Re-thinking individualisation: M'ori land development policy and the law in the age of Ngata (1920-1940)

• Author: Richard Boast
• Position: QC OMNZ, Professor, Victoria University of Wellington
• Pages: 1-52

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RE-THINKING INDIVIDUALISATION: MĀORI LAND

DEVELOPMENT POLICY A ND THE LAW IN THE AGE OF

NG ATA (1920–1940)

RP B*

A

is article focuses on Sir Āpirana Ngata as Minister of Native Aairs and hi s

programme for Māori land development, which was underpinned by legislation

enacted in 1929. e legislation is considered fully, as is the development

programme itself. e thesis of the article is that the d evelopment programme was

of pivotal signicance, historically and legally, and that it nee ds to be understood in

the wider context of law and policy rel ating to Māori land. e land development

programme was a massive and risky invest ment in Māori land development, and

was a reversal of policies which concentrated on the acquisition of Māori land

by the state and its transfer to individual purchasers. It is suggested that Ngata’s

success in bringing about this change was a remarkable achievement, but the

land development policy was undercut by a failure to manage the programme

eectively. is led to Ngata’s resignation. Following his resignation, the state’s

administration of Māori land devel opment changed direction, to the detriment of

Ngata’s wider programme of economic and cultural revitalisation. Furthermore,

the programme was awed by a failure to develop coherent policy as to whether

developed land was to be held by Māori farmers or by collective bodies. Also

signicant was the emergence of a social-democratic and economic nationalist

Labour government after 1935, which was animated by a quite dierent vision

from that of Ngata.

I. I

is article is intended as an overview of the development of Māori

land policy from 1909–1953 (that is, the period in between the two pivotal

* QC OMNZ, Profess or, Victoria University of Wellin gton. is paper is based on a key note

address given at t he Australia a nd New Zealand Le gal History confe rence held at Canterbury

University in 2017. My thanks to Eliz abeth Macphers on, Faculty of Law, Universit y of

Canterbury, and to t he anonymous reviewer f or numerous helpful comment s and suggestion s.

2 Canterbury Law R eview [Vol 25, 2019]

statutes: the Native Land Act 1909 and the Māori Aairs Act 1953.1 ose

two statutes were restatements (and, to some degree, codications) of the

complex statutory framework relating to Māori land tenure – a statutory

framework which had been in a state of dynamic evolution and repeated

remodelling since the enactment of the rst Native Lands Acts of 1862 and

1863 .2 e principal focus of this paper is on Sir Āpirana Ngata and his

Māori land development policies and on the legislation which provided for the

schemes, which was rst enacted in 1929 and was later consolidated into the

core Māori land statutes. To understand the signicance of Ngata’s policies

and the legislation that was enacted to implement them it is necessary to

comment briey on the state of the Māori rural economy in the rst decades

of the 20th century.

e Māori rural economy, from the cessation of the wars in 1872 up

to 1929 and the advent of Ngata’s land development schemes, has not yet

been adequately investigated by economic historians, but it is possible to

hazard a few generalisations. Even where Māori retained substantial areas

of land, as in the East Coast, Hawke’s Bay, and in the central North Island,

they were hampered everywhere by a lack of access to development credit.

Poverty, squalid housing and poor health were widespread.3 Māori remained

vulnerable to epidemic diseases, including measles, inuenza, whooping

cough, pneumonia and typhoid, and were very severely aected by the

inuenza epidemic of 1918–1919. e New Zealand government also badly

mismanaged the epidemic crisis in Sa moa, with dire results. As well as being

vulnerable to epidemics, the Māori population was aected by high levels of

chronic illness, especially tuberculosis, which was a terrible scourge blighting

thousand s of lives and fami lies.4

It was not that all Māori people were poor and ill, or that their circu mstances

were the same throughout the country. Certainly there were a number of

1 ere was also t he Native Land Act 1931, which was a consolidating st atute, enacted when

Ngata was Native M inister, which broug ht together in a single en actment the provision s

of the 1909 Act and the law re lating to Māori la nd development as set out in t he Native

Land Amend ment and Native Land Cl aims Adjustment A ct 1929. e 1931 Act was an

enormously bulk y statute which consolid ated together the Native L and Act 1909 and Ngata’s

1929 legislation into a single en actment. It remaine d in force until the en actment of the

Maori Aa irs Act 1931.

