MAORI HOUSING.
EDUCATION AND HEALTH. CONFERENCE AT WELLINGTON. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, September 2. A conference comprising about 60 delegates, called by the Government to consider questions of Maori education and health, opened in the Parliament Buildings to-day. The Minister for Education and Health (the Hon. P. Fraser) presided. In opening the conference the Prime Minister and the Native Minister (the lit. Hon. M. J. Savage) said he was particularly anxious that the welfare of the Maoris should be advanced in every posriMe way. The question of health, lie said, could not be discussed without reference to the fundamental question of the economic condition of the Maori race. The Government was prepared to undertake a great advance in this direction.
Dr. M. H. Watt (Director-General of Health) said that the Maori death-rate was 19.29 per 1000, compared with 8.22 for Europeans. The only favourable point of comparison was the Maori birth-rate, the percentage of increase being 2.4 for Maoris and .80 for Europeans.
In referring to fever, Dr. Watt said that the benefits of inoculation had been clearly established in the control of the disease. Typhoid fever could never be eradicated from the Maori race until the sanitation of settlements and of individual homes had been improved. The high incidence of tuberculosis amongst Maoris was a reflex of their unsatisfactory economic position, and particularly of the poor standard of their - housing. The benefits of the school dental service should be extended to Maori children.
Sir Apirana Ngata said that the fundamental problem to be faced concerned housing and sanitation, including water supply. Dr. B. Turbott said that the Maori responded excellently to educational measures, and he stressed the desirability of establishing a farm colony for certain selected cases in the East Gape area. In this connection Sir Apirana Ngata said that the Maoris were willing to grant 10 acres of land and to provide sufficient finance to allow the erection of .20 hutments.
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Bibliographic details
Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 276, 3 September 1936, Page 9
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323MAORI HOUSING. Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 276, 3 September 1936, Page 9
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