Y.W.C.A.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 135, 9 June 1936, Page 14

Y.W.C.A.

The Y.W.C.A. Business and' Professional Women's Club met-recently; when Miss 'J: Ca.rmichael, the vice-presid<snt, occupied the chair. Mr. George Graham spoke on the status of the Maori and made an appeal for more sympatheticunderstanding of the Maori people..,, The earlier decades of the Century, -he said, saw a reduction of the Maori population to between twenty and thirty thousand. The last few years had seen considerable increases till now, when the race was asserting itself as an important element in the population. Du"ring 1 a survey of customs and origins the speaker said that : the Maori chiefs, though hereditary, were not autocrats, since their power was limited by a code of customs and taboos -which dared not disregard. The Maoris';j were the first inhabitants of New Zealand. Htul there been an earlier race wingless-birds such as the moa and kiwi would not have survived. Although the Treaty of Waitangi \ .promised • that.'-the Maoris .should retain their land and fishing rights as long as they wished, economic forces'.'caused the terms to be broken. ;The Government sometimes pronounced the Maoris rebels in order to confiscate .their land. It was hard for the pakeha, in his need of land, to see large areas barely utilised., ,

Hundreds of these dejected Maoris drifted to the towns and by poorly paid casual labour eked put a precarious exis. tence. 1 The Maori girl sought a domestic position only to' meet vith prejudice. It was useless to train girls in secondary schools if their European sisters withheld their sympathy and refused employment. As a' solution to the general problem Mr. Graham advocated land settlement for the Maoris in preference to further immigration from England. A short business session followed, at which Miss D. Betliell, M.A., was elected president for the ensuing yeai£owirig:to the resignation of Miss Arawa Heron, wMclt-was seceiyvirwith regret.