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 satisfaction 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 discomfort 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 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