MAORI HOUSING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 124, 29 May 1939, Page 8

MAORI HOUSING.

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WHITES.

(To the Editor.)

It would, I think, I>p deplorable if the citizens of Auckland show no more sympathetie interest towards the Ymmg Maori Leaders' Conference than doee Mr. Mackay, He supposes that 05 per cent of Maori hornet are falling into rack and ruin; and gives no figures that might possibly support thii amazing supposition. He thinks that the present condition of Maori housing is due entirely to the sheer laziness and improvidence of the Maori owners. He will. I am eme, remember that other possible redone advanced at the conference were the paucity of educational facilities offered to the Maori; and also that some of the homes that had been JnaTt for the Maori were little moro than glorified cowsheds. If he has given this sympathetic interest in the proceedings. why hae he rejected these last two reasons? In regard to the statements made by Dr. Turbott, I «at present when the doctor made his addree, and when the young leaders discussed the questions involved. To many of them the statistics quoted were a shocking revelatioa. What did emerge from that di>cuseion wast sincere appreciation of the magnificent wafc that Dr. Turbott is doing and a keen dean by all to help him to help their people. J» oiic delegate said, the pakeha expecte the Maori to step, in the short space of a hundred years, into a culture that has taken centuries to evolve and which is totally different from : his own. We pakehas should show a little more practical interest towards him; for, after all. the responsibility for the problems confronting him to-day doee not fall entirely upon him. PAKEHA.