MAIZE PLUCKING LABOUR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 125, 4 July 1941, Page 4

MAIZE PLUCKING LABOUR

lease) of European land aggregationists, and the cottages that, once housed Maori families are vacant or vanished. Perhaps there has been a migration of Maoris to other districts. It certainly seems so to me although only the census can settle that point. Certainly there has been a movement of Maori workers into occupations other than working oil the land. No, I think the Maori residents of the Bay of Plenty.are doing their bit to pluck maizei. Al! that seems lacking is tent accommodation for willing workers. Yours etc., OBSERVER.

Sir, —After the experience of this season's maize plucking problem I hope that the powers-that-be will he forwarded and forearmed next year. It seeing to me that the problem of getting sufficient people, Maori or white, to pluck maize is largely one* of providing accommodation on or near the maizergrowing farms. Most farmers can hardly house .permanent workers, let alone a gang of pluckers. As the' maize-pluckers have been Maoris in past years there has idea of "anything will da faftffaoris.." Thus the Maorist are expected to bivouac in rough wigwams made 1 of corrugated iron removesd from haystack roofs; or in draughty manure sheds that have no fireplace or cooking or sanitary arrangements. This is not good" enough in mid-winter, even for Maoris, who are supposed to bet tough and hardy. Actually the Maori is no harder than the whit© maize grower in his comfortable homestead. The old-time Maori had time and material with which to build himself weather proof dwellings^—much better than the shacks in which so many Maoris of this age are condemned ot live* Have, the powers-that-be attempted to establish camps of P.W.D.. hutsi or tents for the accommodation of maize-pluckers, either Maori or white? If not, why not. Surely? the labourer is worthy of his house as well as his hire. Now that the State has closed down sto much of ifs P.W.D. activities and its workmen are on active service there must be a lot of those tents; with board sides and proper chimneys to be had for the asking. What is wrong with setting up such camps afc strategic points in the maize counr* try? If it is good enough for the P.W.D. it ought to be good enough for the Primary Production Council cr whoever elsie is supposed to be running this a-maizing business. It has been done before in another place and another branch of 'farming. Some years* ago the then MP. for Waikato got the present Government to set up half-a-dozen P.W.D. hutments with a cookhouse, cook, camp boss and telephone in a central part of the. Waikato at haymaking time. The Placement Office sent along a gang of its unemployed who were put to work for farmers who needed harvesters. So there seams no reason why the same could not have been done in the Whakatane district at the beginning of June. It might cost somebody a bit of money to give the maize-pluckers something in the natures of "homer comforts," but surely they deserve "a home away from home." Is it right, Mr Editor, for white maize growers to tell a score of Maori workers of both sexes to doss down in a small shed or in a shelter of roofing Iron? I' do not think so, but I do not blame- the employer, who is generally well mortgaged and otherwise in debt. With all respect to the publicitygiven by the BEACON 1 , to the 16® volunteers who picked. 10 acres at; Paroa, to the local Boy Scouts and the volunteer Chinese —all doing their bit—it seems that such methods will not harvest a great deal, of that 1200* acres of! maize. I prefer the idea of well-equipped P.W.D*. camps closei to the job. Were, these set up in May 1 they would have —uilji-** ol - *"r workers, and Chinese!, all ready to work seven days a week (weather permitting) during June and July.. Just a word in defence! of the Maori population of the Bay of Plenty. There seems a wrong im- , pression abroad that the shortage of maize-pluckers is due to the local Maoris not working. In reality, what has happened is that fhe maize acreage has expanded, and the Maori population has decreased considerably through practically all the young Maoris being in the Maori Unit overseas* or in camp. At the same time the progress of European settlement is having a disturbing effect on Maori life. I note with sorrow, how much Maori-owned land on the outskirts of Whakalane has massed into the hands (by sale or /Continued foot of previous column)