Walsh— The Passing of the Maori. 169 



work up a claim that will satisfy the Court. The result is that 

 a rehearing is applied for, and the Court sits again, perhaps 

 after an interval of several months, and with no better satisfac- 

 tion in the end. Meanwhile all the expenses of the Court come 

 off the land, and as the sessions usually occupy several weeks, 

 or perhaps months, these are very considerable. All this time 

 the Maoris are excited and unsettled. Their home-work is largely 

 neglected. Those who have come from a distance hang about 

 the township in which the Court is held, and live in great dis- 

 comfort in tents and makeshift whares, many of them spending 

 their enforced leisure in drinking and gambling at the local 

 hotel. It requires, however, a majority of the persons interested 

 to bring a block of land before the Court ; and, in view of the 

 great expense attending the proceedings, as well as the frequently 

 unsatisfactory nature of the decisions, it is often years before 

 those who are desirous of having their claims defined can induce 

 the rest of the tribe to undertake a step fraught with so uncertain 

 issues. Meanwhile the enterprising and industrious Maori is 

 severely handicapped, as, even if he obtain the tacit consent of 

 the tribe to occupy and improve a piece of land, he has no 

 guarantee that his home will not be broken up and the fruit 

 of his labour go to another claimant whenever the land goes 

 through the Court, as sooner or later it is sure to do. The 

 consequence is that the whole settlement is kept back and 

 discouraged. The man whose enterprise and industry would 

 give a lead to his neighbours loses heart, while the rest are 

 deprived of an example which would help to raise them in the 

 scale of civilisation. 



There is another point in which the land laws press very 

 heavily upon the Maoris. In order to substantiate a claim to 

 ancestral land the claimant is required to prove occupation. 

 After much delay and contention — extending perhaps over a 

 number of years — it is finally resolved to bring a block before 

 the Court in order that the rights of the various claimants may 

 be defined. During all this time every one aspiring to a share 

 must have done something to demonstrate the fact that he is 

 an owner. He must make a cultivation, build a house, sell some 

 timber, assent to the making of a road, &c. He must, in fact, 

 " shepherd his claim," or his claim will be jumped. But the 

 house is not meant for a permanent dwelling ; very often the 

 fence is uncompleted, and the crop is allowed to take care of 

 itself. The occupation is for the most part purely technical, 

 but the work has to be done all the same, though it involve 

 much useless labour and frequent journeyings to and fro over 

 long distances ; while, as the Maoris almost invariably take their 

 wives and families along with them, these have to endure much 