2 On th is originating leg islation and its eec ts see RP Boast  e Native Land Court 1862 –1887:

A Historical Stud y, Cases and Commentary ( omson Reuters, Wellington, 2013).

3 On Māori health, see R aeburn La nge May the People Live: A Hist ory of Maori Health

Dev elo pmen t 1900 –192 0 (Auckland Uni versity Press, Auckla nd, 1999). is is an impor tant

study, which paints a d ire picture of Māori health a nd wellbeing as at circa 1900, but which

also emphasi ses improvement in Māori he alth as resu lt of the eorts of the gover nment,

Māori leaders suc h as Maui Pomare and of religious or ganisations.

4 Some of these theme s are pursued in R ichard Boa st Buying the Land , Selling the La nd:

Government s and Maori Land in the Nor th Island 1865–1921 (Victoria Universit y Press,

Wellington, 2008). is b ook draws on research for the Waita ngi Tribunal process prepare d

by the present author, Brian Mu rton (University of Hawai’ i) and others.

Re-thinking individualisation: Māori land development policy 3

and the law in the age of Ngata (1920-1940)

successful, even well-to-do Māori fa rmers and landowners, who owned large

properties, sent their children to boarding schools, travelled abroad, and who

mixed on reasonably equal terms with national politicians and local elites

(examples are Sir James Carroll, Āpirana Ngata himself, Sir Maui Pomare,

Airini Donnelly, Wi Pere, and Kurupō Tāreha). Māori society was not

innocent of class distinctions.5 Nor were Māori in all parts of the country

in exactly the same circumstances: there was a degree of regional variation.

Although more work is needed on the subject, it appears to be the case that

Māori people were much worse o – in the sense of being poorer and having

fewer options to escape poverty – in the conscated zones of Taranaki and

the Waikato than was the c ase in the East Coast and Hawke’s Bay.6 e tribes

of the conscated areas la cked a landed base, although this may not have been

the only reason for higher levels of poverty, underemployment and mortality.

Māori from other parts of the country who visited the Waikato were shocked

by the conditions there, and it is possible that the situation was even worse in

Taranaki.7 Although it is hard to be certain, the smaller and more localised

Tauranga and eastern Bay of Plenty conscations seem to have had less dire

eects on later generations than was the case in Taranaki and the Waikato.8

Conditions in the Urewera region, partially aected by conscation, were

generally appalling, perhaps the worst in the country. Here oods and crop

failures were literally a matter of life a nd death, as is abundantly demonstrated

by numerous requests for aid sent to the government by the chiefs of Tūhoe,

Ngāti Whare, and Ngāti Manawa in the 1890s, and there is a wealth of

evidence that documents the wretched poverty of Urewera Māori, a poverty

5 ere is a mazingly little l iterature on class di erences within Mā ori society, either today or in

the 19th century.

6 On the leg al history of t he land consc ations of the 1860s, see R P Boast “‘An Expen sive

Mistake’: Law, Court s, and Consc ation on the New Zea land Colonia l Frontier” in RP

Boast and R Hi ll (eds) Raupatu: e Con scation of Māori L and (Victoria Universit y Press,

Wellin gton 2009) 145 –168.

7 On condit ions in the Waikato, see Micha el King Te Puea (Hodder and Stoughton, A uckland,

1977) 28–34; on Tarana ki, see John Hutton Aspects of t he Social History of Maori in Taranaki ,

1880–1960: Over view Report (Researc h report commissioned by the Crown Fore stry Rental

Trust, Wai 143 [Taranaki Inqu iry], 1993) Doc M38. Both K ing and Hutton present a grim

picture of Māori hea lth, mortality and genera l well-being in these areas i n the period from

1880–1930. Much more work needs to be done on the Waik ato.

8 On Tauranga Mā ori in the period unde r study, see Evelyn Stokes A Histor y of Tauranga

County (Dunmor e Press, Palmerston North, 1980) 304 –326. Tauranga Māori were not well-

o by any means, a ny more than they were elsew here, but it appears from Stokes’ exemplar y

regional his tory that a range of economic options d id exist in this area , including supplying

milk to dai ry factories, gu m-digging, c utting ax, bush-f elling and sheep fa rming. Māori had

retained some of t heir lands in this a rea, and the Bay of Plenty i s a mixed farming , rather than

dairy ing, zone. Poor housing and poor hea lth were none the less widespread in Taura nga.