ENVIRONMENT OF MAORIS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 43, 21 February 1939, Page 6

ENVIRONMENT OF MAORIS

CITY AREAS NOT CONGENIAL VIEWS OF HARBOUR BOARD MEMBERS “I think it is degrading to themselves and a danger to the rest of the community to encourage Maoris to live away from where they belong," said Mr. Donald Ross, speaking at a meeting of the Wanganui Harbour Board yesterday. “We should not let them live in houses we should have pulled down long ago." Mr. Ross was of opipion that the proper place for Maoris was on the land along the Wanganui River, where financial assistance was available tc them through the Government. Mr. Ross was urged to speak as he did by a question by Mr. J. J. Scott, as to where Maori tenants of the board would be able to live if the board insisted on taking possession of certain cottages at Castlecliff for demolition.

Mr. N. G. Armstrong, chairman of the ooard, said that it was far better for Maoris to live inland in the communal way, than to exist in unlit houses at Castleci iff. Mr. Scott replied that the Maori was surely a free man and entitled to please himself. The very land about Wanganui had been bought from the natives for 24 bundles of trade goods. “I can show you in history that the land about Wanganui was soid three times over,"' Mr. Ross retorteq. “Recently I came down the Rivet Road from Raetihi and I was surprised at what the Government is doing for the natives on their own properties. They can get any assistance by asking for it. That is the place for them. There are plenty of eels in the Wanganui River and they would never starve, as the eel anti fish were the natives’ principal food before the white man came with his sugar and his flour and bought land from the Maoris that was no use to him and was of use to the natives only for pigeons and pigs. It is a danger for Maoris to come .here to the cities and there is room for thousands of them on the land upriver. They will be better there themselves and it will be better for everybody else.”