IMPOVERISHED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 66, 19 March 1930, Page 12

IMPOVERISHED.

MAORIS IN FAR NORTH.

ACUTE ECONOMIC PROBLEM. MR. T. B. STRONGS SUGGESTIONS. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday "It appears to me that the two great problems facing, those who have any interest in the native-race, in the Far North are firstly how to provide every native family with sufficient land for their modest means, and, secondly, how to induce them to adopt a higher standard of comfort in their homes. So long as the natives live as so many o" them do in insanitary houses, so Ion;? may we expect the race to be reduced in strength by disease." This is the conclusion reached by the Director of Education, Mr. T. B. Strong, after a three weeks' tour of the nativve schools in North Auckland.

"The Young Maori party is a verv active and useful body which undoubtedly lias the welfare of the native race at heart," said Mr. Strong, "but it appears to me that too much attention is being given by this organisation to the question' of the retention of the Maori language, to the provision of academic education in secondary schools and universities, and not enough's being done to solve the problems that more deeply concern the welfare of the race."

The director said it was very gratifying to find that the church authorities who were controlling two secondary schools for Maori boys in the Auckland district, namely, St. Stephen's School and Wesley College, Paerata, had decided to make instruction in firming an essential feature of their schools. Queen Victoria School, Auckland, was visited by the director, who had been [leased to ,note the emphasis that was placed on the household arts.'

The director said that in various addresses he had given he had emphasised the importance of the parents giving their children an opportunity to put into practice the lessons they learned in the schools. He had told them that it was to their interest to encourage their girls, who had become quite good cooks and seamstresses as the result of *heir school training. There was 110 doubt that any improvement depended largely on the natives securing a suffi f'cnt return from whatever industry they engaged in, and he considered that they should aim to secure sufficient land to provide them with a small income.

The North Auckland area visited had been for many years famous for, its nroduction of kauri gum, but the industry bad not proved to be an unmixed blessing to the Maori people, as it had induced large numbers of them to endeavour to make a scanty living by {rumdigging rather than by farming. Gumdigging yielded a v£ry poor return at the present time, and consequently large numbers of the natives were living ,in a state of poverty. The raising of the standard of living was a problem that the schools should do much to solve.