ABLE-BODIED MAORIS ON SUSTENANCE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 124, 11 June 1937, Page 5

ABLE-BODIED MAORIS ON SUSTENANCE

Mr F. B. Loganrs StatemenU Attacked ONLY A FEW IN H.B. Criticism of the remarks in reference to able-bodied Maoris preferring sustenance to work, made by Mr F. B. Logan, chairman of the Hawke 's Bay County Council, was voiced by Mr J. S. Jessep, East Coast Commissioner, when speaking on the telephone to thq HeraldTribune this morning. "It Mr Logan had spoken as he did more than two months ago there might have been some justification for what he was saying," said Mr Jessep. "There are to-day only some three or four Maoris on sustenance in the NTapier-Hastings area, all those who were formeriy on unemploymeut relief and sustenance • having now been engaged on farm developmental work in the Wairoa district or have ohtained private employment, mostly on farms. None of them--has been put on Publie Works. 4If Mr Logan had spoken to me or made eome inquiries," concladed Mr Jessep, "he would not have fallen into the error of making the assertions he did." In reply to inquiries made by a Herald-Tribune reporter, the Labour Department in Hastings stated this afternoon that the number of Maojris on sustenance in Hastings and Napier at the present time was approximately 20 per cent. of the number on sustenance last March. This was due entirely to the work being carried out by the East Coast Commissioner having absorbed the " men on native lands in the Wairoa district. The balance, it was stated, are now employed on local works, mainly native, while others are engaged In seasonal work, particularly erutching. Those remaining on sustenance are corifined to the aged taud physically unfit.