MAORI SOCIALISTS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2066, 18 December 1907, Page 1

MAORI SOCIALISTS

COMMUNISM ON THE EAST COAST. Dll. MASON’S EXPERIENCE. (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Deo. 17. Dr. IMuson, in his recent voyage through the -Native wilds of Poverty Bay, discovered a tribe of Maoris ill whom modern -Socialistic are obtaining rapid realisation. These interesting people, he told a -Dominion -representative, reside in the Ngatiporou’s district,stretching from Gisborne to East Cape. Tho territory is so roadless that one almost ■needs a. flying machine to reach them, yet- in spite of their isolation they are working out t-lieir salvation -in a most remarkable and -praiseworthy manner. They are a communistic people. They have no dilapidated houses —the only bad houses Dr. Mason saw there belonged 1 to a few pakehas who have settled among them. Their wives and themselves are living in splendidly constructed dwellings, and- tilling the whole of their -lands, which number many thousands of acres, on thoroughly communistic lines. Tho owners of tlie land -have formed themsdlves into a sort- of association, controlled by a committee and a. -manager. The Natives -round about work at- the ordinary -rates of wages and share the profits. iT-lieir system was- the nearest approach to the -ideals of Socialism that Dr. Mason had ever seen. The old men receive preference for- light work, the women cut light scrub, and the young men do the hard work. Teliey have laid down about 125 miles of telephone wires of their own, and all tliei-r stations, of which they have several, are connected with one an>otlier. At the place where tho doctor stayed one night they had a telephone exchange with _ a -large number of leads on it, and it t-ook -a girl pretty well all her .time answering rings; and this in a. place where one almost wanted a flying machine to get into it. Then the sheep are shorn by machinery. In one of the shearing sheds they had 10 or .12 shears worked by machinery. They •have got -as finely appointed a shearing shed as tho Doctor had seen anywhere. The women- helped—they gathered up the fleeces. A great deal of credit was due to Mr. Ngaia, their member in Parliament, and’ to Mr. Williams, who- has been tlie-ir financial adviser, and aslo to Dr. Pomare, who has brought the sanitary conditions up to a splendid state of norfection.