MAORIS' FUTURE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 171, 6 August 1937, Page 9

MAORIS' FUTURE

Bound up With Land TRADITIONAL INTERESTS An indication that there are Maori people alive to the primary causes of many of the present problems affecting the native race to-day was obtained in a conversation at Auckland with Matere Heke, third sister of Hone Heke, the first Maori representative in Parliament to speak without an [Lnterpreter. He was well educated, and aecomplislied much in solving some of thc difficulties tliat divided various tribes. The. whole future of the Maoris was bound up with the land question, said Matere Heke. The Maori had to realise that he lived in a dilferent world and he had to adapt himself to the new conditions. • it was necessary for the Maori to concentrate on consolidation of individual interest, as it was no longer practicable to maintain the old communal system. Even the Cbinese knew the Maori was a good worker on the land, as that was his natural occupation, but an accumulation of legislation and the failure to settle the land question had left the Maori indiiferent to work. It was essential, Matere Heke believed, for the Maori to work the land aloxig the lines of the pakeha. After many vicissitudes there were many Maoris in the North who were succeeding in this respect, and that indicated a revival of the old Maori spirit of work. It was not possible for the .Maori to enter fully into all the activities of -the pakeha, and that made it imp?rative for the Maori to keep to the land. ' 'The new Government is making the mistake of sending young Maori men from the north to work at Tongariro, where they wili be scrub-cutting, bushfelling and post-splitting," said Matere Heke. 'Tnstead of putting those young men on land they could work economically — 10 acres would be sufficient — the Government is sending them away from their traditional home. Such a policy will make the future of the Maori difficult. The fact that so max^y Maoris are landless is the crus.of the whole problem." The future of Maori women will be largely affeoted By the influence of the women' s institutes, in the opinion of Matere Heke. In the North, shfe said, the young girls and young married Maori women were members of the institutes and as a result of the work of the institutes the Maori women were becoming more self-reliant. They were getting their own wool from the sheep and doing the dyeing themselves. They were also enabled to makethe surroundings of their homes better and -ire congenial.