"NOT EXAGGERATED."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 257, 30 October 1929, Page 8

"NOT EXAGGERATED."

ASIATICS AND MAORI GIRLS. AKARANA ASSOCIATION EXPLAINS. The allegation of the Rev. A. <L Seamer, superintendent of the Maori Methodist Mission, that the recent reports upon the mingling qf Asiatics with Maori women were exaggerated, has drawn a contradiction from the Akarana Maori Association. As Sister Ivy Jones, organiser of the Maori Girls' Club, has "supported" the suggested exaggeration, the Akarana Association issued a further statement to-dav explaining further reasons for its activities. Position is Alarming. "In the first place," says the president, "it is most; regrettable that a benevolent worker like the Rev. Seamer should go Out of his way, without investigating our efforts, to disparage what we know to be an alarming situation in respect of the conditions and dangers in which we discovered many Maori women employed on Chinese cultivations. We are in ii position to know that a great deal of this evil has been zealously hidden by the wily Orientals, and this probably accounts for the Methodist Mission superintendent not being fully acquainted with all the facts and niak 1 ing the Insinuation that recent reports have been exaggerated. This association is just as well aware as the reverend' gentleman- and his associates that there are quite a number of Maori women in Chinese gardens who are not affected by the undesirable environment into which economic needs have thrust them. However, knowing what has been occurring, and other facts, the association lias been compelled to act towards removing any possibility of a continuance of conditions that were becoming a serious menace to young Maori womanhood. It is quite admitted that steps— including the setting up of a commission which has gathered further conclusive evidence on the subject—may have embarrassed a number of worthy Maori girls, but these should be well aware that their temporary public discomfiture is but a small sacrifice for the benefit of their sisters at large. "Evil is Beyond Dispute." "The statement of Miss Ivy Jones that immoral relationships are not as common as inferred is not borne out by the figures and other data in the hands ot tlio association. This association realises that certain church lands in the North are bping used by Chinese for garden purposes, and hopes that its campaign for the proper protection of native girls will not be imperilled by such a material consideration."