortunate bill—by the Grey Government, Mr Sheehan as Native Minister, which did this; Postponed their trial. I say that was an illegal step that was inaugurated then in 1879, and that illegal step was followed up in 1880, and again followed up in 1882, and again followed up in 1883, I said that there was no need for this law—that there should be the same, law for the Europeans and the Maoris—that if a man has committed an offence he should be brought to trial and punished for it, and that there should be no special bills of acts passed to say that he should not be brought to trial and kept in confinement without trial. It was said, however, and it has been said by my friend Mr Bryce about our policy—"Oh you did a fine thing when you were in office in 1879. There was Hiroki who committed the murder of Mr M'Lean, the surveyor. You had a force on the Plains under Sir George Whitmore, I think in April 1879 or June, to arrest Hiroki, the murderer; why did you allow him to remain under Te Whiti's influence at Parihaka—why did you allow a murderer to be at large ?" Well, I will deal with that by and by; but I think that was an unfortunate illusion of Mr Bryce. I went out of office in June 1879, and the Grey Government went out I think about September 1879. Mr Bryce came into office then, and if you look up the blue books you will find that he himself wrote a memorandum on the 27th December, 1880, in which he stated that Hiroki was still under Te Whiti's keeping at Parihaka, So that for more that twelve months his Government did not take one step to arrest Hiroki, the murderer. Wnen we took office in the end of August or beginning of September, 1878, we had no armed force to back us up. It was not until April. 1879, that Sir George Whitmore said that he could have no force on the Plains that would have been sufficient, if the Maoris were to break forth in rebellion, to preserve the lives of the European settlers, and see that there was no needless bloodshed. But we were told, as the Blue Books will show, that the natives were willing that Hiroki should be arrested even in September, 1878. (A voice—"So he was.") Well he was not. (Laughter). No doubt the reason we did not act in 1879 up to the time I took office was this: That we thought it was not wise then, for the sake of the arrest of one murderer, that we should practically declare page 7 open war on the Plains until we were prepared. And I apprehend the reason why the Hall administration did nothing for more than twelve months afterwards, for eighteen months afterwards, for nearly two years afterwards, was the same reason, that they did not think them-selves warranted, in the state of the colony, to at once engage in a Maori war for the arrest of one murderer. To therefore cast a slur on the Grey Government that during the time I was in office they did not arrest Hiroki, the murderer, under the protection of Te Whiti, when the Government that succeeded us were far more than a year in office before they took any steps to arrest him—I say that could only have been made use of by my friend by lapse of memory, forgetting facts that had taken place so many years ago. "What is the position now of the Maoris after our administration? And remember this also, that our administration has only been a little over two years. I ask you to go from the North Cape to Stewart Island—I ask you to go the various Kaingas of the Maoris and see them, and I undertake to say that if you do so conscientiously and fairly yon will admit this : That nine-tenths of the Maori people—I believe almost all, but I put put it that nine-tenths of the Maoris at least, are not only favourably disposed to Ministers, but that they are favourable to the acts of the Government. Any persons acquainted with Maori affairs will see that. We see four intelligent Maori members voting with the Government, supporting the Govern-ment—entering with, I may say, considerable ingenuity, considerable ability, into the various political questions in the House, and supporting the Government. To see the Natives from the North Cape to Stewart Island quite a different; people to what they were in 1884, contented, peaceful, and anxious to stand well with the Government, is a sight that has not been seen in New Zealand for many a day. And I claim this credit at all events, that during our administration, if we found peace we also found suspicion—if we found no open rebellion we found discontentment, and if we go out of office tomorrow we shall go out with the Maoris not only peaceful but contented; and with the Maoris having this feeling, that at all events both the Government and the Parliament are anxious to deal righteously with them, are anxious to do them justice, are anxious to deal fairly with them in the eye of the law, and to treat them with kindness and generosity. And I say for our Native administration, even if we did not pass this important Native Lands Administration Bill, which would, I believe, for the first time in the history of the colony, put the disposal of the Native lands on a satiafactory footing—even if we did nothing more than leave the Maoris as we leave them at the present time, if we go out of office—our Native administration deserves the utmost consideration, and I say more, the highest gratitude at the hands of the people of this colony. (Cheers.)