MAORI RACE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 61, 3 November 1931, Page 4

MAORI RACE

("Post" Special Cammissioner)

PROGRESSIVE MOVE LAND DEVELOPMENT AS MEANS • TO TAKING SHARE IN NATIONAL LIFE MOST ENCOURAGING RESULTS

' WELLINGTON, Saturday. Sketehing in the House of Representatives the broad principles being pursued in the deyelopment of Maori lands under the schemes inaugurated in tjie past few years, the Native Minister (the Hon Sir Apirana Ngata) spoke interestingly of the influence for good the work is having on the race, and declared that the "back to the land" policy was stiffenjng the back of the race and helping it to maintain its self-respect. "The country expects that after a hundred years or mere of eivilisation, the Maori • should be ahle to maintain himself more or less," said the Minister, "and nobody has found a better way of helping him to do that than ;hy enabling him to uses the land he had inherited from his ancestors. By far the most important progress that can he made by the Maori race is that directed to help him to farm his own land." Value of Native Leaders In order to get the best work out of the Native community, said the ' Minister, it was necessary to place them as far as possible under their own leaders, and wherever he could do so he was deliberately appealing to that element in the constitutioni of the r&ee to help in connection with the land development schemes. Experienced pakeha supervisors snpplied the business element and instructed the Maoris how to do things and> what to do, but in order to induce the Maoris to work, especially for the very small remuneratjon they ~|Could (alford td pay, the Department had to depend | more or less on the natural leaders of the people. It was a truism that by a judieious comhination of the pakeha and the Maori the best re7 sults were achieved. Sir Apirana said that the Native Department, which had never been organised for the purpose of the development of land, but rather for the administration of Native affairs genferally, had had to he converted, for the purpose of the present schemes, . into a land department, and on the ! whole it had been- very fortunate in , the selection of supervisors. The Min- ' ister' went on to refer to the rate of . remuneration the natives received, and ] said that in the Urewera country . the family Jwas reeeiving 5/-I 'per ^ day, whether it eonsisted of three, , five, or ten persons. The attitude ad- 7 opted on native developmental works was that the less the money expended ^ in the process the greater margin .would the natives have when the land \was broken in and was being worked

as a farm. The Minister went on to refer to the effect of the present depression on the Maori mind. "We say now," he said, "that the depression which is more or less a tragedy to the country generally, is a blessing in disguise to the natives. It is the Maori's opportnnity. It has removed, the mist from the eyes of many, and has removed from the pakeha the illusion that he can maintain his high and extravagant standard of living. It has shown him that a lot of the things he regarded as necessary to the standard of living of a Western race are not now as necessary as before. The finest thing that can happen ta the pakeha is to get down to the essentials of his civilisation, and if he can't maintain them all he should try to do without some " The case of the Maori was different. He had not been educated so far that he could not dispense with some of the things he had become accustomed to in his higher standard of life. There was a tremendous lot of elaboration in modern housing, and | the Maori found in time of depression that he could do with a humbler ahd less expensive abode. Raupo Would make an excellent house if the restrictions whieh were now being Applied to building construction were not applied to dwellings of that construction. The Maoris were being told, said Sir Apirana, that every penny that tvas being spent in land development they must repay most day. Turning Point In History "I am sure that in years to come the people of New Zealand will point hack to the present period as one of the ' turning points of its history," said Sir Apirana. "The converse of the picture is that you will have on your hands a native population that may not fit into any part of the country's economic system and that must drift into dependence on charitable aid. The last thing we want to do is to sponge on the pakeha community, ahd the only way to enable the Maori people to maintain their self-respect is to get them harnessed to the land. "Under the stimulus of land development," said Sir Apirana in eonelusion, "the Native race is stiffening its hack. It looks round and finds its arts and erafts, in a fair way to fiS preserved, its songs preserved, its literature preserved in print, and its memibers see that they can depart to their ancestors and say 'When we left ■ New Zealand things were not so bad - with. the race'." ,