THE MAORI RACE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 47, 18 November 1937, Page 4

THE MAORI RACE

Our Owli Correspondent.)

Improved Conditions In Auckland BISHOP BENNETTS TOUR

(From

AUCKLAND, Last Night. "I have noticed great ircprovements in the temporal conditions of the Maori ccfmnlunities in the North," said the Rt. Rev. F. A. Bennett, Bishop of Aotearoa, after his anuual Visit to the Maoris in North Auckland. 'He is at present' condueting liis annual; tour among the . Maoris of the Auckland diocese and he will proceed to the Maori communities at Hauraki and Thames. In ■ the future he will visit his people three times a year and will return to the diocese- in April. or May of next year. The. improved conditions ruling among the Maoris of the north were attributed by Bishop Bennett to the development schemes, particularly small dairy farms. The Government deserved cfedit, he said, fof carrying out the Maori land development schemes initiated by Sir Apirana

Ngata. They had proved an inestimable temporal blessing* to the Maori race wherever established in the Dominion. "Every able-bodied man is working with the more cheerful outlook which has developed 6ut of the abundance of work, with the cohsequent better wages, regular food and hours of work the Maori race is fitter physically and even increasing rapidly," the bishop eontinued. "One feature of the treatment of '■he Maori race is that the policy h'as been oue of eneouragement m contradistinction to the small hope held out to the Maori iu the early days." - * , Information to the effieet that attendance at school by Maori children was on the increase was gained by the bishop from native school teachers. One of the great difficulties was bridging over the adolescent stage for both boys and girls and it appeared something was required to carry them on from the time they left school until they were settled in some occupation. Something definite or some organisation seCmed necessary to have the young people trained for a trade or occupation. The native school teachers were on the whole a splendid type, he added. "I notice reference was made in the Presbyterian General Assembly to the desirability of closing hotel bars on Saturdays, and I am heartiiy in sympathy with that view," eontinued Bishop Bennett. "It will be for the good not so much of the pakeha as of the Maori. "I have seen and heard all over the country how the better elass of Maori is bemoaning the faet that so much hard-earned money is being squandered on drink. That feeling is not confihed to the Maori people, It would be a great godsend to families throughout the country if hotels could be brought to comply with the general five-day week operating iu so many other iudustries."