STATE ACTIVITY The Auckland branch of the Department of Maori Affairs has a staff of about seventy-five. The head of the branch, Mr A. E. Edwards (left), was born in Thames in 1901, and spent his entire working life in the public service in Auckland. Apart from the housing and welfare of the Auckland Maori, the branch has a variety of responsibilities: land development operations throughout the Waikato, Maniapoto and Hauraki districts, service to 23,500 beneficiaries of the Maori Trustee, and a variety of business arising out of Maori land titles. Big jobs over the last year were the preliminaries of setting up the Otakanini incorporation near Auckland, and the incorporation of owners of the Taharoa ironsands. Mr Edwards and his staff have managed to keep their housing costs right down (about £2300 for houses such as illustrated on these pages) and manage to pick up a steady flow of good flat well-drained sections in Auckland suburbs for an average of £575 (top limit £700). the men behind the Auckland building programme, from left to right, Messrs C. N. Rae, A. J. Wise, A. J. McCallum (section head), L. E. Armstrong and W. A. Maguinness.