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An Epitome of Official Documents Relative to Native Affairs and Land Purchases in the North Island of New Zealand

4. Surveyors

4. Surveyors.

I do not think it at all advisable that the surveys of lands should be undertaken by Mr. Heale's office, or by any other official department, for the claimants.

5. When it is taken to be a natural consequence of the contact of two races of men that the soil of the country of one shall pass into the hands of the other, the suffering to the losing race appears to me to be equally inevitable, and therefore not to be in any way reduced or prevented. The higher the losing race may have stood in the scale of humanity, and the greater their material advantages of life have been, the greater will be the suffering, because the loss of the soil means degradation and poverty to the race. I think, therefore, that no plan can be devised for reducing the suffering at all in amount, though it may be reduced in intensity, but only by extending it over a greater length of time. "Whether it is worth while to do so, or whether the more powerful race, though talking about ameliorating the condition of the other, would in reality do so, even were it possible, appears to me to be doubtful in the extreme. Individual benevolence has, no doubt, always existed, and has had more or less visible effects; b t we look in vain for any marked proof of the exercise of benevolence as between races. I take itfor granted that the two races more particularly pointed to by your question page 56are the British and Maori races; and I therefore think it right to state my opinion that the time has not yet arrived in which we can assure ourselves that the soil of the Northern Island of New Zealand will pass permanently into the hands of the British people, or that the British race will be to a certainty the only ruling power in this country.

As the Native Lands Acts in their operation seem to attain the objects for which they were intended, I feel unwilling to suggest any alteration, except those few amendments which have been the subject of discussion between us, and the proposal of which I would leave to your better judgment.

I have, &c.,

F. E. Maning.

Hon. F. D. Fenton, Chief Judge, Native Land Court, Auckland.