THE MAORI.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 277, 31 December 1909, Page 5

THE MAORI.

HIS CAPACITY FOB WORK. Bj Telegraph.—Press Association. [ Auckland, Last Night. A* the annual conference of the Northern Division of the Young Maori Party to-day, Mr. Paul, chairman of • the industry read a gaper on the industrial side of-Maori life and the . progress made by the satires in various pursuits, principally farming. He pointed out that in Taranaki a small number ' of natives had made successful dairy farmers, whilst in the Upper Wanganui several families had settled on bush lands with favorable results. Further south, among the Ngatiapa, whose lands had been individualised, sheep-farming on a sftall scale and grain-growing on • fairly extensive scale had been carried j.on for years by the natives. In the --"iWairarapa and on the East Coast , Maoris had also taken up pastoral pursuits with satisfactory results. •Dr. Te Rangihiroa, M.P., said that the keynote for the party should be "work," and what was wanted by the Maori was assistance in agricultural education and financial facilities, to 1 enable those who desire to settle upon their own land as farmers to do so. Mr. Thornton, headmaster of Te Aute College, said Mr. Paul's paper would help to prove the fallacy of the statement so often heard from "the man in toe street" that the Maori was incapable. He said there were a lot of . eilly people who, because they saw one , drunken Maori, concluded that all -Maoris were drunkards, and because ~ they had met a lazy Maori branded all -Maoris as lazy. They had proved they .: could work and work well.

Dr. Te Rangihiroa moved, and Mr. G. 6. Taul seconded, "That this conference ask the Minister for Agriculture to favorably consider the granting of agricultural scholarships to Maori boys as promised •by Mr. McNab to the Maori Congress of 1908, and considers the advisability of extending the functions of the inspection of the departments in Maori districts to give practical advice and assistance to Maori farmers." This was carried.